YMMV / Nightshade (2003)

• Fridge Brilliance: Of course Hisui has the slowest attack speed, because her weapon is a giant umbrella!
• Fridge Logic: You are in a quest to, among other things, collect the various pieces of the cursed sword Akujiki. The first cutscene with Onibi in level 5 shows that the purple containers that recharge your special attack ingame actually contain about 3-inch-long shards of the cursed sword. You collect somewhere around a dozen. Per level. Just how Goddamn big is it?
• Harsher in Hindsight: Jimushi being killed by Kurohagane right before he can give Akujiki to Hibana after revealing the government's true intentions would hit harder for Metroid players 18 years later when Quiet Robe is gunned down by a Robot Chozo Solider on Raven Beak's orders just before they can help Samus escape ZDR without having to fight the remaining E.M.M.I.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Onibi's characteristics and design almost look similar to another villain in a game released 8 years after Nightshade.
• That One Level: Golden Palace. Hibana can double-jump and air-dash once each before needing to land, unless she manages to kill an enemy in mid-air. Golden Palace is the first level where this is required to navigate across a bottomless pit, which demands quick reflexes and pinpoint accuracy. This ends up presenting the game's primary Scrappy Mechanic: "Tate pits" will likely be the players' main source of game overs, as tate chains have a tendency to randomly end halfway through the run of enemies.
  • Stage 6 - The Truck Chase: You're chasing down a truck, and to do so must hop across the tops of many other trucks. The ground is functionally a bottomless pit, meaning instant death upon touching. As stated above, you can double jump and air-dash ONCE. A way around this limitation is when enemies are nearby, and you can lock onto one and attacking in mid air will air-dash multiple times, allowing quick coverage of distance. Problem is the lock-on is persistent when activated (not a held button like other games), and can really screw you up when you're mid jump, changing your direction, leading to your death. The game forces you to jump truck to truck by having random fireworks be fired at you, setting the trucks ablaze. Also despite the trucks having flat rectangular designs, you can't latch onto the sides for wall running (even though other trucks appear that can only be traversed through wall running), and the game doesn't feature any kind of "edge catch" mechanic like many games before.
• That One Sidequest: Unlocking Hotsuma from Shinobi (2002), complete with Akujiki draining his health just like in that game in exchange for even more efficient killing than Hibana. In a double-whammy on the trope, the unlock requires beating the game in Normal and beating Shinobi as well, which is so hard a task that you're basically only ever getting Hotsuma without a Gameshark or downloaded save if you crave the challenge of these games.