YMMV / RosenkreuzStilette

• Accidental Innuendo: The name Freudenstachel in-game means "The Stinger of Joy". However, to anyone fluent enough in German, it can also mean "Pleasure Stinger", which is a sexual euphemism. One of Darksquid Media's developers was quick to catch this oversight, and ran the translation over to a native-speaking German to fix any mistranslations that could lead to this, given the games' extensive use of Gratuitous German.
• Alternative Character Interpretation: Regarding Iris. Seeing that Spiritia is the other incarnation of Rosenkreuz as Iris is, does she want to kill Spiritia because "there can only be one god" or because she wanted to steal Spiritia's inner powers and become "whole"?
• Anti-Climax Boss: The Iris Zeppelin battle has two phases. The first phase is fairly tough, but the second is surprisingly easy, even by Final Boss standards. Quite a few of Iris' attacks when she's out of her capsule tend to create safe spots for you to take cover in, and in both phases, Lilli can be used to home in on her next location the next time she reappears through teleportation.
• Awesome Art: The artwork is simply gorgeous. From the dark atmosphere, gothic crosses, demonic statues, distinctive, eerie but adorable character designs, and stunning backgrounds, even as a low-res release it's a very pretty game. It rivals some of the Castlevania games in darkly beautiful pixel art.
• Awesome Music: The entire soundtrack of the first game and Freudenstachel, PERIOD. It may not be original music (as most of it is royalty-free), but the developers's choices were quite spot on.
  • The bombastic track that plays before the Grolla vs Spiritia battle, Vampire Revolution, which hypes the hell out of the ensuing showdown.
  • True to being a Dr. Wily Expy, the theme for Iris's first stage, Red Pollusion, is particularly awesome.
  • Freudia's theme, which plays during her actual boss fight instead of the usual boss fight theme. Add up being the hardest normal boss battle thus far (with her being constantly in red life), you will hear this for quite some time and enjoy it to the fullest. It even returns in Freudenstachel... except as a title theme that are often skipped.
• Best Boss Ever:
  • Kahl Palesch, who only appears in Rosenkreuzstilette Weißsilber, taking Pamela's place in her own stage.
  • Freudia is definitely That One Boss, but qualifies for this as well. With some good writing in Spiritia's pre-battle cutscene, a unique battle theme (which is awesome), the fact that her health bar is always red in Desperation Mode throughout the fight, has an original and completely different attack pattern from all other bosses and is a massive jump in difficulty compared with the warmup fight in the prologue, and the challenge of avoiding the barrage of ice shards, snowflakes, and lasers makes for one unforgettable boss, hard though she is.
  • Grolla's fight with Spiritia, replacing her own boss in her home stage now that she's a playable character. Not only does she avoid the usual reputation of these kinds of bosses, but she uses strategic fighting and won't hesitate to use moves your character was weak against as a boss, again with a unique battle theme. Lily will even give her a Cross Tank when her health goes down, making it genuinely feel like a battle against another player. It's a frantic and crazy fight that although tough, is worth the effort that brings to mind the fight against Copy X.
• Breather Boss:
  • Surprisingly, Graf Michael Zeppelin, the boss of the first fortress stage in Rosenkreuzstilette Freudenstachel is nowhere near as hard as the stage it appears in. Although it isn't an actual weakness per se, the Frostklinge, obtained from Dolis, is very useful against it, able to damage it without the need for standing on the platforms on the sides, and its attacks are very easy to avoid when you learn how. And if you use its actual weakness...
  • Having an attack pattern modelled after Toad Man, Liebea is a borderline Zero-Effort Boss and a good starter boss.
• Captain Obvious Reveal: Given that the games are heavily influenced by the Mega Man franchise, it's rather easy to predict that Iris Zeppelin is once again the true villain in Freudenstachel, as this is a common twist used in the Mega Man series. And even without that knowledge, there are other blatant hints: one of the bosses is a homunculus version of Liebea, which was also a boss in the original game alongside homunculi of the other RKS members created by Iris, and the Game Over message says “Let there be light for a new Goddess”, the exact same message used in the original game's Iris Stages and Grollschwert mode which blatantly refer to Iris Zeppelin, making the character's involvement even more obvious.
• Complete Monster: Iris Zeppelin's goal is to become god of a world of her own design, but many of her actions are purely for her amusement. Believing that she has a right to destroy whatever she wants, Iris commits wanton murder, of innocents; those she deems not useful to her; and her own family members, choosing victims based on who would suffer most from their deaths. A prime manipulator as well, Iris masquerades as a harmless young girl while also staging in motion the war between the RKS and the Empire. In Rosenkreuzstilette Freudenstachel, Iris and her Dragon Eifer manipulate the Schwarzkreuz into starting a "witch hunt", and turn the Schwarzkreuz against their own captain Pamela by having them brand her a holy traitor to the Orthodox Church, motivating Pamela's resolve to slay her vilifier. Iris later has Eifer murder the pope, and afterwards has her badly wound Pamela with a surprise attack. Iris continues to show her selfish and manipulative side by having Eifer turn into the Dark Devil and allowing her to die, and brainwashing Spiritia and forcing her to fight to the death against Freudia, her own childhood friend. Driven by little more than a sadistic desire to satisfy her lust for pleasure and entertainment over the suffering of others, Iris stands out in the world of the Rosenkreuzstilette series.
• Demonic Spiders: The bouncing gargoyles that are usually found near the end of a stage. They have a ton of health and can do some serious damage to your character. To be fair, they were inspired by the bouncing spring robots found in several Mega Man games.
• Draco in Leather Pants: As this page abundantly makes clear, Iris Zeppelin is a manipulative, self-entitled psycho with a God complex that does everything out of pure sadistic pleasure. In Kiora's doujinshi Rosenkreuzstilette UnOfficial AfterStory, otherwise known as Tearis, she gets reduced from a Complete Monster to a Jerkass Woobie who is placed under the care of Spiritia, who believes that killing her won't solve any of the problems she left behind, and thinks she has a kinder, gentler side inside her. Of course, Zorne still blames Iris for her adoptive father's death and vows to kill her, leaving Freudia to attempt to stop her through battle (which gives way to Zorne's new rage-born power), and Iris, knowing of the conflict, asks Spiritia to end her life in order to truly end the ensuing chaos.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Schwer-Muta Casasola Merkle, seen by many as the fandom mascot; which is funny because she also has her own mascot in her pet squid Zeppy. With an adorable design, somewhat creepy emotionless dialogue, a trollish stage design, her dialogue providing many funny moments, and a genuinely sad reason for feeling betrayed by RKS, it's no wonder why.
  • Luste Teuber, since she is Fun Personified and because her Idiot Hero ways are actually quite adorable. She even got an April Fool's site made by the creator himself, where she's fairly attractive in her aged-up redesign and has many hilarious gags.
• Evil Is Cool: While not exactly evil, Graf Michael Zeppelin and Raymond Sayfarth definitely look stylish. They are based on Dracula and Death from Castlevania, so it comes with the territory.
  • The Count's daughter, Iris, who is pure evil and so adorable that she ends up being an exceptional villainess.
• Fanon: Along with what has already been denoted as such, there are fanon biographies of the (human) characters of the first game (mostly by trolls), which list everyone as being all born before Y2K. At least it explains their clothing....
• First Installment Wins: A rather odd example not with the games themselves, but rather, the series' Spiritual Successor status to the original Mega Man games. Ever since it's official English release, many fans feel that RosenkreuzStilette succeeded where Mighty No. 9 failed, saying that it is more faithful to the Mega Man series with plenty of throwbacks and Shout Outs to back it up.
• Funny Moments: Some of the games' funny moments have a page of their own.
• Game-Breaker:
  • In the first game, since Luste Teuber is Metal Man's expy, Spiritia in turn gets Metal Blade in the form of Lustatem. Like Metal Blade, Lustatem has a TON of energy (second to the Freudenstachel), normal shots does more damage than an uncharged Seelegewehr, and Spiritia can shoot it in any direction.
  • Another for Spiritia is the Grollschwert. Sure it sucks at first and doesn't do much in the way of damage, but remember, it is the Grollschwert. The weaker you become, the stronger it gets! So once you're at a pitiful amount of HP, the short-ranged normal shots becomes a mid-ranged Spread Shot that can tear apart most of the enemies with ease and can break some of their guard. It even slaughters the Demonic Spiders above and Goddamned Bats below with little effort.
  • Lili, like her inspiration Beat, will home in on any enemy, doing a hefty amount of damage. The only reason why she's not a complete joke to every boss in the game is that you can't used charged shots while selecting her.
• Girl-Show Ghetto: Gameplay aside, the series tends to receive scorn because of its unabashedly cute characters and emphasis on friendship, never mind the darker aspects to the story and challenging difficulty.
• Goddamned Bats: The barrels in the Sichte Stage of Rosenkreuzstilette Freudenstachel. You know, the flying ones with eyes that extend their antennae and shoot electric beams from the spikes on their tips. Yeah, they're goddamn annoying. Also, the enemies that resemble Mega Man's Mettaurs. And the spear-throwing knights. And the cross enemies. And the egg-dropping eagles. And the skulls that are invulnerable except against some special weapons. And the fireballs that resemble a certain power-up from Bomberman.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • RosenkreuzStilette Freudenstachel started out as an April Fool's Day joke in 2008 with mock screenshots of what the game would look like while staring Freudia as the protagonist. Years later, production of an actual RosenkreuzStilette Freudenstachel came to fruition and released as a sequel to the first game in 2012, with a few things from the April Fool's Day version making it into the game.
  • In Schwer-Muta's stage in the first game, there is an enemy that resembles Eddie that throws items that actually damage you in the form of Skull Tanks halfway throughout the stage, and four of them assist her during her boss fight at the end of her stage in Freudenstachel. Come the release of Mega Man 11 in 2018, and we have another enemy that resembles Eddie, only purple, known as Anti-Eddie. Unlike the one in the Rosenkreuzstilette franchise, instead of hurling damaging Skull Tanks at you, this Eddie-esque enemy runs away when you get close and jumps off the screen with the item in its possession in tow.
• Heartwarming Moments: Also with its own page. Be warned: spoilers ahead.
• It's the Same, Now It Sucks!: While praise was given to the original art, appealing character designs, music, and to an extent the plot, critics tend to see the gameplay as So Okay, It's Average. The controls are tight and responsive, but the level designs and bosses recycle so many gimmicks of the Mega Man series it limits its potential. It's also hard to sell a series that sticks so closely to the formula with the abundance of hacks to the Classic games that have come out since the game's release. Fast-forward to 2016, however, and this consensus ironically inverted after the failed perception of Mighty No. 9 with many suddenly clamoring to the RosenkreuzStilette series (as well as other similar Mega Man-like games such as Azure Striker Gunvolt) as a successor to Mega Man, especially thanks to its official English release the following year.
• Jerkass Woobie:
  • Iris Zeppelin herself in Kiora's doushinji Tearis.
  • Sure, Grolla's not the nicest girl you'll meet, but knowing the burden of carrying on her grandfather's legacy with her demonic sword, the strong implication that she doesn't have much love among the RKS who are intimidated by her, being harshly humiliated by Iris and mistrusted by Lady Sichte who's the only one that comes close to a personal friend, nobody believing her about Iris' plans, and later forced to put down and lay to rest her reanimated grandfather, it's no wonder she looks unhappy most of the time.
• Les Yay:
  • There's quite a bit of subtext between Zorne and Trauare. Aside from this image◊, when you fight one of them, they'll be quite angry if you've already beaten the other. Additionally, in Rosenkreuzstilette Freudenstachel, when you fight one of them, if the other hasn't been beaten yet, they'll join in with a combo attack, which wouldn't normally carry much subtext, but Trauare's combo attack with Zorne being heart shaped bombs definitely does.
  • There was already some subtext with Spiritia/Freudia in the first game. Childhood friends? Check. Have nicknames nobody else uses? Check, in the form of "Tia" and "Freu", which are almost always used rather than each other's full names. Their pre and post-dialogue conversations in both fights are a bit longer and more dramatic than the other RKS members, special attention is called to the fight with a somber battle theme unique to Freudia's fight and a sad piano piece that plays post-dialogue, only Grolla's with Sichte has that honor. And there's the fact that Freudias clearly holding back in the prologue, with her Desperation Mode kicking in for the duration of the second, clearly regretting what she feels she must do. The sequel only increases it. Freudia will apologize to Spiritia when she dies, she goes Tranquil Fury when she finds out what the Big Bad has done with her and the Game Over screen for the final stage resembles a certain Ho Yay scene from Mega Man X6.
  • To a lesser extent, Grolla/Sichte.
• Love to Hate: Iris Zeppelin. Even though she's easily the evilest villain in the series, she's so cute that she's able to infatuate anyone into loving to hate her, and she's quite known for her hamminess. It even helps that the fights against her are accompanied by some of the most epic songs to grace the doujin game franchise.
• Memetic Mutation: "Traitorous dog! Your life ends here!"
• Moe: There's a reason why this game has an Improbably Female Cast, after all. Liebea with her scared and crying fits makes her easy to feel pity for, Spiritia's cute in a determined way and still believes there's good in everyone, Freudia's a nice girl underneath her frosty surface, Luste is energetic and cheerful, Lily and Strudel Aare tiny fairies that prove helpful along the protagonists' adventures, and Schwer is downright huggable with her cute wolfy pajamas and how generally sad she seems. And yes, even Iris Zeppelin can be seen as this. True, she may be a despicable monster, but one has to admit she's cute even when she feigns helplessness.
• Moral Event Horizon: Iris did this entire gambit to accomplish her ultimate goal, but, she says she also did it for personal amusement. She's murdered her father, jailed somebody who knew about her plans, and, in Rosenkreuzstilette Grollschwert, kills a priest just for fun, and by being forced to kill her own grandfather and put him back to rest is this in Grolla's eyes,that shows that Iris crosses the line. She tops all that in Rosenkreuzstilette Freudenstachel, where she mind controls Spiritia and forces her to fight Freudia to the death.
• Most Wonderful Sound: Strudel saying "Rosenkreuzstilette" sometimes (it's usually Freudia) when you start Rosenkreuzstilette Freudenstachel is simply adorable. More badass, but Spiritias occasionally shouting "Seelegewehr!" when performing a Charged Shot is satisfying, especially if you've just destroyed a particularly annoying enemy or boss.
• Nightmare Fuel: Has its own page. Tread, if you dare.
• Suspiciously Similar Song: Some parts of SHINING MAN, Zorne's stage music in the first game, sound similar to Drill Man's stage music.
• Tear Jerker: Bring the Kleenex before going here just in case.
• That One Achievement: With the addition of achievements on the Steam version, there's the aptly-named "Devil Hunter", which requires beating the Deviled Egg without taking any damage. Given the Deviled Egg's That One Boss status like the Yellow Devil that inspired it, you can understand why this achievement is so reviled, and it seems that it was likely made to challenge even the most expert of players. To further add to this, only 0.3 percent of total players have actually managed to get this achievement.
• That One Attack: Schirach's Megaton Punch in Rosenkreuzstilette Freudenstachel. One too many of these can have the player doing the same to the monitor.
• That One Boss: Now also has its own page.
• That One Level:
  • The first game's Freudia Stage has the same gimmick as the Quick Man stage, with fast beams of instant death you need to dodge while falling down pits. The level is designed so you need every second to spare, and a single mistake is likely to result in death. On top of that, Freudia herself is, also like Quick Man, That One Boss, and getting a game over to her means having to traverse the stage all over again.
  • Schwer's stages wouldn't be out of place in I Wanna Be the Guy. The first stage is loaded with instant death traps that it constantly tricks you into falling into, and getting through is pure Trial-and-Error Gameplay. In the second stage, even getting to the main area requires you to go down a pit, which would not be easy to figure out on your own, and the stage has many tricky death traps just like the one from the first game. One section in particular requires you to remember the weakness of a boss... specifically, Snake Man from Mega Man 3. Yes, this is perhaps the only game in existence that requires you to know a piece of trivia from a different franchise (albeit one it took heavy inspiration from).
  • Eifer's home stage in the sequel really takes the cake as well. To start things off, it's fairly long; in fact, it's easily the longest of the Schwarzkreuz stages yet. Enemies like to take you by surprise, such as the hidden gargoyle statue enemies, which are resilient to damage anyway, and you could find yourself attacked from all sides. There are two sections with spiked presses, and the second requires good navigation on your part. All in all, Eifer's stage is truly one that demands split-second timing, almost-superhuman dexterity, a lot of patience, and a quick eye from the player.
  • Schirach's stage is absolutely brutal. In two of the sections you'll notice a giant version of the Met-like enemies that stands atop a column in the background, and every few seconds it'll jump up, and when it lands, an earthquake will occur, and if you're still on the ground when that happens, you'll be stunned for a few seconds. Other types of Met-like enemies also appear in this stage to impede you from all sides, and on top of it all, at the end waits one of the That One Bosses of Rosenkreuzstilette Freudenstachel, Schirach herself. Getting a game over at any point in this stage means having to go through the nightmare it presents all over again.
  • Iris Stage I in the sequel takes the death lasers from the first game's Freudia Stage up to eleven- unlike the Freudia Stage, which had a middle section free of lasers, every single room in this level is filled with lasers, which are often incorporated into the platforming, so pixel-perfect platforming and speed is required to get through- all the while, enemies impede your progress and make it harder to dodge the lasers.
• What Do You Mean, It's Not for Little Girls?: It may have blood, war, several bits of profanity, and a despicable villain, but once you look past all that and some internet images placed under Rule 34, you might find it okay for little girls thanks to the cheery colors, cute Moe girls and violence placed on the same level as that of it’s inspiration, Mega Man.
• The Woobie: Zorne, being a Butt-Monkey and all that, really must have a tough life. She's desperately trying to get Graf Zeppelin to accept her as his real daughter, and Iris decides to make her suffer by killing him for having outlived his usefulness to her plans. And to be fair, she's quite a moody young girl, too. The dialogue between Freu and Trau should the latter be targeted after Zorne reveals that she had quite the Heroic BSoD in the form of being unresponsive for a while since her father's death and continually making an Interrupted Suicide many times before her rage against the Church booted her back up again.
  • Liebea counts as a Woobie as well. She was trapped at the top of the research tower for her refusal to take part in the rebellion. Zeppelin did this to her to avoid her becoming an obstacle and, out of fear that she'd become his adversary if he told her the truth, he lied to her that the Empire had taken Kahl captive and said that there was no hope to pray for his safe return. And when someone points out his/her disbelief that the Empire should do anything to him or that he/she knows whether he's dead or alive, Liebea just gets upset and her power goes out of control until that someone calms her down through battle.
    • Liebea, however, didn't know that Kahl made an attempt on Iris' life. She didn't even know that He Actually Knows Too Much.
  • Sichte may count as a Woobie as well since she apparently has trouble having faith in anyone older than her due to often fretting about her troubled childhood that she had when she was born and raised in the slums.
  • Spiritia. Think about it for a second. You see a girl you held dear being taken away from you and you try to save her, then you find out all of your friends are in a rebellion and you are forced to fight against all of them, unable to convince them out of it without fighting, and in the end, you find out the girl you were trying to save is actually a despicable monster of the highest order who set the events into motion only For the Evulz, and a while after defeating her and making her pay for what she did, you end up kidnapped by a group of witch-hunters manipulated by the same girl and then mind-controlled by her, forced to fight your best friend. Wow.
  • Lilli. It's really easy to want to give her a hug considering her home was burned down. If Spiritia wasn't around...
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds:
  • Poor Zeppelin himself just can't catch a break, as he seems to be his own biological daughter's favorite punching bag. First, he is manipulated by Iris into launching a coup against the Empire to try to protect her, with him not knowing that she made him do it for her own amusement. Then, when Spiritia (or Grolla) has him at her mercy, Iris kills him out of nowhere in cold blood, deeming him as "such a useless old man". Finally, in Freudenstachel, Iris brings Zeppelin's corpse back from the dead and brainwashes him to her liking to the point that he's forced to see her as the only absolute, led to believe that Tia destroyed his old body, and made hellbent on destroying and remaking the whole world into a Magus paradise worthy of the blessings of God.
  • Pamela goes through a lot of hell herself as well that makes you wanna feel sorry for her. In Freudenstachel, she's betrayed by Eifer and learns to her shock and despair that the Pope she wanted desperately to protect has been assassinated before losing consciousness. And even that's nothing compared to what she goes through in Weißsilber, where she learns to her shock and disbelief that she was labeled as a heretic, excommunicated, and banished for her decision to pursue RKS and kick their asses herself. Even when keeping up her haughtiness, she starts questioning where she went wrong, learns that there's more to her former colleagues than meets the eye, and eventually learns that the Pope she wants her audience with has been dead for some time and replaced with a homunculus impersonating him, and realizes that everything she believed in up to that point was all a lie the moment Eifer and Iris revealed the whole truth.

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