Monster Girl Quest Paradox/YMMV

• Awesome Music: There's the Lilith Sisters' personal theme, Adramelech's personal theme, and the songs used in the first and second preview videos.
• Broken Base:
  • The decision to have the game be a more conventional RPG, rather than the Visual Novel of the previous game.
  • The complete absence of the Heavenly Knights from the first chapter. Some fans didn't care, but for many the Knights were their favorite characters.
  • With the release of the second chapter, there's been some controversy about the direction of the story. While the first half of the chapter is generally seen as good, the second half (involving the human nations being invaded by monsters) has been seen as a rehash of the original game.
• Demonic Spiders:
  • The mimic-type enemies (Mimics, Honey Pots and Box Girls). They look just like normal chests and pots, and in some cases are located in the same sorts of places. They are much more powerful than the other enemies of their areas, can act twice in one turn, and have multiple ways of inflicting instant death.
  • Every single enemy becomes this in the Labyrinth of Chaos. Their stats are far higher than the normal versions (and increase further with each floor), they gain access to many new skills, and many of them have special abilities on top of that. For example, Apoptosis monsters reflect physical attacks, Fairies have a high chance of reflecting magic, and Harpies have even higher evasion.
• Ensemble Darkhorse:
  • Rami the imp. She was a Butt Monkey in the original, who could be easily defeated in one hit, but proved to be unexpectedly popular. In this game, she appears in the very second dungeon, and makes a fairly decent party member.
  • Riot, a reptilian Apoptosis encountered in the second Tartarus. It helps that she's not quite as monstrous as the others.
• Epileptic Trees:
  • The plot hinges on the fact that one universe failed to follow the 'correct' history... but it's never explained exactly what that is. It doesn't help that several different factions appear to be trying to make the Paradox universe follow the correct history, all working against each other. It turns out that this is referring to the events of the original game, and making the Paradox world follow this history slows the spread of Chaos.
  • Everything to do with Sonya. Ilias claims that she shouldn't exist in the world, which at first glance might seem to be an artefact of Ilias herself being from a different world. But there's many subtle clues in the game that something isn't quite right... It turns out that she is an XX-class Apoptosis.
  • The identity of Hild's creator. Hild herself claims that Promestein isn't a candidate, but that hasn't stopped the latter being considered. Some have even wondered if Luka had a hand in her creation, given that she reacts to his genetic signature.
• Even Better Sequel: Widely considered to be this. It has the same surprisingly-deep plot and characterisation of its predecessor, with much more extensive gameplay.
• Game Breaker:
  • Before it was patched, the Endure ability was bugged and triggered multiple times per battle, instead of just once. This effectively meant that users of this ability were invincible, so long as they were healed every turn. Even nerfed, it's still considered essential for anyone challenging the Labyrinth of Chaos.
  • Vicarious Clara, a Necromancer skill that gives the user three shields (two in Part 2) that can each stop any attack, no matter how powerful. To a lesser extent, the Makina skill Electromagnetic Armor and the Insect skill Group Defense, which grant two such shields.
  • Holy Martyr, a Pope skill. Once per battle, when the user dies, they revive with full HP and also revive and fully heal the entire party.
  • The Seadragon Dancer race has access to Time Warp Dance, which inflicts Slow and Stop on the enemy. In a game where status ailments aren't useless.
  • The Battlemaster job, which is uniquely capable of Dual Wielding, has the highest damage output of any job. Even the introduction of Weapon Mastery in Part 2, meant to counterbalance it, hasn't stopped it being seen as overpowered.
  • The 'Subterranean Insect Pope' build. Subterranean Insect is the race that currently has the highest Defence and Willpower modifiers (350% each) while Pope is the best job for White Magic. As Willpower also affects the power of White Magic, the build is by far the best at White Magic in the game, able to both heal and do significant Holy damage. A party of Subterranean Insect Popes is one strategy suggested for the Labyrinth.
  • The Berserk status effect can be this. Most things that cause Berserk also give benefits like increased attack or even extra attacks. Normally, characters with Berserk use skills at random. However, because the game allows you to prevent a character from using particular types of skills, it's possible to force Berserked characters to only use powerful skills.
  • Any method of taking multiple actions per turn. When combined with buffs and abilities that cause skills to activate multiple times, it becomes possible for one character to defeat a Bonus Boss in one hit.
  • A number of Part 2 companions are seen as this, compared to those available in Part 1. For just two examples: the Grangold King can deal incredible magical damage and has useful passives, while Alicetromeria can cast Black Magic twice per turn and has many races, (being Black Alice).
• Goddamned Bats: Fairies and Harpies, thanks to their high evasion which makes them annoying to defeat with physical attacks.
• Good Bad Bug:
  • Endure was formerly bugged to trigger multiple times per battle, making it a Game Breaker.
  • The accessory Crisis Hairpin is meant to increase the user's Magic Evasion when they're at critical HP. Instead, when the user it at critical HP, it has an 'auto-Daystar' effect. For those unfamiliar with the original game, Daystar is an extremely powerful counterattack that negates the enemy's attack altogether. It has a one-turn cooldown, but even then it's incredibly overpowered.
• Marty Stu: Nero seems to actually be a parody of this. An impractical outfit, an oversized scythe, unnecessary Cool Shades, absolutely ludicrous power, and being the implied descendant of Luka and Alice from an alternate universe. It all sounds like the protagonist of a bad fanfiction. And yet these aspects are never really treated seriously: his conspicuous outfit is lampshaded at every turn, and his own sister calls him an idiot.
• Narm: Nero again.
• Moral Event Horizon: The Lilith Sisters' destruction of Luddite Village. They rape all of the men to death, and kidnap the women to turn into succubi.
• Player Punch: Micaela, whom the party spends some time trying to track down, and one of the more popular characters, dies. And there's nothing you can do to stop it.
• The Scrappy: Some consider the Lilith Sisters this, due to them replacing many of the roles of the Heavenly Knights in the game.
• Sidetracked by the Gold Saucer: Not just the literal Gold Saucer equivalent in Grandoll, but the numerous sidequests. Trying to complete Vanilla's store or Papi's blacksmith business can take up a lot of time.
• Squick: As with the original game, many of the monsters. The Apoptosis monsters are especially this.
• That One Attack:
  • Monster Lord's Cruelty, used by the boss Alice XVI. It essentially counters every defensive tactic in the game: it's a certain-hit attack (so can't be dodged or reflected), ignores defense, hits the entire party, hits multiple times (getting around limited-use shields like Vicarious Clara), each hit does massive damage (enough to potentially kill lower-level characters) AND each hit has a 10% chance of causing instant death.
  • Any attack that inflicts a disabling status effect on the entire party, an example being the Mandragora's Mandragora Scream.
  • Any attack that successfully causes Predation of a party member. Unlike the other types of instant death, predated characters can't be revived until after the battle.
• That One Boss: Several examples. All of these are even tougher in the Labyrinth of Chaos.
  • Alice XVI, who's fought as a warm-up for Reaper. She has many powerful attacks that hit the entire party, including the deadly Monster Lord's Cruelty mentioned above. In the Labyrinth, she is now capable of buffing herself and dispelling all buffs from the party.
  • Reaper herself. As her name suggests, she has many attacks that inflict instant death, including one that has a 100% chance of doing so. Her stats are greater than any other boss fought in Part 1, so a long fight is likely. In the Labyrinth, she has many additional skills, including Chaos Drive, which stops time for 3 turns.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks: When news of Paradox first came out, some saw the shift to a conventional RPG this way.
• Tier-Induced Scrappy: Human party members can fall into this. While they're decent early on, and have abilities that help in gaining experience and job experience, in later stages they fall behind the monsters and angels.
• What an Idiot: In the Haunted Mansion, you can find a note written by the mansion's master, Chrome, which advises that Exact Words are necessary when ordering zombies. When you finally confront Chrome, she orders her zombies to throw 'them' out, and the zombies proceed to throw her out of the room.