Tales of Innocence/YMMV

• Crowning Moment of Funny: When Chitose kisses Luca after the first battle against Ricardo, Iria makes this high pitched screechy sound.
  • A skit featuring Iria, Ange and Ricardo discussing Ricardo's health. Iria thinks he lacks color in his face because he was a reaper in his past life. Ricardo says if that was the case Ange would be a man despite her looks. Ange says she was surprised he could tell. Their reactions are awesome.
  • Ange asking Ricardo to protect her from the heat of Kelm Volcano.
• Crowning Music of Awesome: Break Through With the Sword, the battle theme.
  • Break the Sword to pieces (DS version), the normal boss theme, which is unusual in that it is very exciting through the drums and doesn't even have the usual guitar.
  • Before the Demise, which is actually the final boss theme. It's most unlike final boss themes, which are often trying to pump you up.
  • The DS version's opening theme, Follow the Nightingale. Also doubles as the music for Mathias's final form in Innocence R.
• Demonic Spiders: After events at the Heaven Palace, Luca is dumped into the desert, separated from the rest of the party, and has to make his way to a nearby town. Some of the enemies can petrify on attacks, and if your entire party is petrified, game over. Your entire one character party. And if you didn't save before attempting to cross the desert, you get to sit through a long cutscene again, too. Luckily, the town is very close by, so it's quite possible to bypass battles.
• Ensemble Darkhorse: Spada, at least in the Japanese fandom. He is the only character from Innocence to appear in the top 30 of Namco's popularity polls, not to mention appearing twice, in the 4th and 5th polls.
• Game Breaker: "AKA Yum Yum", the very final recipe, which can only be obtained after getting every other recipe in the game, and a key item. The effect? 90% EXP bonus for 9 turns. Now, get grinding!
  • However, the one that ultimately takes the throne here is the recipe that comes just before it: "Manhan Quanxi"^[1]. It requires 9 types of ingredients in varying portions, which makes 18 portions per dish, and lasts for only one turn. What does it do? 40% DEF bonus, and 80% Physical damage reduction. It's practically made for boss fights, and indeed, makes them ridiculous it does.
  • The final ability unlocked by Versus Style; you know, the ability that grants no stat bonuses and only unlocks self-crippling abilities? "Risk & Reward": -90% HP for +90% EXP bonus. Even discounting the cumulative EXP you can milk together with "AKA Yum Yum", the ability alone is pretty much gamebreaking if you can defend/evade well.
• Player Punch: In the Tower of Dawn, Luca and Co. are confronted by Oswald piloting the new-and-improved Gigantess Omega and reveals, too much to Ricardo's horror, that is powered by Gardel/Thanatos' corpse. Ricardo swears that Oswald will pay for desecrating the remains of his brother. The party, too, is more than ready to rip Pigwald a new one.
• That One Boss: Hasta. Oh dear... As if his pre-battle cutscene ramblings haven't disoriented you enough...
  • And he always comes with two monster companions. While not too dangerous, they still manage to make the battles against him more annoying.
  • However, Chien is much more dangerous; he's fought two times, and both times together with his two dogs. Both of which has stats like a standard boss. So yeah, he's a triple-boss. Seriously, good luck.
  • Oswald. You'd think a fat, incompetent opportunist would be a pushover in a boss fight. Nope! He comes in on the party with the experimental Gigantess Omega. Made to take on Mathias. Powered by Thanatos' corpse.
    • That's just the pre-battle info the players are given. Fighting the battle is hell itself. His kicks, dashes and shots deal insane damage to the party, but to make things worse, his tornado is pretty much guaranteed to KO anyone near him who weren't quick enough to guard or move out of the way. Oh, but that's not even his trump card: he has an energy surge attack that knocks down and away anyone near him (i.e:the melee fighters, who are the #1 powerhouses) while dealing nigh-OHKO damage at the same time. And he uses it without any warning. Gods bless you. Did we mention that he's constantly on the move, rarely touches the ground and never stays in one spot for more than a few seconds?
  • The battle with Ange and Albert. One's way stronger than a boss has any right to be, and the other interrupts everything you do with gun attacks. Every time you wanna use an item or start casting a spell or do anything, he shoots you. And his gun causes two of the Standard Status Effects. Pure irritation.
• The Scrappy: Coda. It's not that he does something to be hated - it's that he doesn't do anything at all for the whole game. He has no backstory and no plot purpose. He's just there for the sake of being the game's mascot and tutorial.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks: In such a way that actually averts Fan Dumb, for the most part. The fanbase is, on the whole, very happy with Tales of Innocence R having more characters, more dungeons and more bosses. What they don't like is the way that Namco has taken the Mystic Artes and made them much simpler, making for much fewer instances of Visual Effects of Awesome. The general reaction varies between "Mild disappointment", "Unstoppable Rage" and "Take a shot every time one sucks".
• Viewer Gender Confusion: Himmel. His voice doesn't help.
• Woolseyism: The fan-translation takes this path for a good fraction of the game, which is noticeable if you listen and cross-check the voice-acting and translated scripts. They don't translate word-for-word, and instead focused on fluency. And it works splendidly. And you know, if literalism is your thing, you actually have the option of turning off the Woolseyisms...for terminology, anyway.
  • The very first example is replacing "Tenjo" and "Chijo" with "Devaloka" and "Naraka", which is Sanskrit for "Realm of the Devas"/"Heaven" and "Hell" respectively. It makes sense in context of later revelations, as the game draws a fair amount from Buddhism and Hinduism.
• The Woobie: When you think about it, Thanatos actually counts; cast down from Devaloka for falling in love with a human girl, his peerless love for her spread to the whole Naraka itself, pushing him to protect it at all costs. To think he'd meet his end at the hands of one of his descendants... <Sniff>.
  • Chien too, definetly. The kid really needs one of Ange's hugs.
    • Ange does offer one to him after his Heel Face Turn in Sania; he settled with a head-pat instead.

1. ↑ The Manchu Han Imperial Feast