History YMMV / ReturnOfTheObraDinn

* MomentOfAwesome: In a meta-example, the game won the award for "Beat Art Direction" [[https://www.polygon.com/game-awards-tga/2018/12/6/18130000/the-game-awards-winners-2018 at The Game Awards 2018]], and also the "Excellence in Narrative" award and the Seumas [=McNally=] Grand Prize [[https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/339066/Return_of_the_Obra_Dinn_takes_Grand_Prize_at_the_21st_IGF_Awards.php at the Independent Games Festival Awards]]. Quite an accomplishment for a game whose graphics are based on old-style Macintosh computer games.

* GuideDangIt: A good number of members of the crew aren't easy to place without scrambling names around and hoping. The biggest offenders are Huang Li, Jie Zhang, Li Hong, and Wei Lee - four Chinese topmen, meaning they wear similar clothes and can't be picked apart by their jobs. [[spoiler:The way to figure it out "legit" is to check the scene where you find them sleeping, look at their socks and shoes, then go to a scene where their faces and feet are visible and match the socks and shoes with their sleeping bag numbers and therefore their numbers on the crew manifest. Given the difficulty of placing the colors of a character's socks in ''Obra Dinn'''s artstyle, this still might need a few guesses.]]

* {{Squick}}: [[spoiler: The death of Edward Spratt has him be brutally strangled by one of the [[GiantSquid Giant Squids]] tendrils while emptying his bowels. His last few minutes are both brutal and disgusting. It gets worse considering what else can be seen in that particular death - hidden in the scene are the clues to the identities of a good deal of the surviving crew members at that point, making it more likely to be revisited by players and thus have to be heard multiple times.]]

* ArcFatigue: The moment you find a human leg near the chest and activate the Memento Mortem, you discover the fate of one dead crewmember after another or two, all spanning throughout all the parts of Chapters IV and V in reverse order, specifically. Many players are wondering how long the two-chapter arc would go on with all the holograms of dead bodies around.

*** [[spoiler: A possible motive for their mutiny can be found in Chapter IX, part 3 - they all see the captain aiming his gun on a crewman trying to (violently) stop a desertion; problem is, their desertion would be punishable by death, so what the crewmembers witness is the captain pulling his gun on a crew member doing his duties and letting a group of [[DangerousDeserter dangerous deserters]] get away.]]

** Did [[spoiler:the mermaids]] keep the letter or the spirit of the bargain in The Bargain? [[spoiler:Was it the bargain or the captain's threats that drove off the sea monster, or that the captain threw the other two shells overboard? The ExactWords of the bargain are that the ship be seen back home, which doesn't specify that the crew has to be saved; on the other hand, all supernatural attacks did cease after the final Mermaid was released, with all deaths after that point--aside from the Bosun, who dies from wounds incurred before it was struck--being caused by humans.]]

* {{Squick}}: [[spoiler: The death of Edward Spratt has him be brutally strangled by one of the [[GiantSquid Giant Squids]] tendrils while emptying his bowels. His last few minutes are both brutal and disgusting.]]

** Did [[spoiler:the mermaids]] keep the letter or the spirit of the bargain in The Bargain? [[spoiler:Was it the bargain or the captain's threats that drove off the sea monster, or that the captain threw the other two shells overboard? The ExactWords of the bargain are that the ship be seen back home, which doesn't specify that the crew has to be saved; on the other hand, all supernatural attacks did cease after the final Mermaid was released, with all deaths after that point - aside from the Bosun, who dies from wounds incurred before it was struck - being caused by humans.]]

** [[The motives of First Mate William Hoscut, seaman Henry Brennan, and topman Lewis Walker for attempting mutiny. Were the trio in kahoots with Gunner's Mate Olus Wiater the entire time or was the attempt completely unrelated to Wiater's?]]

* TearJerker: Some of the deaths are actually quite tragic. For example, [[spoiler:as Captain Robert Witterel speaks to his dead wife Abigail, he laments the death of her brother and his friend, First Mate William Hoscut, whom he was forced to shoot down in self-defense. He asks Abigail to forgive him before [[DrivenToSuicide he shoots himself in the chest]].]]

* TearJerker: Some of the deaths are actually quite tragic. For example, [[spoiler:As Captain Robert Witterel speaks to his dead wife Abigail, he laments the death of her brother and his friend, First Mate William Hoscut, whom he was forced to shoot down in self-defense. He asks Abigail to forgive him before [[DrivenToSuicide he shoots himself in the chest]].]]

* TearJerker: Some of the deaths are actually quite tragic. For example, [[spoiler: As Captain Robert Witterel speaks to his dead wife Abigail, he laments the death of her brother and his friend, First Mate William Hoscut, whom he was forced to shoot down in self-defense. He asks Abigail to forgive him before [[DrivenToSuicide he shoots himself in the chest]].]]
* WhatAnIdiot: A few deaths can be attributed to outright carelessness on part of the character, but the one that stands out is [[spoiler:the death of the ship's cook, which comes when the crew is hauling still-alive mermaids through the ship. He jokes about [[DoNotTauntCthulhu cooking and eating them]], then tries to pry "a pretty shell" free from a mermaid's body, despite the warnings shouted to him from the rest of the crew. Quite frankly, [[DisproportionateRetribution he gets what he deserves.]]]]

* EarWorm: The soundtrack is rather catchy, and can make discovering the rather grisly fates of the crew [[SoundtrackDissonance rather jaunty all things considered.]] "The End", "Escape", and "The Doom" are roughly in line with what you'd expect given the content and reveals of those chapters -- but when you get to the funky, synthy bells of "Soldiers of the Sea", along with your first glimpses of the [[GiantEnemyCrab crab riders]] on the lower decks, the tone of the game takes a [[BlackComedy decided turn]], followed/[[AnachronicOrder preceded]] by the simultaneously cheery but bittersweet and slightly off-key organ of "Unholy Captives", and the stabbing string and brass sections of "The Calling", with its light pizzicato transition into its decidedly final crescendo.

* EarWorm: The soundtrack is rather catchy, and can make discovering the rather grisly fates of the crew [[SoundtrackDissonance rather jaunty all things considered.]] "The End", "Escape", and "The Doom" are roughly in line with what you'd expect given the content and reveals of those chapters -- but when you get to the funky, synthy bells of "Soldiers of the Sea", along with your first glimpses of the [[GiantEnemyCrab crab riders]] on the lower decks, the tone of the game takes a [{BlackComedy decided turn]], followed/[[AnachronicOrder preceded]] by the simultaneously cheery but bittersweet and slightly off-key organ of "Unholy Captives", and the stabbing string and brass sections of "The Calling", with its light pizzicato transition into its decidedly final crescendo.

* EarWorm: The soundtrack is rather catchy, and can make discovering the rather grisly fates of the crew [[SoundtrackDissonance rather jaunty all things considered.]]
* GeniusBonus: Knowing a lot about naval history and sailing ships will help immensely with determining several key fates just by dress alone- for example, [[spoiler: the Bosun's Mate is French, and he's wearing a French navy shirt. The Bosun even calls him "my frenchman" while dying.]] The game also has characters of different nationalities speak their original language, and knowing what language they speak can help even further.

** Did [[spoiler:the mermaids]] keep the letter or the spirit of the bargain in The Bargain? [[spoiler:Was it the bargain or the captain's threats that drove off the sea monster? The ExactWords of the bargain are that the ship be seen back home, which doesn't specify that the crew has to be saved; on the other hand, all supernatural attacks did cease after the final Mermaid was released, with all deaths after that point - aside from the Bosun, who dies from wounds incurred before it was struck - being caused by humans.]]

** The captain himself. [[spoiler:In The Escape, he's seen aiming his gun towards the fight, but it's unclear if he's aiming at the escapees (try to keep them from leaving) or at Leonid (who has just killed one of them with a sword.)]]

* {{Squick}}: [[spoiler: The death of Edward Spratt has him be brutally strangled by one of the [[GiantSquid Giant Squids]] tendrils while emptying his bowels. His last few minutes are both brutal and disgusting.]]

** Did [[spoiler:the mermaids]] keep the letter or the spirit of the bargain in The Bargain? [[spoiler:Was it the bargain or the captain's threats that drove off the sea monster? The ExactWords of the bargain are that the ship be seen back home, which doesn't specify that the crew has to be saved; on the other hand, all supernatural attacks did cease after the final Mermaid was released.]]

* {{Squick}}: [[spoiler: The death of Edward Spratt has him be brutally strangled by one of the [{GiantSquid Giant Squids]] tendrils while emptying his bowels. His last few minutes are both brutal and disgusting.]]

* GenuisBonus: Knowing a lot about naval history and sailing ships will help immensely with determining several key fates just by dress alone- for example, [[spoiler: the Bosun's Mate is French, and he's wearing a French navy shirt. The Bosun even calls him "my frenchman" while dying.]] The game also has characters of different nationalities speak their original language, and knowing what language they speak can help even further.