YMMV / Nightmare Reaper

• Alternative Character Interpretation: The unseen doctor has a lot going for him in the background and very little is made clear of his true personality or motives: all we hear of him are in his own words, and how much of those words can we trust? While he shows dedication to saving his patient, he also raises multiple red flags of an obsession with purity. Does the good ending really have you redeem your mass-murdering host, or did you unwittingly help a mad scientist perfect a brainwashing technique that would destroy a person's ability to rebel against corruption by making that personality trait eat itself?
• Funny Moments:
  • In Episode 2, whenever the protagonist dies in the dream, instead of freaking out, she just makes an annoyed groaning noise. Once you reach Chapter 3, she starts laughing like a maniac before waking up.
  • In the sewers, one randomly occurring wall texture is graffiti that says "Sorry Civvie".
• Game-Breaker: Any Legendary weapon can be this, as well as the Level 3 weapons. If you get a Legendary Level 3 weapon, expect to be almost wholly uncontested that whole level(and beyond if you can keep it).
• Most Wonderful Sound:
  • The signature "ding" of a Legendary weapon dropping.
  • The Protagonist's chuckle, indicating the player either picked up a new toy to play with, or else just wiped out a whole pack of monster simultaneously.
  • The "blowing wind" sound leading the player to a secret wall. Especially a relief if it comes after spending a lot of time unsuccessfully hunting for the Last Lousy Point.
• Nightmare Fuel: There is a lot of cryptic and disturbing imagery in the game, but considering the name of it, this shouldn't be a surprise. Specific examples include:
  • The asylum in the waking world itself often has brownouts, things being damaged, your room sometimes becoming a Room Full of Crazy or sometimes being tidy, creepy noises as if you could expect something out for you in the waking world, and other patients screaming. As if it wasn't enough, once you reach Chapter 2, there will be a "Shadow Lady" that'll set her sights on to you as you wander around the asylum.
  • Before you reach a certain point in the game, every time the protagonist dies, she groans and shows her bloody hands to the player... before waking up in the same position while standing up and realizing her room has become messy.
  • The "Ghost Head" random event during gameplay.
  • At the end of every world in the skill tree, after the boss there's a skeleton of the protagonist with text that says "Sorry, she isn't here."
  • The enemy designs can be downright horrifying, especially as the spritework improves and the monsters get more detailed.
  • As awesomely designed as the levels get in Chapter 2, there's something inherently unsettling about the fact you're essentially wreaking havoc on urban areas...
• Scrappy Mechanic:
  • Initially, the dash ability was tied to double tapping a direction. This often resulted in players dashing when they didn't want to, often into environmental hazards or bottomless pits. This was eventually later changed to be able to be bound to a specific key, though the double tap menu still exists as a toggle in the options menu.
  • Screen shaking can cause your view to disorientate, making later parts of the game a literal nightmare to complete, especially if you're hit by an enemy attack.
• That One Achievement: Uranium requires beating a level with 250 toxicity - the maximum available. It will net the player more gold and positive random events, which is the good news... the bad news is, the enemies are more than likely to see the player coming from a mile away, come at them faster and harder, and deal twice the damage with all attacks. A single burst of a zombie's machine gun can kill. Woe upon you if you attempt this in a wide arena such as the docks: you're likely to get picked off by a sniper before you even know what hit you.
  • Even worse are the powerup achievements: you have to collect 500 of each. Even when farming it will take hundreds of resets to reach this goal, and that's only if you follow a careful strategy on certain levels. They're the least-earned achievements for a reason.
• That One Boss:
  • The final boss of Chapter 1 is a beefed up version of those bulky demons with grappling hooks, except every time he jumps, he launches a powerful attack at you that can deal a massive amount of damage, especially this early at the beginning of the game. Not only that, but he also has a spinning move that's absolutely dangerous if you're close to him.
  • The spider-mech boss in Chapter 2 is a gigantic pain in the ass. Not only he constantly fires missiles at you, but he has a powerful attack that can drain your health in half. Said attack is also difficult to avoid if you're close to the walls.
• That One Level:
  • The Descent. Filled to the brim with annoying enemies, platform segments where you can't fall into the lava and small rooms where fighting becomes a pain in the ass. And that's not even mentioning the boss of the area.
  • The Docks, depending on who you ask. This is primarily due to invisible walls that limit use of the grappling hook you received in prior levels.
  • The beginning of Buried Ruins 1 is by far the most unfair part of the game, as the game forces the player to fight two bosses from Chapter 2 (including the spider-mech boss) in a small, enclosed room. They both attack with Macross Missile Massacre. There's a Nightmare Reaper next where you spawn, but the flying boss can swallow the whole Alpha Strike and still have health to spare.
• The Woobie: The Patient herself was an innocent little girl who was beaten and pimped out by her druggie parents. Though she is tied to murders, it’s out of mental illness and we see, at the end of the day, she’s just a scared, broken child in the body of a full grown woman.

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