YMMV / Kindergarten (2017)

• Alternative Character Interpretation: While the Player Character is certainly a bastard who caused a copious amount of death and suffering, the fact that all of his actions lead to helping Lily to find and rescue her brother Billy can make it easy to interpret him as an extremely dark Determinator who will stop at nothing to save Billy.
• Angst? What Angst?: In Lily's ending, Jerome doesn't have much of a reaction to learning that his father exploded. Turn out not to be the case in the sequel, however, where Jerome's entire character is built around this.
• Can't Un-Hear It: When reading Nugget’s dialogue, there is at least a 95% chance you will hear the voice of Stephanie Patrick (wife of Game Theory host Matthew Patrick) in your head.
• Crosses the Line Twice: The janitor is just so trigger happy and kill-crazy that he goes from disturbing to hilarious.
• Diagnosed by the Audience: Nugget is believed to be neurodivergent in some way due to things like his fixation on nuggets and speaking in third person unless if he takes a bottle of pills from the principal. A Reddit user has theorised that he has Social Communication Disorder, or SCD.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Among the students, Nugget is the most popular among the fandom.
• Fan Nickname: Some fans call the player character "Jimmy".
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Monty's storyline in the first game is basically just a giant fetch quest to get the key to the Principal office in order to set up Lily's story and reveals no personal conflict or character trait in him at all. The second game fixes this by having him express his fear toward the Janitor and bitterness toward the Player Character for ratting him out.
• Special Effect Failure: Played for Laughs. If Ms. Applegate is killed, her sprite simply rotates ninety degrees so she still has her ruler up and still has her eyes open. Being that this is Kindergarten, this is Played for Laughs. Dark laughs that is.
• Spiritual Adaptation: A game set in elementary school that looks wholesome on the surface, but is actually set in a Crapsaccharine World filled with Black Comedy where the player can die constantly in comedic ways? Kindergarten might just be one of the best South Park games ever created.
• The Woobie: Lily. Her brother's disappeared and basically nobody cares, Cindy relentlessly bullies her (and it's had a visible effect on her outlook), and even if you decide to help her, you have to get her killed at least once, and you'll likely end up doing it more than that just to figure out how to finish that branch of the story, and you'll definitely get her killed a lot if you're going for all the Monstermon cards. It doesn't help that all of this is happening to a girl who can't be more than five years old.
• What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?: It's a colorful adventure game centered around kindergartners, so many unsuspecting players might play the game expecting something lighthearted, yet instead they get something akin to South Park. New players might even get caught off guard by the janitor stabbing you to death before morning class even begins, if you don't leave him alone that is.

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