YMMV / htoL#NiQ: The Firefly Diary

• Alternate Character Interpretation/Epileptic Trees: The minimalist nature of the game makes many things very much open to interpretation.
  • The memory fragment in which everyone in Mion's house dies. Did the clone grow unstable and kill everyone or was the spirit of the original Mion angry that she had been replaced by her clone and lashed out?
  • The ending. Did both Mions die for good or are their spirits living on through the tree that sprouted in the aftermath?
• Moe: Mion. The game is about guiding and protecting her and she's so adorable that you'll be willing to go through hell to do it.
• Tear Jerker:
  • The events of the memory fragment wherein you realize the original Mion is dead.
  • The entire backstory and ending of the game. All Mion and her clone wanted was the love of their parents. Both of them lose that due to things outside of their control and their inability to cope with feeling abandoned ultimately ended in the death of the entire family. Even after knowing that how vengeful they can become, it's hard not to cry for either them at the end with the original Mion despairing over losing everything a second time and clone Mion realizing what she had done.
• That One Achievement:
  • The Normal Ending final boss is already annoying enough as the silhouette's move too fast and messing up causes the screen to distort, making it even harder. So what makes the associated trophy even worse? You have to complete this without missing even once. Thankfully it's made much easier by pausing the game repeatedly to slow the action down.
  • Combined with That One Level, the 2-3 trophy requires clearing the entire segment with Lumen without dying and while on a more strict timer. What's even worse is that it's in the final leg of that level so each attempt requires playing through the entire thing every time. No Fair Cheating is also in play as the trophy still will not spawn if the player uploads save data at the start of the required segment and re-downloads it on every new attempt.
  • 3-1 also has a very frustrating trophy as it requires not only not touching the ground once Mion goes airborne, you must also clear the entire segment without a single death while several portions require almost pixel-perfect precision to squeeze through dangerous areas while having to restart the entire level if a single mistake is made.
• That One Boss:
  • The second boss has to be fought by shoving a block of dynamite in front of its maw (which is equipped with a flamethrower which prevents you from getting close in the first place, and destroys any placed dynamite), while dodging randomly falling debris (you can tell where it's going to fall, but you might not notice in the heat of battle, and Mion's slow movement speed makes it hard to get out of the way or under a minecart), then letting go of said block (which you don't know how to do because you were rushing through the tutorial level), and getting away before the boss chomps the block (and even just standing close will get you killed by the explosion). When you do somehow manage to beat the boss for the first time, you will be taken by surprise by its Taking You with Me attack, which can only be disabled in a very short timespan (which isn't easy to tell). And then you have to do that all over again because you weren't hunkering under a minecart when the boss exploded.
  • The final "boss battle" against the silhouettes of Mion's parents. Unlike previous bosses, you're not running away or destroying anything. It's a simple pick the correct silhouettes out of a shuffling group. Seem simple early on but you have to do this over 20 times and like similar games, it quickly moves too fast for your to keep track. The worst part of it is that you can only miss 3 times, with the fourth ending in instant death. Missing leads to part of the screen being covered in static, making it even harder to keep track of the silhouettes. There's luckily a checkpoint midway through the battle, but even so, the battle can be a really big pain. And it gets even worse if you're attempting to get the associated trophy.
• That One Level: Any moment where you only control Lumen. During these moments, you have to quickly get Lumen through a maze to help Mion in some way. This wouldn't be a problem if the game didn't suddenly make it so that Lumen is instantly killed whenever she touches anything, a limitation that is nowhere in the game but these moments. Combine this with very narrow passages and controls that are barely precise enough to handle these segments (regardless if you chose touch screen or analog controls), you'll pulling your hair out whenever these moments pop up. There are thankfully only two of them.
  • Playing the level on a PSTV with a PS3 or PS4 controller is a bit easier, but still requires a good degree of precision.
• Waggle: The touchscreen controls, which are very unwieldy in a game that requires a surprising amount of precision. This was especially bad in the original Japanese release as the game initially shipped with no alternate control options.
• The Woobie: Mion. Both of them. Their deaths get them separated from their parents due to circumstances completely out of their control and, after giving into their anger at having been abandoned, ultimately lose everything!

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