History YMMV / NuclearThrone

* TierInducedScrappy:
** Rebel has been a historically difficult character to balance, as her CastFromHitPoints playstyle was too punishing for too little reward. At least one highly active forum thread was dedicated to discussing ways to "fix" her. After many tweaks to cost of spawning allies, and her passive ability, it seems that she has finally been RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap after receiving a new passive ability that heals her partially after entering a portal. Still, some play her exclusively for that passive ability, ignoring the CastFromHitPoints active.
** Rogue is usually getting this treatment. She levels up slower than other characters (due to all radiation canisters being replaced with ammo for her active ability), has a mostly underwhelming passive ability (the same one Rebel used to get flak for) and an active ability that you can easily kill yourself with. And she has to battle waves of [[DemonicSpiders I.D.P.D.]] on every level. However, she was purposely designed as a harder-to-play character than others.
** Some mutations are always come in handy, while others are more niche but still can be helpful. Then there is Shotgun Shoulders. All it does is improves how shell-based weapons' shots bounce off walls. In open areas or when you only hide behind a corner or a pillar this is fully useless, but even in tight corridors you can just peek, shoot and hide back, or use shells' natural bounce. Or just one-shot the foe, since at close range shell weapons tend to do good burst damage. Of course, all of that stops being relevant if you're using non-shell, non-pop weapon that Shoulders simply don't affect to begin with.
** Coming close are Open Mind and Eagle Eyes. Former adds random chest to the level, which you have no control over and which doesn't help later on when drops from numerous enemies vastly outnumber any chests you could have find at a level. The latter reduces spread, except most weapons are already precise enough to kill targets at medium range, and/or are used to clear crowd or against large bosses so they don't need much precision. The only real use for Eagle Eyes is for Steroids, the only character penalized with accuracy reduction severe enough to need it.
** In terms of Crowns, the Crown of Guns is underwhelming and can downright ruin your game if you don't have the right mutations or weapons (see below).
** The Crown of Destiny is useful as a free mutation later in the game where leveling up is hard (and especially if one manages to max their level using Crown of Blood or Crown of Hatred), but there is almost no reason to choose it as your starting crown as mutating is easy early on and the crown greatly limits your options until you choose a different one (The first crown vault is accessible at 3-2).
*** There is a special technique called "radstarving" that involves [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin gaining minimum rads]] and thus levels until the 3-2 vault, thus ensuring the crown's drawback is minimized. Perfect execution allows you to get zero levelups, and thus gain just one random mutation, then choose all your other mutations with the randomly gifted one in mind. [[DifficultButAwesome The advantage this gives on loops is offset]] by the fact that you are forced to spend a long time waiting for rads to disappear from your way, which also prevents you from easily collecting ammo and health pickups from enemies. And, of course, you will be [[MagikarpPower staying at a low level the whole time up until 3-3]].
*** Horror has the easiest time using Crown of Destiny, thanks to the fact he both gains two choices with the crown and can discard excess rads with his active, easily radstarving at any stage of the game.

*** There is a special technique called "radstarving" that involves [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin gaining minimum rads]] and thus levels until 3-2 vault, thus ensuring crown's drawback is minimized. Perfect execution allows to get zero levelups, and thus gain just one random mutation, then choose all your other mutations with randomly gifted one in mind. [[DifficultButAwesome The advantage this gives on loops is offset]] by the fact you are forced to spend long time waiting for rads to disappear from your way, which also prevents from easily collecting ammo and health pickups from enemies. And, of course, you will be [[MagikarpPower staying at low level the whole time up until 3-3]].
*** Horror has easy time using Crown of Destiny, thanks to the fact he both gains two choices with crown and can discard excess rads, easily radstarving at any stage of the game.

** Coming close are Open Mind and Eagle Eyes. Former adds random chest to the level, which you have no control over and which doesn't help later on when drops from numerous enemies vastly outnumber any chests you could have find at a level. The latter reduces spread, except most weapons are already precise enough to kill targets at medium range, and/or are used to clear crowd or against large bosses so they don't need much precision. The only real use for Eagle Eyes is for Steroids, character penalized with accuracy reduction severe enough.

** The Crown of Destiny is useful as a free mutation later in the game where leveling up is hard (and especially if one manages wi max their level using Crown of Blood or Crown of Hatred), but there is almost no reason to choose it as your starting crown as mutating is easy early on and the crown greatly limits your options until you choose a different one (The first crown vault is accessible at 3-2).

* ScrappyMechanic: Having to destroy four generators during [[spoiler:The Throne]] boss fight, which is required to enter a loop as of update 91, while previously simply defeating the boss would result in looping. Most complaints are directed not at mere presence of the generators (although a fair share of players would like to see them completely gone), but at their high HP (making an already DamageSpongeBoss battle even harder from an ammunition standpoint) and the fact that [[AdvancingWallOfDoom the boss may easily force the player to retreat past the generators]], making it impossible to destroy them.

** The Snowbots , common enemies from the Frozen City, can easily be dispatched from a distance, but up close their ChargeAttack can take a player by surprise or reach them before they have time to reload. Their [[ThatOneAttack most devastating attack]], however, is picking up a car and throwing it at you, which they can do from any distance as long as you're in direct their line of sight.

** Certain weapons, when combined with complimentary mutations (like the energy screwdriver with Laser Brain and Long Arms), can become insanely powerful. Said screwdriver synergy has such high DPS that (in addition to destroying most projectiles) it can carve through the game's [[DemonicSpiders toughest enemies]] as though they were butter. That's not even getting into how such combinations can mesh with the mutant's special abilities...

*** There is a special technique called "radstarving" that involves [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin gaining minimum rads]] and thus levels until 3-2 vault, thus ensuring crown's drawback is minimized. Perfect execution allows to get zero levelups, and thus gain just one random mutation, then choose all your other mutations with randomly gifted one in mind. [[DifficultButAwesome The advantage this gives on loops is offset]] by the fact you are forced to spend long time waiting for rads to disappear from your way, which also prevents from easily collecting ammo and health pickups from enemies. And, of course, you will be [[MagicarpPower staying at low level the whole time up until 3-3]].

** The [[spoiler:I.D.P.D Captain]] is completely optional, but she is one of the most complicated fights in the game with BulletHell action rivaling the likes of ''VideoGame/{{Touhou}}'' and a ramming attack that deals an insanely high amount of damage. She is also fiendishly hard to reach, as the [[spoiler:I.D.P.D. Headquarters]] is tricky to get to in the first place and is filled with almost nothing but DemonicSpiders.

* HilariousInHindsight: Yung Venuz's design is a one-eyed triangle with little arms and legs, and inspired by the Eye of Providence on the back of the U.S. one dollar bill. [[WesternAnimation/GravityFalls Now where have we seen that before...]]
** As a result, the game has become popular among ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls'' fans. There's even [[http://missyzero.tumblr.com/post/94506178305crossover fan art]] as well as an [[http://nuclearfalls.tumblr.com/ actual mod for the game where you can play as Bill Cipher!]].

** Heck, the same could be said for the main mutants in general with "Kings and Queens of Wasteland," they're only trying to survive...
* UnintentionallyUnwinnable: The Crown of Guns prevents ammo drops from spawning in exchange for greatly increasing the number of weapon drops. Unfortunately, if one has chosen the wrong sets of mutations and weapons to bring, one can end up in an unwinnable scenario against [[spoiler:[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPQx3ZSzEdY against pre-loop Throne II]], as there are no chests in the Campfire stage, weapons might not be dropped by the I.D.P.D. officers you face at the start of the level, and the exploding orbs fired by the Throne won't drop ammunition at all due to the Crown's side effect]]. All the player can hope to do at that point is reset the game or deliberately get killed.

** The Crown of Destiny is useful as a free mutation late-game where leveling up is hard, but there is almost no reason to choose it as your starting crown as mutating is easy early on and the crown greatly limits your options until you choose a different one (The first crown vault is accessible at 3-2).

* UnwinnableByInsanity: The Crown of Guns prevents ammo drops from spawning in exchange for greatly increasing the number of weapon drops. Unfortunately, if one has chosen the wrong sets of mutations and weapons to bring, one can end up in an unwinnable scenario against [[spoiler:[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPQx3ZSzEdY against pre-loop Throne II]], as there are no chests in the Campfire stage, weapons might not be dropped by the I.D.P.D. officers you face at the start of the level, and the exploding orbs fired by the Throne won't drop ammunition at all due to the Crown's side effect]]. All the player can hope to do at that point is reset the game or deliberately get killed.

** Good Riddance: Requires you to get a Golden Disc Gun or Golden Nuke Launcher. The problem with this achievement is that ''[[GuideDangIt nobody can agree on the actual method to get them]]''. 0.3% of players have it, so it's certainly possible, yet still incredibly obscure. Supposedly, they show up in the weapon drop rules when you reach 7-3 on Hard Mode, which is difficult in itself.

** The [[https://jukiokallio.bandcamp.com/track/legend-of-the-throne MAIN THEME]], ANYONE?!
** The [[https://jukiokallio.bandcamp.com/track/nuclear-throne final boss theme]], aptly named "Nuclear Throne", has a great sense of finality to it.

* NightmareFuel: Some of the loading screen messages are pretty creepy.

** The Labs. Atmosphere aside, this stage can really throw players off by unpredictable [[ZergRush waves of enemies]] [[ParanoiaFuel from offscreen]], some of which can explode and ''kill you immediately''.

* TheWoobie: Melting. He is always tired, and if his loading screen blurbs are anything to go by, lives every day of his life in agonizing pain. Poor little guy.

** The Crown of Destiny is useful as a free mutation late-game where leveling up is hard, but there is almost no reason to choose it as your starting crown as mutating is easy early on and the crown greatly limits your options until you're choose a different one (The first crown vault is accessible at 3-2).

** The scorpions encountered in the Drylands, the first area of the game you spawn in. They not only attack in a shotgun-like, room-clearing sprays of bullets that sail across the map, but there almost always seems to be two in any given area, making approaching them incredibly dangerous. If that wasn't enough, there's a golden variant that shoots even MORE projectiles at once on top of exploding when it dies. They've thankfully been nerfed. However, they still deal a good chunk of damage on contact.

** The song playing during the credits. A slow piece which mourns the hyper-violent life mutants are forced to live. Kind of puts the game in a different perspective...

* TheWoobie: Melting. He is tired and everything hurts him. Poor little guy.