YMMV / Faraway Story

• Awesome Boss: Ellevark is a challenging Superboss in Part 1 and can easily kill unprepared players with his rapid fire casting and diverse moveset that allows him to be quite deadly at any range. This means the player has to learn to judge the best distance to keep from him, as well as knowing the best times to attack. His sudden Large Ham, use of an Amazing Technicolor Battlefield, and visually impressive Ruin spells certainly add to the epicness of the fight.
• Catharsis Factor:
  • Due to his Jerkass attitude towards the party and his Hopeless Boss Fight in Erance, beating Crowa 3 times during the Part 1 final fight feels very satisfying. Better yet, this is the first battle where Ellevark doesn't hold back as a party member.
  • For similar reasons to Crowa, players tend to look forward to Silmina's battle despite her being a more difficult boss. Though this is downplayed when her Freudian Excuse is revealed after the battle.
• Demonic Spider: The Stone Golem enemy in the Forbidden Mine has high ATK, DEF, and RES in addition to being immune to stagger. Even though it's an earth type, it has no weaknesses whatsoever, making it very resource draining to fight.
• Difficulty Spike: Part 2 starts off much harder because the starting party is Ellevark solo. While he's versatile, it's still hard for players who are used to having allies and players who are used to Pia's playstyle. After Marinet and Karnel join, the bosses aren't as easily tanked as before to make up for the fact that the party has two healers.
• Goddamn Bats: The Flower Fairies are weak, but also come in large groups, have an annoying barrier to make it harder to land melee attacks, and can inflict blind and confusion. There's actually a consumable item that temporarily prevents them from using the barrier, almost as if the game was acknowledging them as this trope.
• Jerkass Woobie: Silmina of all people turns out be be one, since she has a tragic backstory due to her loveless family situation and being forced to live for her talents.
• Player Punch:
  • Ellevark is only shown turning into sand when the player defeats him in what should have been a non-lethal duel. For those who got attached to Ell, this moment certainly diminishes the sense of accomplishment of winning the battle.
  • Whether or not you defeat Remi, it still doesn't feel nice to be partially responsible for wearing her down to the point where the Big Bad kills her.
• Scrappy Mechanic: During some Hyper-special Finishers, like Big Crunch and Element Zero, the screen will be obscured due to the skill animation, making it hard to see enemy attacks or walls. This is made worse by the fact that the user can't guard or use items during the animation, potentially leading to an unceremonious death.
• That One Attack:
  • Zigzagged with Crowa's Philosopher Stone beam. It rotates fairly slowly and is easy to dodge for the player, but the AI allies will charge right into the hitbox and will probably get killed, forcing the player to waste Cost just to revive them.
  • Crowa's normal attack is this due to its reach advantage and speed, making it hard to avoid damage like with other enemies. Worse yet, he can buff himself to deal two hits per swing.
• That One Boss:
  • The turtle boss in Half Beast Forest is second to Remi in tankiness and will spam water lasers, summon swamp tiles, and summon bouncy mushrooms to make itself even harder to kill.
  • Necrovia comes with plenty of powerful Ruin spells that deal extra damage to those who choose to cleanse themselves of status effects. She's basically a preview of what to expect with the fight with Ellevark.
  • The rematch with Valgido is an especially difficult Flunky Boss, since it immediately starts the fight with three vine allies, each of which has tens of thousands of HP. The only saving grace is that each enemy is stationary and every time a flunky dies, Valgido automatically takes major damage.
  • Not only do you have only two characters to fight Silmina, she also has the ability to convert her ice spells into fire spells mid-animation, which are much stronger. Oh, and if Erena is downed, Silmina will spam said fire spells in an effort to finish off Ellevark faster.
• That One Sidequest:
  • Karnel's leadership mission has a far stricter time limit than Marinet's mission and doesn't allow much room for error. His playstyle is also less about direct offense compared to other characters, requiring the player to remember certain status mechanics to destroy the obstacles.
  • While Mimi's leadership mission has no time limit, it's still significantly harder than Erena's mission, which is also a large dungeon with no time limit. Many of the mandatory switch puzzles in Mimi's mission are harder than the optional puzzles in Erena's mission, due to the precision and speed required to make it past the obstacles before the switches reset.