YMMV / Devil's Third

• Americans Hate Tingle: The game had quite a few positive reviews in Japan (Famitsu gave it a 33/40 for example). Western critics were much harsher, and even then, there was a bit of a cultural divide. The Anglosphere was most unkind to the game, with most publications scoring below a 5/10. Reviewers from other European countries were more a bit more forgiving, hovering around 6/10.
• Awesome Music: The ending theme, "Bleed Out."
• Complete Monster: While Isaac Kamudo and most of the Sons of Democracy (SOD) are trying to bring about peace through any means necessary, the same can't be said for these two members:
  • Big Mouse is the SOD's head scientist and bio-weapon specialist. Having created the Chimera virus as a way to power up his soldiers, he tested it on his own men, leading them to become zombified freaks, even using his own wife Jane Doe as a guinea pig. Leading an attack on a city, he shoots a wounded citizen and gasses an entire hospital containing children, which causes Ivan to leave the team. Mouse shoots C4 when she tries to protect Ivan, later using her blood as a way to create transgenic medicine for his soldiers. On Kamudo's orders, Mouse leads the SOD into taking over the Panama Canal to destroy worldwide maritime traffic and block off a US Army/trade route. Even as he dies, Mouse is happy knowing that the Panama and Suez Canal will forever be in ruin.
  • Ludmilla Karenina, the self-described "Angel of Death", is a high-ranking Russian member of the SOD, and Isaac Kamudo's second-in-command. Assisting Big Mouse in his attack on a city and gassing of a hospital, she orders her soldiers to shoot Ivan when he defects from the SOD. Casually launching nukes onto Beijing, London, and New Delhi on Kamudo's orders, she later releases a poisonous gas that kills both Ivan's men and her own soldiers in order to fight Ivan herself.
• Critical Dissonance: Reviews were generally negative, though player reception is mixed. Compare the game's 43/100 critic score to the 6.4/10 user score on Metacritic, for example.
• Cult Classic: Though the game didn't do very well in reviews or sales, the game had a very positive reception among the diehard Itagaki fans, largely in part thanks to the often-praised multiplayer mode.
• Genius Bonus: The game is named after the tritone, an interval of music three whole tones apart. Due to its dissonance causing listeners to feel uncomfortable, it's known in Latin as diabolus in musica, or "the devil in music."
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: Downplayed. While it wasn't exactly loved, Europe was a lot more forgiving than other areas.
• It's Hard, So It Sucks!: One major complaint with the game is that it's difficulty can be unfairly hard. Random damage spikes and certain bosses having one-hit kill attacks certainly doesn't help.
• Narm: Many a speaker of British English found the plot hard to take seriously because the antagonists call themselves "SOD" (a vulgar term in that region).
  • Even players from the country of the game's own origin or just knowing Japanese would often feels hard to take the game seriously once they knew that "Embaku", Ivan's superpower, means "oat". The one that's often eaten for breakfast.
• Play the Game, Skip the Story: A variation. While the single-player mode is almost universally derided by even those who enjoy Devil's Third, the online multiplayer is often praised as the highlight due to a bevy of fun modes and over-the-top action. Of course, since the mode was discontinued within eighteen months of the game's release, it's a moot point.
• So Bad, It's Good: Despite plenty of problems with the actual gameplay, it's over the top enough to be a lot of fun.