YMMV / Surviving High School

• Alternative Character Interpretation: Was Jessica pretending to love Ben the entire time and dated him purely for the purpose of being the first lady or was she faking it and then started to genuinely develop feelings for him?
• Arc Fatigue: A decent portion of people found the Howard, Zoe and Matteo love triangle to be drawn out, obvious and taking time from other storylines.
• Base-Breaking Character: Zoe. The vocal fandom vehemently criticized her for believing she always got everything she wanted and was taking up screen time from other characters that deserved it. However, she was still extremely popular with fans who loved her relationship with Howard and rooted for her in every storyline.
• Broken Base:
  • Fans were generally divided on which era was the best. Some would argue Football Star, having enjoyed the choose your own adventure element. Meanwhile, fans of The Classics believed that the focus on the mythology of Centerscore and the Howard-Linda-Kenji love triangle was its strong point. The New Girl fans argued that this era launched the game’s most important characters and plots. Others said A New Start because it upgraded fan favorite character Paige to a main and was a refreshing change of pace while some may argue Troublemakers for its fun cast and plot. Usually it’ll just comes down to what era you started playing the game in.
  • Who Allison belonged with. Although the writers initially planned that Spencer and Allison end up together, they didn’t expect her relationship with Nate to become so popular. When the series ended, they ended up giving fans the option to choose between Nate and Spencer since they were so divided.
  • The Howard, Zoe, Owen, Paige and Nate love pentagon. Fans were pretty split between keeping Zoe single until she can be with Howard again and letting Owen and Paige become the new Alpha Couple versus letting Zoe explore her relationship with Owen. And then a small minority believed that she should have given Nate a chance before he was written off as a villain.
• Creator's Pet: Zoe. In spite of her fair share of haters, Zoe was treated as the main character and female lead for three years straight and more episodes are played from her perspective than any other character. Though the writers were aware of Zoe’s unpopularity, they still followed up with her character even after she finally graduates from Twin Branches.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Amanda. She’s only a main character in The Classics but her innocent, bubbly nature and hilarious one-liners made her fan favorite for the entirety of the series.
• Portmanteau Couple Name: Given that this is a teen game, there’s a ship name for just about every couple but notable ones include:
  • Zoward for Zoe and Howard.
  • Zowen for Zoe and Owen
  • Powen for Paige and Owen.
• Moral Event Horizon: Jessica had repeatedly crossed the line but sabotaging Howard’s college interview to get back at Zoe for standing up to her makes her unredeemable.
• Ron the Death Eater: Denni. While she isn’t the first or last character to home wreck a relationship, she gets the most flack for it from fans who fully blame her for breaking up Colt and Sam. Although Colt is just as guilty (if not more) while Denni shows remorse for her actions, she gets more backlash than he does. Others just flat out hated her because they found her appearance unattractive.
• Underused Game Mechanic: Many loved playing the football mini game but it rarely makes an appearances after Football Star.
• Unnecessary Makeover: Ben’s second makeover was not well received with fans in spite of the fact that this was supposed to be his “hot” transformation. They end up giving him yet another makeover that is more liked.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: Nate. Despite being a Manipulative Bastard and Jerkass in Troublemakers era, fans start to unexpectedly root for him and his relationship with Allison. He becomes so popular that they give players the options to choose him to be with her instead of Spencer, her planned love interest.

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