YMMV / Recreyo

• Anti-Climax Boss: Despite being built up for over half a year and making fully clear she wanted to kill the entire crew, even taking Curt hostage for several episodes, Recreyo-chan ends up feeling like this by her defeat. Despite her trying to give off the gravitas of a Climax Boss and acting like a legitimate threat to the crew, it just becomes a Failed Attempt at Drama thanks to none of the crew, aside from Curt, taking it seriously, instead just screwing around like normal. As a result, her defeat feels anticlimactic, not helped by the seeming Sequel Hook turning out to just be a merch push. While it's clear Curt at least wanted her to be a genuine threat and tried building her up to be such, the rest of the crews antics screwed that over.
• Ass Pull:
  • The Twist Ending of "Can They Find The Killer", when it's revealed noone aside from Chilly actually died. The scenario, as a whole, was a Clueless Mystery, Den stating that the others had the "clues" she told them, which amounted to How We Got Here for each member, and her "dying words" being "trust". At several points the crew definitively states Den is dead, and even has Ivan examine her body, with Den later stating Curt and Christian were also dead. Despite these claims and both of the other victims acting as ghosts while saying "Losers" in the background, at no point does Den correct them or use more ambiguous language like "their body is on the ground, motionless", making the twist come out of nowhere when they otherwise acted like they were dead. Curt even points out the Fridge Logic about the "Losers" haunting, in that if they weren't dead they'd have to actually be saying it out loud, which would have clued Ivan and Chilly to the fact he and Christian weren't dead, just chloroformed by Den. More egregious though is the fact Christian managed to figure out the entire twist in the opening round, and only after that did Den ask if they would like to continue, the lights "conveniently" going out and Den declaring Curt dead too, making it look like Christian was the killer, suggesting Den deliberately said that to get the others to suspect Christian and ignore that he was correct, while also casting doubt when he, correctly, suspects Curt wasn't actually dead.
  • The ending of "Can They Survive Pirates of the Caribbean?" where, for context, Chilly and Jack Sparrow are revealed to have set bombs in the treasure cave to prevent the Recreyo crew from saving themselves from a curse that took effect when they stole the gold. Thing is, neither of these plot points were foreshadowed that much, and the ending seems to have gone the way it did solely so Chilly can have the last laugh over her friends. It also doesn't help that this plot point hinged on the crew sharing the gold even though the aforementioned round of Liar's Dice was to decide who got to keep it all for themselves, making the entire rest of the episode almost obsolete in comparison. It's to the point of being lampshaded in-universe; Ivan, Den, Curt, and Christian's reactions range from confusion to frustration—not that they were bested, but that they were bested in a way that didn't even make sense.
  • The ending to "Can You Survive One Piece?" due to it being painfully obvious Ivan threw it in to justify having future One Piece scenarios. Curt, acting as a Marine Admiral, was all set to win the game of pseudo-Battleship and sink the K-9 pirates. Right before he can fire the last cannonball however, Ivan abruptly declares Curt, entirely of his own free will, chose to randomly desert the Marines and join the K-9 pirates, everyone wondering why Curt would do that when he was about to win. Ivan then proceeds to throw out three handwaves to try and justify Curt doing so, all of which having no prior foreshadowing: that Curt is actually "Curtis D. Richy"^* The World Government infamously hates those with the name "D." due to the "Will of D." threatening their rule, that he suddenly believed Captain Kristine could become the "Queen of the Pirates", and that he was always meant to be the Nami analogue. The animators themselves lampshade the absurdity of it by having Ivan read from a script labelled "One Piece Fanfic", making clear even they realized Ivan was pretty much writing a bad fanfic at this point, and trying to come up with whatever excuse he could to not have the K-9 pirates die in their first scenario.
• Broken Base: Ivan's scenarios tend to be the most divisive of the crews due to his constant use of railroading in favor of a linear narrative. Plenty of viewers don't mind it as much due to getting enjoyment out of the rest of the crew being just as frustrated with him and their yelling at him funny, such as "Can You Survive a Stalker" or "WE BECAME MAGICAL GIRLS". Just as many however find said scenarios the least interesting since they leave little room for the crew to actually have input while sounding more like Ivan simply reading a script, or being reliant on such faulty logic that he ignores the others pointing out to the point it becomes annoying, such as "Can You Survive Scream" or "Can You Survive Sonic.exe".
• Captain Obvious Reveal: The final act of "Can They Beat the Alien Impostor?" reveals that the crew member possessed by the alien is Den. This would be an interesting twist, especially considering Chilly's status as The Load provides an effective Red Herring... if not for the fact that the thumbnail blatantly shows Den as the impostor, making it pretty clear who it's going to be in the video proper. The thumbnail also spoils Chilly being the Final Girl. Additionally, if one believes Christian when he claims he's figured it out, finding the crewmate who was possessed gets even easier—he's primarily accused Den throughout the entire video, and he reacts with disbelief when Chilly and Curt accuse each other without even acknowledging Den.
• Crosses the Line Twice:
  • Pretty much every sales pitch the gang makes in "Can They Survive Animal Crossing?", from convincing Wolfgang that he can get high off the seashell they're selling him to trying to frame Pietro for murder and gaslighting him into believing he did do it.
  • Chilly being violently melted by acid in "Can They Survive the Mummy?" is Nightmare Fuel. The gang's various responses, from Den being jealous that she got acid for free to Ivan and Curt mocking her for killing herself in her own scenario, turn her death from horrifying to hilarious.
  • The mere concept of the Morp Morp Impregnatron from "Can They Survive Rick & Morty?" obliterates the line, especially after Curt gets dragged off to the Impregnatron and comes back visibly pregnant.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Barney from "Can They Escape Jurassic Park?", primarily as a result of his surviving bond with Christian, the hilarious ways the group reacts to his sudden appearances, and his and Christian's surprisingly tragic deaths in the destruction of Raptor Park.
  • While prior guests for Season 2 had been divisive, Kristine quickly ended up a fan favorite thanks to her sheer chaotic energy, managing to make the rest of Recreyo look sane and smart by comparison, and feeling like a natural member of the group. Many quickly asked that she join full time to fill the gap left with Chilly's departure.
• Fridge Brilliance: The episode "Can You Survive The Manananggal?" initially seems to be a Non-Indicative Title, since it not only doesn't appear at all in the episode, but the title card labels it an SCP despite the scenario being more about general Filipino culture and mythology. The name of the episode and the SCP number, "SCP-5201", reference an actual Filipino myth, a shapeshifting monster. These details make it a metaphor for Recreyo-chan, a shapeshifting being with a grudge against Recreyo who has already successfully kidnapped Curt, and holds a large presence in the SCP scenarios, making the episode title more a reference to the crew surviving them.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • "Can You Answer The Internet's Hardest Questions?" saw Ivan repeatedly use Betty White as justification for choosing to have a 30 year old's body while having the mind of a 100 year old, stating she's "pushing 100 and she's fine". That episode came out in March of 2022, but was recorded back in December of 2021. As Curt himself put it in a pinned comment on that video, they recorded the episode the literal day before Betty White died. And for a bit of Black Comedy, she died at 99, retroactively invalidating Ivan's argument.
  • Chilly's Running Gag of wanting to leave Recreyo over her treatment becomes almost prophetic with her actually leaving in September of 2022, the only difference being her departure seemingly being amicable irl.
• Memetic Badass: You don't beat up the likes of Randy Orton as Den does and not get put as one of these.
• Moment of Awesome:
  • After being the resident Butt-Monkey for a majority of the series, Chilly finally getting payback on the rest of the group in "Can They Survive a Demon Possession?" is immensely satisfying.
  • The fact that the crew managed to land Tara Strong and Greg Cipes as guest stars for "Can They Survive Dragon Ball?"
• Spiritual Successor: Many viewers akin Recreyo to the early days of Danplan, a group of friends goofing around and comically arguing over fantastical, hypothetical situations. The only difference is that everybody in the crew has the morals and empathy of Stephen and its rotating narrator.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: Following Chilly's departure, the decision to have most Season 2 Episodes include a Guest-Star Party Member was divisive. Not helping matters being that one of the people brought on included controversial streamer Pokimane, who not only was the first guest to appear in a three part episode, but received accusations of being shilled during the scenario due to several "questionable" match results that seemed designed to let her win.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: While the group is meant to be filled with horrible people and treat each other like shit, plenty of viewers feel Ivan and Chilly get shit on or blamed for things more often than they should, and don't hold their own moments of dickery against them as much for how crappy the rest of the group treats them, including each other. As a result, many viewers have admitted to getting some Catharsis Factor out of them screwing the rest of the team over in scenarios. Prime example being "Can You Survive Demon Slayer", where Ivan gets treated like shit by the rest of the team, to the point Christian kills him over a single screw up, and many viewers expressing satisfaction once Curt revives Ivan, upon which Ivan proceeds to join the Demons and slaughter the rest of his former team.

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