Anticlimax Boss: The Final Boss. It does have a frightening five attacks per round...but the only other thing it really has going for it is a massive hit point total. It can use every skill in the game...every normal skill, that is — it doesn't have any special Video Game Set Pieces like the bosses before it. It's also pathetically weak until its final stage, where he begins to use Trisagion and Fatal Curse. Basically, all you have to do to beat it is fall into a rhythm of dishing out as much damage as possible, and healing when necessary. The biggest obstacle in the fight, however, is Venom Fang followed by Predator as the game will crash if Predator hits a poisoned party member thanks to an issue in the game's script. There is the True Final Boss who is stronger, but nobody was able to reach the fight due to the Game-Breaking Bug at the beginning of New Game Plus.
Ass Pull: The writing of the second half of the game comes off to some players due to the sudden change in tone. The first part of the game deals with doubt and the lack of trust within the party while the second part suddenly shifts to being about demon cities and a plot about preventing Polemarch Flamberge from being assassinated. There was no Foreshadowing for the plot of the second half of the game which makes the shift in tone quite jarring. This may be the result of one of the game's writers dropping out halfway through development, however.
Complacent Gaming Syndrome: Good luck trying to find anyone who uses anyone other than France and Jo in battle, as those two are considered to be far more useful than Ethan and Aaron in terms of inflicting damage.
Zombies, which are the very first enemies you encounter, have Strength Zone which can significantly increase their physical attack. Most players struggled with the very first fight in the game. In a response to this, zombies can no longer use their regular attack in a patch, forcing them to only use strength zone.
The Crawler, which can be encountered in Eden, are more annoying than difficult to deal with as it will constantly use Hyperdrive, which doesn't work as intended (see Good Bad Bugs below), and completely empties your MP supply. It also has ludicrously high defenses and has a high resistance to every element in the game, guaranteeing that most attacks will deal no damage. All this will make a battle against one of these guys a Marathon Mook battle.
Lo No Ziih, another strong enemy found in Eden, has a very strong physical attack, coupled with an attack stat of 72when the max you can get is 40, that may instantly kill one of your party members. God help you if you encounter two of these in a pit, which will very likely be a Total Party Kill. They also have 1,000 HP so it will take a while to defeat one.
Consuming Serpents, found in Paradisio, have a shitload of HP for a normal enemy and also know Fatal Curse, which due to the enemy having much more HP than you do is not only a guaranteed instant kill but also restores their HP by a large amount. And due to how enemy waves are laid out in RPG Maker VX, you may even encounter two of these at once when there seems to be only one.
Warpers, also found in Paradisio, strictly use the highest tiered magic which can be very damaging. Not only that, but they will always go first and will devastate your party the first opportunity they get. You will encounter plenty of these guys in the gauntlet leading up to Flamberge.
Will. Because he has access to every Trace, he can do literally everything the other characters can. This also allows him to have unparalleled elemental coverage. Equip all four Drain skills plus the Ardhanari Trace and watch in amazement as he becomes impervious to everything but magic damage. He is also the only character who can gain points in Cunning, giving him incredible resistance to ailments and allowing him to become a far better status inflictor than Aaron.
The Regen skill. Constant health regeneration is pretty sweet to begin with, but the rate is so high that physical skills (normally Cast from Hit Points) become practically free.
Vile Zephyr. Hits three times, and inflicts both poison and sleep with every hit. Against a single target, its damage is about on par with the strongest spells, and against multiple targets, you have a good chance of incapacitating a good portion of them. (The SP cost is somewhat prohibitive, though.)
You won't get it until very late in the game, but the Mana Cycle + Mana Flare combo elevates Josephine (and a technique-focused Will) into godhood. For the cost of two skill slots, all your spells will deal 50% more damage, plus you'll get 20% SP regeneration after every battle, making SP management even more of a non-issue.
Supercharger and Cripple, two of the most powerful skills in the game, have no SP cost.
Hyperdrive was supposed to inflict an insane amount of physical damage to the point of instantly killing one of your party members. However, it inflicts MP damage instead, resulting in the player taking no HP damage from the attack.
Hype Backlash: This game, which was originally going to be made for a contest on RMN, was hyped prior to release thanks to being worked on by a team of talented people. As time went on, it became clear that it was too large for a two-week contest. When the game was released, players have reported issues such as the very first battle being unusually difficult and a large amount of bugs that a present especially during the endgame, as well as the balance being rather poor and the writing has a lot left to be desired. All in all, the game plays similarly to a Persona but on a smaller scale but the amount of bugs present in the game are what kills the hype.
The Gaunt Imposer. It is a huge hulking, hairy beast with a terrifying face who dwells at the bottom of Purgatorio.
The Empyrean is a Bleak Level that is dark and also features a rather disturbing music track that fits the area well. At the end of the level is a building that suspiciously looks like your own house.
The Scrappy: Will's brother Raymond, who is the Big Bad of the story, does not have a lot of fans due to his whiny, self-loathing attitude and for overtaking a more interesting villain in Loki as the main antagonist. It does not help that his boss fight is rather disappointing.
Later in the game, you will likely encounter two attacks that inflict damage based on the user's max HP — Trisagion and Fatal Curse. The former inflicts damage based on the user's max HP and thanks to every enemy from Eden onwards having more HP than you, this will prove fatal. Fatal Curse is a draining skill with the same effect. This is what makes Amadeus so difficult as he is the very first enemy you encounter who uses these two skills. Oh, and when you learn these after collecting the last fire and water traces respectively you will find that these skills are rather weak compared to the version the enemies use.
The Gatekeeper of Cocytus seems to give many players a hard time, probably due to its Video Game Set Piece that makes characters above half health fall asleep constantly. It also comes with Venom Fang and Predator, which will crash the game if it hits a poisoned party member.
The Dragon in Purgatorio is a huge roadblock in trace collecting thanks to its unusually high 99 magic stat, when the max for each stat is 40, and its immunity to all elements except the magic element (which won't matter as it will simply block it due to how the magic stat works in RPG Maker VX). And thanks to its outrageous magic stat, its main attack, Vene, will instantly kill one of your party members. To defeat the Dragon, you must use a Conduct skill from Cocytus on it and even then it can also heal itself.
Amadeus is another difficult Trace boss as he possesses and favors Trisagion and Fatal Curse, both of which are instant kills due to inflicting damage based on the user's max HP. He also comes with a massive pool of HP (2,645 to be exact, higher than anything else in the game at this point) so defeating him will take a while.
The Black Baron and the Red King are annoying to deal with as you must defeat both of them on the same turn to win the fight, as one will revive the other. They also come with strong attacks as well. Also, you must fight these two twice, as they are somewhat stronger in Empyrean and have the same strategy as before.
Visual Effects of Awesome: While the game does have a mixed to negative reception thanks to poor balance and a plethora of bugs, one thing that most players can agree on is that the visuals look stunning, which was the result of scripting and a separate graphics folder for lighting. The artwork was also impressive as well.
