Is Arianna a whiny, entitled brat who wants to destroy everything that doesn't meet her impossible standards, or is she merely a scared girl lashing out at an unfamiliar world with a power she can't handle? Was she acting mainly out of jealousy, a sense of betrayal, or a fear of the unknown? What about her relationship with STORM? Is she the one controlling it, or is it somehow controlling her? And what would she have been like if she hadn't found it to begin with?
After her last support conversation, Tyalie is ripe for this. Just how much of her Genki Girl behavior is an act? Does it start out genuine, and then become an act as the game gets closer to ending? If it is an act, then what is she really like? And does she reach out to the player because she's genuinely thankful for what they've done, or is she just trying to ensure that she won't be forgotten?
She stresses the idea that all fiction is equally true, so aren't all of these interpretations right? Whatever you believe about Tyalie, then that's canon for the version of her living in your mind.
Anonymous. Is he a Jerkass who's only helping to save the world For the Lulz, and because Catie is his Morality Chain? Or does he truly have a good heart that he hides for fear of looking uncool? Similarly, is Til's harshness towards him justified, or is she being excessively mean?
Aluminum Christmas Trees: The Storm Botnet was real and between 2007 and 2008, it supposedly controlled anywhere from 1 million to 50 million computer systems and accounted for 8% of all malware on Microsoft Windows computers.
Anti-Climax Boss: After an entire game of buildup, the final fight against STORM ends up being a purely defensive "survive a certain number of turns" mission, with several minigames mixed in between phases. The atmosphere is suitably dramatic, but for players anticipating an epic final challenge it can be somewhat of a letdown.
Audience-Alienating Premise: The game is a well-made and charmingly self-aware RPG… that happens to star a viral video actress who hasn’t been widely popular since 2009. Those who weren’t fans of Boxxy back then are unlikely to give this game a second glance, while those who were fans probably aren’t anymore. (And those who still are fans may not be into RPGs). All in all, the game was cursed from the start with a very narrow target audience.
Along the trail to 4chan, near the big bridge entrance, there's an unassuming little cave with a lone treasure chest. Opening the chest reveals… deceased yodeling legend Franzl Lang, who promptly challenges you to a fight. He drops a bit of unique gear, but the encounter itself is literally never explained or mentioned again.
This trope is Played for Horror at one point in the hidden Deep Web dungeon. In a seemingly random room, you suddenly get pulled into an enemy encounter with… nothing. An empty field, with no music playing. After a few turns, this… twisted, melted ghost thing fades into view, and a distorted voice starts repeating the words “I love you” over and over again. After a few more turns, the battle just… ends, and that's it. This is never referenced again, not even in the developer's room, making the encounter all the more frightening.
Breather Level: Chapter 6 has relatively little combat, and an overall sillier tone compared to the others. It's a nice breath of fresh air before Cerebus Syndrome hits hard in the next arc.
Continuity Lockout: Largely averted thanks to the included summary, but there are a few gaps. For example, the summary neglects to mention why Catie is able to unlock the prison bars in Chapter 4.
Difficulty Spike: The Spire is noticeably more challenging than anything that came before it, and the difficulty never really lets up from that point on, either.
Fanfic Fuel: The PC ending has Catie and Tyalie seemingly stranded on some version of earth, with the others' whereabouts unknown.
Shardwings, a type of enemy found in the field leading up to the Firewall. They're not hard to kill, but they're incredibly fast, difficult to flee from because of their speed, and spawn frequently. What's worse, you have to traverse this area no less than three times, so get used to fighting them.
Dataminers and their upgraded versions. They like to fill up narrow passageways and they move around quickly and at random, making avoiding them a challenge. If you accidentally get sucked into a battle with one, and you will, you can't even flee because they're pre-existing encounters. The rewards for beating them aren't great either, making them a waste of time more than anything else.
The Fox encountered in the field between YouTube and 4Chan. An annoyingly fast enemy with an equally annoying (and insanely accurate) instant death spell. Fortunately, it's as likely to run away as it is to fight you. If it decides to... Better be prepare to get half of your team wiped if the RNG really hates you.
The Science Justice Warriors in the DLC chapter. They’re not tough, but they have high speed, high evasion, the ability to heal themselves greatly, and love to use moves that stun you. As a result, the battles with them will take forever. One mandatory battle in particular makes you face eight at once- better have an Angel Shroud so you can render their moves impossible to affect you, AND that none of the enemies decide to use a stun move, or you will not have a chance.
It's been patched out, but it was possible to skip nearly two thirds of the Buzzfeed Bay temple by walking through a pillar.
In the beta, if you waited for a few minutes during a certain cutscene, your inventory would fill up with 99 Starstrike items. This is because the event flag used in the cutscene was also erroneously assigned to the Nativity Star accessory. In the full game, not only has this been fixed, but the capacity for each item has been lowered to 10.
Memetic Badass: GmasterRED manages to invert this, becoming a memetic badass in-universe after several years of being one on Catie's fan forum. Time will tell if the meme spreads any further after the game's public release.
Narm: It's been said that the game would have worked better with an original setting, and that the constant references to internet culture make it impossible to take seriously.
Narm Charm: Others say they enjoy the commentary, and note that the game was never really meant to be taken seriously to begin with. It's tagged as satire, after all.
Orangered and Periwinkle get only a minute or two of screentime during an optional sidequest, but they're very well liked for their charismatic personalities and unique battle.
The Chapter 6 boss, One_Wing. After regaining his true form, he delivers an epic Motive Rant that happens to be one of the funniest scenes in the game. His boss fight is also remembered for being quite a bit tougher than anything else you've fought up until that point.
The Sky Queen, who summons the party long enough to drop a major Reveal, seemingly set herself up as the new Big Good, and then get swiftly killed off by Boxxyfan all in the same scene.
Scrappy Mechanic: Some people feel this way about the platforming segments. They're a nice bit of variety, and they don't appear too often, but the game's engine really wasn't made for platformers, resulting in awkward controls and some minor issues with collision detection. A few maps also have enemies that follow you around and get in the way of your jumps, adding a stressful element to something that was already hard enough to begin with. Because of this, the two hardest challenges in the game are widely considered to be the six platforming trials in the beach area, which combine all this with true Platform Hell, and the Rcoastee Superboss, which uses platforming as its main mechanic.
Sequel Displacement: The first game, BoxxyQuest: The Shifted Spires, was only posted to a fairly small and tight-knit fansite. The sequel's wider release means that it's most peoples' first exposure to the series. Interestingly, this is acknowledged and welcomed by SpherianGames. The download page invites newbies to jump right in, rather than try to hunt down the (admittedly amateur and dated) prequel.
Shocking Moments: The true final act takes this and runs full-tilt with it. Starting with the reveal that Catie is Virtua, there's a new earth-shattering twist practically every minute, culminating in a hugely cinematic final battle with Legion, who has taken control of STORM.
Slow-Paced Beginning: Probably the most common complaint among players is how text-heavy the prologue is. The gameplay picks up after an hour or so, but before that you have to sit through several long, unskippable recaps and Exposition Dumps. Two of them can't even be button-mashed through, since the text moves at a fixed speed to match the voiceover narration. On the plus side though, at least the tutorials are all optional.
Surprisingly Improved Sequel: The original had its charm, but the second game is clearly a much more polished product. There's more variety to the gameplay, the writing is much improved, and there are far fewer bugs. It's a wonder what six more years of experience can do.
Arianna's death in chapter 8 is very heart-wrenching. In spite of everything she did, she wants so badly to make it right, and tries so hard to hold on, up until she finally falls apart. She gets better, of course, but it doesn't make the moment any less powerful.
The final support conversations are all pretty melancholy, but Cornelia's is the worst. The poor girl finally just breaks down, revealing how much self-loathing she keeps bottled up inside. She still sees herself as an evil creation, unworthy of being friends with the people she was created to kill. And to make it worse, she's clearly deeply traumatized by her memories of Boxxyfan. Catie tries her best to be reassuring and supportive, but you can tell it isn't quite enough.
Cornelia: I've heard that before... That what I do means more than what I am... But does it? Does it really?
Tyalie's scene is sad in a whole different kind of way. She breaks the fourth wall, and tells the player that she knows the end is approaching, and that's she's terrified of what comes after. Will she simply disappear? And what about her friends, who aren't even self-aware like she is? She knows how powerless she is, so all she can really do is beg you, using your own real name, not to forget about her once the game ends.You have the option to refuse her request.
Anita can be very frustrating for the unprepared. First of all, she's a Flunky Boss, with minions that respawn instantly whenever they die. Anita herself has very high defense, and spams an attack that can instantly kill a male target. (And since your party is 3/5 male at this point, you're bound to have at least two of them on the field at any given time). Let's hope you brought plenty of Proxy Feathers.
Wolfam ALPHA. Many find him to be even harder than the final bosses themselves. Especially his third phase, when he begins spamming a Wave-Motion Gun that will absolutely devastate your party turn after turn, unless you've learned how to be exceedingly creative with your accessory setup.
The six platforming trials in the epilogue. Partially because of janky physics, and also because they're just plain old Nintendo Hard. The prize at the end has become something of a memetic Last Lousy Point on the forum.
The Gatekeeper's inbox quest, which consists of buying and delivering a new table from an antique store in the next town. The problem is, the table shatters if you run into monsters along the way, or if you try to fast travel. The only two viable solutions involve Save Scumming your way down the path, resetting every time you trigger a random encounter, or using an accessory that turns off encounters, but makes you walk veeerrrrrry, veeerrrrrry slllooowwlyyy. What makes it worse, this quest is necessary if you want to get the best ending.
Oh, and both the accessory and the item that lets you save scum are huge Guide Dang-Its to even find, so good luck being able to figure out either of those solutions on your own.
The crypt in the Artistry Highway, which requires a passcode to enter. The only hint you get for the passcode is the sound of cicadas chirping in the background, which the player might simply dismiss as background noise, and which also requires the player to be familiar with the Internet mystery Cicada 3301.
There's this sort of quicktime/rhythm minigame that shows up exactly once, in a random corner of an out-of-the-way bonus area. It comes out of nowhere so suddenly that It could almost qualify as a Big-Lipped Alligator Moment.
Of course, given that the dungeon it's in is themed around "randomness", that's probably the point.
The Picross minigame qualifies too. Four puzzles in the entire game, the first is a tutorial, and the second is a gag. There could have easily been a whole side area based on this mechanic, like there was for the cart minigame.
In the battling tutorial at the very beginning, the game enables and disables each battle command in sequence as the player learns about them. This mechanic of disabling battle commands is never seen again for the entirety of the base game. The DLC finally introduces a new boss, Cancel Culture, that utilizes this as its main gimmick, by “canceling” a random command per turn.
The Un Twist: The reveal that Arianna is a rogue A.I. can be seen coming from miles away. The real surprise is learning just which A.I. she is.
Visual Effects of Awesome: The game really ramps up in production value as it goes along, but the true final battle against Legion Singularity takes the cake. You won't find many scenes in an RPG Maker game with special effects like that.
Watch It for the Meme: Boxxy used to be huge in certain parts of the internet. It's no surprise that old fans would download this game out of curiosity, just to see what she's been up to these days.
and between 2007 and 2008, it supposedly controlled anywhere from 1 million to 50 million computer systems and accounted for 8% of all malware on Microsoft Windows computers.