YMMV / RefleX

• Alternative Character Interpretation: It's possible to take the interpretation of ZODIAC Ophiuchus' awakening as the AI who fell for the pilot and going ruthless against their sibling-units out of heartbreak.
• Difficulty Spike: Area 7 marks an increase in difficulty after the Phoenix transforms. Sure, you get an unlimited-use shield, but you're reduced to a One-Hit-Point Wonder with no extra lives for the rest of the game. Shut off your shield during a screen-filling attack or fail to hit one of the missiles, and you're screwed.
• Nightmare Fuel: Virgo's beatdown, set to "Mortal Illness", is absolutely horrific.
• Player Punch: Virgo's beatdown. It is not a cutscene; you are still in control of the Phoenix and are made to helplessly watch as your control over the Phoenix fails to budge it while its shield and armor meters whittle down to nothing.
• Scrappy Mechanic:
  • Using a continue invalidates your high scores. Contrast with the other two games in the series, where using a continue will let you save the score you achieved on your first credit even if you continue.
  • The last two stages, where a single hit can result in a Game Over, were not received well with players or even Ysuer's fellow developers.
• Special Effect Failure: The Shield meter graphic, which has triangular ends, simply stretches and shrinks rather than fading out from the right and in towards the left like a bar meter is supposed to. This is most evident when the Ophiuchus Core awakens and the meter extends beyond the screen.
• That One Attack: If you don't destroy ZODIAC Libra in its penultimate phase, it will release continuous streams of concentric purple circles, while alternating between homing lasers that make lowering your defenses to attack difficult, and missiles that can't be shielded away. If you still want the points (1 million instead of 4 million), good luck not timing it out.
• That One Boss: The latter half of ZODIAC Virgo, and the Final Boss, Libra. What makes them stand out is that your ship, now ZODIAC Ophiuchus, has an unlimited-use shield...but has been reduced to a One-Hit-Point Wonder. You still only get one life, so even a single hit results in a Game Over. Of course, both bosses take advantage of this to toss out unblockable missile barrages at you.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: While not a severe case, some fans believe the change of how the Phoenix's shield meter recharges in v1.01 and onward made the game easier. To elaborate, prior to the v1.01 update, the shield meter stops recharging while firing your weapon; v1.01 changed this so that it will recharge slowly while firing instead.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Of the 13 ZODIAC units out there, you only ever see three of them: Virgo, Libra, and Ophiuchus, the very ship you pilot. The remaining ten are never shown; the only mention of them is in the intermission between Areas 7 and 8, in which it's mentioned that Ophiuchus single-handedly destroyed them all in the three-year span between the two stages. Granted, 10 extra bosses would be a lot, but it would be interesting to see a hypothetical Boss Game mode or a spinoff game where you fight those ten.

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