YMMV / Rakenzarn Tales

• Adorkable: Kyros is just so endearing and a goofball, you can't help but smile. His facial expressions definitely help.
• Audience-Alienating Premise: The game isn't NSFW, but having a bind-gagging kink (with one of the crossovers based on said kink) turns off some people from playing.
• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • In Chapter 9, Markus' reasoning for having his guild take credit for saving the region and framing the Nutsy Guild is that if the independent guilds start getting too popular, people will lose faith in the Knights and official guilds and that would be bad. Is he really sincere in his rhetoric, making him a (admittedly very unsympathetic) Well-Intentioned Extremist? Or is he nothing more than a lying Glory Hound, giving a not sincere justification to make him look good? Although, given what the Morning Glory Guild is, the second interpretation is more likely.
  • One for Samuel. If you choose to save him in front of the Lost Tower in the climax of Chapter 8 and then confronts the Morning Glory Guild in Chapter 9, Samuel will hesitate a brief moment when he sees Kyuu, before insulting him in typical Ungrateful Bastard fashion. However, does his brief moment of hesitation show that, deep down inside, he has been moved by Kyuu's choice to save him, but ultimately decided to not show it because of their rivalry? This could mean that the guy could still be somewhat redeemable. Or is he nothing but a Jerk with a Heart of Jerk all the way through?
• Awesome Music: The boss themes are pretty good choices and fit the game well. Special note to the Ultra Boss theme, Chef Antoine's theme from Dead Rising 2.
• Breather Boss: The Pelidah in Chapter 6, coming after Naneal and the Shadow Wind. It's both statistically weaker and vulnerable to fire, a very common element.
• Complacent Gaming Syndrome: With such a large cast, it's very easy to just find a team that suits your needs and stick with it to save on cash for gear upgrading, only switching out to meet Ultra Boss conditions. Common contenders are Dark Magician Girl, Donald, Axel, Cain and Kanon. Later updates have attempted to resolve this with skill cooldowns, more specialized party members and mid-combat party swapping.
• Crazy Is Cool: Deadpool. No surprise here. When he's not hacking the game to raise his stats, he wants to have an EPIC RAP BATTLE in the middle of a fight.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Axel Akamura, one of the game's few Original Characters, because of his entertaining personality, his snarky one-liners and his game-breaking powers. The fact that he's one of the main sources of humor of the game also helps. He even seems to be one for Dark Kyu himself, as Axel is an Ascended Extra.
• Evil Is Cool: Probably unavoidable when you have Ganondorf, Albert Wesker and Sephiroth among your bad guys.
• Game-Breaker:
  • In early versions, the Great Axe you could find in Chapter 6. Its attack power was far above any weapon thus far and, with an attack buff, could easily have Kyuu wipe the floor with any boss. This was patched shortly after.
  • Magic in general is an Always Accurate Attack. The Evasion stat is never calculated with spells or magical attacks, and most elemental attacks in general are spells anyway. This is partially why the Fragile Speedster characters like Kite and Sakura aren't very viable for most encounters against magic-using foes unless they happen to nullify or absorb the element of choice for that enemy.
  • Yuri Lowell is a Glass Cannon by default. Until you get his Guard Blade. Then he becomes an unkillable Lightning Bruiser. Emphasis on "Unkillable", since Guard Blade gives insanely high defence boosts.
  • Speaking of defence boosts, Jake's Support Card counts as well. +150 to Physical and Magical Defence is nothing to be laughed at. And then you give it to Dark Magician Girl. Yeah, you can see where this is going to.
  • If you finish training under Piccolo, he'll give a certain equippable item. The bad thing is that this item is equipped on Shield slot. The good thing is that it gives Kyuu his own Soul Break. The kicker? IT DOES NOT REQUIRE SP.
  • Axel's Soul Break, Wrestle Kingdom. It buffs the whole party while debuffing the enemy party. Timed correctly, it can turn even Goat Butlers and the Sisters of Purgatory into tissue paper.
  • During the Beta for Version 2, the prize for beating Zazz as an Ultra Boss is the Chaos Armor set for Sonic. The unique move it grants you? Super Sonic. You can guess how an invincible, super strong form would give you a big advantage.
    • As of the official release, it was changed to a support buff for all party members, increasing their damage output and resistance, making it something of an Infinity -1 Sword.
  • Poison and Burn are Damage Over Time status effects... that deal damage based on the maximum amount of health that the enemy afflicted has. Yeah, you can guess how well that goes for the bosses.
  • Speaking of status effects... Just like Poison and Burn, Paralysis takes a lot longer to wear off. A good number of enemies, including bosses, aren't totally immune to it. Once they've been paralyzed, you may laugh at them and steamroll them while they're unable to defend themselves. And since the best way to paralyze is to use Dark Magician Girl's Dark Paralysis, you already have one Glass Cannon to bring the pain. (Warning however, when a boss turns red, they generally cures themselves and removes all negative status effects.)
• Gateway Series: Given the sheer number of series that are involved already with more to come, don't be surprised if you find one perking your interests.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: The game has a surprisingly notable Korean fandom with a wiki page and plans for appearances in a fan game.
• Goddamned Bats: Enemy encounters aren't random, but instead shown by glowing balls floating around the dungeon you're in. The most noteworthy example of when this transforms into Goddamned Bats, however, is during the Bandit Attack in Chapter 3. Small hallways mean you won't have much space to put between yourself and the hordes of bandits, and they fit all the criteria of Goddamned Bats in general: evasion rating, attacking in groups, generally weak, and hard to escape from.
• Growing the Beard:
  • v1.1 is playable, but very hard and didn't capitalize on its ideas very well. v1.2 softened the difficulty to a reasonable level and began building on its promises such as Alignment consequences and character interactions. v2 built further on this with more consequences for actions and different paths for added replayability.
  • v4.1.1 got the plot moving again and focused more on utilizing its gameplay mechanics after the previous pair of reboots put a major stall on overall progression.
• Heartwarming in Hindsight: The end of the sidequest guesting staring the DIDNapper characters where Kyuu encourages Suki to continue on her goal and meet Cherisa to learn the truth is a bit sweeter when you learn the truth about what happened in her game, considering the reason for those events probably played out the same in this continuity and how they worked out in the end.
• It Was His Sled: Originally, The Reveal of the Saint Lords and that Pete was nothing more than a glorified henchman working for them was a twist. Because of the story's progress, it has now become difficult to talk about the game without mentioning it.
• Jerkass Woobie: Electro. He was a normal guy, until a freaky accident gave him super powers. Because of that, he was kept isolated (as his powers were a danger for the others) until the doctors could find a cure. Over time, he became desperate, convinced that his condition was incurable. However, he's rather easily convinced to join The Dark Side, despite the fact that he still has friends and people who care for him (like Kite) and despite the fact that the doctors are genuinely trying to help him and find a cure. And he has no qualms about hurting Kite or innocent people after he joins forces with Pete.
• Narm:
  • In-universe example. Kyuu is less than impressed if Bowser is fought in Chapter 8 as Meowser. And the player may share his feeling... at least until they fight him.
  • Given the fact that Kyuu and his brigade are able to slay Dragon-Pete or Bowser, it's a little hard to believe that they can be scared by the Knights Who Say Ni. Of course, the situation is played for laughs.
  • Speaking of Dragon-Pete, he may be the climactic boss of the first arc and a giant dragon, but he's still a dragon with a big cartoon cat head. Kinda cuts down on the intimidating factor.
• Nintendo Hard: Version 1.1 was quite difficult with unforgiving bosses and even some tricky regular encounters. Version 1.2 toned them down while rebalancing stats and lowering shop prices. Version 2 strikes a happy balance in enemy difficulty. "Relentless" difficulty in v4.1.1 puts closer to this level.
• One-Scene Wonder: Due to the sheer length of the cast, some of them being very colorful but having very limited screentime, this was bound to happen.
  • One example would be the Assassin, a minor antagonist implied to be working for the Saint Lords. As of the latest demo of Version 2, she appears in only a few scenes, doesn't have a Character Portrait and her name isn't even revealed yet. However, the climactic fights against her (especially the first, when she catches Kyuu by surprise), her sheer strength and her personality of a psychopatic and bloodthirsty Combat Sadomasochist make her stand out among Kyuu's enemies.
  • Deadpool is a minor character who's only in a few scenes. But, boy, he steals the spotlight in every single one of them. Then again, with him, this was a given.
• Paranoia Fuel: Some areas in Hinode Village and Goka City avert the Pre Existing Encounters and have Random Encounters instead. A player used to avoid any battle he didn't want to fight might be attacked at any moment. Moreover, even talking to NPCs in these places might trigger a fight, as some civilians have been driven insane by the plague. The fog and the unnerving music don't help to ease the paranoia.
• Rule of Cool: The main reason why people and technologies from different time periods are mixed together.
• Seasonal Rot: The game took a dip when Dark Kyu decided to rewrite the plot, resulting in it being rebooted twice for Versions 3 and 4. Version 3 was a smaller release than the initial release of Version 1 with an incomplete story arc and none of its new features lasted beyond that version. Version 4 didn't even get its plot going and was mostly just introducing the required party members with its only update being a few sidequests and party members. Version 4.1.1, the third reboot, is agreed to have gotten the game back on track with a finalized, focused script and a new development team to ensure more timely updates that advance the overall plot.
• That One Boss:
  • Any Ultra Boss may qualify, depending on whether or not you were expecting them, and whether or not you were enough well-prepared.
    • Special mention goes to the Goat Butlers and Asmodeus and Belzeebub, unless you knew about them and waited a long time before doing Kanon's sidequest. The optional fight against them can be unlocked very soon (translation: when you're underleveled) by doing a sidequest most people want to do, as it involves one of the main characters who may or may not be one of the powerhouses of the team at the time. Level Grinding can turn them into an Anti-Climax Boss though.
  • Meowser. In spite of his silly appearance, he has several nasty tricks, such as creating two copies of himself at the beginning of the fight and World Shaker, a powerful Earth move that targets all the team. Which he generally uses after raising his stats.
  • For an unprepared team, the Blizzard Dragon can be this. While he seems manageable at first, after losing some health he will start using a powerful attack that hits all the team and can one-shot most of the characters if they don't have full health. This will be the death to any untrained team. Also counts as a Wake-Up Call Boss.
  • Surprisingly, The Shocker. Mostly due to being an Early-Bird Boss and an Optional Boss that can take an unsuspecting player by surprise. Like with the Blizzard Dragon, he likes spamming a powerful attack that hits all the team at a point of the game where your healing options are very limited.
• Unexpected Character: Since practically anyone can show up in Rakenzarn, it's easy to run into someone you didn't figure would be in the game. For example, Whispy Woods showing up as an ancient guardian or Megavolt randomly being one of Bowser's new henchmen.
• Villain Decay: Zigzagged with Corroder. On paper, he's a real monster, a Serial Killer brought back from the dead who kills people with acid. His first appearance shows him strong enough to shrug off a beating from Kyuu's team and they barely manage to escape him. Then, in his second appearance, Kyuu defeats him by tricking him into charging and making him fall some (long) stairs, in a gag that wouldn't denote in a Loony Tunes cartoon. Then, during an optional sidequest in an unreleased beta, he's back stronger than ever and seems to have recover his air of menace... before being punched and sent flying through the ceiling in a comedic fashion by Yang.