YMMV / Brothers in Arms

• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Is Baker A Father to His Men who is just trying to ensure their safety so that they all get home alive, even if it means putting an unbearable psychological strain on him that begins messing with his perceptions of reality? Or is he unfit for being squad leader, proving too sentimental for a position that he never wanted yet was thrust into, and his attempts at being "friends" with his squad ultimately puts them and others in unnecessary danger during a war that spares no one and requires hard decisions to be made?
  • Is Corrion right to no longer trust in Baker, who denied him a promotion to Sergeant that was rightfully his and is becoming increasingly unfit to lead a squad due to his PTSD, especially after the truth about Leggett's death got out? Or is he just being an Ungrateful Bastard and Jerkass to a man who saved his life several times just because he didn't get the promotion he thought he deserved?
• Best Level Ever:
  • "Tom and Jerry" from Road to Hill 30 is essentially one long shooting gallery that gives the player access to the two most broken weapons in the game, the Springfield and the Bazooka, the former of which can perform a One-Hit Kill on any enemy soldier encountered, with the latter being a rocket launcher capable of being reloaded quickly and having access of up to 9 reserve rockets. The level itself offers some nice Scenery Porn, and is an excellent Breather Level compared to what comes before and after it.
  • As difficult as it is, the titular Hell's Highway of game 3 is a visually magnificent level that really sells the impressive devastation of the battle. The final section in particular gives Baker access to all three of his squad's teams, a resupply crate for ammo, and a Panzerschreck anti-tank rocket to deal with those annoying Panzer IV tanks, making this Hold the Line section a rather fun experience and worthy conclusion to the rest of the level.
• Complete Monster: Hell's Highway novel, by John Antal: SS Obersturmführer Carl Kodritz is a fanatical Nazi with a severe Hair-Trigger Temper. Leading a joint operation with Wilhelm Graf's Fallschirmjägers to combat the Allied invasion of Nazi-occupied Netherlands, Kodritz does everything at his disposal to make Graf and his men suffer for their lack of faith in Nazism. While initially treated as nothing but a petty bully, Kodritz shows his true colors by murdering Dutch civilians, solely because they were begging for food. At the height of his cruelty, Kodritz deals with the presence of armed teenagers by having them executed despite their surrender.
• Continuity Lockout: So much of the third game references important events like the deaths of certain characters. Without playing the first two you don't know the exact circumstances surrounding those deaths so it gets rather confusing.
• Demonic Spiders: In later levels in Road to Hill 30 and Earned in Blood, you will encounter Germans armed with Stg 44 assault rifles. Incredibly powerful and accurate, they're even worse in Carentan and Saint-Sauveur.
  • Similarly, the German Paratroopers armed with FG42s in Earned in Blood are just as bad as their assault rifle-wielding counterparts.
  • MG42s, at least in the first two games. Will kill you with one shot, and you must flank them. Luckily, they are fairly inaccurate. Luckily, in Hell's Highway, the gunners can be sniped from a distance.
  • Panzerfaust armed infantry and Pak AT guns, when you have a tank with you. Makes scouting a necessity if you don't want to lose your tank support.
  • Panzer IV medium tanks. Their co-axial machine guns can easily mow down you and your squad, and even with tank support or access to rocket launchers they're considerably tougher than the Sherman tanks you often fight alongside with. Luckily in Hell's Highway, they've been nerfed and are much easier to destroy.
  • And in Earned in Blood, the 88's. Just...the 88's. Luckily in Hell's Highway, they're far easier to deal with.
• Retroactive Recognition: Troy Baker was leading man here in Road to Hill 40 eight years before his career would really blow up in 2013.
• Sequelitis: The third Gameloft title, Sons of War, is full of microtransactions, grinding and an extremely pay2win multiplayer mode compared to the previous mobile titles.
• * Sequel Difficulty Drop:
  • Hell's Highway is this compared to past games with Baker carrying more ammo and the complete switch to the "Luck" system for health.
  • Earned in Blood is oddly this as well as a spike as described below, while the game on most difficulties is harder, Authentic difficulty in Hill 30 had enemy accuracy/damage reach absurd levels, ultimately making levels more luck-based than anything else as well as the supression/flanking systems outright not working, while Earned in Blood Authentic still has no checkpoints, enemy accuracy and damage have been reduced, so while it's still a challenge to beat Authentic, it's more up to actual player skill in Earned in Blood.
• Sequel Difficulty Spike: Earned in Blood is this when compared to its direct predecessor Road to Hill 30. The levels are generally more difficult to traverse, particularly on higher difficulties, no thanks to an improved enemy AI system where their shots miss far less (even when Pinned Down by friendly fire), and where, on occasion, they can make use of the same squad tactics as you do to finish you and your own squad off.
• Spiritual Licensee: Band of Brothers: The Game.
• That One Level: Road to Hill 30 and Earned in Blood have quite a number, not helped by their status as Nintendo Hard games in their genre. While Hell's Highway is much easier, it too is guilty of this at certain points.
  • Purple Heart Lane, specifically, the segment where you and your squad have to run through a sniper-infested causeway. There's pretty much a guarantee that you and your squad will get heavily injured or killed in the process of trying to make it to the end, not helping is that the in-game hints lie to you. (Heavily implying the German Reinforcements are infinite, while infact they are limited.)
  • Push Into Carentan. The Panzergrenadiers are already a difficult foe by themselves, having STG-44 assault rifles as their primary weapon and more than capable of killing you and your squadmates in one magazine. It gets worse during the middle portion when not one, but two Panzer IV tanks have to dealt with using single-shot Panzerfausts, which at best require two shots to take out a tank. ^note  It is possible, but difficult, to use a Mk. II grenade to destroy the tank in one go by going up to the rear and dropping it into the commander's hatch, but that's if you manage to evade the Panzergrenadiers guarding the tank and the tank itself isn't spotting you And that's not the end of it. The last portion has you fight more assault rifle-armed German troops inside a warehouse sector, complete with MG42 machine gun nests. Thankfully, the last German troops you kill are instead armed instead with bolt action rifles.
  • No Better Spot to Die. The first part has you retaking ground against very heavily armed mechanized soldiers armed with STG-44 assault rifles, while the second segment has you go through German lines, including having to make it past three Panzer IV tanks in order to meet up The Cavalry in the form of Sherman tanks.
  • Bloody Gulch. Just like in No Better Spot to Die, of which this level is a Switching P.O.V. of, you have to face off against the Panzergrenadiers and their STG-44 assault rifles. What makes this level more challenging is that you also have to fight against a German mortar team and later, against two Panzer IV tanks without any tank support. Thankfully, the last portion is much easier, involving mowing down German infantry armed only with bolt action rifles from your prepared positions.
  • The All Americans two-parter takes everything that was bad about Push Into Carentan and takes it up to eleven. The STG-44 armed Panzergrenadiers are back, complete with the Panzer IV tanks. What could possibly make it worse, you might ask? 88mm guns, of course! And just like Push Into Carentan, you have no tank support, meaning you alone have to take out all the tanks and gun positions with Panzerfausts you can find. Enjoy.
  • The Rabbit Hole from Hell's Highway. In prior levels, the One-Man Army segments were pretty short, and Baker is given a full weapon loadout to make up for the massive number of enemies faced. This level instead only gives you a handgun as your starting weapon, with no AI allies, and with the Germans all being armed with automatic weaponry, who can One-Hit Kill you if you stay out of cover for too long. And this is just the beginning segment. Thankfully, after the difficult outdoor battle, Baker can pick up an MP 40 from one of the fallen Germans, and is provided abundant resupply crates scattered throughout the level.
  • Hell's Highway from the game of the same name. Take everything bad about The All Americans, set it in the midst of a massive inferno, and you get this literal hell of a level. You're forced to fight platoons of heavily-armed SS Panzergrenadiers armed with assault rifles and sniper rifles, 88mm guns, and their tank support, all without access to a dedicated anti-tank weapon for most of the level. And if that wasn't terrible enough, a Game-Breaking Bug will render your AI allies unable to fire their weapons unless you restart the game.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Not a person, but a vehicle, in this case the M10 tank destroyer in Earned in Blood. It only appears in one level, and it doesn't even get a chance to engage German tanks which it was designed to do. Worse, the final level only features it as The Cavalry during the final segment, and you and your squad are forced to advance without tank support all the while the Germans have artillery and tanks backing them up.
  • Over half of Hell's Highway's weapons are multiplayer only, meaning the campaign overall has less weapons than the past games, even though literally all of the MP-only weapons actually have unused "single player" versions with different stats intended for single player.