Cursed M4A1note The various Off-Model instances of M4's weapon starting with the second episode (eg. Pupbull, demented vented hanguard, bullpup) have led to artists churning "cursed" art of the weapon based on these instances.
Video Game:
Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: Alaya-Vijnana, the bonus stage of Poincaré Recurrence. It depicts Dandelion walking through a pitch-dark landscape, populated by Nightmares, dead trees, and decrepit poles, with only the sound of howling winds as accompaniment. Tapping the OGAS symbol will temporarily illuminate the screen. The scene then changes to Dandelion struggling to walk before collapsing. Red static fills the screen as a woman's sobbing gradually intensifies in the background. Orange motes of light appear and gather to Dandelion, reviving her. The screen turns into a white void where Dandelion walks a few steps, curtsies, and leaves. The event provides no story or even context about all of this. It's just there.
Surprisingly, chapters 0-1 and 0-2 are this. After fighting tooth and nail through seven long chapters of increasingly difficult bosses, 0-1 is astoundingly short, and while 0-2 might be longer and, on its face, absolutely loaded with enemies, both are very easy to complete due in large part to the enemies never moving from their posts, allowing players to slowly clear out the maps at their leisure while farming for drops and XP. It doesn't last, however, since 0-4 happens to be That One Level.
Isomer Chapter 4 has "Above the Hubbub III" and "Above the Hubbub IV", which are both Quick Time Event-controlled motorcycle chases against Beak. Both stages can be completed with a level 1 T-Doll by her lonesome and the minigames themselves offer ample leeway for error, even on EX difficulty.
The Bounty Feast event has dedicated farming maps for event drops instead of farming said drops from the main campaign, a quality of life change that was ported from the Chinese version starting from the Shattered Connexion event. Within this set of maps, "Dark Zone ∞" is particularly noteworthy since the player automatically wins after one turn, no matter how few enemy echelons were destroyed (if any were even destroyed at all), making for a particularly effortless event currency farm. Later events and some reruns afterwards have worked in things to make farming easier, like alternative objective/routes.
The censored artwork made in order to please or not get in trouble with Chinese, Korean and Apple App store's censorship and rating boards. Some fans don't like it since it ruins the character's original design while others think the censored artwork is much better since it improves the artwork and makes the characters' clothes less silly and more practical (eg. MG5 wearing pants instead of her original artwork where she wears chaps). This overlooks the fact a trick exists to restore the original artwork.
Gentiane from the official manga. While some fans like Gentiane since it's a nice change of pace to see a female protagonist in a gacha game-based manga, many others feel like its a Cosmic Retcon due to the fact that she's also canon as far as the series goes.
The Volume 2 Confidential Files has caused quite a backlash amongst fans due to the large retcons of the plot and settings that it doesn't sound like the same game. The book's political critique of Japan, South Korea and the US despite the game being a hit in those countries didn't help the book's reputation. Add to the fact the rumors that parts of the book was not written by Mica Team but outsourced to another controversial writer has made many fans refuse to acknowledge it as canon.
The backlash has significantly waned after ideas from the book were incorporated in the main story and the rumors were shot down. Most story guides these days, be it in the Chinese or English-speaking community, integrate information from this book without so much as a warning.
The poll for the early release of MOD 3 in the EN version can be considered as this, especially it caused an unprecedented backlash from not only within the EN players themselves, but also from those who played the original servers (CN/TW/KR).
The earliest rumors of Girls' Frontline 2 has already sparked worry if MICA will abruptly end Girls' Frontline in order to focus on the sequel. Come the full reveal of Exilium and more controversies began to emerge by the hour, ranging from the overly sci-fi (some may even say generically-so) aesthetic, the reveals being mostly new characters than old favorites, the fact that it's coming out while the first game is still in operation, and MICA hamstringing their own creative freedom by writing GF II before GF is even complete, among other complaints. Gameplay of Exilium has been shown to be much different, as it behaves much like the X-COM games, but little has been made in the way of how divisive the game might be to most people.
The fact that there's at least two other games being worked on (one being by a fan group) has raised some eyebrows just due to how reaching the prospect is outside of the plot implications of GF and Exilium.
The Protocol Assimilation mechanic, allowing players to capture and field Sangvis Ferri units, has been criticized for its potential pay-to-win model, forcing players to spend gems to maximize their chances at capturing the extra-powerful SF ringleaders or having to grind to use the pity system. While judgment is still out as Mica still hasn't said anything about allowing SF units during ranked events, the JP server (a server known for getting profitable new things fast) being due to receive the Protocol Assimilation mechanic in Summer 2020 has resulted in players claiming that Mica is pandering to whales or desperate for cash.
Architect's addition into Protocol Assimilation, while inevitable for an SF boss, was met with a lot backlash from players. Due to the way Protocol Assimilation works, Architect must be captured like any other Sangvis Ferri boss before she could be used instead of being given for free, despite her being in the custody of G&K for a good while now. While the capturing system had already been under fire for a while due to its grindy nature favoring those who are willing to whale, this is considered to be the straw that broke the camel's back due to Architect's popularity. Many players have agreed Architect should have been given out for free instead of Scarecrow.
The reveal of "Architect NVW Type" (basically "Summer Architect") has sparked a budding uproar. First is the fact it's a seasonal alt in a game not known for them, and in relation with the semi-limited nature of Protocol Assimilation, means reruns of others are delayed because of her and that it'll be a year wait between runs for her. Rumors of her being overpowered in testing may make things even worse in reception.
Server pampering accusations are all over the place among the most vicious parts of the fanbase, with CN, TW and KR accusing each other of being the favorites and JP being seen as either a "left-behind" server lagging in new content or the pampered one for squeezing cash out of whales. When they're not accusing EN of being the real favorite server due to the collabs with Western franchises (overlooking the fact MICA likes said franchises) or its steady pace of new content being added and getting a good timed exclusive doll in M200.
Crossover Ship: It's not uncommon to find the dolls paired with operators from Rainbow Six Siege if one of the latter's operators shares a gun with a doll. For instance, here's AK-12 with Fuze. HK416 also often gets paired with Jaeger, which even got a small nod in Healing Chapter, as does DP-28 with Tachanka. Ironically, when Ubisoft entered plans to collab with a few notable Chinese mobage companies, Rainbow Six Siege did not get to officially collab with Girls' Frontline - that honor went to The Division instead.
Vespids tend to be massive nuisances on any level of play. They deal disturbing amounts of damage whenever they hit anybody, come in frighteningly big numbers even early on, and are annoyingly accurate even at night with you using high-EVA SMGs. If your tank can't reliably dodge or eat their raw damage, chances are high that they will be blown off the battlefield in seconds.
The KCCO Hydras that appear from stage 10-4E and onwards are the first non-boss example that fits here. They have a staggering 199 armor and have an extremely rapid and fast attack that is practically impossible to tank, forcing players to employ extremely well strengthened RF/MG dolls with 5-star, max-calibrated AP rounds to kill them fast. The Heavy Ordnance Corps units somewhat mitigate the difficulty a little bit, but not too much... and they debut(ed) way, way after Chapter 10.
The KCCO tank, Typhon, is another example that debuted in the Singularity Campaign. They have an extremely powerful penetrating beam weapon that never misses, and to make matters worse, they come with very powerful escort units with tons of HP. Since the player must take down all of the escorts and keep dodging the tank attacks until they reach the tank's blind spot, it requires a combination of extremely high early DPS and high maneuverability. It led to a very unusual combination of dolls named "Gunboat" or "Tankbuster". See Fan Nickname page for details on this combination.
The Fourth Faction's Rodelero that appears in the Continuum Turbulence campaign is a mild example. They leap towards a target and then unleash a powerful beam attack that pierces through an entire row. They can be easily fooled using a Provocation Fairy's dummy because they always leap towards the drone, but they still force the player to move their dolls around, briefly making their squad vulnerable. This causes a number of problems when they appear in tandem with other powerful units, such as Doppelsoldners or Uhlans. And while we're talking about Doppelsoldners...
Doppelsoldners are by far the worst example, even more than the Hydras. These monstrous units, nicknamed 'gundams' in the Korean fandom, have automatic grenade launchers that never miss as their base attack, and after 8 seconds into the fight they will unleash a grenade bombardment across the entire screen, with no room to dodge. In other words, there is no such thing as 'tanking' against these things. The only way to take them down without suffering catastrophic damage is to deal very high damage in a very short amount of time and take them out. There are very few dolls that can do this. The thing is, while they don't hit very hard, they completely ignore dummy protection so a 5 linked SMG has the same amount of survivability as a 1 linked SMG.
A special shoutout from the English community goes to the Fourth Faction, as they cameo'd in the VA-11 HALL-A crossover (as stand-ins for the White Knights of VH) months ahead of their scheduled storyline debut (since Sunborn made sure to get the crossover out for the EN community roughly in time with other regions, as VH first debuted in English). While they were adjusted a bit for fairness (primarily in the form of losing the force shield that actual Paradeus units have, English players got introduced to the wonders of Rodeleros, Doppels and Uhlans without digimind upgrades, heavy ordinance or Singularity-era Dolls even being available (a typical reaction to VH stage 1-6 was often "IS THAT A GODDAMN TANK?!"). The event even capped off with fighting a stand-in Fourth Faction boss, who is tremendously more involved than anything most EN-exclusive players had faced up to that point. Oh, did we mention that the final stage involves fighting said boss, multiple mandatory Rodeleros, and playing chicken with two super-gundams?
Shattered Connexion introduces many dangerous KCCO enemies:
Pathfinders are constantly pooped out from their respective factories. If your dolls don't have enough dps, the robots will wear down your echelons through endless numbers, despite being rather weak individually. Oh, and the factories usually come in threes and come with extremely thick armor.
Orthrus and Centaurus are becoming almost as infamous as the previous nasty KCCO units for being a nearly unbeatable combination when together. Beast rush up to your dolls to deploy a shield that reduces all damage to 1, while the Archers pelt your frontline with powerful, accurate shots. They stand just far back enough that if you do down the Beasts, they can land a few more painful shots as your dolls move into firing range. If you don't kill them in time, Archers will start loosing arrows with incendiary payloads at your girls, which are just as dangerous as when you used them.
Gustafs/Argonauts. These things come in three flavors - a main cannon, an absurdly powerful laser, and a heavy mortar. All of these cover two entire columns with their main attacks, so good luck winning a battle with one column of dolls. They also require different tactics to deal with each between their titanic health pool, their main attacks, and their point defense turrets, so generally speaking you need two or more echelons with specific roles to take all of them out. The main problem, though, is that they're the enemy's fire support units. They can and will lay down withering fire all across the map, and in certain circumstances, can support each other if you approach wrong. One of the ranking maps had one of these covering your base, so it was a mad dash to get an echelon to destroy it while under fire from it.
The Gunslinger Girl Il Teatrino event features the Arsonist among the ranks of the Five Republics soldiers. They're unique in that they're not a Moveset Clone of other enemies featured in the game - instead, as their name might imply, they throw Molotov cocktails as their skill, and their Damage Over Time effects never miss, much like T-Dolls who have similar skills. This makes them much more dangerous than the Centaurus first found in Shattered Connexion which similarly had a incindiary DOT attack though with a different targeting mannet. Unlike grenade-throwing T-Dolls, however, they often focus fire on the player's front ranks instead of at a random target, so players will find themselves shuffling their T-Dolls around a lot to avoid getting horribly incinerated.
Quills of Patmos, introduced in Mirror Stage, can single-handedly ruin an echelon's day just by existing. They don't attack by themselves, so why are they so dangerous? They alternate between an echelon-wide Status-Buff Dispel and a team-wide shield buff and cleanse. Any echelon that relies on any buffs or debuffs to deal effective damage has just lost all of their combat power.
Nyto Hawkeyes from Fixed Point alone provide half the difficulty of the event. Hawkeyes are sniper units like Jaegers, except their skill not only deals massive burst damage to their target, but also pierces them and hits whatever T-doll is in the backline, making tanks effectively useless against them. Even worse, once they use their skill, Hawkeyes immediately jump backwards, putting them out of range of your dolls while still being able to snipe you from beyond the screen edge. The only way to effectively fight them is to either rely on HOCs or specialist dolls like QBZ-191 to shut them down.
Enjoy the Story, Skip the Game: The game's story is often touted by fans as one of the best in any mobage, given all of the science fiction, personal drama, and political thriller elements it incorporates. However, many fans also do admit that much of the game's actual gameplay is rather dated compared to more modern rivals, leading some to simply read up on story developments rather than actually playing the game.
Architect is the most popular Sangvis Ferri ringleader because of her Cloud Cuckoolander tendencies and fondness for explosions. Her Heel–Face Turn certainly helps her reputation. Unsurprisingly, she features rather significantly in the VA-11 HALL-A crossover.
Destroyer is often a close second, with her fans mostly liking her out of pity due to her Butt-Monkey status both in gameplay (as an easily farmable boss) and story (as Dreamer's plaything). Her fans interpreted her desertion from Sangvis Ferri during the events of Polarized Light as Foreshadowing and most of them waited in anticipation for the opportunity to recruit her as an allied unit from the Protocol Assimilation update). Destroyer receiving a Christmas present from the Commander in the Christmas 2019 event was also a welcome sight, spawning manypiecesoffanart.
M200 is an unexpectedly popular character, despite having an initial mixed reception due to her legs being drawn too long. A combination of her being the first server exclusive T-Doll (initially released for EN) to be highly effective ingame, and her overall design have made her the most popular out of the server exclusives, giving rise to various terms of endearment such as "EN's daughter". Even the EN devs themselves seem to have acknowledged her popularity, as not only does EN's special 2nd Anniversary login screen for 2020 feature her as the forward-most foreground character, but her new exclusive anniversary skin was made available on EN at the same time as the older servers.
The KCCO Squad Leader from Polarized Light dies at the end of the chapter he debuted in, but the massive display of determination and badassery he showed in such short span of time endeared him in the eyes of some players, even declaring him to be a Worthy Opponent.
SOPMOD II Jr., a minor character in Healing Chapter, was liked enough by the fandom to the point where a fanart of her riding a fun sized Dinergate in the snow beat out all others in a vote for a new Christmas-themed friend card background in 2019.
Negev is loved by the fandom due to both her design and her Yandere personality. It's gotten to the point that a significant number of people who haven't played the game recognize as "Yandere Israeli Girl'' on the web.
Fandom Rivalry: In China, there's an absolutely vicious one between GF and Arknights, stemming largely from the antipathy between the developers themselves (Hypergryph, the AK devs, having been founded by former MICA Team members who left over substantial creative differences). It's significantly less pronounced internationally, but it's still there in some corners.
While there is a rivalry between the devs of the games, the fanbase of Arknights was originally composed largely of GF fans, before Arknights exploded in popularity. The beginning of the rivalry between the fanbases actually didn't have much to do with the rivalry between the companies, but zealous fans that simply love one of the games too much.
MICA and Yostar have a rather fierce rivalry which is shared by some fans of this game. It stems from old history of their heads (who both worked at the same company in the past) and an attempt to launch the game in Japan failed due to the beta data vanishing and fingers being pointed between the two companies. As such, Azur Lane is disliked by more zealous MICA fans. This rivalry between companies is thought to have sparked a number of decisions by one or both companies including Yostar picking up Arknights and snatching up Rainbow Six Siege has escalated it.
Oddly enough, Chinese fans sometimes take their anger out on English-speaking players because this trope is mostly averted on EN servers.
Due to Scarecrow and M950A Calico sharing the same hairstyle (caused by sharing the same artist), many fans believe they might be long lost twins. This is helped by Griffin having at least one former Sangvis doll on-staff, so it's not inconceivable that Calico, whose past hasn't been explored much, is a former Sangvis.
PA-15 has been called Calico and Thunder's daughter as she has the former's hair style and the latter's hair color.
Some fan artists like to depict Architect as being in leaguewith 404. Since Operation Cube+ cemented her Heel–Face Turn with her abject refusal to return to Sangvis Ferri lest they decommission her for her failures, 404 would logically be the best spot for her to hide because of their clandestine MO that not even G&K as a whole are privy to.
Fans tend to Flanderize Gager's Villainous Friendship with Architect, painting Gager as emotionally dependent to Architect, mostly to hilarious degrees. This is actually partially true of Gager's canon portrayal, although it's decidedly not comical - she breaks out into a one-on-one fight against Architect in Operation: Dual Randomness because she can't stand the idea of Architect not blindly following S.F.'s revenge-driven directives even after said faction's almost-complete destruction. When Architect sincerely tells Gager to consider thinking for herself, she runs away in confusion.
Fans tend to portray HK416 and 404 in a generally nicer light when 416's prone to being standoffish (and rather fearful of being abandoned by the group) and the UMP sisters loving to troll her.
Another popular fan portrayal of 416 is being a yandere due to certain lines of her playable version. The devs have sort of ran with this in a few small ways, like April 16th being her day with a creepy letter from her and 416 units of various resources. Another is during the The Division collab, she sees Fang (a corrupted copy of her digimind) say the infamous "I'm all you need" line, causing her to gag.
Fanon Discontinuity: Some players don't trust most, if not all, of the backstory information provided in Volume 2 of the Confidential Files due to what appears to massive amounts of retcons done on the backstory, starting with the specifics of the Belian Island incident.
With Modern Warfare, owing to similar themes and guns shared by both franchises. Modders have managed to create a mod replacing all NPC characters and player models in the remastered Modern Warfare's campaign with Griffin and SF T-Dolls.
Both Rainbow Six Siege and Destiny 2 have shared fandoms with GF over a shared interest in guns. Fans have clamored for crossover events with the other two games, and the fact that they ultimately had collaborations with the rival gameArknights has only increased the Fandom Rivalry between the two app games.
Aside from the aforementioned Doppelsoldners, there is the Gate. Making its first appearance in the Isomer event, it is featured as a simple door that can be toggled to open and close down, enabling access to paths that lead to the enemy HQ or detours from threatening mobs. Or you can even lure them right in it and shut it down. Repeat this procedure and watch as their HP continues to drop down from 6-digits to just 4 without even trying. Simple, yet Awesome
In G&K's side, there's Hanyang Type 88's Digi-Mind Upgrade. Originally, she's a 3* Rifle T-Doll that started off with unremarkable stats along with a skill that has a long initial cooldown and only suited at night which made her virtually useless. Until this point she was better known for how lewd her maid Live2D skin's damage art was. Now in her MOD 3 remodel, fully transformed into her Power Armor, she has a passive skill that allows her to take down swarms of enemies with Frickin' Laser Beams, cluster grenades and Sword Beam attacks. She also has a whopping 500% movement speed that allows her to even outrun Handguns, making her the T-Doll with the highest mobility in the entire game. In firepower alone, she can even surpass powerhouses such as M14 and IWS-2000. It is this very reason she is called G&K's Gundam by the playerbase.
M4A1 MOD3 and IWS2000 are both considered incredibly overpowered for similar reasons. Namely, their skills allow them to trade rate of fire for a massive damage boost. Combine with other dolls that can provide ROF buffs, and they can clear entire screens and most bosses in a matter of seconds. There is even a special "Jupiter Echelon" that includes both M4A1 MOD3 and IWS2000 for double the killing power, and is widely considered the meta choice for clearing the majority of endgame enemies.
ST AR-15 is one of the few dolls that can nearly reach the ROF cap without any external buffs thanks to her skill. This alone gives her DPS output that puts many 5-star ARs to shame. Add on top of that her unique ammunition that significantly boosts her damage and having two accessory slots instead of one, and AR-15 is capable of massive damage output. And that's not even considering her MOD3 which boosts her damage even further.
G11 and AN-94 are both considered to be top tier ARs due to them having similar skills where each hit on the enemy actually counts as multiple hits, allowing them to exceed the game's ROF cap. This allows them to rival AR-15 in being able to shred hordes of enemies in a matter of seconds.
Carcano M91/38 has a skill that gives her a whopping 4500% damage boost against non-boss enemies. This allows her to basically oneshot or at least trivialize many of the game's Demonic Spiders such as Manticores, Hydras, Doppelsoldners, and more.
On a related note, Carcano M1891 used to be The Scrappy compared to her sister above... Until Python arrived. Those two go on like a house on fire with their cumulative buffs, turning Carcano into a powerhouse and increasing even more the crazy buffs Python gives.
Python is a game-changer due to her skill. The passive version of it, whenever she receives a buff, be it from a T-Doll or a Fairy, she applies the same buff to Dolls on her tiles, making her a extremely potent buffer if paired with various buffers. The active version has her fire six shots, with each shot having a chance of receiving a big damage buff; the kicker is that not only said buffs stack with each other, but at skill level 10, the chance of triggering said buff is 100%, resulting in a 482% damage boost on her last shot. While outclassed by Desert Eagle in terms of raw damage, Python can almost solo non-armored non-shielded bosses.
SAT8 has an ability that puts a shield on every unit at the front of the formation (including herself). However, one quirk about the interaction between shields and armor is that armor damage reduction applies to the shield as well. This makes SAT8 and any other shotguns she's shielding incredibly durable to the point where she is largely considered the best shotgun in the game.
Desert Eagle is often the linchpin for 5HG formations, due to her skill giving her massive damage bonuses against her target, to the extent she outdamages many dedicated DPS dolls. Not only that, but her skill also passively allows her to ignore enemy shielding, which is a capability no other doll possesses. This makes Desert Eagle ideal for dealing with some of the later game bosses who rely heavily on shields for their defense. A well earned reward for commanders getting through the grueling Shattered Connexion stage, including its Unexpected Shmup Level.
The event-exclusive Jill Stingray is notable for coming to par with or even ousting several top tier handguns (e.g. HS2000 or Contender) in terms of sheer buffs, and her various alcohol ingredient equipment pieces give her drastic changes to her active skill, making her flexible enough to fit in any party. The only real "downsides" she has are that she can't shoot, being a bartender and all; she has eight separate special equipment pieces (of which a few seem like duplicates of each other; they're actually for different slots); and she's a collaboration event T-Doll that players can't have more than two of at best. Her strength is such that the developers specifically banned her and her alone in the English's server's third speedrunning contest during the Il Teatrino event. (She was banned from the first, too; but that was because she had a specific interaction with the boss that ends the battle early.)
Genius Bonus: Suomi's love of heavy metal music may be a reference to the fact that many such bands originate from Finland and how popular the music genre is there.
404 appears to be a nod to the HTTP status code 404 for "The thing you want cannot be found" by their insistence of making sure nobody knows they exist on top of their motto.
The game is popular in South Korea, with promotional materials and even official licensed merch being marketed specifically for players of the Korean version. A few Korean guns were even added to the game, with one getting a PV to herself.
The EN release of the game attracted a strong worldwide following that is steadily growing... however, not by much compared to later competitors. Outside of the gacha game and military communities, it can be slightly regarded as a Cult Classic overseas.
The Japanese are big fans of the game to the point that, according to statistics, the Japanese server made more profit than all the other servers combined. This is particularly notable given some of the issues surrounding the game's release in that country, and how it actually lags behind the CN and KR versions significantly in content, being closer to the English version's progression path. That and the delay causing a number of players to play other areas (Korean and Taiwan). Closer looks have revealed said profit was due to pushing new dolls faster compared to other areas.
Good Bad Bugs: Operation Isomer introduced a bug that removed the 30% cap on ability timer cooldown reduction buffs, effectively raising the cap to 72%note Take one 5-star RF, which provides an 18% CD buff, and multiply by four, giving you 72%..
Harsher in Hindsight: One of Thompson's secretary lines has her enthusing about the prospect of a world without police. In early June of 2020, a faction of George Floyd protesters attempted to make this a reality with the self-proclaimed Autonomous Zone inCapitol Hill. Let's just say it didn't end well.
Junk Rare: There are certain 4 or even 5-star T-dolls (with many being old units) that fall into trope for a variety of factors, which include but are not limited to non-synergizing stats, bad tile buff placement/effects, subpar skills and effectiveness, or any combination of the above.
Heckler & Koch PSG-1, at least according to the KR and TW playerbases, is generally uncommon owing to her 4-star status, she drops very frequently from Ouroboros during Operation Cube, much to the dismay of those trying to farm for the universally-better Five-seveN. Her stats are also nothing to write home about, being one of the more mediocre small bamboos with stats that don't even facilitate that, in a subset of RFs that are already niche to begin with. It stands to be one of several reasons why she's lumped into the "free Cores" pile by a great many players, as even the 3 Dummy Cores she returns when dismantled prove more useful than her.
Few 5-star T-Dolls are so bad that they gain memetic status for it, but MG4 is certainly one of them. She's among some of the most common 5-star MG T-Dolls one could reasonably get, and should be one of the first few rare units of that class for many players, but her skill, stats, and tiles are so mediocre that there are 2-star MGs that are better than her. And all 2-star MGs save LWMMG are considered to be universally awful, so that's saying a lot. She's not objectively terrible, per se, but everything about her is just incredibly underwhelming that they don't justify her tremendous upkeep and upgrade cost. At the end of the day, there are plenty of more common, yet more tactically valuable T-Dolls than her that don't consume as many Dummy Cores to link and keep. MG4 got a Digi-Mind upgrade in mid-2021, but a good amount of players still assume she might not be able to save herself from the bottom tiers despite now being more able to keep up with recent heavy hitters Kord and Lewis.
Type 100 (100 Shiki on the EN server) is considered the absolute worst SMG among 5-star ones, and for good reason: while her Deflector Shield skill looks useful on paper, it has an extremely long cast time (13 seconds) and the buffs it offers in addition are weak; the shield itself pales compared to other shield SMGs. Her stats are also awful, barely reaching mediocre with her unique equipment. The worst part about her is that it took 2 real-life years between her announcement and final release.
Grenadier T-Dolls fall into two categories: the useful ones and the others. The combination of high initial cooldowns, random targeting and usually lower stats to compensate for the grenade means that, unless the Doll has some saving grace to compensate her shortcomings, she's this trope. Decent grenadiers include SOPMOD and K11 (by opting for Grenade Spam), HK416 MOD3 (by having a faster grenade that shoots in six seconds instead of eight), FAL (by having a huge area of effect), A-91 (by gaining massive buffs at night) and Zas M21 (by being an universal unit that fits with almost every other T-Doll possible).
Ironically, the entire AR Team was this early in the game's life cycle. They used to have incredibly nonsensical tile buffs◊ and skills that basically made them synergize with one another and no one else, not helped by the fact that skills used to activate randomly back then. Most players resorted to scrapping them en masse as a result, sometimes knowing full well that they can't be obtained again, until MICA rebalanced their tiles and skills into what we have today.
As per the norm for flat-chested characters, UMP45 is portrayed as a T-Doll with excessive A-Cup Angst. To rub more salt in the wound, any fanart of UMP45 with a larger chest size will receive a major No Yay reaction from fans, or be interpreted not actually as UMP45, but as some other T-Dolls cosplaying as her.
6P62, mainly because she is drawn by the manager of Mica team (the company in fact grew out of a dojin circle so even the manager has some art skills), Yu Zhong, who is a widely memed person in the community and the butt of many player complaints and jokes, so they were applied to 6P62 by proxy. Even in one of the official pieces of furniture, she is shown being locked inside a manager's office.
AA-12's real addiction is, according to fans and due to her looks, not sugar or late night radio, but crystal meth.
MG4 is often made fun of within the fandom due to being one of the more blatant Junk Rare characters. Despite her status as a 5-star unit, her abysmal stats and practically useless skill means even 2-star machine guns can out-DPS her.
Memetic Molester: Saiga-12 is often depicted by fan-artists and Korean players as having an... unsavory interest in FNC and USAS-12.
IDW DA NYA!note IDW's acquisition line has earned a reputation, not only it is loud, it also causes ire from many players who want to craft Grizzly or other 4 or 5-star handguns.
Rate Up is a Lie! note During or before special events, the game will raise the rate of chances of getting rarer and powerful T-Dolls and Equipment. However, because the raised rate is rather small, most players will still get common T-Dolls and Equipment, with fans crying that the rate up is a lie.
No Bulli! note A joke about Commanders who constantly send their Echelons to defeat the Sangvis Bosses many times in order to get a rare T-Doll or Special Equipment. This led fans to feel some sympathy for the Sangvis Bosses like Destroyer and Ouroboros, and scold the Commander to not bully them.
Agent 47 Holding WA-chan note A rather... infamousad that stole this piece of fanart and debuted on YouTube that caused confusion in unfamiliar users and became a source of mockery for the GF fanbase for its nonsense.
Minor inconvenience -> Singularitynote Fans have taken to painting M16 as the sort that'll humorously change sides to Sangvis Ferri in a heartbeat at the slightest provocation. This includes some events that happen in the AC130 4koma/Madness Chapter, like not getting thanked by M4A1 for getting saved from Agent, or getting an earful of RO635's megaphone while sleeping.
"But can we oath them? That's the real question lol" "No." note The officialresponse to some Redditors asking if Heavy Ordnance Corps can receive wedding bands. The terse, bolded response got memetic enough to spawn its own fanart.
Yuzhong needs to buy his Ferrari. note Evolved from Suisai's allegations towards Yuzhong (as detailed in the Trivia subpage), the phrase and its variations are used when Mica appears to implement a scheme designed to empty the playerbase's wallets as quickly as possible. First appeared when MICA Team announced that the 4th Anniversary skins (which contains long-awaited costumes for the AR Team) will be obtainable through the gacha and packages... a week after Shanghai Expo skins (which also has skins for AR Team) goes on sale.
Yuzhong needs another Orchestra note Variation of above meme, noting his fondness of them for his desire for money
Now we can finish Singularity note Right before Singularity was released on the North American server, the new T-Doll eligible to a MOD 3 (then decided by player vote) ended up being G36 instead of SAA. Feedback from other servers who went through Singularity highlighted that SAA MOD 3 was very useful for the event, albeit not mandatory. This didn't sat well with some players who went and claimed that Singularity was now impossible to clear without her, leading to fights with G36 voters, including Imouko (G36's artist) over Twitter. When SAA finally got her MOD 3 in May 2020 and Mica suggesting that Singularity might become a permanent campaign in the near future, the fanbase was quick to laugh about it.
Time to grow up G11. note When the 2019 Children Skins was released, it was revealed that all of Task Force 404 got children's skin except G11. Since G11 is usually portrayed as lazy or sleepy by the fandom with the rest of 404 acting as her caretaker, mostly with HK416, the fans started joking now it was G11's turn to take care of her teammates who are now a bunch of unruly children. There is also the fact that she seems the physically youngest of them normally. Amusingly, when her Children's Day skin was released in 2023, her damaged art turns her into an adult woman.
FNC's PTSD note When Arctic Warfare was first released, the Asian fandom quickly determined that the most efficient way to farm the event's lucrative loot boxes was to assemble a team consisting of FNC and 2-star dolls, charge them straight into a powered up Jupiter cannon, and let the 2-star dolls act as sacrificial shields while FNC killed the cannon. Naturally, the 2-star dolls rarely survived the battle, which would cause FNC's affection rating to tank. Particularly heartless commanders wouldn't even bother wasting resources repairing the destroyed 2-star dolls and would instead scrap them for a small profit. This eventually gave rise to jokes and Fanon about the innocent and childish looking FNC being a Shellshocked Veteran who is still haunted by the memories of her comrades repeatedly being used as literal Cannon Fodder.
"I like it." note Some of the most esoteric collabs such as VA-11 HALL-A or DJ Max seems to be motivated only because Yuzhong and/or other Mica higer-ups like the franchises or games the collab is based on without any other factor playing in the decision. The Division stands out in particular as Yuzhong talked about how he spent several hundred hours playing it and how it influenced Girls Frontline.
Love and hope note Yuzhong once (jokingly) stated that Girls' Frontline is a game "full of love and hope". Fans use this phrase ironically whenever events in the plot take a turn for the worse.
Early June note A Q&A with Girls' Frontline EN representative slated Protocol Assimilation to be implemented in early June 2021. Fans became more and more exasperated as weekly maintenances came and went without so much of a hint of Protocol Assimilation, until it was announced on June 23rd that it will be implemented... on the 29th, exactly one day before the end of the month. Cue fans mocking MICA's seemingly warped understanding of what "early June" means.
Sex update / Sex in GF 2 note Following the release of Goddess of Victory: NIKKE, another gacha about androids shaped like beautiful girls fighting with firearms with much more fanservice, fans joke about how Mica will have to make their games Hotter and Sexier in order to compete; something that was not helped when Mica employees made, on their private time, sexually explicit Live2D animations for the Neural Cloud versions of PA-15 and Type 97.
WOMBFORCEexplanation Given that T-dolls are pretty modular in nature and were created by upgunning civilian-grade Dolls, fanartists and fanfic writers soon created an artificial womb module for T-dolls that allowed them to not only have sex, but get pregnant. The name itself is a parody of NVidia's GeForce graphic cards. Wombforce is so pervasive, that it also invaded other doll or gynoid or cyborg franchises. The official GFL twitter did not totally refute the existence of Wombforce, only stating that "They do not have any module that allows them to reproduce human behaviors originally". Image host Pixiv even has a Wombforce tag for some of the NSFW GFL fanart that has obviously pregnant T-Dolls.
Most Wonderful Sound: Hearing three or more rings when seeing the result of what T-Doll you've crafted, indicating a 3-star or better.
Occasionally, hearing the rings continue even after you tap; typically the signal that you've just crafted a brand-new T-Doll.
Obvious Rule Patch: Shotguns were largely seen as borderline overpowered when they were released due to how effective armor was against most enemies. Since the majority of early enemies did not have armor piercing attacks, shotguns could easily tank them with little effort. It was not until much later in events like Isomer where MICA began adding more enemies capable of ignoring or bypassing armor.
Older Than They Think: This is actually not the first Girls with Guns-themed F2P gacha game with tactical elements appearing in the wake of KanColle. The first known game of that type goes to the defunct game of Shooting Girl, which was actually published by DMM.
This is the primary function of the Digi-mind upgrade system. Previously, certain T-Dolls are generally disliked due to their mediocre performance and/or unlikable character design. With Digi-mind upgrades to MOD 3, typically both issues are resolved or alleviated, with said Dolls moving significantly up the rarity chart (i.e. up to 4-stars minimum, and 5-star T-Dolls become 6-stars), gaining improved stats, unlocking new skills, and may receive new unique equipment. While it worked for some characters (M1911, G36), some like Bren or IDW remain unpopular even post-Digi-mind upgrade.
On the subject of IDW, though: the VA-11 HALL-A ended up doing wonders for the fandom's perception of her character. The Griffon City IDW is doggedly loyal to Super Shorty and all her friends in Griffon, and even plugs herself into the Earth Computer just to give her world a little longer to live. When she's finally rescued from the Earth Computer, she's still humble about it and just glad to be reunited with Shorty. Her characterization during the event proved a huge hit and made IDW fans out of many previous haters (though the event still did nothing for IDW's tragically poor gameplay).
The first, and probably greatest, example has become the Skin Gacha, especially as time has gone on and the game has gotten older (and picked up competition). To elaborate: cosmetic outfits/"skins" for the girls are largely only available through the dormitory's "resupply" function, which is a token-based loot box/gacha mechanic which has a random chance of supplying dorm furniture or, rarely, one of the skins on offer. This is, conceptually, where most of the game's actual monetization lives: while the game does also rely on a gacha-like mechanic for a good deal of T-Doll acquisition (this one being far more Kantai Collection-flavored via investing four resources and a single "build contact" token to build a T-Doll with a random, if directable, result), the T-Doll gacha is noted for being strikingly generous by industry standards, even as of The New '20s, and if you roll during rate-up events it isn't terribly difficult to get the T-Doll you like (never mind that a very significant number of Dolls, including meta-crucial ones, are available for free in events or through general stage farming/gameplay). The Skin Gacha is the part of the gacha that is significantly less player-friendly, with reports of having to spend hundreds of dollars to get top-end Live2D skins for popular characters and rates estimated at around a .2% chance for the skin to appear in a given roll (extraordinarily low, by industry standards... and spending is virtually mandatory, since the tokens for the Skin Gacha are much rarer than other resources, especially compared to the rate at which new skins are introduced. While a small number of skins are available for direct purchase, they often come bundled with other items and, as a result, can cost upwards of 30 USD to purchase. Needless to say, all this leads to the Skin Gacha being right at the top of the list for complaints about the game, particularly from former and/or lapsed players; the sheer frustration of not being able to get the skin you want for your favorite T-Doll often comes up as a major driver for players moving on in discussion around the game. It does not help that GF's Adversary in Littoral waters (particularly in the Anglophone market, where the two are the only significant "anthro-tech" mobile games) avoids this system entirely and simply puts its costumes up for direct purchase as its main method of monetization, with even the most expensive skins costing somewhere around two-thirds to half of what GF charges. While there are other frustrating systems in the game, the Skin Gacha is noted as being the primary one that likely drives away potential customers and hampers the game's earning potential, even among those otherwise inclined to try or like the game.
Night Battles and especially their presence in some time-limited events. The Fog of War and especially the severe accuracy penalty that requires more stringent selection of equipment and t-dolls can push what would otherwise be at least a manageable event out of reach for some players, especially when combined with other factors like bosses, obtuse map layouts, or trick enemies that require specific strategies. Sometimes these feel shoehorned in for no other reason than to make the events more difficult.
Way back in the Chinese closed beta, there were two: skills being completely random in when they were used and a Random Node event which causes the echelon that landed on it to immediately retreat (and subsequently fail the mission if it was the only echelon deployed). Episode 6 of Madness Chapter and the official 4koma poke fun at the latter. While the latter was removed after the Closed Beta, the former being changed from chance-based to timer-based did not happen until well into official release.
Battles used to be timed. You could lose your turn when the timer runs out, this has been removed in future patches, though remnants of the aspect can be seen in the battle UI.
The entirety of the Protocol Assimilation mechanic is catching flak from Chinese version players due to the ridiculously slow pace it takes to clear out a sector for 3★ units. Even though it's built such that all units in a sector will be captured eventually, the pace at which this is done as a free-to-play player without whaling is, according to most players, absolutely glacial. Some players even go as far as saying the game design is borderline predatory. Keep in mind this game already revolves around two forms of gacha, and it's the mechanic with the safety net/guaranteed progression getting this criticism.
The Bounty Feast event had frag grenade farming. Frag grenades were intended as a Percent Damage Attack to soften up tougher enemies or One-Hit Kill them with a bundle of twenty frags. This gets into "Scrappy" territory when one considers all of the rewards were only available after clearing EX difficulty on all of the maps, and almost every single enemy was extremely tough, making twenty-frag kills a necessity. This resulted in most guides recommending players to farm hundreds of grenades, with the "easiest" farming map being one that players couldn't easily autoplay through. At least one of these guides called the practice "FUN™".
The Scrappy: IDW is disliked, particularly by the English fandom, for many reasons: her cat-like voice is very annoying to hear that gets worse with her Digi-mind upgrade, her weak stats and rubbish tile buffs, and her shared construction timer with the rarer and much more useful Grizzly Mk V handgun. As noted above, though, the VA-11 HALL-A has helped her reputation as a character a fair deal, even if she remains mechanically meager.
One from the final Chapter of Polarized Light - not only is it an absolutely massive Mêlée à Trois, but the final boss, at the center of it all? It's the Mastermind!
RPK-16's betrayal at the climax of Mirror Stage, which has become a widely-spoiled moment even in parts of the fandom where she hasn't debuted yet.
This is partially the reason why RPK-16 herself is often conflated with the Impostors of Among Us via Memetic Mutation.
That One Boss: This game has them in droves, usually during events:
For the first seven chapters, the Dreamer fight in 7-6 and 7-4E are this. While the boss herself isn't very durable nor powerful, she starts the fight way behind the enemy frontline, taking potshots at the player's own T-Dolls, who must then slowly march towards her while still being pelted with gunfire. Being a boss, her attacks rend armor and cause considerable damage onto those who don't have protection, and the long march towards her render those with Deflector Shield skills ineffective since it cannot be triggered while the T-Dolls are moving. The only semi-practical way to avoid taking damage during this phase is to put out tanks with high Evasion in front of an echelon who also buffs this stat, and even then it's still not foolproof.
Her chapter 8 counterpart is even worse: she now uses a super beam weapon that damages an entire row of dolls. Dolls too slow to move away in time, such as RF or MG dolls, have little use here. Even worse is that there is a glitch with Dreamer that causes her attack detection to become much larger than it should be.
Judge is the second example. She has a constant shield that reduces all incoming damage and has an attack where she jump-kicks a certain part of the terrain and leaves a field that damages all dolls within it for a certain period of time. She is also tough as hell, to the point where the 'bamboo' dolls are not enough to take them out with a single salvo.
Agent herself personally arrives on the battlefield in the Singularity Event. She is tough as hell, even more so than the Judge before her. On top of that, she has the ability to summon dummies of herself, making her even tougher. Her special ability is to cast a limited time shield on herself, which, if not destroyed during that time limit, becomes a devastating attack that immediately destroys every player unit in the field.
M16A1, who had been captured by the Sangvis Ferri, becomes a boss in Chapter 3 of Singularity. She is even tougher than Agent or Judge, and has powerful base attacks and skills, making her a very formidable opponent.
Fun fact: While there actually were people who managed to take down Judge or even Agent with bamboo rifles, no one has ever managed to take down M16 with bamboo rifles. That's how insanely tough she is, even compared to Judge or Agent.
Captain Yegor's Ares mech is an absolute monster in combat. It has even more health than Agent and it constantly regenerates an HP shield to make itself way tougher than it has to be. The main problem is that Yegor spams the Minotaurs rocket attack for most of the time, causing huge amounts of damage to all your girls at a time. You can't bring ARs since they can't punch through the mechs armor, and Rifles are too slow. The Ares mech basically forces you to use MGs, but even they are not foolproof, since they will still take catastrophic damage from the rockets and Yegor has a massive horde of Cyclops with him that will force your girls to waste time reloading. Yegor can also unleash a full screen Typhoon attack to rub more salt in the wound. Mica essentially designed the Captain in a way to gurantee that your T-Dolls will come out battered so that they could be finished of by the other crap in the map.
Fighting Ouroboros in Operation Cube is one thing, but the ENTIRE EVENT could easily fall under this trope for two reasons. The first, as mentioned on the main page, was that the event consisted of nothing but night ops. The second was that the original run of this event in the mainland Chinese version happened BEFORE the addition of equipment. How is this a problem? During night ops, all of your t-dolls have a 90% accuracy penalty, and because equipment did not exist at the time, your pistol, SMG, and AR T-Dolls did not have the help of infra-red laser sights with which to mitigate or negate the accuracy penalty. The lack of equipment effectively jacked up the difficulty of the event beyond what the developers had anticipated.
Stage 10-4E is the first mission where the player fights the military. Due to the military units being extremely powerful, this stage is notoriously brutal. The main problem is the KCCO Hydras, which have extremely high armor and extremely powerful damage output, making them extremely painful opponents.
Chapter 3 of the Singularity Event had several examples, due to having to fight powerful KCCO units.
Chapter 3 of the Continuum Turbulence Event is even worse, because of having to fight KCCO squads even stronger than they were in the Singularity event, repeatedly, and having no way to avoid them unlike in the Singularity campaign. The fact that this entire chapter is, with the exception of stage 3-10, once again nothing but night battles does not help either.
In the same chapter, the mission "A New Hope" has a particularly arcane method of beating the map. The map is laid out such that the right-hand side has a bunch of heliports locked behind one-way paths and the left-hand side is a death trap containing a line of extremely powerful patrolling Hydras; the idea is that the player has to get at least 10 Action Points on the last turn of the time limit to stand a chance of running a unit through the patrol without engaging anything. Actually capturing the required heliports is the hard part — one's first instinct may be to dedicate eight non-combat echelons solely for AP or have one or two Parachute Fairies to hop over the one-way paths, but that's asking a lot out of a newer player. The intended solution can be done with far fewer resources, but is never actually hinted at before or during the mission.
The ranking competition stage of the Continuum Turbulence Event is by far the most brutal example. Most of the enemy squads have Doppelsoldners, which are almost impossible to take down without taking heavy damage. And due to this map being a night battle, and having most helipads disabled, you cannot even repair your dolls on the field. The only known combinations that can be used against these enemies without taking heavy damage require very specific dolls that either require a lot of resources or are exceedingly rare, and also require painstaking micromanagement that is even worse than most AOS or RTS games, and require quite a bit of luck because of the doppelsoldners' deflection shield.
Deep Dive 2-4 at times can fall into straight-up Luck-Based Mission thanks to the unpredictable spawns and movement of redgolyats with the added bonus of being on a Night Battle map with the only few resupply points in inconveniently-placed areas with multiple Garms wandering about.
The entirety of Chapter 5 in Shattered Connexion can be considered this. Between the enemies have heavy fire support, night battles and heavily-armored units, this would remind players that it is now or never. Especially with Operation Defang II.
Garden of Old EX is only winnable when all of the Five Republics soldiers on the map are wiped out, and they continually respawn from three rather far enemy Heliports. Securing an early advantage is also hard due to the randomized initial positions of the enemies. In the Chinese version, player cheesed this by restarting the map until there wasn't an enemy next to the player's HQ, which would result in wasting a turn defending it and not securing an advantage. A change in the English version resulted in that particular spot always having an enemy, so players are forced to adapt. Last, but not least, just about every enemy Echelon has a Combat Effectiveness of at least 35,000, so even the best AR/SMG teams will find themselves retreating and repairing a lot.
That Which Must Be Protected II EX is a maze-like map where neither ally nor enemy can step on the same node twice, unless a unit moves off of arrow-marked nodes in the same direction. Fortunately, there's an Antepiece map before this that features the same mechanics with zero enemies, but there's no such luxury in the second map. Making things worse is that, in the English version, Goliaths with randomized positions force the player to adapt to a certain path or restart the mission ad nauseum until a relatively easy path appears.
They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: Some viewers don't like the Japanese dub of Healing Chapter and Madness Chapter because they don't match the energy of the Chinese dub.
This is rather common when it comes to collab events, as Yu Zhong himself has admitted that many of his collab ideas revolve around his favorite anime or games, so he'll bend the narrative to great lengths to somehow tie them into the game.
With Venezuelan indie Visual Novel VA-11 HALL-A, of all things. Not only it's a niche visual novel (though a minor Sleeper Hit), but said visual novel / simulation game doesn't involve war, combat, or battle.
The DJMAXRespect crossover, as well. It left the fanbases of both games scratching their heads, wondering how a strategy game and a rhythm game have any relation to each other. It did work out pretty well.
Even the copious amount of memes about Rainbow Six Siege and GF left players speechless when a crossover between Team Mica and Ubisoft was announced. Surprise turned to incomprehension when the game that would be paired with GF turned out to be The Division, despite several Mica members (including Yuzhong) confessing being big fans of the series.
Late January 2021, MICA Team announced a collab with Dropkick on My Devil, of all things. Not only was it the third crossover with a franchise or series that doesn't involve guns, but said manga is Girls' Frontline's tonal opposite, being a slapstick comedy featuring many supernatural characters, including the eponymous lamia devil, Jashin. The only thing that could possibly tie the two together is the combat proficiency of the other main character, Yurine, and even then she prefers chainsaws and other melee weapons over guns. The brief pitch for the crossover even sounds like it's lampshading its absurdity.
Yu Zhong: This is an indescribable anime with very interesting characters.
By the time of the actual event, it seems that the crossover has baffled the game's writers, as they couldn't figure out how to make it work other than interdimensional travel (and not really having a justification for it, unlike the Guilty Gear/BlazBlue event). However, it does reveal much more backstory on Sangvis Ferri ringleader Ouroboros and links her to Jashin-chan, who both share snake-like theming.
, the bonus stage of Poincaré Recurrence. It depicts Dandelion walking through a pitch-dark landscape, populated by Nightmares, dead trees, and decrepit poles, with only the sound of howling winds as accompaniment. Tapping the OGAS symbol will temporarily illuminate the screen. The scene then changes to Dandelion struggling to walk before collapsing. Red static fills the screen as a woman's sobbing gradually intensifies in the background. Orange motes of light appear and gather to Dandelion, reviving her. The screen turns into a white void where Dandelion walks a few steps, curtsies, and leaves. The event provides no story or even context about all of this. It's just there.
