- Broken Base: The "charged" creations added in Geneforge 4, replacing several creations' upgraded forms with "charged" versions which are more powerful, but rapidly break down and cannot survive for long. While they do have their fans, many people resent no longer being able to use stronger versions of certain creatures without having to roleplay somebody so uncaring about the wellbeing of their creations that they would create ones doomed to die in the name of victory.
- First Installment Wins: To many players on the forums, the first game is one of the best thanks to having a great sense of atmosphere and tone, as well being many players' first exposure to all of the series' key themes.
- Funny Moments: This exchange from the fourth game's third act, where the player can recruit soldiers:
Player: "What happens if a soldier dies?"
Commander Ellsworth: "Well, they'll be in this tunnel, and they'll see a light, and they go toward it and their ancestors are there, and... Oh, but I can see that's not what you mean. What you want to know is what happens to you after you get my men killed."
- Game-Breaker:
- In some games, the Vlish. They are cheap to create and cause both slow and poison status effects, making a sufficiently-leveled pack of them unbeatable even on higher difficulty levels.
- Parry in Geneforge 2. At high levels, nearly every attack can be dodged with a 50/50 chance, and if that fails, you have another 50/50 chance to take less damage, and if that fails, you have another 50/50 chance to counter for high damage if the attack is melee. Guardians practically break the game all the way through, and even Agents and Shapers can heavily benefit from several points in it.
- Strong Daze in Geneforge 2. With a decent mental magic skill, it can completely incapacitate large groups of even the most powerful enemies, allowing you to fight them one at a time.
- Goddamn Bats:
- Enemy Vlish. They swarm and cause a variety of negative status effects.
- Podlings in V have area-effect attacks that inflict negative status effects. And since different varieties inflict different effects, it can get very annoying very quickly.
- High-Tier Scrappy: The three Shaper classes in 5. While the option to use either the classic Shaper designs or the Rebel class designs introduced in 4 is one that a lot of players liked to see, the problem comes in that they aren't strictly resprites; due to their stats being carried over from their NPC-only status in the fourth game, they naturally start with much higher resistance to almost every element than their Rebel counterparts. This completely ruins the balance between them, and many people either don't like feeling pressured to use the Shaper sprites as to not miss out on the extra defense, or feel dirty picking them due to how unintentional the stat discrepancy feels.
- Narm: The game over screen
in Geneforge 5, which has a pair of boots cartoonishly sticking out of a hole with a cute fyora looking at it curiously. A bit more silly looking when compared to the previous games. - Nightmare Fuel:
- Dying in the games in general. Since the sudden loud noise from your character dying tends to come off as sudden, especially if you accidentally set off mines while walking through a map. What doesn't help is that the games are usually quiet and the scream from your character when they die is the only time they are voice acted.
- Some of the designs for certain creation types are frankly grotesque. Most notably the Rotghroths and Rothizdrons introduced in 2, which are unnervingly tall, perpetually decomposing humanoids, and the Creators introduced in 3, which are spawner-esque creatures that consist of a plantlike mass connected to an extremely uncanny humanoid upper body, accompanied by disproportionately long arms that end in what appear to be fleshy claws. Some of the latter can even talk, and they make... less than coherent conversationalists.
"Ahh... Shaper. Shaper. Shaper here. Shaper come to command, to control, to free. Am so... lost. Help me, Shaper." (...) Then, a moment later, it snarls, a hollow, hissing noise. "Yes! The enemy Shaper! I kill you! Command me Shaper, I will kill you!" - Player Punch: The tutorial area of Geneforge 5 encourages the player to make a Fyora in order to learn how making creations works. Should they do so and keep it alive by the end of the area, then when they meet Rawal, he will observe the malformed state of the creation and destroy it on the spot. Even though the game signifies earlier that the creation isn't in a very good state, some players may still want to take care of it, and having Rawal essentially kill your pet is an effective first impression for the Hate Sink that his character is.
- Scrappy Mechanic: The travel-by-boat system introduced in 3. Having to walk to the end of certain zones to travel between islands slows long-distance travel down to a crawl, compared to the previous two games where if you cleared every area, you could travel to any area no matter what area you left from.
- Solo-Character Run: A rare case where this is neither beneficial nor negative; simply a different style of play suited to a different class.
- This is only a Self-Imposed Challenge for the Shaper class, and later Lifecrafter and Shock Trooper classes, because Shaping skills are their specialty. Without creating mons, the benefits of Shaping specialization can be focused on healing and defensive buffing, but the build doesn't leave much in the way of direct damage ability.
- In fact, with the Agent class, along with the Infiltrator and Servile classes in later games, this is actually a BETTER idea, because it means you don't have to share experience with creations that really won't do you any favours. Generally Agents only make creations for large scale battles where they can benefit from meat shields. Not having any creations also means a bigger essence pool, so it becomes much easier to use essence-gobbling spells like Augmentation, Essence Blade, or Aura of Flames.
- Tear Jerker:
- There's a very depressing undercurrent beneath Pentil in Geneforge 1. A city filled with former slaves whose culture is so strictly formed around the Shapers being infallible gods, that even after being abandoned for an entire century, they live telling themselves that everything; even the deaths of their loved ones; is the Shapers' will, and thus just. They do so much, from causing suffering to the factions they see as having abandoned their ways, to carefully taking care of records the Shapers have no use for anymore, all in the name of a people who, when the going got tough, left them to die. Even if you don't think the Obeyers are correct in what they do, you can't help but feel deeply sorry for them. Their leader Rydell's journal is particularly heartrending:
"Why do they leave us here? Why do they test us so? Why won't they return? My people suffer. I suffer. Year after year, death after death. Natley has lost her bonded. She asked why the Shapers allowed her pain. What am I to say? I will follow them and do their will, whatever it is, until I die. But, alone on my throne, I allow myself one dream. I wish a Shaper would come here, and tell me I did well." - That One Level:
- The Power Core in Geneforge 1. Health is almost constantly drained, usually killing weak creations or low-endurance characters almost immediately. It gets even worse the further you go into the area, to the point of making the area nearly impossible to certain character types. Luckily, the only enemies in the area are relatively weak shades, but combined with the health drain they can still be a major nuisance if they come at the wrong time.
- The Radiant College in Geneforge 2, as any faction other than the Barzites. Most faction questlines require you to sabotage the research of the college, which requires either killing the leaders of the area (which is as difficult as it sounds), stealing the research papers (which sets off the alarm, alerting everyone in the area to your location) or causing a gas leak (which causes health drain to the entire area, forcing you to escape the area immediately or die quickly). And then there are the enemies: large amounts of drayks and cryodrayks, powerful human mages, a drakon, and a gazer boss that, around the time you'll more than likely be tackling this area, will likely be powerful enough to instantly kill most characters. And for three of the five faction choices, this area is mandatory. Good luck.
- Unexpected Character: The introduction of a servile as a class choice in Geneforge 4. After the previous games only featured human classes, being able to play as a creation was a surprising addition, and one that most players greatly appreciated: helped further by how powerful they are in gameplay.
