YMMV / Fuga: Melodies of Steel 2

• Accidental Aesop: Value the time you spend with your friends and family, as you may never know when they might leave you. Following the events of the game and Hanna's near-death, the children have begun making time to visit each other more often, and it's implied that Cannelle is trying to spend more time with Vanilla.
• Alternate Aesop Interpretation: The reason for Malt's revenge, the assumed death of Hanna, has the remaining cast being constantly given reasons to hope for her to come back to life in the subsequent chapters and indeed, in the best ending she does. So the aesop ends up coming off less like "revenge is bad" and more "if you don't pursue revenge, the loved ones you lost will come back".
• Alternate Character Interpretation: As the Belenos becomes more powerful in-game, it begins to drain Jihl of his memories and sanity, but the Crusade Archives note that the Belenos requires a strong degree of emotional awareness and control to operate. Is the Belenos somehow corrupting Jihl with its power, or have Jihl's traumatic experiences have made the act of controlling it too overwhelming a task?
• Ass Pull:
  • Some players take issue with the revelation that Jin rescued Flam Kish back from death and is nursing her back to health, given how she was eaten alive by flames in the last game and how Jin would've only been able to take her in a significant amount of time afterwards. Some also take issue with Jin choosing to give her such mercy at all, given how— revenge or no revenge— she was still the one responsible for the death of his father (and mocked him for it to boot), making it hard to believe that he would help her, especially as he still remarked to himself that he never wanted to see her again just before her death in the first game. Even worse is that Jin's last thoughts when sacrificed to the Soul Cannon heavily imply that he knows that Flam is unlikely to repay his kindness anyway. Not helping is that this whole revelation doesn't have any impact on the story, meaning that it can be cut (or in the Sequel Hook's case, saved for Fuga 3) without any difference.
  • The major story twist that Cayenne is the true Big Bad and pulled a Kill and Replace on Shayne Muscat is given little foreshadowing in-game. While some of the Gasco Reports do discuss his existence and how he lost his family to Blutwurst's experiments (not that every player would remember to read them anyway), and the chapters leading up to the reveal have Vanilla being sent suspicious letters from her "father" telling her to sabotage her friends' efforts, the latter would more likely indicate to the player that the twist would be how Shayne is Evil All Along as opposed to Cayenne's impersonation and revenge gambit. It's agreed that the twist would've been more impactful (especially on a repeat playthrough) if Cayenne had more impact on the story from the start rather than being told of through loose throwaway mentions, as it would give the eventual reveal all the more weight. This is far from the only issue players have with Cayenne as a character, but it is by and large the most common.
    • To a lesser extent, the reveal that Cayenne used spells to perfectly disguise himself as Shayne for six months. While the exact mechanics of Nono have always left room for interpretation across prior Little Tail Bronx games, most spells shown throughout the series have been of the elemental variety (such as moving the ground, producing flames or creating a barrier of wind). The sudden reveal that skilled Nono users can perform Easy Impersonation not only lacks a proper basis in the series' overall lore, but it also runs the risk of Opening a Can of Clones for future installments.
• Awesome Music: As is the norm for this series. See this page for further details.
• Catharsis Factor:
  • Whereas the Soul Cannon can be viewed as a sort of anti-catharsis measure given its drawbacks (and it's even less cathartic here given how the player doesn't even have agency over it), the Managarm has much more room for this trope to shine. While it has its own drawbacks in that it knocks out a crew member and nullifies EXP, it's accessible for the player to freely use in every battle and has zero permanent consequences, meaning that it's still a satisfying enough option should a tired player just want to say, "Fuck this!" and end a particularly annoying fight.
  • After everything Jihl did throughout the first few chapters of the game in kidnapping half the children, trying to use them as fuel for the Soul Cannon, being the one responsible for killing Hanna and sending Malt into a Heroic BSoD, as well as generally being an arrogant prick towards the children with minimal consequences, any players who come to hate him should be happy that most bad things they may want to see happen to him happens to him in the latter half of the game (for better or worse). The biggest mention should go to the Climax Boss in Chapter 6, when Jihl's attempt to fight the kids goes horribly wrong in that he fumbles in several of his attempts to get the Belenos to work properly, and to add insult to injury, Malt (who has just gotten out of his Heroic BSoD) is able to get the Belenos to stagger through the mere act of taunting Jihl, subjecting the once smug and callous Knight of Cerebus of the story to an utter humiliation as he increasingly loses his shit.
• Common Knowledge:
  • No, the Female Engineer who worked for Crusade is not named Jeanne, nor is it stated that Jeanne is an AI copy of her outright. It's simply noted in the Crusade Archives that Jeanne's appearance was modeled after hers, and Jeanne's own reports from the previous game make it clear that she was named after Joan of Arc. The two also have different voices: Jeanne was voiced by Haruna Ikezawa in the first game, whereas the Female Engineer is voiced by Mirei Kumagai. Aside from how Jihl calls her "Mama", the Female Engineer is ultimately unnamed by the game.
  • Another misconception is that Jihl was purposefully created to act as a Living Battery for the Taranis or the Soul Cannon. This is directly disproven in-game: Jihl was created to be a pilot for the Belenos first and foremost, and was only forced on board the Taranis as reusable Soul Cannon ammunition once the Belenos Project was frozen, with the scientists of Crusade merely exploiting his durability as a hybrid. The claim that he was a direct power source for the Taranis or Jeanne has even less standing in canon and is most likely a hold-over from fan theories that were made after the first game.
• Contested Sequel: The gameplay is viewed as a natural evolution of that of the first Fuga— characters have more varied skillsets in battle (though less skills overall), there are greater varieties of enemies to fight, the first game's bartering system has been replaced with in-game currency which can also be used to alter progression, and the addition of the Managarm (as a "diet Soul Cannon" that incapacitates one of the children rather than killing them) allows for a wider range of strategies. The major point of contention is the story itself— the game aims for a more fantastic Shonen-esque style of writing and humor akin to Solatorobo: Red the Hunter, and while some players find it to have more personality and feel the characterization is much stronger (the portrayals of Malt, Jihl and Vanilla to a lesser extent tend to be among the more well-received), others feel it clashes too much with the more grounded War Is Hell theming that Fuga is meant to be based around. Likewise, quite a few take issue with plot decisions such as the two Ass Pull examples described above and the blatantly Nazi-esque surviving antagonists of the first game being too Easily Forgiven. The general consensus from critics is that while the gameplay has improved, the writing isn't anything to write home about, and those who didn't already like the first game likely won't be swayed by this one.
  "Fuga: Melodies of Steel 2 can best be described as more of the same - so if that description excites you, this sequel should be right up your alley. On the other hand, if you didn’t have a good time playing the original, it’s unlikely that Melodies of Steel 2 will change that viewpoint. But looking at it in a vacuum, Melodies of Steel 2 is a surprisingly solid tactical RPG that strikes a good balance between accessibility and skill. The story is hampered by weak writing and inconsistent characters, but apart from that there isn’t much to complain about."

  — GamingBolt
• Continuity Lockout: The game comes with a recap FMV of the previous installment in an attempt to avert this… except that said recap doesn't involve any text or dialogue explaining specific elements of the story or even the names of certain elements or characters, only a montage of key moments from the first game set to "Flower on the Trails". Aside from just the nature of the Taranis and overall Gasco-Berman conflict, other plot elements from this game that suffer from this trope in particular include the significance of Jin warning Malt and Vanilla against revenge along with the heavy implication that he's choosing to nurse a comatose Flam Kish back to health, as well as how Cayenne's personal reason for revenge against the Berman Empire is because the victims of Doktor Blutwurst's experiments included his family.
• Fanfic Fuel:
  • What if a few of the children that were originally captive on the Taranis or using the Tarascus to chase it were switched around? Moreover, what if a different child ended up as the Belenos' AI instead of Hanna? What would their interactions with Jihl be like, and how would Malt's character development be impacted?
  • What was Vanilla herself experiencing during the Gasco Invasion of the last game, as her family was dealing with the conflict head-on and she had to experience the after-effects of it?
  • We learn in this game that Flam Kish survived her tank's explosion, but has been comatose ever since, with Jin taking care of her. How did Jin find and rescue her? And if and when she wakes up, how will we she react? Will she again be furious towards Jin for showing her compassion, or will she instead learn to appreciate what he did for her despite everything? How will the other kids (such as Britz) react if they learn that Jin rescued Flam?
  • Jihl's backstory and relationship with the female engineer he called "Mama" is a plot point in this game, but the world of fanfic may allow it to be more fully explored. Furthermore, did Jihl have any similar close relationships with the other hybrid children before they died?
• Franchise Original Sin: Fuga 2 ignoring, downplaying, or sidestepping a lot of the Berman Empire's atrocities, as well as bring in Death Is Cheap, is no doubt seen as the writing staff bending over backwards to undo a lot of the Fridge Horror set up by the first game and within its own story... except Solatorobo: Red the Hunter is also guilty of doing the same thing, undoing the supposed deaths of Bruno, Grumpf, Nero, and Blanck, while all of them undergo their own Heel–Face Turn. The difference being that in Nero and Blanck's case, their survival made sense considering their origins (converting into energy that lives on in Red's DAHAK), while Bruno and Grumpf's redemptions were restricted to supplementary materials released after the game's launch, so the story isn't really affected all that much. Fuga 2 had the misfortune of actively having this happen to the Berman mid-story, with many questioning why anyone would forgive Von Stollen and Von Baum for their destructive crimes or why Jin would go out of his way to nurse Flam Kish back to health (and that's not going into how she was even able to survive a point-blank explosion and getting set on fire alive in the first place, let alone how she would have survived for long enough to allow Jin to find her and nurse her back to health). Likewise, Solatorobo had a more lighthearted narrative compared to how Fuga has War Is Hell as a core theme, hence why the former was more easily able to get away with Death Is Cheap and redeeming certain villains, whereas it instead puts the more grounded Fuga at risk of opening a can of Nono energy.
• Game-Breaker:
  • Sheena's Last Resort, while acquired late for her at level 32, pretty much makes all your worries about SP budgeting no longer a factor. In exchange for sacrificing 35% of your HP, you get 20% of your SP in return. But at this point, any other healer's Lullaby skill will heal that exact amount right back for a paltry 5 SP. So as long as you're willing to spend a couple turns going back and forth on restoring both, you've essentially got a bottomless well of SP to unleash as many skills as you want. And that's before upgraded versions of the skill that heal even more SP at the exact same HP cost.
  • Hack's Hero Mode allows him to delay any enemy with his normal attack, including bosses. This means Hack can basically Stun Lock even the toughest enemies while other kids can either take the chance to focus on recovery or unleash a strong and lengthy offense while their opponent is basically unable to do anything as long as Hack keeps hitting them until the Hero Mode wears off.
  • Britz's Hero Mode is in a similar vein to Hack's, letting him shock enemies with his normal attack, including bosses. There are two reasons this is overpowered: it is a guaranteed chance of shock, and it ignores enemy resistance to shock. Even bosses that cannot be shocked by Socks' Stun Grenade or Britz's other shock skills get shocked by Britz's Hero Mode. Even in regular encounters, the fact Britz is a machine gun user means he can attack really fast with his Hero Mode, stunning every enemy on the field in one fell swoop. Even faster if Mei supports him.
  • Kyle's Sharp Bolt is a skill he can learn early on in the game, and it becomes absolutely busted half-way through. It's an armor piercing Situational Damage Attack that deals more damage depending on how many layers of armor the targeted enemy has, so while it is useful against mooks with 2 or 3 layers, it can make bosses become absolute cakewalks thanks to them either constantly regenerating their 3 layers of armor or going as far as to carry 9 layers, at which point his Sharp Bolt can deal 2.7x extra damage. Combine this with his Critical Hit enforcing Hero Mode and Kyle can make just about anyone bend to their knees.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: While there's no data on how much this game has sold as an individual title, evidence points to it having a significant percentage of overseas sales just like its predecessor did— a post-release survey for the game had more than 80% of its 544 total responses be from outside of Japan.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Sheena's Link Event with Malt has her wonder if Felineko who came to Gasco to escape persecution would be able to live a normal life there. Solatorobo: Red the Hunter's in-game library entries and supplemental art books have shown that Gasco— as Shepherd— would come into multiple conflicts with the Felineko beginning roughly 400 years after the events of the Fuga saga. Following the Abyssina Empire's century-long invasion of the Kingdom of Shepherd and other nations— the "Hundred Lilies War" that would eventually lead to the nation being dissolved— Shepherd would mistreat the Felineko population living in former Abyssina territories for centuries, eventually leading to these Felineko sparking a war and seceding from Shepherd. Following Shepherd's own revolution against their monarchy and the disarray caused by it, Abyssina's second incarnation took the chance to invade Shepherd again with the first Incantation War, only to lose and give away a small territory in compensation. The Felineko in this territory were also mistreated, leading to the second Incantation War. With all this in mind, Shepherd would spend 550 years being in constant conflict with Felineko from Abyssina, be it through oppression or flat-out war.
  • Sheena's Link Events with Kyle have her wonder if Paresia's art and culture can be salvaged now that the war is over. With the final battle destroying the necropolis, this would never come to pass.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Back in the first game, there exists a mod that changes Malt's clothes to better resemble Waffle Ryebread from Tail Concerto. In July of 2023, one of the first DLC packs released for this game is a Tail Concerto costume pack, with Malt wearing Waffle's authentic clothes.
• Jerkass Woobie: Jihl. The "Jerkass" part is that he's willing to use the kids as Soul Cannon shells and goes on a rampage with the Belenos that nearly kills a number of people. The "Woobie" part is that he was made this way through the constant abuse he was put through as a weapon and a test subject, combined with his belief for most of the game that the one person he trusted betrayed him.
• Like You Would Really Do It: Killing off one of the main characters early on in the story in a series of games where the Golden Ending is Everybody Lives and is adverse to killing off anyone in general? Not surprisingly, Hanna is brought back in the Golden Ending. It is also heavily implied in the sequel teaser that Jihl is Sharing a Body with Hanna to ensure that it is a proper Back from the Dead and not Came Back Wrong like everything else brought back by the Belenos.
• Memetic Loser: An example coming as the result of pity rather than merely mockery: despite how threatening Jihl was portrayed in the first half of the game, more than a few players viewed him with more pity then dread even well before learning about his tragic backstory and his status as an Unwitting Pawn to Cayenne. This is due to Jihl losing the majority of fights he's been in and the only win he had over the the Taranis kids happened during a cutscene where he inflicted a cheap shot with the Belenos, causing some players to interpret Jihl's bravado as more of a coping facade he's projecting rather than any actual confidence in his skills in combat. Combining that with Malt hunting him down for more than half the game even has some players viewing Jihl less as a troubled kid lashing out and more as an immensely unlucky kid who's in over his head thanks to him unintentionally pissing off someone who not only wanted him dead, but could've easily done so if the game permitted it.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Malt's new jaded and aggressive personality in contrast to the idealistic Humble Hero of the last game became a meme in and of itself ever since the game's announcement.
  • "Okay, get in!"^ExplanationThe Soul Cannon was re-done so that when the Exo-Taranis takes a certain amount of damage, the AI Hax will abduct a child to use as fuel for the fatal weapon after enough turns have passed. Comparisons to the memetic coffin scene from the SpongeBob SquarePants episode "Squidward The Unfriendly Ghost" have been made, with Hax and Jeanne's aggressive side taking SpongeBob and Patrick's places.
  • "In you go, little one."^ExplanationAn alternative line to the above, this time using what Yoko Taro (yes, that Yoko Taro) said when he sacrificed Mei during his Chapter 1 demo of the first game, complete with Dissonant Serenity.
  • "You're not gonna shoot a puppy, are ya, Hax?" "Yeah, in the face, why?"^ExplanationAgain, some variations of this exchange showed up following the reveal of the new Soul Cannon. The person being asked this is typically either Hax or the devs at CyberConnect2 themselves.
  • "Sparkle on! It's Jin Tuesday! Keep on shining!"^ExplanationAn edit of Jin's updated design with a modified version of the "Sparkle Wednesday" meme involving Jerma985 that somehow caught attention within the Little Tail Bronx fandom.
  • "Weh!"^ExplanationA line frequently said by characters like Malt throughout, possibly meant to be interpreted as "oui". Got popular thanks to Sean Chiplock's streams of this game.
  • Fuga foreheads^ExplanationBritz, Vanilla, and Socks have ridiculously big forehead spaces, leading to jokes about people playing tic-tac-toe on them.
  • Johnny Depp's fursona.^{Explanation (Spoilers!)}Fans have taken notice of how Cayenne's goatee and hair in particular make him look like a Felineko version of Depp.
  • Only male Felineko can be truly evil.^{Explanation (Major spoilers!)}As of this game, fans have noticed that most major Caninu villains tend to be given a redemption arc of sorts no matter how evil they were beforehand— side-material has Bruno and Captain Grumpf survive (with the former giving up on evil and the latter outright turning good), and this game proper has Stollen and Baum be given redemption arcs while Flam Kish is revealed to have survived from the game prior. On the other hand, major Felineko villains like Fool, Kirsch from the "Kadenz" side-story, and Fuga's own Blutwurst and Cayenne are treated as Beyond Redemption, with Fool playing the same villainous role in side-material that he did in his debut game. While there is a sort-of exception to this trend in the form of Hax's original self being treated as irredeemable (since this game wants to make it clear his AI incarnation is a distinct Morally Superior Copy, with the treatment of them as the same character only being done for simplicity's sake), this has led some fans to joke (or outright dread) that the third and final Fuga game will feature the Berman Kaiser being redeemed despite him being the cause of anti-Felineko rhetoric across his empire, and/or him being given a Freudian Excuse in the form of some legitimately evil Felineko villains that came before him, making him interpretable as a Well-Intentioned Extremist.
• Moment of Awesome: A retroactive and villainous example for Shvein Hax. The Managarm in this game requires you to drain one of the kids of their energy, incapacitating them until they can heal in the next intermission. However, as said by CyberConnect2 CEO Hiroshi Matsuyama in this Famitsu interview, Hax was able to power the Managarm with his own life force every time he used it while fighting the Taranis in the last game, and every time he just kept fighting like it was nothing. Say whatever else you want about Hax, but the man's endurance is nothing to overlook.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: Wappa was considered a Base-Breaking Character for the original game— while some players found her energetic personality refreshing and her role as Plucky Comic Relief as a good compliment to a somewhat melancholic story, others found her Leader Wannabe routine and generally self-absorbed personality obnoxious due to her not having many traits to balance it out. Thankfully, Wappa's portrayal in this game has been very well-received by both camps: while she retains the energy and ego that made her popular among her fans in the first place, she balances it out with her newfound desire to spread love and peace, and is also the one to help the other kids get through their grief following Hanna's death and their concern over Malt's current mental state, highlighting her importance to the crew as a source of positivity.
• Scrappy Mechanic: While some have praised the Soul Cannon's new "countdown" feature for turning the weapon from a passive mechanic into an active threat the player has to leverage (with the Managarm now effectively being a milder version of what the Soul Cannon was like in the first game), the fact that the Soul Cannon's choice is random means you might find yourself losing your main damage dealer or support in a very critical moment, costing you the fight or the unfortunate child picked. This might be why the game discreetly gives the option to disable the Soul Cannon during intermissions by praying to it three times.
• Sequel Difficulty Spike: Fuga 2 is definitely reported to be much harder compared to the first, as while there are more offensive options and buffs for the children, there are less defensive options this time around. What doesn't help are the much more aggressive enemy units, especially with them being able to damage you over time or even siphon away your life gauge to heal themselves, as well as upgrade themselves to be even more painful to fight as the battle rages on. The altered Soul Cannon mechanics also make every boss much more stressful as it's very easy to hit the loading threshold despite any upgrades to the armor you install to extend your health and the chosen child picked at random. Unlike the first game, even healing won't stop the countdown for the soul cannon, so you either need to beat the boss before it hits zero or be forced to sacrifice a character. Even using the Managarm can screw you over in the long run as it's an instant KO to any child that uses it and nulls any experience you might've gained in that encounter.
• Tainted by the Preview: Not the game specifically, but rather the fact that its release date was announced to be just one day before the long-anticipated The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. Given the Little Tail Bronx series' very poor track record when it comes to commercial success or effective marketing, this has led a number of fans— and even the game's director— to be worried about this game possibly even doing worse than its predecessor. This concern isn't universal, however, as other fans have argued that Fuga 2 is too different to Tears of the Kingdom to count as an outright Dueling Game to it (one is a tactical Eastern RPG done by a small team, while the other is an open-world Action-Adventure title done by a major AAA developer), stating that sales from one are unlikely to impact the other.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: In February 2024, the game's cover art was suddenly replaced due to the first one being a case of Spoiler Cover given that it implies Hanna's death due to how she's featured on the artwork. Unfortunately, the new cover art is just the Exo-Taranis in a standard battlefield and nothing else, making the game look like just another tank game you'd see on the general market, something that is really bad in this game's case given it's Acclaimed Flop status, thus making it even easier for the public to dismiss this game as shovelware or worse.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • While a frequent criticism of the first game was that its Anyone Can Die features and limited resources prevented it from properly being a character-driven story, a few players still find this game's increased focus on Malt himself as the central pillar of the narrative to be an overcorrection of this issue, arguing that it steals away the overall focus from the other kids on the tank as a result. Similar arguments have been made regarding newcomer Vanilla in that the game also focuses too much on actively fleshing her out compared to the rest of the cast, as a side-effect of how she similarly can't be sacrificed to the Soul Cannon for a majority of the game due to her Plotline Death.
  • For all the good points Cayenne had about the Berman Empire being too Easily Forgiven, it's unfortunately offsetted by the fact that he has no impact on the story for a good 80 percent of the game, and by the time he did show up, he came across as too cartoonishly villainous compared to the more tragic Jihl or the dramatic Hax before him for anyone to take seriously. Instead, fans see him as similar to Disney's equally disastrous attempts at pulling the Twist Villain trope off in the 2010's.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • Gameplay-wise, the final chapter proved that the game can handle multiple boss encounters in one chapter, thus raising questions as to why the developers couldn't implement a separate Survival or Boss Rush mode for added replayability, especially given how Solatorobo previously had the latter.
  • The Reveal at the climax of Cayenne impersonating Shayne and being the Big Bad of the story all along fails to work for many players due to two major factors: Shayne's character not being developed enough for the impersonation twist to be shocking, and Cayenne's presence not being established enough for his The Man Behind the Man twist to be impactful. One option to make the twist work better could be to simplify these two aspects for the sake of more natural storytelling— if Cayenne succeeded Shayne through being his vice president or chief advisor rather than through mere impersonation (think Hamlet or Macbeth) along with taking up his role as Vanilla's primary caretaker, then his presence would therefore be properly established from the beginning of the story. Vanilla's grief over losing her family could also lead to her to cling more closely to Cayenne as a kindred spirit— something which Cayenne could easily exploit for his own gain— and thus she would spend the game desiring to avenge his death instead, making the final twist of him being Evil All Along and responsible for the death of her parents hit both her and the player that much harder as a betrayal.
• Toy Ship: Malt and Vanilla has gained a lot of traction among the community, with many noting how well the synergy between the two works in both story and combat. The Ship Tease moments provided by Count Nouvellune only adds to this.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Despite how their Big Damn Heroes moment at the climax was a highlight for a significant amount of fans, a number of players openly dislike Baum and Stollen's redemption arcs, feeling that previously unscrupulous Nazi expies like them didn't deserve to have such or to be so Easily Forgiven for the crimes they committed in the first game.

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Itsunomanika sukoshi naite^note Before I knew it, I had cried a little
Ita ushinau kowa-sa o shitta^note I knew the fear of losing something
Hanasanai yo te no naka no shiawase nigenai yō ni^note I won't let you go, don't let the happiness in my hands run away