History YMMV / TheBattleCats

* BrokenBase: The practice of seed tracking, where players feed their gacha rolls into a website to [[GameplayDerailment predict their future rolls]], is very controversial within the fanbase. Arguments about whether it constitutes cheating in the first place abound, as do ones about whether it's justified. Pro-tracking players enjoy bypassing the LuckBasedMission of getting the ubers they want, while anti-tracking players tend to see this as an unfair advantage, and stereotype trackers as skill-less players carried by overpowered ubers.

** Among late-game players, Cyberpunk Cat is the first example of a Cat hated for being too strong. Due to its ability to [[GameBreaker break stages wide open]] when stacked by permaslowing all the enemies from a safe distance, it's often the only option for beating endgame stages, especially starred UL, without resorting to Ubers. However, while Cyberpunk is powerful, it's also extremely BoringButPractical, and clearing most stages with a stack of them [[MarathonLevel usually takes a massive amount of time]], both to stack them and to slowly chip away at the enemies.

** Gold Catfruit Seeds are some of the rarest items in the game, even moreso than the notoriously elusive Gold Catfruit: the only way to get them is by beating Masked Grandmaster Hermit on Floor 30 of the Infernal Tower, and he only drops one per run of the Tower. Unfortunately, unlike said Gold Catfruit, almost all of the cats you can evolve with them, such as the aforementioned Neneko variants and [[LowTierLetdown Papaluga]], barely gain anything from their evolutions and are just as useless as before.

** The final stage of Uncanny Legends, Revival of Origin, quickly became a fan-favorite. It has an awesome-looking boss in [[spoiler:[[KillerGorilla Zero Luza]]]], who has a unique attack mechanic that lets him pierce past your frontlines and gain ground for the threatening support enemies. The stage is challenging, hitting you with waves of Sir Rels and Wild Doges while you try to outlast the Bore Jr. spawns and giving you little opportunity to gain ground, but it's not unfair -- every enemy in the stage has a counter, and with some smart play and good timing, you can win without boosted units or broken ubers. Most fans are glad that Uncanny Legends came with such a great finale, after the [[AntiClimaxBoss underwhelming end]] that Stories of Legend got. The fact that [[spoiler:Ape Lord Luza]] is a much better unit than the rather underwhelming Mecha-Bun certainly helps.

** Among the gacha Rares, one of the least-used is Tin Cat. Its ability to knock back Black enemies is a UselessUsefulSpell, since they're easily knocked back anyway, and it's a single-target attacker with an ability against enemies that [[ZergRush always come in huge hordes]]. Even discounting this, there are many, many Cats that target Blacks and [[OvershadowedByAwesome do a far better job of it]], even on 4-star difficulty. Its Talents are also [[PowerUpLetdown close to useless]], especially the one for knockback immunity.

** While all of the cats from Deadly advents are at least usable, several of the cats obtained from [[BrutalBonusLevel Merciless advents]] are disappointingly weak. [[ThatRussianSquatDance Cossack Cat]] is only good against Oldhorns, not having enough speed, range, or HP to fight off any other Relics. Medusa Cat, before her True Form saved her from mediocrity, is extremely unreliable when it comes to stopping Relics. Rugby Cat's stats are far too low to let it fend off the late-game Black enemies it's strong against, let alone anything else (though [[MagikarpPower its true form is more useful]]), and Phantom Cat suffers from the same problem. Bakery Cat's ability to [[PowerNullifier Curse]] Angels, Aliens, and Zombies [[UselessUsefulSpell isn't very useful most of the time]], and even when it is, the unit's awkward range and inaccurate attacks make it extremely unwieldy to use. Pied Piper Cat is a very inconsistent Barrier Breaker and Aku weakener and Calligraphy Cat is [[DamnedByFaintPraise a slightly better Cossack Cat]].

** While none of the Legend Rares are considered outright ''bad'', High Lord Babel is considered to be the worst. His HP and attack stats are both tremendously high, but everything else, from his cooldown to his attack animation and range, is mediocre or just straight-up bad. He also [[CrutchCharacter falls off hard in the late-game]], where enemies of his target types become less relevant and stronger enemies can shred through even his giant HP more easily. Many Uber Rares are considered far more viable than he is, and he's a disappointing pull despite being one of the rarest units in the entire game.

* WhatDoYouMeanItsNotForKids: Don't let the game's concept of cute cats taking over the world fool you. This game has quite a few characters that drink alcohol, make a reference to flashing people for their attacks, and look less like cats and more like almost naked humans. Just because it says "Cat" in the title and looks cute doesn't mean you should let your kids play it. Being started life as a mobile phone game (which the platform themselves tend to fall into this trope as well) doesn't help either.

*** Mecha-Bun is an example of a unit which tries to be [[JackOfAllStats two types of unit in one...]] and [[MasterOfNone sucks at both.]] It's designed as both a melee tanker and rusher, having fairly high DPS with quick attack speed alongside good HP and only 2 knockbacks, and being strong against Relics to enhance both its HP and damage. However, its DPS is quite bad for its cost -- it pales in comparison to specialized rushers like Awakened Bahamut and [[spoiler:Idi:N2]], the latter of which blows it out of the water against Relics, and it's unimpressive compared to both non-Uber rushers and Super Rares like Can Can and Fishman. Meanwhile, it's [[LateCharacterSyndrome restricted to a point in the game]] where generalist tanks become much more shaky to use due to enemies hitting harder, so it can only tank Relic enemies semi-effectively, and it can easily fall victim to non-Relics on mixed stages. Most players will avoid using Mecha-Bun whenever they can get away with it, with it only being recommended to use on a few 4* Stories of Legend stages and 1* [[ThatOneBoss Primitive Souls]] -- and even then, it's also a victim of PowerCreep, with later-added units being able to tear apart the stages it'd otherwise find some use on.
** Among the gacha Rares, one of the least-used is Tin Cat. Its ability to knock back Black enemies is a UselessUsefulSpell, since they're easily knocked back anyway, and it's a single-target attacker with an ability against enemies that [[ZergRush always come in huge hordes]]. Even discounting this, there are many, many Cats that target Blacks and [[OvershadowedByAwesome do a far better job of it]], even on 4-star difficulty. Its Talents are also [[PowerUpLetdown close to useless]], especially the one for knockback immunity. Its only real use later in the game is as a long-ranged attacker, as Robocat has surprisingly good stats, but even at a very high level, it's only slightly better than Macho Leg Cat at the job.
** Among gacha Super Rares, the one nigh-universally considered the worst is Cat Toaster/Cataphone, due to being outclassed in literally every situation you would want to use it in; if you need a Crowd Control unit for Angels, you have talented Sanzo and Juliet the Maiko. If you want an efficient Barrier Breaker, you already have Fencer Cat or Li'l Macho Legs. If you invest in Cataphone's talents, you can also slow Aliens... but Corrupted Psychocat and Seafarer can do that and more without the need for NP investment. And it's not like Cataphone has stats that would allow it to be a generalist, either.

* AmericansHateTingle: The [[{{Crossover}} collaboration event]] with Pikotaro was mostly just passively accepted in Japan, but was outright ''despised'' by English players. The collab event didn't have much to offer to begin with, featuring just two [[PromotionalPowerlessPieceOfGarbage nearly useless units]] and one easy stage, and fairly poor rewards. However, what compounded issues was the timing of the event. While the English world was stuck with Pikotaro, [[NoExportForYou the Japanese version]] instead got a Anime/PuellaMagiMadokaMagica event, with far more useful cats to collect and challenging stages to play. While the Japanese version got collab events frequently, they were very rare in the English version, so fans were outraged that ''this'' was the collab event they chose to bring over. As such, there was a sizable backlash against the event -- and tellingly, Pikotaro has [[TemporaryOnlineContent never returned]]. Since then, most collab events that were once Japan-exclusive have made the jump to the English world.

* ThatOneComponent: Yellow Behemoth Stones are needed to hatch several of the later Ancient Eggs, as well as awaken powerful units like Elder Beast Naala. However, getting them is much harder and more tedious than the other colors of regular Behemoth Stone: you either have to find them as a RareRandomDrop from Jinfore Volcano, which comes once per day and has the strongest enemies of the three Behemoth Culling stages, or play Hunter's Map III, an enigma stage only accessible after beating Primitive Souls in Uncanny Legends. Even then, unlike the other four colors, said stages will often only drop ''one'' at best (with even Hunter's Map IV only having a 30% chance to drop 2 without the continuation stage), and although most of the earlier Eggs thankfully don't need as many Yellows as the other colors, there's no such mercy if you want some of the most powerful ones, especially if they need full Yellow Behemoth Gems instead.

** Treasures, more specifically getting the individual pieces to activate or upgrade a treasure. While the treasures themselves are super helpful and are required to get anywhere in the game, actually getting them is a slog; it's completely random if you'll get a piece of the treasure set at all. There are cases where one has played the same stage for a long time only to get the Inferior rank of the piece (the most common treasure rarity you can get). While you can ignore some until you really need them (Anything related to the Cat Cannon, Cat Base health, or increased XP drops), some are so important [[labelnote:These include]] Increasing your cats' attack and HP, increasing money production and max money capacity, reducing the cooldown between spawning a cat, reducing the stats of the Alien/Starred Alien type and boosting the effects of abilities against a specific trait [[/labelnote]] that missing even one Superior in an all superior set can mean the difference between losing the stage and winning it. Fortunately, the 12.6 update made treasure farming a bit more bearable through the addition of golden CPUs, which can skip stages up to 10 times a day and make it faster to replay stages for treasures.

** Gold Catfruit Seeds are some of the rarest items in the game: the only way to get them is by beating Masked Grandmaster Hermit on Floor 30 of the Infernal Tower, and he only drops one per run of the Tower. Unfortunately, almost all of the cats you can evolve with them, such as the aforementioned Neneko variants and [[LowTierLetdown Papaluga]], barely gain anything from their evolutions and are just as useless as before.

*** While all of the floors past 40 are brutal, Floor 42 is generally considered to be the least so. Taking on [[BossRush almost all of the Cyclones at once]] may seem like a daunting task, but the first three are [[FakeUltimateMook pretty unthreatening]] due to their low HP and range, and Divine Cyclone can be rendered just as easy with Sanzo Cat’s talents unlocked. The biggest threats are running out of money before killing Red or White Cyclone and Cosmic Cyclone sniping your status units, but both are fairly easy to play around. Take a breather, because Floor 43 is [[ThatOneLevel one of the most brutal levels in the game]].

*** Floor 38 sends out the Aku Cyclone near the start, but [[VillainForgotToLevelGrind it's at 100%]], when you'll have much stronger units and better shield piercers than you did when you first fought it. The Those Guys and Sir Seals [[PinataEnemy give you good amounts of money]], and the Relic Doges and Aku Doges aren't too tough, with the latter in particular being major Slime Cat bait. Primeval Cyclone does spawn after about 100 seconds, but that's plenty of time to either heavily damage Aku Cyclone or kill it outright, letting your anti-Relic units focus on their new opponent. It comes in between the [[LuckBasedMission RNG-based]] Floor 37 and the tricky rematch with Mina on Floor 39, and is a welcome breather between those two and before the fight with [[ThatOneBoss Spiritual Yulala]] on Floor 40.

** Gold Catfruit Seeds are some of the rarest items in the game: the only way to get them is by beating Masked Grandmaster Hermit on Floor 30 of the Infernal Tower. Unfortunately, almost all of the cats you can evolve with them, such as the aforementioned Neneko variants and [[LowTierLetdown Papaluga]], barely gain anything from their evolutions and are just as useless as before.

*** As detailed on AwesomeButImpractical on the main page, Filibuster Cat X is among the worst of the Legend Cats, and is a disappointing reward for completing Cats of the Cosmos. Although its ability to freeze White enemies for a long time with each attack sounds powerful, its combination of an OverlyLongFightingAnimation paired with slow attack speed, [[SquishyWizard overall low stats and singular knockback]], and surprisingly bad freeze uptime make it less than impressive in practice. Units like Glass Cat or Lone Cat and Kitten are much more efficient at the job Filibuster Cat X is supposed to do. Even a True Form wasn't enough to salvage its reputation - although it got stat buffs, a slight attack speed increase, and Relic targeting along with Surge/Curse immunity, it does little to nothing to address its weaknesses while trying to shoehorn it into niches with units that already do them better. To rub salt into the wound, Filibuster also inexplicably has one of the expensive True Forms of any Legend Cat, further discouraging even ''trying'' to get it.

*** As detailed on AwesomeButImpractical on the main page, Filibuster Cat X is among the worst of the Legend Cats, and is a disappointing reward for completing Cats of the Cosmos. Although its ability to freeze White enemies for a long time with each attack sounds powerful, its combination of an OverlyLongFightingAnimation paired with slow attack speed, [[SquishyWizard overall low stats]], and surprisingly bad freeze uptime make it less than impressive in practice. Units like Glass Cat or Lone Cat and Kitten are much more efficient at the job Filibuster Cat X is supposed to do.

--> '''Lucas IV''': [Treasure] is both the blessing and the curse of this game. Mostly the latter.

** The stages that pit you against the same set of enemies over and over at increasing strength levels, like Baron Seal and Le’Grim, aren’t well-liked by the playerbase. In addition to being repetitive, the concept is seen as a dumbed-down Heavenly Tower — and, unless you’re [[BribingYourWayToVictory packing strong Ubers]] or willing to stack max-talent Cyberpunks for a long time, good luck beating the final stages. To make matters worse, there’s a 30-minute cooldown after you win one of the stages.

** The One Percenter medals aren't difficult to obtain, just ''extremely'' tedious. To get the last one, you need to generate ''200 million cents'' across all of your battles, which will take an eternity to do no matter what. Getting it is the only thing [[JokeCharacter Killer Cat]] is useful for outside of combos and User Rank.

** Awakened Bahamut. Due to his insane speed, equally insane damage, and being able to be used on four star stages, expect to be having him on your lineups for a long time.

* ThatOneComponent: Yellow Behemoth Stones are needed to hatch several of the later Ancient Eggs, as well as awaken powerful units like Elder Beast Naala. However, getting them is much harder and more tedious than the other colors of regular Behemoth Stone: you either have to find them as a RareRandomDrop from Jinfore Volcano, which comes once per day and has the strongest enemies of the three Behemoth Culling stages, or play Hunter's Map III, an enigma stage only accessible after beating Primitive Souls in Uncanny Legends. Even then, said stages will often only drop ''one'' at best (with even Hunter's Map IV only having a 30% chance to drop 2 without the continuation stage), and although most of the earlier Eggs thankfully don't need as many Yellows as the other colors, there's no such mercy if you want some of the most powerful ones, especially if they need full Yellow Behemoth Gems instead.

* ThatOneComponent: Yellow behemoth stones are needed to hatch several of the later Ancient Eggs, as well as awaken powerful units like Elder Beast Naala. However, getting them is much harder and more tedious than the other colors of regular behemoth stone: you either have to find them as a RareRandomDrop from Jinfore Volcano, which comes once per day and has the strongest enemies of the three Behemoth Culling stages, or play Hunter's Map III, an enigma stage only accessible after beating Primitive Souls in Uncanny Legends.

** [[https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/battle-cats/images/9/93/Snd044.oggThe sound]] of a CriticalHit going off, a melodic plink that is almost always accompanied by whatever [[MadeOfIron Metal enemy]] you were fighting reeling from severe damage, if not being killed outright. Not as fun to hear when it’s R. Ost or Capy inflicting them on your cats, though.
** [[https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/battle-cats/images/0/08/Snd090.oggThe noise]] of a [[CriticalHit Savage Blow]] happening is a sharp whip-crack sound which fits perfectly with one of your cats unleashing a tremendously strong hit. Similarly to critical hits, though, they're less fun to listen to when it's Aku Gory dishing them out against you.
** [[https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/battle-cats/images/d/dd/Snd070.oggThe sound of a Barrier Breaker unit destroying an enemy Barrier]] is a delightfully crunchy shattering sound. It's even better if it happens to massed Barrier enemies, like the [=UltraBaaBaa=] horde on Haunted Genome.

** [[https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/battle-cats/images/9/9d/Snd059.ogg/re The noise of a Zombie enemy]] being KilledOffForReal by a Zombie Killer unit. It's a purifying bell sound that not only sounds pretty, but notifies you that the enemy is dead for good.
** [[https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/battle-cats/images/9/93/Snd044.ogg/revision/latest?cb=20221206174605&format=original The sound]] of a CriticalHit going off, a melodic plink that is almost always accompanied by whatever [[MadeOfIron Metal enemy]] you were fighting reeling from severe damage, if not being killed outright. Not as fun to hear when it’s R. Ost or Capy inflicting them on your cats, though.
** [[https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/battle-cats/images/0/08/Snd090.ogg/revision/latest?cb=20221206195148&format=original The noise]] of a [[CriticalHit Savage Blow]] happening is a sharp whip-crack sound which fits perfectly with one of your cats unleashing a tremendously strong hit. Similarly to critical hits, though, they're less fun to listen to when it's Aku Gory dishing them out against you.
** [[https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/battle-cats/images/d/dd/Snd070.ogg/revision/latest?cb=20221206194621&format=original The sound of a Barrier Breaker unit destroying an enemy Barrier]] is a delightfully crunchy shattering sound. It's even better if it happens to massed Barrier enemies, like the [=UltraBaaBaa=] horde on Haunted Genome.

** The noise of a Zombie enemy being KilledOffForReal by a Zombie Killer unit. It's a purifying bell sound that not only sounds pretty, but notifies you that the enemy is dead for good.
** The sound of a CriticalHit going off, a melodic plink that is almost always accompanied by whatever [[MadeOfIron Metal enemy]] you were fighting reeling from severe damage, if not being killed outright. Not as fun to hear when it’s R. Ost or Capy inflicting them on your cats, though.
** The noise of a [[CriticalHit Savage Blow]] happening is a sharp whip-crack sound which fits perfectly with one of your cats unleashing a tremendously strong hit. Similarly to critical hits, though, they're less fun to listen to when it's Aku Gory dishing them out against you.
** The sound of a Barrier Breaker unit destroying an enemy Barrier is a delightfully crunchy shattering sound. It's even better if it happens to massed Barrier enemies, like the [=UltraBaaBaa=] horde on Haunted Genome.

** [[spoiler:Upon completing Stories of Legend, you are able to access Uncanny Legends, which has much more difficult level design, enemies with their stats cranked up the wazoo, and introduces the Relic enemies, which at the point you first encounter them have virtually no weaknesses and a deadly PowerNullifier that synergizes with other enemies. Even as you gradually get more powerful units and advance through the chapters, the difficulty doesn't let up, with the later stages also adding in beefed-up Aku, Behemoth, and Colossal enemies to ruin your day.]]

** Into the Future is significantly more challenging than Empire of Cats, especially in the sequel episodes.
** Version 6.5 introduced the third set of story chapters "Cats of the Cosmos," which is a good deal harder than the Into the Future stages.
** [[spoiler:Upon completing Stories of Legend, you are able to access Uncanny Legends which has much more difficult stages and introduces the Relic enemies.]]

** Similarly, the Surge ability on enemies. Enemies with Surge will create a giant [[SplashDamageAbuse wave attack]] a distance away from themselves every time they hit and the ability activates. However, unlike with shockwaves, the surge [[LuckBasedMission appears a random distance away from themselves]], and enemies with the ability usually hit much harder than enemies with shockwaves. A single Surge in the wrong place can spell the end for any cats unlucky enough to be hit, and it's completely out of the player's control to stop it. Units that can NoSell Surges are much rarer than ones with Wave protection, too — and even if they themselves don't die from the Surge, the meatshields surrounding them will, which could make them easy prey for other enemies.

* ScrappyWeapon: The Waterblast cannon for the Cat Base tends to go unused by the vast majority of players. It's an anti-Metal cannon which fires a blast of salt water, damaging Metal enemies by [[PercentDamageAttack a percentage of their current HP]] — starting at 11% at level 1, and going up to a whopping 45% by level 30. The problem? Two words: CripplingOverspecialization. Base materials and helpers are often in short supply, and players will want to invest in other cannons with wider usage, like Iron Wall, Thunderbolt, and Holy Blast, before they even consider a cannon that only works on Metal enemies. Metals also aren't exactly in need of such a powerful weapon to be bearable, since there are plenty of strong non-uber options for damaging them and applying status effects, so it's also far less useful than the similarly-specialized Holy Blast. The base's style is useful, giving resistance to surge attacks, but players will tend to avoid the actual cannon.

** Lasvoss of the Dynamites, despite his somewhat mixed performance in practical combat, sees a lot of popularity in the community due to his ridiculous attack power and ability to OneHitKill even the toughest bosses when everything lines up in his favor.

*** Mola King, from the ''VideoGame/SurviveMolaMola'' collab, is a [[BaseBreakingCharacter divisive]] example. Some consider him to be marginally usable, due to his long range and fast recharge time; other consider him one of the worst cats in the game, due to his [[OneHitPointWonder glass health]] and poor DPS. Either way, he's a MemeticLoser among the fanbase.
*** All of the VideoGame/MetalSlugDefense Ubers are terrible, due to being released early in the game's life and [[CantCatchUp not having true forms]], but the worst of them is HUGE HERMIT. Despite its high DPS, especially against Aliens, it's rendered useless by its poor HP for a tank Uber, slow speed, high cost for what it is, and very short range. It's also not immune to Warp and can't break Barriers, so it struggles to do anything against the starred Aliens that it's supposedly strong against.

** The sound of a CriticalHit going off, a melodic plink that is almost always accompanied by whatever [[MadeOfIron Metal enemy]] you were fighting reeling from severe damage, if not being killed outright.

** For a long time, Oda Nobunaga was among the worst Ubers in the game, to the point of reaching MemeticLoser status. While his ability was incredibly powerful — freezing Black enemies for a long time with each hit, enough to trap ones with few knockbacks in a CycleOfHurting — it was negated by the fact that his other attributes were terrible. His survivability was [[SquishyWizard extremely poor]] due to his moderate HP, poor range for an Uber, and [[ImmuneToFlinching only having one knockback]], and his DPS was laughable compared to most Ubers considering these shortcomings. It got even worse when [[spoiler:Bombercat]] was implemented, which could also permanently freeze Black enemies, but much more easily and reliably, while not being an Uber. While Nobunaga's True Form with Talents still isn't a very good Uber, it's at least much better than he once was — having much better HP and damage, [[LastChanceHitPoint lethal strike survival]] to improve his survivability, and the ability to NoSell Curse to counter Blacks supported by Relics.

** The creators of the gang are often jokingly referred to as "Pornos" due to the large quantity of [[MrsFanservice attractive female characters]], mainly when talking about a large majority of the [[AmazonBrigade Galaxy Gals]].

** The sound of a CriticalHit going off, a melodic plink that is almost always accompanied by whatever [[MadeOfIron Metal enemy]] you were fighting reeling from severe damage, if not being killed outright. Though, if you're fighting R. Ost, it can easily become the DarthWiki/MostAnnoyingSound instead.