YMMV / Memoirs of Magic

• Awesome Art: The game is slavishly devoted to its fifth-generation console aesthetic, with gorgeous pre-rendered sprites for every monster, character, and weapon — and all of them are animated with hundreds of unique sprites for the Heroes of Light, Steiner, and the latter's creations. Not to mention that all of the bosses and Elemental Dragons are not pre-rendered, but full, animated 3D models!
• Breather Boss: Dracul, encountered in the Dark Citadel, is far and away the easiest of the elemental dragon bosses. He has no direct attacks outside of a limit break that he only gets a chance to activate halfway through the fight. All he can do is summon hordes of low level skeletons which, by the time you find him, can be carved through easily with any crowd control weapon, especially the Dead Blow's alt-fire.
• Friendly Fandoms: With Pizza Tower. The developer of Pizza Tower had even tweeted about Memoirs of Magic, on top of the Pickle enemies in Pizza Tower being based on the Ropers in the same game.
• Goddamned Bats: Sniders. They’re equipped with the annoying Poison debuff, can only be attacked in small windows, but go down in a handful of shots and can’t attack unless you’re standing completely still. However, they are never vulnerable until you stand still, and if you’re standing in the wrong places they may never drop back down. This is especially true in the Garden of Deception as time is of the essence; you don’t have time to stand around and wait for them to drop, only for them to nick you with an ailment you can’t ignore. To make it worse, they always appear in swarms.
• It's Hard, So It Sucks!: If you watch livestreams of this game, you'll probably notice a general trend of most players not even reaching the first boss. The game's up-front difficulty is outright oppressive which, coupled with a general lack of communication, results in a lot of players throwing their hands up and leaving. Coupled with the twitchy combat and exceeding difficulty throughout the game, it's not uncommon for Memoirs to turn away players, even if they're otherwise fine with difficult games. And this is to say nothing of levels like the Submerged Ruins or the final boss...
• Quicksand Box: It's a common sight to see let's players and streamers not even make it to the Misty Forest or sometimes even out of the Castle of Magic due to the immense scale of areas (especially the Land of Magic), lack of clear signposting, and lack of communication as described above. A few unfortunate players might even stumble into an area intended to be faced late into the game such as the Garden of Deception, then quit altogether due to not knowing how to proceed.
• The Scrappy: The High Priestess and her Vega Brothers. They're unapologetic Fantastic Racists who refuse to help you fight Dark Steiner, will attack Zandro and Gremile if you dare set foot in the Holy Ark of Helios with them in your party while talking down to every other character that isn't Lucien, and, unlike every other ruler, the High Priestess provides you with absolutely zero services.
• Scrappy Weapon: The Auto Arrow. It's a rather weak crossbow-like gun with rapid damage falloff if you hold the trigger, with its projectiles traveling in a rather awkward arc. If you want to do any real damage with it, you'll need to time your shots to a very tight window which makes them travel in a straight line - meaning you'll often miss entirely repeatedly pulling the trigger trying for a powerful shot. It's alternative ammo does very little to increase its effectiveness as well, and it chews through it like candy. On top of all this, its grenade alt-fire is almost totally worthless, deploying a small poison cloud in a game where most shootouts take place in wide open rooms - and the grenade bounces several times, so good luck aiming it!
• Surprise Difficulty: Sure, the game's got a charming visual aesthetic not unlike an E-rated game from the 90's, but it's also a hard as hell movement shooter with fourteen weapons to juggle as a character that's never more than a few hits away from death.
• That One Level: The Submerged Ruins. A confusing, maze-like, poorly signposted water level with some of the most annoying combat encounters in the game alongside That One Puzzle described below. Practically every hallway is littered with traps that rapidly drain your health alongside a myriad of unclear water maze puzzles that can only be solved through Trial-and-Error Gameplay. Not to mention the level is absolutely massive, and many surfaces are covered in a strobing water texture (even when there's no water there). And this is all on top of most of the level being underwater, making so much as getting around a massive chore.
• That One Puzzle: The final lever puzzle in the Submerged Ruins. There is absolutely no logic to the puzzle outside of sheer trial and error, and the tunnel is filled with traps which will be a constant drain on your resources as you float through the tunnel... only to find out your solution is wrong and that you need to go through it again. Each trip through the tunnel can take several minutes, and you will try dozens of times trying to get the right solution.
• That One Sidequest: Getting the time for 1st place in the Garden of Deception. You need to have a massively inflated Agility stat, incredibly powerful guns, and to know the maze by heart alongside a fair bit of luck with the Sniders. And God help you if you destroyed the Holy Ark of Helios and can't use the Helios Communicator's alt-fire anymore...
• Underused Game Mechanic: The Staff of Balance is only primarily used for one dungeon at the end of the game, with its light-dark shifting abilities seeing no other use outside of making a handful of enemies vulnerable.
• What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?: It's a game with a bright, colorful aesthetic filled with cute characters in a bouncy fantasy world. With massive guns and Bloodless Carnage, themes of racism and discrimination, a science-obsessed Hollywood Atheist villain on a genocidal crusade — who was actually a victim of a previous genocide that turned him into whatever the hell he is now — with delusions of godhood, and all the ripped, scantily clad men you could ever ask for. Not so safe for kids now, is it?

---