YMMV / Phantasy Star Online 2: Episode Oracle

• Anti-Climax Boss:
  • Some fans were disgruntled with how easily Luther was dealt with, considering he makes no effort to transform, only goes as far as using his Desperation Attack and summoning mooks, and only lasts for about half an episode before getting killed off.
  • While mostly true to the source material, many fans felt like the final battle was undercooked; the Profound Darkness is dealt with in its entirety in a single episode, with no actual confrontation against it beyond a short fight scene against Matoi Viel, and Adaptational Alternate Ending ensures that it won't be a problem anytime soon in anime canon. This is despite Elder, who is canonically less of a threat, getting a proper fight against it and being depicted as just as threatening as the backstory plays him up to be.
• Captain Obvious Reveal: Given that Persona was already seen masquerading as Ash in Episode 18, his Dramatic Unmask in Episode 21 falls flat, as much of the audience had already deciphered by that point that Persona was Ash.
• Common Knowledge: A common belief in some circles is that Episode Oracle is a sequel or "Season 2" to The Animation, resulting in confusion about why this anime is so much more violent and the sudden loss of the Slice of Life elements.
• Continuity Lock-Out: The way the show lays out its plot points and pacing makes it very clear that the show is targeted towards viewers who have already played through the game's story. Without knowledge of the plot, much of the story appears as a confusing, jumbled mess; this is especially evident with the adaptation of EPISODE 1, which consists primarily of a series of events that are only tangentially related to each other.
• I Knew It!: The sudden Dub Name Changes used by Funimation have caused some to theorize that they could potentially be used by the Western version of the game. Sure enough, official material used some name changes from the anime, including "Falspawn".
• Memetic Mutation: Sue's brutal decapitation in the first episode has quickly become the subject of various memes, similar in fashion to Mami from Puella Magi Madoka Magica.
• Narm: The scene of Dark Falz Elder erupting from Naberius in Episode 6 is copy-pasted straight from the game. The jarring contrast between the cutscene's fluidly animated CGI visuals and the anime results in it looking extremely out of place, to hilarious effect.
• Nightmare Fuel: The scenes where the fights with Falspawn have realistic results are not pretty. The very first episode demonstrates this handily when Ash's squad is all but disassembled, complete with Sue's decapitated head staring at the camera.
• One-Scene Wonder: Anime Stratos, despite only appearing for ten seconds as a Call-Forward cameo, is this due to already being an Ensemble Dark Horse and all kinds of Moe.
• Signature Scene: When recommending the series to people beyond just being an adaptation of the game, they usually point out the Darker and Edgier nature of it including the initial trailer team from the game sans Ash getting torn to gory shreds.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: A lot of fans were not particularly receptive of Funimation's name changes, such as "Darkers" becoming "Falspawn". Some were certainly not amused when the Western version of PSO2 seemed to stick by these name changes either.