YMMV / Spirit Hunter: NG

• Accidental Innuendo:
  • D-Man with his D-Cards and D-Mail has opened up jokes about how he's actually just sending dick pics to Akira.
  • When Seiji brings along a gun to face Kubitarou, and Kaoru insists she'll play dumb if they're caught with it:
    Kaoru: Sorry, but I did not see, and have no knowledge of, what you have tucked in your pants.
• Anticlimax Boss: Like Mary from the first game before her, Kakuya's final fight is a series of Crisis Choices that either aren't too difficult, or have Akira all but spell out the answer for the player. The only real difficulty is knowing that one of them is a Waiting Puzzle.
• Awesome Music:
  • "N.G.", the main theme for the game. What starts as a delicate tune drops into something darker and more foreboding, matching the ethereal horror of the game.
  • "Critical Unknown", the track that plays during the climax of Survival Escapes. The violin by itself does a great job of expressing urgency, and then the dramatic main beat kicks in.
• Breather Level: The investigation periods for the Killer Peach and Demon Tsukuyomi cases are much shorter and more straightforward than the preceding chapters. Given how intertwined the two spirits end up being, it's not unreasonable to treat them as one long chapter leading up to the game's climax.
• Complete Monster: Kakuya is the malevolent spirit behind the bloody events of the story. A dangerous spirit who was sealed away by the Miroku family to prevent her from running rampant and unleashing her curse, Kakuya broke free and murdered the last remaining Miroku before haunting random people to play the Kakuya Game, an unbeatable game where her victims end up horribly murdered or driven insane by her or the spirits she sends them to hunt, for the sake of fun. One day, gaining an obsession with Akira unknowingly because he's a Miroku, she decides to force him to play her game by holding his beloved cousin Ami hostage, and intervenes multiple times to hinder him, in one instance placing one of his allies into a coma. Wanting to have Akira for herself, Kakuya disguises herself by possessing Ami's body and puts her mother into a coma so she, as Ami, would be Akira's only remaining family. When Akira realizes the truth, Kakuya kidnaps him and drags him to the spirit world, where she attempts to Mind Rape and brainwash him into loving her. When that fails, Kakuya tries to kill him and Ami in her fury. A spirit that only cares about her own fun, Kakuya treats human lives as toys, destroying and playing around like a child for her own amusement.
• Crazy Is Cool: Ban and his gambling addiction become this in the Killer Peach case. In order to sneak into the Moon Tower, he asks Akira for 30,000 yen. What does he do with it? Place a bet on a 100-to-1 horserace, win, and bribe an employee with the resultant 3 million to cut all power to the building. When the other characters point out the many ways it could've gone wrong, including foremost that he might've lost the bet, he shrugs it off and says his contingency plan was to sell one of his kidneys.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Going by Let's Plays of the game, Seiji eclipses the other companions in terms of popularity, thanks both to his amusingly dark personality and his genuine loyalty and affection for Akira.
• Epileptic Trees: Who was the voice that tried to help Akira in the Bad End? He describes their arm as "cold like ceramic", which would point to a doll like Mary, Kakuya, or a new entity altogether. However, Yashiki is familiar with her and confirms that she just wanted to help, which runs contrary to how doll spirits are generally evil. Saya from the first game is another option, but that runs into the issue that she's already familiar with Akira, as she considers him her "favourite". One specific Bad End shows it to be Rosé, but that only opens up more questions about their true identity and the nature of spirits in general.
• Fan-Preferred Couple: While Akira and Kaoru receive some Ship Tease, and they are liked as a pairing due to the quirky chemistry between them, they're still outdone in popularity by Akira and Seiji, thanks to the two boys having a deeper history with each other and a playfully teasing friendship. Both being pretty likely helps too, as does the fact that Kakuya is jealous of both Seiji and Kaoru for being so close to Akira.
  • Early in chapter 1, Seiji seems unusually jealous over Akira and Kaoru spending time alone together, to the point that when Akira tells him about his new ability to see visions from bloodstains, the only thing Seiji focuses on is that he was alone with Kaoru last night. Kaoru seems to notice this, telling him his jealousy isn't attractive, and even does some teasing of her own later on in the chapter.
    Kaoru: Come on, lovebirds, quit messing around and let's get out of here."
• Magnificent Bastard:
  • Naomasa Ban is a notorious journalist, known for being an elusive and dangerous blackmailer and informant, whose true goals is to use his web of info to help defeat and discover the truth of the vengeful spirits plaguing the world to prevent tragic deaths, like his own son's, no matter what. Finding out that Akira is haunted by the dangerous spirit Kakuya, he offers his and Rose's service to Akira, defeating her in her own game to save Ami while extorting him for money. Showing great prowess in handling the dead with his quick thinking, rational mind, and fearlessness, Ban became essential for Akira in defeating the Screaming Author and Killer Peach, while teaching him how to battle the spirits better. After Akira saves Ami and seemingly puts and end to Kakuya's reign, Ban leaves him on good terms, continuing his quest to battle spirits for his continuous search for the truth.
  • Killer Peach, formerly DIET woman Tomoko Okayama, is a Vengeful Ghost seeking revenge with witted fury, after being beheaded by the 5/5 Club when she discovered Ishimaru covered up the arson that killed her family. Becoming Killer Peach, she stalks the Moon Tower to hunt them, waiting until they are alone and spacing out the kills to not clue them in like before. Having murdered all but Ishimaru, Killer Peach haunts until Akira's group comes to investigate. Paranoid, Killer Peach strategically stalks, and intimidates them, thinking they are Ishimaru's accomplices, with the group barely surviving by proving he was already dead to get her to move on. Having return due to the time distortion cause by the Demon Tsukuyomi, when Killer Peach realizes what's going on, she entrusts Akira her katana to call her forth when the time is right, destroying the Demon after she was summoned, and saving her families' souls.
• Player Punch:
  • Any of the companion character's deaths. In comparison to Death Mark, NG has a smaller cast that is not only more developed, but each character receives at least one unique death CG. So it's more of a gut punch if you allow one of the companions to die, since you actually get to know them pretty well and their death scene is horrifically detailed.
  • Maruhashi's murder. Unlike the companion characters, there's no way to prevent the death from happening, and this is after the previous few chapters have shown them to be a likable and helpful asset to the team.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Tubasa Aoi, the true identity of the Screaming Author. An innocent girl kidnapped and mutilated into a horrifying crane-like abomination, she has become so mortified of her changed appearance that she begs anyone who comes too close to the attic of the house she now inhabits not to look at her. Doesn't help that listening to her unearthly, piercing screams for too long a time outright drives people mad, to the point of committing suicide. When Akira faces her, she pleads with him to set her on fire to finally make the everyday hell she now lives stop. If he does (and you do the necessary action needed to purify her spirit), she outright enjoys it.

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