YMMV / Criminal Case

• Abandon Shipping:
  • World Edition:
    • While Asal/Jack had its fair share of supporters in spite of their relationship's rocky start, it managed to steadily lost most of them as Asal's hostility towards the Bureau (and, by extension, Jack himself) grew over the course of the season, plus Jack's Manchild tendencies and clear lack of maturity to handle a relationship with her not helping matters. Most people were glad they ended up as Amicable Exes in Asal's last appearance instead of making them hook up again.
    • All the support Angela/Lars possessed was quickly flushed down the drain when Angela was revealed to be part of SOMBRA and thus an enemy of the Bureau. Angela's appearance in the final case, where she escapes prison and returns more evil than ever to the point of wanting to kill everyone in the Bureau and showing no sympathy for Dupont's incoming death, was the last straw for any fans who would've remained out there.
  • Mysteries of the Past: Fans of Diego/Evie quickly dispersed after Evie was revealed to be a lesbian and in love with Katherine.
  • Travel in Time: For those who shipped Jack/Nebet, the reveal that Nebet was Evil All Along and the one responsible for sabotaging the time machine, thus causing the main conflict of the season, was the turning point for most of its supporters.
• Adorkable:
  • Grimsborough:
    • Alex is quite nerdy and excitable when it comes to anything related to technology or geek culture, which many fans find endearing. His rather awkward yet cutesy Ship Tease with Cathy that eventually led to them becoming an Official Couple is just the cherry on top.
    • Ramirez's clumsiness, hilarious fear of the supernatural during the Historical Center district, and fanboyism over meeting his idol Lola Vallez definitely makes him qualify.
  • Pacific Bay: Amy's extreme positivity mixed with her naivete and innocence when it comes to less mature matters can make more than one person think of her this way. Fans were naturally disappointed when her Break the Cutie moments throughout the White Peaks district removed most of these aspects from her personality.
  • World Edition: Dupont always gets excited when he hears the name of a famous landmark or gets requested to analyze something culturally related to the country you're currently in, and happily tells the player and/or the rest of the Bureau everything he knows about them, much to their chagrin.
  • Mysteries of the Past:
    • Charlie's a little childish, and shows awkward jealousy when he thinks Madeline (whom he clearly has a crush on) might be dating someone, but the way his eyes shine when he's feeling excited about anything technologically-related is quite a sight.
    • Evie's a Bookworm who everyone else in the team seems as harmless, likes to go on lengthy explanations about random cultural facts like Dupont above, and her awkward Crush Blush moments with Katherine are absolutely adorable.
• Anti-Climax Boss: A handful of the series' Big Bads are brought down rather easily without causing much collateral damage during the cases where they're defeated. While some of them manage to alleviate this by not being the Final Bosses of their respective seasons and having another threat show up for the Season Finale (Sarah Bennett for Hector Montoya in World Edition, Otto Kessel for Denise Daniels in The Conspiracy), others get no such luck, leaving the season end on a rather anti-climatic note.
  • Grimsborough: Milton Grimmes, the leader of the Ancient Conspiracy that's been controlling Grimsborough for many centuries, gets defeated by merely being smacked in the head with a frying pan of all things after Ramirez sneaks up on him. You'd think such a cunning mastermind would have a few henchmen nearby just in case the police department decided come to arrest him, but instead the leader decides to confront them all by himself.
  • Supernatural Investigations: The Demon Queen, despite being a malevolent force of world-ending proportions with a massive army of followers behind her, gets slain relatively easily by Hope after a rather short fight, with her army soon dying off with her.
  • City of Romance: Eleonora Macaron, who serves as the Final Boss of both the season and the franchise, is simply arrested for murdering the final victim of the season without much fanfare, not even having chance to execute her plan of taking over Paris (which itself is a rather anti-climatic Evil Plan after what previous main villains managed to accomplish) before getting stopped without much of a fight.
• Archive Panic: Good luck if you've just recently started to play the game. For the first five seasons, the total cases for each one range from 56 to 60. Not to mention each case (except Grimsborough's Case #1 without the Additional Investigation) may need a few days to complete, unless you speed things up using cash. It gets better since Season 6, when the total number of cases have been halved.
• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • The killer in "An Elementary Murder". Was Jenny Honeycomb really telling the truth about Irina's murder being a threat gone wrong, or was she lying, it being premeditated?
  • The killer in "Murder By Proxy". While still sympathetic either way, did Christy Mathis really kill Adam to stop him from raping any more women, or was it more of a personal vendetta?
  • Maybe Nefertiti's Heel–Face Turn started when she asked the player to frame Ravi for the murder of her father, hoping to end the Ptolemy Dynasty from the inside?
• Ass Pull: The game often introduces big twists for the arc climax or finale, only for The Reveal to fall flat due to its complete lack of foreshadowing and how jarring they are.
  • The final case of Ivywood Hills reveals that Holly Hopper's apparent suicide in the previous case was fake. Some people found the revelation to be nonsensical and unnecessary. The fact that this reveal also comes with another huge reveal that Holly is the Utopian's leader (many fans were expecting Jupiter Crane to be the leader, as this would have given the entire conflict a more dramatic weight, due to his history with Russell) might have something to do with the backlash as well.
  • Case 30 of Supernatural Investigations reveals that FBI agent and ally George Mathison, who started off as a character trying to disprove the supernatural and blame the team for meddling in their affairs, is actually a demon sent to infiltrate the FBI and capture Arthur. Many fans were not impressed, believing it takes away from his Character Development, had no foreshadowing unlike most other demons, and ends up being for naught, since George dies with the rest of the demons in the end.
• Awesome Music: For a game series with only 17 soundtracks in its entire repertory, some of them still manage to be quite catchy and epic in their own way, with the following deserving special mention:
  • The Arrest Killer Theme (which is shared among all games), a tense and dreadful piece that plays whenever you are about to put the handcuffs on the case's killer. Specially satisfying to hear it in the final case of a district, as you're most likely to be putting an end to the plans of the Arc Villain / Big Bad right there.
  • The Pacific Bay Menu Theme, which sounds as relaxing as a game full of murder allows, perfectly captures the chill atmosphere of Pacific Bay compared to Grimsborough.
  • There's also the Pacific Bay Crime Scene Theme, a slow ballad with guitar riffs that manages to create an atmospheric and melancholic theme without discarding the chillness that characterizes Pacific Bay.
  • Save the World Menu Theme sounds much more serious than any previous (or following, for that matter) menu themes in the series, showcasing the Darker and Edgier aspect of the season. At the same time, though, it also manages to sound epic and triumphant, encouraging you to keep going and put an end to the global threat that is SOMBRA.
  • As soon as you hear The Conspiracy Menu Theme, you KNOW shit's about to go down on your return to Grimsborough, which somehow has gone From Bad to Worse during your absence. Are you up for the challenge?
  • Travel in Time Menu Theme has an unique and mystic feeling that prepares you for what's possible the biggest challenge you'll ever face in Criminal Case.
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Amy Young. While some fans love her bubbly personality and her well-written Story Arc from White Peaks, others are put off by her naivete at the beginning, and when she started acting more rude and impatient after White Peaks, she isn't called out on it or given any comeuppance like Frank always gets, which annoyed even more fans (especially those who preferred Frank).
  • Jack Archer. He was a popular character at the start of World Edition, but as time went on, his immature side started to show. While many fans still like him, others find his overly whiny behavior annoying, particularly in the Africa finale, and tend to prefer Carmen Martinez as a partner.
  • Asal Hawaa has become this, even moreso than Jack. After breaking up with Jack, she becomes a massive Smug Snake and not only treats Jack like an idiot, but taunts the player about the Bureau's failures after the events of Africa. Some find this to make her a more interesting character, while others are put off by her smugness.
  • Justin Lawson after his Face–Heel Turn. Many fans embrace his new role as a genuinely sympathetic and complex villain, who—unlike the rest of the game's Big Bads—isn't simply a power-hungry antagonist with a god-complex. However, many others bemoan his development as out-of-character.
  • Joe Warren becomes this after Case 48 of The Conspiracy, mainly because fans were split about whether having yet another corrupt mayor as a major antagonist was an interesting twist, or something that was getting old at this point. However, this becomes rectified with Joe being the Ad Astran who shows the most remorse for his actions, and players were genuinely saddened by his death at the end of the season.
  • Zoe Kusama. Some fans enjoy her subplot revolving DreamLife and her relationship with Jones, as well as her being a very sympathetic character, even after being arrested later for murder.. Other fans dislike her and feel that her character solely exists to make Jones Prone to Tears, with several of Jones' traumatic experiences during the season being linked to her disappearance and eventual death, and feel that her sympathetic quantities come off as forced.
  • George Mathison becomes this in Case 30 of Supernatural Investigation. Some fans are okay with the twist that he is actually a demon spy, as supposed allies who actually working with the season's Big Bad is not something new. Others dislike it because his twist arrives too late and that there is little to no foreshadowing about it, making it come off as an Ass Pull.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment:
  • World Edition:
    • In Case 47's AI, Jack and Michelle accidentally drink some hallucinogen and spend the afternoon acting hilariously weird from the high. It comes out of nowhere and after a few mentions directly afterward, it's put behind them after Lars promises it won't happen again.
    • Case 50's AI has Lars looking for a missing Jack, only to discover that he was dared to dress up as a pretty girl by Chockas D. Lux. This has nothing to do with the rest of the case, and at Jack's urging, is never mentioned again.
• Broken Base:
  • When the number of points required to earn stars was decreased drastically (roughly by 80%). Some viewed it as a way to make the game more appealing to casual players who'd lose interest playing the same scene a dozen times. Others viewed it as a way to rush people through the game to make sure they'd always be waiting on a lab and be more likely to spend money.
  • On the subject of police pets, some people love the non-dog animals. Others think the non-dogs are cartoony and obnoxious and that it should have been kept strictly dogs.
  • A lot of Amy Young's Break the Cutie moments in Pacific Bay. Fans either endlessly pity her or think that it's just overkill. Her new attitude doesn't help her case on either end.
  • At the end of the Sahara Region, the revelation that Chief Ripley faked her death has been met with mixed opinions, especially throughout the Eurasia region. While some fans are happy that she's alive, others complain about her fiery attitude and constant scolding of the player to find SOMBRA, despite them finding several good clues that would help figure out SOMBRA's identity, even wishing that her death would've been real.
  • The opinions on Case 42 in World Edition. It's one of the most dramatic cases of the season, and while the plot and drama itself had been well-received, some fans dislike the case because of Michelle's needlessly nasty interrogations, and the fact that Lars and Angela will be separated due to Angela being SOMBRA's mole.
  • Season 6 being based on Time Travel. Some fans feel that it's too unrealistic for the game, which is usually down-to-earth, and would have preferred a revisit of Pacific Bay (this appears to have been rectified somewhat with Amy reappearing), while many enjoy the premise and Amy, Jack and Marina's reappearances.
  • While it is generally regarded positively, Supernatural Investigation has created a divide among the fandom.
    • The storyline of the season. Supporters feel that the plot development is an improvement over Travel in Time, with the season building on the demon's lore and the effective use of Foreshadowing. Detractors feel that the plotline is too fast-paced, relies on shock value in the case of revealing who is a demon, and that the demons have no other factors than being completely evil.
    • How the season ended is a major point of contention. A lot of fans are okay with how it concluded, and it helps that no one on our team died this season. Some fans, though, feel like it was very rushed, with The Demon Queen being an Anti-Climax Boss that was easily defeated by Hope and unsatisfying endings for certain characters such as Chief Arrow being Easily Forgiven for nearly destroying the world, George Mathison being killed off right after we discovered he was a demon and Arthur's death being glossed over in spite of how much of a key player he had been this season.
• Captain Obvious Reveal:
  • Most fans were not surprised about the revelation that Duncan Young is the Night Walker, given he appears in every White Peaks case and happens to become a suspect in the final one. Many were not actually happy about it, though, and would have preferred it to be anyone else.
  • Nebet turning out to be the saboteur's accomplice is treated as a major shock to the team. Ignoring that the third district's chapter art presents her as Judas in "The Last Supper", she appears in the second case not shortly after the time machine is sabotaged and gets taken away straight after the team is arrested in the Altered Present. Though what is a surprise is the extent of her villainy and the impact it leaves on the team.
  • Hope being Rathimael's fifth key to the demon queen's cage, due to Hope mentioning her guardian being dead early in the season, her asking Santa Claus who her parents are, and the fact that her age happens to be the season's Arc Number, 25.
• Complete Monster: Solomon Grimmes; Hector Montoya; Ayush Patil; Denise Daniels; & Dr. Lucrezia Stein. See those pages for details.
• Draco in Leather Pants: Serial killers Tess Goodwin and Duncan Young are very popular with fans despite their lack of remorse for their victims. Tess ends up murdered in the second to last case of Grimsborough, upping her to martyrdom for her fans.
  • Meera Kat is an attractive artist whose eccentric character is liked by some fans, in spite of the fact that she's a sociopath who completely ignores people's wellbeing for the sake of art.
• Enjoy the Story, Skip the Game: Although the game being a Hidden Object Game which requires waiting for energy and tasks to be completed is a deterrent for most players, the stories of each season are generally considered to be compelling and well-written.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Eduardo Ramirez, the Butt-Monkey of a Grimsborough PD officer whose role in many of the initial cases is meager at best, and mostly appears to become the brunt of jokes. He is also one of the most popular characters in the game, so much so that he was brought back in the Pacific Bay arc as a private detective (and he is the first Grimsborough character to make an appearance in the new city).
  • Sandeep Sadhra, a happy-go-lucky tuk-tuk driver who is always nice to the player and doesn't hold grudges against anyone who's wronged him. He's very well liked to the point that fans were upset when he was brutally killed off in the district finale.
  • Elliot Clayton, the Bureau's tech expert, was one of the more popular Bureau members when first introduced due to his character design and concept. His appearances in World Edition are mostly limited to analyses and cameos, but his popularity with fans only increased as he was revealed to be a Defrosting Ice King with Hidden Depths.
  • Michelle Zuria was only important for two arcs dying unceremoniously at the last one, and a supplementary character for a third. But she was well liked among fans for her personality and Story Arc. She won the Criminal Case Wiki's "Best Female Character of the Year" award by double the amount of votes that second place Asal received.
  • Julian Ramis and his father, Edward, gained quite a following amongst fans even before they returned in The Conspiracy. Julian in particular was remembered for being the only child to have been arrested for murder, and Edward was well liked for being one of the very few decent parents in the series. This may have prompted their return in The Conspiracy, where they play a major role in the first district finale, and the game even goes out of its way to ensure Julian has a happy ending.
  • The members of the Resistance against the Ptolemy dynasty are very popular among fans, particularly Isabelle, Sirius, and Ravi. Sirius gets extra points for being Orlando's long-lost husband and fleshing out the latter's personality, while Ravi is liked for his good looks and refusing to betray the team and resistance even when the opportunity arose. Many fans believe that they deserved more screentime than what they got in the Altered Present.
  • Travel in Time's depiction of Mary Read is well-liked by fans as well, given her headstrong but genuinely sweet nature and the fact that she saves the team from being killed by Ammon Bast.
  • In Supernatural Investigations, Arthur Darkwood and Zander Stark both were well-liked by fans for their character designs. Later on, Zander gained popularity for helping Priya come to terms with her condition and having Ship Tease with her, and Arthur for not only his cool-looking demon form, but also for protecting the team and saving them from Zeke Davis. Besides them, a lot of the recurring Supernatural characters are also very popular with fans in spite of their relative lack of appearances. Notably, there's Fabien de la Mort for his theatrics and hidden caring nature which ends up helping to save the Earth in the second-to-last case, Avery Mitchell for her heartwarming friendship with the team, and Bathsheba for her hilarious antics.
• Evil Is Cool: The five members of the original Ad Astra in The Conspiracy are often lauded as some of, if not the best villains in the whole series, being a group of very threatening individuals with distinctive personalities and motivations that don't cross into the Generic Doomsday Villain territory like most previous main antagonists do, to the point they're shown to genuinely care about each other in spite of how evil they manage to be. The fact they significantly appear throughout the whole game (as opposed to most villains in the series who only show up during their respective Story Arc), making them a looming danger long before you learn of their existence and a source of Paranoia Fuel during the districts they start taking the spotlight, certainly does help. While some of the members are more popular than others (with Rozetta Pierre and Joe Warren generally being the fan-favorites, Louis Leroux and Julia Brine the least liked, and Christian Bateman falling somewhere around the middle), the group as a whole is definitely among the most popular antagonistic factions in the series for how threatening and surprisingly well-developed they are.
• Fan-Disliked Explanation: Fans of Supernatural Investigations prefer to forget about George Mathison really being a demon in the final case, feeling that the revelation is an Ass Pull that ends up being for naught since all the demons are killed off in the end.
• Fan-Preferred Couple: Carrie/Enzo is probably the least popular of all the series' official couples due to the rocky start of their relationship and the rushed season resulting in an underbaked chemistry and an overall implausible romantic progression between the two. A number of fans prefer to see her get together with Emile instead.
• Genius Bonus: The space-obsessed astronaut wannabe, Yelena Tereshkova, has her name based on the first woman in space Valentina Tereshkova. It makes her obsession a little more understandable.
• Growing the Beard:
  • The second half of Pacific Bay was notable for having intriguing character arcs and interesting stories within each district, as well as delving into Frank's difficult past.
  • When World Edition came after Pacific Bay, it brought with it a suspenseful plot that spans the entire season, and goes into the bonds the main characters have with each other as well as their personalities.
  • The Conspiracy has shaped up to be this towards both Grimsborough and World Edition, due to developing many of Season 1's popular characters, the game delving into darker themes such as experimentation and mental illness, and the slower development of Dream Life as the season villains, rather than being revealed early on much like SOMBRA, or too late like the Crimson Order.
  • During Travel in Time, the team goes from correcting minor alterations in history to being stranded in a changing timeline, then coming back to an alternate present and being forced to travel back in time again to set things right. Not only does this season bring back three main characters from previous seasons and give new insight to their personalities, but the new team members this season are still very likeable in spite of how faster-paced this season is compared to previous ones. Furthermore, this season is quite blunt about how harsh reality is and how the smallest actions have consequences, and often weaves that into the storyline, and the amount of suspense and high stakes in this season can rival that of The Conspiracy.
• Heartwarming in Hindsight: Even if there's no transition between Mysteries of the Past and The Conspiracy, it can be chalked up to the Player Character, after saving the world, just wants to essentially go home, to where they started their whole career: Grimsborough.
  • In Season 7, while Arthur looks out for all the Supernatural Hunters, he has come to Hope's aid quite a few times. This becomes more poignant once it's revealed that Hope is the child of Rathimael, Arthur's deceased friend he never got to reconnect with.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: When Jones first hears about the Crimson Order, he doesn't buy it and remarks "What next? Aliens run the world?" Later on in Pacific Bay, there are aliens disguised as humans living in Rhine Canyon.
• Ho Yay:
  • The interactions between Elliot and Benjamin Scott are interpreted as this by some fans. Elliot is very eager to meet Benjamin during his first appearance, and his interactions with the latter are the first time he shows his true nature. Benjamin, who acts stuck-up and spoiled around the adult characters, tends to be much nicer when talking to Elliot. When it's revealed that Benjamin ran away to the Sahara to escape his clingy (but loving) parents, Elliot spends his next two AI appearances trying to convince him to go home to safety. In the final case of the Sahara, when Elliot finds footage of Benjamin acting like an extremist, he becomes saddened and calls it "a new low", even for that investigation. Later on, he manages to comfort Benjamin when he is ashamed for all the bad decisions he made in the Sahara. When he tells Benjamin to remember the good parts of his adventure, one of the things included in that list was "met a tech genius."
  • Some fans see Jack and Lars' close bond as a basis for shipping them. Indeed, Jack seem to act as Lars's primary emotional support, and could talk sense to the latter in ways that his own wife, Angela, can't. Exemplified further when Angela is revealed to be the SOMBRA mole, and Jack is the only reason Lars hasn't been Driven to Suicide yet. The South American region in particular puts a heavy emphasis on their bond, and in Case 47, Jack gets high and hallucinates about feeling cozy in Lars's arms. In North America, the other Bureau members (and Asal) all support the idea of the two being together.
• It's Short, So It Sucks!: A common complaint about City of Romance is that the season being cut down to 17 cases meant that there was little time to develop the plotline further, thus resulting in Cody and Eleonora's arc being cut down, Lea Bonnet's introduction becoming an Aborted Arc, and Antoine murdered in the penultimate case despite being the primary Big Bad.
• Karmic Overkill: In Rhine Canyon's final case, Jarvis Donne is arrested for the murder of Randolph. However, the killer claims that they didn't kill the victim, they merely cut open their human suit in order to help them back to their own planet. While this may sound like a lunatic raving, this turns out to be true, and Randolph is really alive and well. This means that Jarvis went to jail for no reason (since he never actually killed anyone), but the game never acknowledges this and promptly forgets about him after Randolph leaves earth.
• Magnificent Bastard: Grimsborough's "The Ghost of Grimsborough": Patrick Rufio is a wealthy man on the verge of bankruptcy who hires artist Wilhelm Moss to create a portrait of the Mad Pilgrim, supposedly cursed to kill whoever tries to paint him. Patrick sends letters claiming to be the Mad Pilgrim to fool Moss, then kills him in his art room to blame the curse and inflate the value of Moss' painting. When the police arrive, Patrick's method of killing stumps them and shows his skills brushing a suspiciously buried logbook and pulls a prank to scare the GBPD without being caught. When found out, Patrick shows respect to the player, admits his plan to sell the copy as the original to make a fortune and calmly accepts his life sentence, calling it a fair trade for the creation of a masterpiece.
• Memetic Badass:
  • Many fans apparently see Honorable Dante as the most badass characters among the cast, even though he only appears at the end of each case and never participates in any of the action scenes.
  • Despite his status as The Bore, Dupont was voted as the Most Heroic Character of 2016 as opposed to someone like Jonah.
• Moral Event Horizon: See the subpage here.
• One-Scene Wonder: Vanna Alabama appeared as a suspect for only one case in World Edition (and made a minor appearance near the end of the season), but her entire appearance is so over-the-top that it's hard to forget.
• Paranoia Fuel: The entire Ad Astra arc in The Conspiracy. Not only are the villains clearly in plain sight, but they're also people who might not seem like they're part of it at all, just like the mayor of the city, or a psychotic serial killer. In addition, while SOMBRA's presence is stated at the beginning of World Edition, Ad Astra's build-up only happens after Case 38.
  • In Supernatural Investigations, the existence of demons provides plenty of this trope, as said demons can disguise themselves as normal humans and go unnoticed for years (often managing to disguise themselves as seemingly innocuous individuals such as an author and an environmental activist), and many don't have good intentions. Also, they all have the ability to read minds.
• Player Punch: Considering how bubbly and innocent Nebet is, her being kidnapped in Case 16 and The Reveal that she is the one behind the sabotage in Travel in Time.
• Portmanteau Couple Name:
  • RussAmy for the ever-popular Russell/Amy, while MariJack for Marina/Jack seem to have popped up occasionally in the wikia page. JoRina has also been used for the Jonah/Marina ship.
  • Funnily enough, Jack/Lars is called either "Jars" or "Lack".
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap:
  • While not outright hated, Jack was a very divisive character, with several fans finding him annoying. However, in the Americas he undergoes some major Character Development due to his close bond with Lars, and developing strong friendships with Jonah and Michelle (both of whom he previously disliked). It helps that in North America, he's more mature when he acts as the player's partner. Travel in Time does this even further, showing that while he's still quite the joker, he is much more mellow due to age and not nearly as immature or obnoxious as he was for most of Season 3, making him a well-loved character by fans again.
  • Likewise, Travel in Time does this for Amy, who was also very divisive for the latter half of Pacific Bay for both Frank fans and fans who felt her Character Development was too forced. This season shows that she matured as much as Jack did, and while her leadership skills are still being built, she is no longer naïve and is a Reasonable Authority Figure who keeps a cool head even if the other team members can't. This makes her more enjoyable to many fans and cements that her development in Season 2 stuck around.
  • In Supernatural Investigations, FBI Agent George Mathison was widely disliked by fans after his first appearance, and his next few appearances were met with disdain by them due to him accusing the team of criminal activity at every turn. After he sees the truth about the Supernatural Hunters' duties, he apologizes to the player in Case 10 and stops hunting after them, which led fans to forgive him for his earlier actions. By Case 12, he willingly lends the team a hand in the investigation, which caused his former detractors to warm up to him.
• The Scrappy: Justine Bankston, Gwen's second fling, got this from people who felt that she was nowhere near as compelling as Pierce Cromwell. This is in large part of the fact that she ends up being one of Abigail Riley's victims due to her involvement in her death, despite her remorse over the demonic ritual, which results in Gwen swiftly dumping her. And unlike Pierce, Justine doesn't reappear after the finale of the Southwest.
• Scrappy Mechanic:
  • The "Scrapbook" system, where players can unlock random pictures/screenshots/thumbnails from previous cases by obtaining "sticker packets" were very poorly received by fans. The feature isn't so bad in and of itself, but a major point of complaint was the fact that these sticker packets replaced the energy bonuses that the player can "buy" using stars (so instead of trading your remaining stars for orange juice, chips, or burgers, you can only use them to buy 20 energy, cash, or sticker packs instead). Another complaint about the scrapbook is that players receive no rewards from completed sets, rendering the system useless.
  • Changes to the playing card system. The original system granted allowed the player to distribute a random playing card once a day to every friend, and, once a royal flush was collected, the hand could be turned in for a prize (a bag of chips for hearts, an orange juice for spades, 20 experience for diamonds, or cash for clubs). The new system keeps the experience, but instead gives the player a free cash-purchasable boost for the other suits. Given that boosts are used immediately when purchased, this was seen as unnecessary and aggravating.
  • The release of separate apps for each season after all of its cases are released becomes this when players still on the first season are unable to progress to the next season naturally, having to download separate apps to progress their game instead. This frustrates those who want to follow through the storyline and/or keep their current levels, coins, and pets as they move on.
• Ships That Pass in the Night: When the Pacific Bay team was first introduced, Amy was frequently shipped with Jones, whom she never interacts with due to them coming from different districts. Of course, when Russell makes his appearance later on, people began shipping her with him instead.
• Shocking Moments:
  • It All Ends Here (Case 51 of Grimsborough) rocks the Grimsborough Police Department in an unexpected way. A wannabe socialite named Adam Bentley is found murdered, execution style, with a gunshot wound to the head. The murder weapon was provided by the incarcerated Tony Marconi but the killer is none other than Chief Samuel King. King was ordered to execute Bentley under the orders of The Crimson Order and when apprehended, he explains his motives to Jones and the player. With tears in his eyes, he takes his own life to try and protect his granddaughter since he couldn't protect his wife.
  • When Chief Marquez is accused of being Colonel Spangler's killer. She's innocent, thankfully, but a lot of people didn't see that coming including the team.
  • A Killer Among Us (Case 56 of Pacific Bay) features a plot twist similiar to Grimsborough's "It All Ends Here". Four of the five suspects in the murder of Danny Moto are all members of the Pacific Bay Police Department and the fifth is Karen Knight. The killer is revealed to be none other than Frank Knight, who was actually warming up to the player as a friend and a partner. He killed Danny to stop him from revealing his role in the heist. While he's willing to accept the consequences for his actions, Karen puts a gun to Chief Andrea Marquez's head and demands that Frank be let go. The Chief, not wanting anyone to be hurt, agrees and they escape the courthouse to head to The Wastes. It's also revealed that Karen herself was the sixth person in the Paradise City heist.
  • The Impossible Dream (Case 6 of World Edition) has the player saving the day yet again by stopping the Promethians from seizing control of Europe. When the team's celebrating their victory though, the Chief is suddenly shot and killed with a poison dart, prompting the team to fly to Africa to find her killer.
  • In Plain Sight (Case 42 of World Edition) is the case where a mole in the Bureau finally steps up and commits a murder. While fans have been guessing the identity of the mole since the secret was out (with most people predicting Ingrid or Jack), the real shock was the mole turning out to be Angela, who was not only the Bureau's kindest member, but wasn't a suspect in the first chapter of the case due to needing to perform Lavinia's autopsy. The fact that she's Happily Married with 3 children also makes her Beneath Suspicion to many viewers, prior to the reveal.
  • The teaser for The King's Shadow (Case 48) didn't reveal who the victim was, which had many fans guessing prior to the case's release. What no one had expected was for Michelle to be killed off so abruptly, especially since she had been starting to find her place within the Bureau.
  • The teaser for Case 52 also confused several fans. The victim is well-hidden from view, and due to how the last case ended, many players believed the victim to be Jack Archer himself. The description for that case didn't help matters, since it hinted that the majority of the case would be spent protecting a Unified Nations Ambassador from harm. Then the case is actually released, and it quickly escalates by having Jack be wounded by the killer, then the UN Ambassador is killed and becomes the case's victim.
  • While Head Case (Case 52 from The Conspiracy) was a shocker due to how the last case was left off, it was the ending of Chapter 3 that left everyone without words. For starters, we find out that Louis Leroux, the person who asked the Force to search for his friend Zoe in the first place, was the killer of this case. And to make things even worse, after the killer's sentence, we find a very depressed Jones, who couldn't participate in the case due to grief, telling us goodbye, to then start swallowing a whole bottle of sedatives, attempting suicide., ending the chapter on that cliffhanger. In fact, we start the Additional Chapter right after that event, and it becomes one of the main side events from that chapter.
• Squick:
  • When Lars triggers his peanut allergy in Case 41, his face is shown to be massively swollen, to Carmen's horror.
  • Case 48 reveals that Michelle had been lusted after by Ignacio Munoz, a creepy Antiquarian much older than she was. Not only did he stalk her since the Bureau left Argentina, but he himself admits to having sick fantasies about being with her. Elliot and Carmen are disgusted when they find out.
• That One Achievement: Crossing over with Last Lousy Point, we have "Alpha Omega." The requirements—"Find all items in alphabetical order in a scene"—doesn't seem that hard on the surface. Trouble is, the objects themselves have to appear in alphabetical order for the achievement to count. For example: Say you're given the initial list "Apple," "cat," "diamond," and "elephant." You find them in the right order...but then the item that shows up to replace "elephant" is "baseball." That immediately negates your progress, because simply finding the objects alphabetically in the order they're presented to you isn't enough; the game has to give you the items in the right sequence to begin with. In other words, it's the only Luck-Based Mission in the entire game.
  • Compounding the issue is the fact that progressing through each scene makes the achievement harder to earn; each time you gain a star on a level, the number of objects you have to find increases by one.
    • Except in Travel in Time, when you first play a scene you only have to find six objects (Travel in Time always needs you to find at least eight objects). So it's best to do it on your first two attempts at a scene, before you earn the first star.
  • The achievements that require you to have a Facebook connection lean toward this, but at least they have no basis in skill or luck, which makes it a little easier to swallow not earning them.
• That One Level: Difference Bonus scenes are not very popular or easy to play. Double-vision, the tendency to change which part of the scene you'll be playing, not to mention removing actual search items that could potentially be confused for the "differences" are some of its major problems.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Many fans were disappointed that Roxie never got her own character arc in Pacific Bay, especially when every other member of the PBPD are given individual character arcs. Paradise City was a very good opportunity for her to finally get into the limelight, especially since she seemed very familiar with the district and her affair with the heist leader, Louis de Rico, could potentially add her character depth, but no such thing ever happened.
  • Lily Karam, Jonah's half-sister, was introduced as a suspect in Chapter 41. And though she wasn't the murderer, she was certainly behaving suspiciously, even after being cleared of the charges. Her remark that she's planning to leave for Brazil seem to indicate that she's going to play a major role in future events. But when the player did finally arrive in Brazil, not only was Lily nowhere to be seen, she was never even mentioned again since. She did end up appearing in Season 7, but she doesn't recognize the player at all.
  • Jack is the only Bureau member whose past profession is unknown, but other than a few small mentions, nothing is ever revealed about his past, and he only has pure intentions throughout the series, which disappointed some fans. Not helping matters is the Ship Tease between him and Lars after Angela's arrest, which didn't have much of a resolution by the end of the season and isn't expanded on during Travel In Time.
  • Elliot had a lot of potential as a main character, since he was shown slowly warming up to the rest of the team and implied that he came from a rich, neglectful family. But other than some character development and being held hostage in Case 32, he only gets some small cameos outside of analyses, and some of his fans are disappointed that his past wasn't explored more. Even the aforementioned hostage situation was forgotten about shortly after it happened.
  • A few fans feel that Marina becomes this in Travel In Time, having less analyses in comparison to World Edition and only really having a prominent role in The '60s. Not helping is that Marina's only Additional Investigations role is during the final case.
  • Quite a few characters got this reaction from fans in the finale of Supernatural Investigations, including George Mathison, Chief Arrow, Arthur Darkwood and The Demon Queen. Many agreed that their last appearances could've been handled better.
  • Some fans feel this way about Luke, who has a rough family history and issues with Fabien de la Mort as well as being the youngest and most inexperienced of the Supernatural Hunters. While any of those things could've provided him with some Character Development like the rest of the team, they aren't expanded on, and while he's still enjoyable, he remains underdeveloped compared to characters like Gwen, Priya, and Hope.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • With the reveal of Frank's ex-wife in Innovation Valley, there was a huge potential for more Character Development in Frank similar to the other team members. Instead, Frank is rarely seen and shoved aside except when Amy is infected with nanobots from the district villain, the robot Aphro-Dyte. Even fans of Amy weren't happy to have her for more than two cases in a row.
  • Not to mention that the Big Bad of Innovation Valley was a robot who had been seen in one previous case rather than one of the programmers, the anti-robot league, the ambassador of a dictatorship nation, or Karen Knight.
  • Many players were hoping to reunite with some of their former teammates from Grimsborough and Pacific Bay when they reached the US region in Season 3. Apart from Grace, no such thing happened.
  • El Rey ominously telling the Bureau that his successor is someone that the Bureau knows and met before. The second El Rey is revealed to be Hector Montoya, a suspect in only one other prior case. Had it been other returning characters (as the North America arc, much like previous final arcs of each season, had aplenty of them), then maybe the first El Rey's warnings wouldn't have been so anticlimactic.
  • It wasn't explained why the time traveling team needed to bring the Player Character from 2019 to 2029, instead of hiring him/her in 2029. Some players pointed out this could imply the PC becoming evil, or dying or retiring by 2029, but such a plot point never surfaced.
  • The Supernatural Alliance, who were meeting together to stop the Evil Demons from taking over the Earth. They play an important role in Case 29, and in spite of being able to potentially aid the Hunters in stopping the Demon invasion, they're never mentioned again.
• Unexpected Character:
  • Pacific Bay: After being sentenced with a life imprisonment without a possibility of parole, you'd think that Alden Greene would finally disappear for good, especially since this is not the first time he managed to bail out from prison. But no, he had to come all the way from Grimsborough to once again disrupt the player character's life.
  • The Conspiracy has Celine Dernier, Ernest Emerson and Shweta Noorani as returning characters. They're all suspects who only appeared in one case and didn't play too big of a role with the exception of Shweta, but their reapparances have them as a victim, a killer, and a major Arc Villain respectively.
  • Case 6 of Travel in Time gives us a much younger version of Ian Devine, who had only previously appeared in Case 3 of the Conspiracy as the case's victim.
  • Supernatural Investigations has quite a few of these:
  • Case 12 has the sudden appearances of Lily Karam and Maylin Park from World Edition and The Conspiracy, respectively. Not only had they been relatively minor characters in their seasons' plots, but they don't seem to recognize the player character when they're interrogated by them. Two cases later, Fabian Roland-Tavin, another minor character from The Conspiracy, also returns.
  • Case 18 has Ace Boone return, where its revealed that he's really Cupid.
  • Case 22 has an older version of FBI agent Bucky Johnson, who was a recurring character in The '60s in Travel In Time, return. However, he gets Killed Off for Real in Case 27.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: In the finale of Supernatural Investigations, Jacob defects to the Demon Queen under the illusion that his wife Lily, whose body the queen is trapped in, still lives inside her. After the Queen's demise, Jacob is Easily Forgiven by the team after he apologises for his actions, despite handing Arthur's blood to the Queen, nearly resulting in her plans working. Many fans felt that Jacob should have, at least, been called out for his actions.