YMMV / The Cleaner (2006)

• Game-Breaker:
  • the minor teleportation relic, completed shortly after the first boss fight if you know where to look for the pieces. The teleportation spans about five times your width, making it possible to pass through energy barriers and skipping whole sections of the game, and in one instance a whole chapter. While flying even at top speed is not enough to dodge incoming attacks from close by, teleportation almost always is. As long as you keep an eye on your magic meter, your chances of survival are substantially improved.
  • The mana beam and wave beam can become devastating in their damage if you take some time to grind either, plus enoug mana and mana recharge speed buffs.
    • grinding at an acceptable speed is not common in this game. Luckily, a convenient spot (or the only one) is in the fire world, just before the 4th boss, the twin fire snakes. Tackling this encounter having ground either weapon is substantially less difficult.

• That One Boss: The least lapse of concentration when dealing with the cat will result in death.
  • Its timing is erratic and as unpredictable as the layout of the all-spiked terrain, noteworthy for not only damaging you, but making you lose control of movement as well. Once hit by either the cat or the spikes, if the environment is even a bit cramped, you're unlikely to make it out alive, or having sustained a lot of damage.
  • Thought you found an escape? Its eye lasers will soon prove you wrong. They come in bundles of three or four, making you retreat to corners that will soon become inescapable. ^note  simply taking the laser damage a viable strategy if you have enough health and a strong enough weapon. Just keep an eye on the Malevolent Architecture and the boss, so as not no get trapped, and reserve all your remaining attention on attacking. It's counter-intuitive even for experienced players, keeping the cat on no. 1 for the title of this trope.
  • Need to grind a bit before trying again? Think again... The game just autosaved for you, a feature you cannot turn off. It is theoretically possible to win the fight without any upgrades whatsoever. Just higly, higly unlikely.
  • Finally defeated it! oh wait... It keeps tunneling through even without a head. Game Over.
  • Add the stressed-out boss theme and the demonic screaming to all this and you're in for a rush of blood to the head.

• That One Level: The underwater caverns are this to inexperienced players, and even a migraine source for experienced ones.
  • Enemies here hit hard and are quite sturdy. The jellyfish use tentacles to block your weapons while attacking you with them, the stingrays pivot when attacked, dodging your blasts, and their spark attack is hard to escape from.
  • There are blocked passages which you need to break down using bombs that are conveniently lying around, but the farther you go, the longer the path, and enemies keep coming. More often than not, you drop the bomb and will have to fetch another one. Out of bombs? Start over.
  • And of course, there is no way so save. There's no such feature; the game only autosaves at times. This is no such time.