Awesome Music: The soundtrack defines this perfectly. Particularly the music from the final dungeon the Lake Shrine. and the song that plays during the credits.
Meia's dream doesn't have any enemies in it whatsoever. Justified, since for once you are visiting a normal dream, and not a nightmare.
Nestus' and Bergus' dreams, though they're toward the end of the game, seem to have easier puzzles than a lot of the dungeons you've encountered earlier.
Catharsis Factor: Despite the game's attempt to give Ronan some measure of sympathy by pointing out that, in the end, he was just Melzas' pawn, it doesn't erase the fact that he committed many atrocious crimes, including the murder of a child, under his own free will (unlike Giles, who at least had the excuse of being no longer himself). Combine this with the man's overallunpleasantnature, and you've got players who were more than happy to send his miserable, decrepit hide straight to hell; a place where he now rightfully belonged.
Melzas is a malevolent deity from another world who literally thrives on the misery and suffering of mortals. Upon arriving in our world, Melzas learned that Earth's gods are empowered by mankind's prayers, which he decided he wanted for himself. To this end, Melzas established his own Religion of Evil with the aid of his loyal acolytes and began inserting his image into human culture by peering into the minds of vulnerable kings and making them his puppets. Eventually exposed as a fraud and imprisoned by the forces of good, the weakened Melzas then instructed his evil acolytes. Reestablishing themselves as "holy men" under the guise of a harmless, benevolent church, Melzas's priests then began gathering new flocks of worshippers, fooling people with false promises of harmony and wealth, while secretly manipulating multiple atrocities throughout history, thus allowing Melzas to regain his lost strength with the end goal of one day destroying his prison and finishing what he started.
Ronan is the evil priest Melzas stationed in Inoa Village. A loyal servant of Melzas, Ronan corrupts the villagers — without them even realizing it — through false promises of harmony and peace. When hero Alundra arrives and begins to discover the truth about Melzas's church, Ronan attempts to rally the locals to drive him away, committing murders in secret and pinning the crimes on Alundra. As Alundra remains defiant, Ronan starts targeting those close to him, including Sybill and Jess. When confronted about his actions later on, Ronan smugly speaks of his twisted piousness while laughing at all the misery he's wrought. Finally, Ronan transforms himself into a Humanoid Abomination with the intent of carrying out more evil in the name of his monstrous god.
Game-Breaker: The Legendary Sword (which can be obtained after getting the Power Glove) has the highest attack power in the game, and can defeat any non-boss enemy in one hit (and the bosses themselves don't last much longer).
Goddamned Boss: The Hidden Eye, from Elene's Nightmare is a Shielded Core Boss with high HP. While it's not a hard boss (all it does is slowly moving around the arena), it's annoying having to kill it five times (in three boss battles) in a single dungeon.
Jerkass Woobie: Giles. He's not the nicest guy around, but considering the fact that his distrust of outsiders and fanatical prayers are all to protect his younger sister whom he genuinely loves, and eventually dies saving, it's somewhat understandable.
Moment of Awesome: Every boss defeat qualifies, but a special mention has to go to the moment after the final boss fight where you use the fire wand to burn Melzas to death right before you escape the sinking Lake Shrine and are able to watch the ending and credits.
Moral Event Horizon: Ronan is simply a Jerkass at first, graceful to the villagers but hostile to Alundra for being an outsider. However, he gets more and more riled up, and gradually begins to blame Alundra (and Meia) for everything bad happening to the village, though he's technically half-right given Melzas' violent escalations to counter the pair. Then he snaps Sybill's neck in the middle of the night and just leaves her corpse to be found in the street. And even worse, he's doing this entirely of his own free will and blind devotion. At this point, all sympathy of potentially being Brainwashed and Crazy goes flying out the window, and is further compounded when he subsequently murders Jess, an adoptive father-figure and mentor for Alundra, and tries to pin the blame entirely on Alundra himself.
Most Wonderful Sound: The sound of Jess smithing a new weapon. On one hand, hey, new weapon. On the other hand, somebody had to die for it to be made.
Narm: In a game with such a depressingly dark story at times, the fact that Working Designs published and localized it in the US cracks through given their tendency to slip in random jokes at times, though thankfully never in the main story itself.
There’s also Beaumont’s lament about not getting basic cable. It’s not incorporated in text necessary for the plot but to continue you cannot skip talking to him at that point in the game.
The puzzles! Especially the block puzzles in the ice manor and Kline's Dream, which were difficult enough that Working Designs had to post a solution on their webpage for a short time.
Player Punch: Don't be fooled by the rocking intro and Zelda-style gameplay mixed with a 90s anime aesthetic; this game will get you to know the villagers of Inoa, and then brutally gut punch you.Repeatedly. And just when you think you're almost through, half of the remaining villagers are given a Surprisingly Sudden Death out of sheer spite by Melzas, including all but two of the people you managed to save previously, almost coming into a hair's breadth of a "Shaggy Dog" Story.
Scrappy Mechanic: With the exceptions of herbs, you can only have one unit of each consumable item. In a game where most treasure chests contain healing items, you will often be forced to waste a Strength Elixir or a Wonder Essence to heal Scratch Damage, just so you can open up a slot.
The Watcher In The Water, considering his high health, great attack range, and your limited weapons and items at the time.
The Soul Leech from Giles' Nightmare is more annoying than hard, as all you have to do is to stay far away from his Vacuum Mouth, ignoring his minions, and spam bow attacks (or use bombs) until it dies; what makes him tough is that you have to prevent Giles from being swallowed up by the boss, which will lead to a Nonstandard Game Over (and the last save point is very far from the boss room). Giles himself don't help much, as he keep walking in circles instead of going to the southern side of the arena.
Zorgia. Even with the decreased boss HP in the English version, he still takes a metric ton of hits to kill, and his buzzsaws are hard to avoid and do a ton of damage, easily turning the fight into a war of attrition that you're most likely going to lose.
Magyscar is the Drought Level of Doom; Extremely long, has a dearth of health items and only one save point/refresh station at the very start, and deals mainly with thorns that damage you if you accidentally walk into them and infuriating platforming segments.
The Lake Shrine is a fitting Very Definitely Final Dungeon: long, convoluted, with puzzles that will make you tear your hair out, troublesome and difficult enemies, dearth of healing items... and at the end, three tough sequential boss fights.
That One Sidequest: Collecting all fifty of the Gilded Falcons to get the Spirit Wand. Doesn't sound too bad? Well guess what: you can miss some of them permanently and in some instances, you have only seconds to retrieve them until they're gone for good.
Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Giles is supposed to be one of the greatest victims of Melzas and Ronan's manipulations and thus deserving pity, and he did kind of 'redeem' himself by refusing to kill his sister and dying with it. However, he spends most of the time being an utter Jerkass to Alundra, being an Ungrateful Bastard who blames Alundra for the death of Sybill, while he was also onboard with the idea with Ronan, even after Alundra saved him from his own nightmare. For a good portion of the fans, his Redemption Equals Death is considered too little, too late and Giles is remembered as an unlikable Jerkass whose unpleasant nature overshadows whatever sympathetic points he may have.
The Woobie: There are many possible candidates such as Kisha, Meia, Nadia, and Sierra after her daughter, Sybill is killed, but Sybill is the obvious choice.
