YMMV / Princess Connect! Re:Dive

• Alternative Character Interpretation: Some fans interpret Yuuki's inconsistent mental maturity over time as a sign that he's actually faking it to a degree in order to gain sympathy from the girls and excuse his more outrageous actions. The most extreme, tongue-in-cheek interpretations cast him as a shameless Comedic Sociopath Casanova who will stoop to anything to seduce the girls in his harem.
• Awesome Animation: Gourmet Guild and Caon's battle with a Shadow army and a Shadow-possessed golem during the fourth episode of Season 2.
• Awesome Moments: In "Twilight Breakers", Twilight Caravan went on a warpath against the villains off that event after they hurt Yuuki.
• Awesome Music: Pecorine/Kokkoro/Karyl's "Lost Princess" is plain awesome and it could pass for something straight out of Sakura Wars because it was composed by the same composer, Kohei Tanaka!
• Base-Breaking Character: Yui has sparked multiple long-standing flame wars over her character in the fandom, with multiple extremely loud portions of the fandom trolling either for or against her. Her status as the ex-main heroine and being the subject of one of the fandom's most enduring memes ("Gomen, Yui!"), has both given ammo to her detractors as well as riled up her defenders, to the point that the series producer Kimura Yuito himself had to step into a Twitter flame war to tell a particularly persistent and obnoxious Yui fanatic to knock things off after several months of persistently spamming fan artists who drew art pairing Yuuki with girls other than Yui.
• Best Known for the Fanservice: Even before the anime adaptation arrived, and way before the release of the game's global version, Priconne was already making waves in the anime-loving communities thanks to the various fanarts and doujinshi of the characters online, especially the Gourmet Guild trio (Pecorine/Kokkoro/Karyl).
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: The main story contains several abrupt segues away from the main characters' journey simply to give the other playable girls some screentime, even if said screentime has nothing to do with the main plot. Most egregious is when the story abruptly cuts away from Muimi's explanation of the truth behind the world to focus on... Little Lyrical waking up in the middle of a pack of monsters and using Misogi's smoke bombs to sneak away from them.
• Catharsis Factor: In Episode 11 of Season 2, Pecorine dealing some well-deserved Laser-Guided Karma to Kaiser for all the stress and suffering she put both her and Karyl through in this season and the previous season. Turns out to be Actually a Doombot, but still. She finally gets her ass kicked to the curb and imprisoned for her crimes at the end of Season 2.
• Complacent Gaming Syndrome:
  • For rerolling, the one character players recommend over anyone else is Makoto. Her ability to apply a physical Damage-Increasing Debuff makes her invaluable for a number of levels, especially those against single bosses. On top of that, the free method of getting her requires playing Clan Battles, so if you don't draw her, you're going to have to save for a few months to unlock her.
  • Up until the release of 6 star Djeeta, Magic Teams are generally viewd more favorable than Physical. Magic can't miss and have a wide variety of overpowered supports compared to Physical like Neneka. While their squishiness can be a hindrance at times, they have a lot of options for survivability as well.
  • You'll be hard pressed to find anyone who DOESN'T use Ameth. Her amazing support skills make her a valuable unit in any fights especially in the Main Quest and Luna Tower where survivability is as important as damage.
• Demonic Spiders: The Gatekeeper enemies. This floating gate is a magic frontliner with high amount of HP and defense that can spew flamethrower, dealing high amount of area magic defense on top of leaving burn status effect to reduce your character's HP even further. Due to it's survivability and high attack, you can kiss your 3* completion goodbye as it can chew through your frontliner fast before you can heal them. Bonus point if they appear on the 1st wave, long before everyone's Union Burst is ready to burst them down.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Out of all the guilds, Little Lyrical and the Friendship Club is well-received by fans. Their popularity eventually lead to them having their own music videos.
  • Weiß Flügel garners a lot of attention for being somewhat expies to the characters of Konosuba.
  • Saren is one of the most popular characters in the game, outright rivaling the Gourmet Guild and Twinkle Wish in popularity despite being mostly a side character. Her kind personality and Team Mom status certainly helps too.
• Fan Nickname: for characters and teams, yes.
  • NekoAqua or CatAqua: Karyl, due to her being a Butt-Monkey like a certain useless goddess.
  • Not!Saber, Juntoria, Black Knight Saber: Jun, due to her voice actress.
  • Yabai (desu ne): Pecorine, due to her Catchphrase.
  • Pecorine's princess form gained the nickname "Destiny Pecorine" due to her Wings of Light resembling those of the Destiny Gundam.
  • Miyako is often called "Pudding", her Trademark Favorite Food.
  • Yui gained the nickname "Yahallost" due to her namesake and having a ton of competition for Yuuki.
  • Several party comps have been given nicknames by the fans —
    • "Mage Melt" for parties that have multiple characters dealing magical damage, focusing on annihilating enemies as fast as possible.
    • "Rino Cannon", a specific party set-up that focus on giving Rino lots of TP as quickly as possible so she can repeatedly use her Union Burst. Alternately, calling the team RYNO (as in, Rip Ya a New One) on teams that capitalize on the consistent use of her Union Burst.
• The Firefly Effect: Crunchyroll Games shut down its Global English version of Princess Connect! Re:Dive on April 2023 after only two years (in comparison, its original version ran for five years, not counting its original incarnation Princess Connect), with a sudden announcement that was one month in advance, in the middle of a planned ongoing event, and on Pecorine's birthday. This all together soured their reputation to gamers, especially Cygames fans, with some swearing off anything by Crunchyroll onwards.
• Fridge Brilliance: Why is Pecorine's Princess Form so plain-looking compared to the others? It's because the Princess Form is meant to be what a person's true desire really is and Pecorine already has what she wanted; she got her kingdom and family back, she has made wonderful friends and has a lover.
• Friendly Fandoms:
  • With fans of fellow Cygames IPs like Shadowverse and Granblue Fantasy. It helps that inter-company crossover events brought more fans to this game.
  • The anime has this relationship with KonoSuba due to both anime series having the same director, Takaomi Kanasaki. It spawned a lot of comparisons, similarities, or shared memes.
• High-Tier Scrappy:
  • Miyako is a source of constant frustration in the Arena. Her skills focuses on surving as long as possible. She has two heals in the form of her Union Burst and second skill. The icing on the cake however, is her first skill. It is a practically a free invulnerability that makes her immune to all damage and it gets upgraded to add a defense buff AND an evasion buff. Miyako has been known to tank entire Physical Teams on her own. Though she falls quite quickly to Magic teams, she's still a majoir pain espeically in the upper rankings of Princess Arena where you can't see the oppising teams. So if you see a Miyako and she got pit against a physical team, tough luck you're probably going to lose.
  • Kuuka is to magic as Miyako is to Physical. Kuuka is nigh unbeatable when she's fighting a magic team. Her first skill is a taunt so no sniping the backline with Nanaka or Tamaki and gets a heal and a physical defense boost with her UE upgrade. Her second skill is a magic defense boost to ensure that no magic is tearing her down. Finally, her Union Burst is a taunt and heal with the added effect of magic absorb barrier making it impossible for any magic DPS to break through. And she'll be spamming it with all the aggro she's drawing on to herself. And unlike Miyako, Kuuka is perfectly capable of tankinh Physical hits with the right support.
  • 6 Star Ninon could very well be the most despised unit in PvP. Her first skill damages all enemies in range and nets her a hefty amount of TP Gauge when she downs an enemy. Her second is another Area of Effect damage that pushes her enemies back. While all of that can make her quite annoying to face, it's her Union Burst pushes her over the edge. It's an extremely damaging Area of Effect damage that not only boosts her attack, but also nets her a hefty amount TP gauge when she defeats an enemy that tops off the regular TP gained through beating an enemy. If just ONE of your units fall on battle to Ninon, the match is as good as lost because there's no stopping Ninon's rampage.
  • The only thing that can rival Ninon as the most hated thing in PvP is a particular strategy, Stall. In Arena, if the defense team survives until the countdown, they are rewarded the victory even if its only one character remaining. Thanks to this, a lot of players pump their defense with as much survivability as much as possible to stall out the timer. This results in a never ending loop where the stall team just stands there like a rock healing or blocking out as much damage as they can. This causes constant frustrations on players as it feels like the strategy just deliberately wastes time and is just a cheap tactic to net a win.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: All the "gomen, Yui!" memes finally come full circle when Eris, one of the game's main antagonists, is revealed to have Yui's face. You could say that even she is sick of the memes at this point.
• Les Yay: While the two already had plenty of people shipping them in the game, the anime further pushes the idea of Karyl and Pecorine. Pecorine plays the energetic Manic Pixie Dream Girl that breaks Karyl out of her shell while Karyl finds herself reluctantly warming up to the group. The two share several tender moments together, to the point that their last interaction in the anime is Pecorine telling Karyl she loves her while sharing their first reciprocated hug. It's reinforced by the fact that Karyl's character song is entirely about her conflicted feelings towards Pecorine, listing off Pecorine's numerous positive traits while claiming that she hates them all, yet she can't help but feel like her heart is going to break every time she says so.
• Low-Tier Letdown:
  • Suzume is considered one of, if not the weakest character of the game. She attempts to be a Jack of All Trades, dabbling in damage, buffing, and debuffing on top of healing, but her numbers in every category are so pitiful that you're better off taking characters specialized in what you need over her. While characters like Rei and Yukari got a Balance Buff in their six stars and goes from low tier to high tier, others like Kokkoro (who is a free unit) and Saren fits the Jack of all trades better with better stats and specialisation (DPS/Buffer for Kokkoro and DPS/TP battery for Saren) and other characters like Ninon and Yuki can fill a niche in Arena, Dungeons or Clan Battle, Suzume is not worth the time or effort to improve.
• Memetic Loser:
  • Poor Yui has become the subject of mockery and memes due to an unlucky combination of factors: being the main heroine of the unsuccessful first game of the series, being demoted from said main heroine position in the sequel, and being surrounded by multiple friends who, on the surface, have Shipper on Deck tendencies, claiming they support Yui's love for the main character, but in fact secretly nurse a Matchmaker Crush on him as well. Then there's Eris...
  • Hiyori also gets hit with this from time to time. Despite being one of the main characters and a member of Twinkle Wish, she gets the least amount of focus to the point where she has four playable version as compared to Rei and Yui's five.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • "Yabai desu ne"^ExplanationPecorine's Catchphrase became so popular in the fandom that it almost always pops up whenever somebody is talking about her in online fan content such as artworks, or in any Priconne news within the anime community.
  • Kokkoro's alarmed OxO face has caught on with the fanbase; a good portion of the comments for Geoff Thew's video discussing the merits of the series featured some version of this expression.
  • Karyl's exaggerated expressions and Butt-Monkey status lead to a lot of comparisons with Aqua from KonoSuba. It helps that both shows have the same director. Many fans have even given her the name Neko Aqua or Cat Aqua.
  • Gomen, Yui... ^Explanation"Sorry, Yui". As the typical Matchmaker With A Crush, Makoto could not help but feel guilty when the protagonist embraces her during the Maho Maho Kingdom event. Not that she could have avoided it, since she was possessed by spirits and couldn't control her own body.
    • Yahallost ^ExplanationSince she shares the same name and appearance with another Yui, plus they both don't end up with the male lead, expect some memetic crossing over to happen.
  • "Cygames' Armpit Fetish"^ExplanationA common thing that's noticed in most, if not all, IPs that Cygames has made, is the abundance of Fanservice that focuses on the characters' armpits regardless of their gender or fictional race. It has led to fans making compilations of armpits, or joking that this particular form of fanservice is the fetish of the company's art department. Nonetheless, fans of their games generally just go along with it though, with fanartists even giving an emphasis on the "pits" just like the official versions. This phrase has seen a resurgence in the late 2010's from the Gateway Series cases of their games, such as Dragalia Lost and Granblue Fantasy Versus.
  • The real Shadowverse anime^ExplanationThe anime adaptation's first season started airing in the same season as the Shadowverse anime, and it was much better received than Shadowverse itself. It also helped that, at the time, some of the more notable Shadowverse cards embody Princess Connect characters.
  • 6* SHIORI WHEN^ExplanationMany of the earliest-released characters have been given an upgrade to 6* rarity, except Shiori, who has been overlooked by the summer variants of the Gourmet Guild trio, and now even Christina and Muimi got a 6* upgrade ahead of her, and they're Princess Festival exclusives. The meme also points to how despondent fans of Shiori are at this. Now a Discredited Meme as of November 2023, because Shiori will finally get her 6* Upgrade.
• Memetic Psychopath: On the flipside, certain fans have depicted Yui snapping under the weight of her Memetic Loser status and becoming a Yandere, violently murdering her friends for their perceived betrayal in Black Comedy fashion.
• Memetic Troll: Karin ends up getting this treatment since she's the one handing out the flyers whenever you use the Gacha. Her sometimes shady personality also helps a bit.
• Moe: The Re:Dive adaptation has this apply to Yuuki, of all characters. His childlike mannerisms and mother henning by some of his party members makes many of the streaming audience endeared to him, seeing him as a "son" character they want to protect.
• Moment of Awesome:
  • In the games one of the main trio actually kisses Yuuki! Granted it's on the forehead rather than the lips, but it still counts. Who was it? The ever-loyal Kokoro or the childish but all other loving Pecorine? Nope. It was everybody's favourite Tsundere cat-girl Karyl!
  • Season 2 episode 10, Yuni finally does what fans of the anime have waited for since the revelations at the end of the last season. Using her magic, Yuni reveals to the entire population of Landosol that Mana/Kaiser Insight is a fraud and is not Princess Eustiana. The real Eustiana is Pecorine, i.e. the girl who has been fighting for them the entire time. Upon hearing this, the population cheer for Pecorine!
  • In the following episode, Twilight Caravan prove that their reputation is well deserved. They manage to cut through Mana's forces with minimal effort. Then when they reach the source of Mana's power, they find it guarded by Christina. Eriko manages to go toe to toe with the evil knight and actually manages to hold her own. Then Anna and Ruka make their long-awaited debut. When Ruka attacks, she proves that she is a far superior fighter to Christina. If not for Christina's cheat ability, Ruka would have won the fight. Yet even so, she buys enough time for Eriko to complete their mission of rescuing Neneka.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Kaiser Insight has done a lot of terrible things as the Big Bad of the first arc, but most noteworthy that completely cements her as irredeemable are stealing Pecorine's life by erasing everyone's memories of her, torturing and then brainwashing Karyl and murdering Yuuki.
  • In the anime, she uses Karyl as a Human Shield to defeat Labyrista. When Karyl finally resists her brainwashing and begs her master to stop, Kaiser directly manipulates Karyl's body to try and kill Pecorine and countless innocents.
  • Karyl's mother already crosses this for abusing Karyl but what cements her as a lost cause is her destroying her daughter's Mimi device to deny her meeting her friends again and laughing in her face.
• More Popular Replacement: While Yui does have her fans, most fans are much more receptive to Pecorine being the primary heroine of Re:Dive than they ever were to Yui in the heroine role.
• Narm: In Episode 10 of Season 2, Kaiser's facial expressions when mind controlling Karyl like a puppet are extremely over-the-top and exaggerated to take seriously to the point where it almost looks Off-Model or she’s having an orgasm.
• Never Live It Down: Makoto's character has become defined by her wishy-washy Matchmaker Crush tendencies concerning her best friend Yui, following a moment where she mistakenly believes the main character is leaning in for a kiss and silently accepts it while internally apologizing to Yui. "Sorry Yui!" has since entered full Memetic Mutation and become a Running Joke amongst the fandom whenever either Makoto or Yui are brought up.
• One True Threesome: Due to the abundance of girls who not only share mutual crushes on Yuuki but also mutual Shipper on Deck and Matchmaker Crush and occasional Les Yay tendencies, this is a common solution to the problem in fanworks. Popular targets include Pecorine and Karyl, Saren and Suzume, Rei and Tsumugi, Shizuru and Rino, and most infamously Yui and Makoto. Of course, some fans would rather just see Yuuki Marry Them All instead.
• Retroactive Recognition: Kokkoro's voice sounds familiar... Oh, hey there Lovekov!
• Scrappy Mechanic:
  • The equipment rank system has seen its fair share of criticism. Depending on the number of pieces available at the next rank, refinement, and substats, it might be a better idea to not rank up your characters as they'll end up weaker that way. Granted, this only really matters at high-level arena fights and clan battles but having to consider holding off at all is counter-intuitive.
  • While PvP is always loathed in every gacha games, the Princess Arena is utterly loathed by the playerbase. While Battle Arena is also hated, it is at least managable. The same can't be said for the Princess Arena. To start off, you need three teams when making one team already takes effort. But to top it off, once you've reached the upper rankings of Princess Arena, the other players' teams slowly gets hidden from the preview until you reach the Rank 50s and above where the whole enemy team is hidden. This makes it a brutal guessing game on which team you're going to face where it ranges from a relatively easy battle or an unwinnable situation. Princess Arena is so loathed most players opted to ignore it once they've reached a relatively high rank for their their daily Arena rewards.
• Sequel Displacement: It's easy to forget that this is, technically, a sequel, given just how much more successful it is compared to its predecessor. It probably didn't help that the first Princess Connect was only available on a limited number of browser-based platforms, along with an iOS browser-wrapper "client" similar to the one used by Granblue Fantasy; it's also not helped by the fact that the game lasted barely more than a year (service having begun on February 18, 2015, and concluded on July 29th, 2016), leaving (at the time) few ripples and no real impact in its wake. Re:Dive's announcement was even met with skepticism at first, given how badly the original had failed!
• Tainted by the Preview: While fans have been clamouring for an English release for a while, the announcement that it would be published by Crunchyroll, a publisher infamous for dubious-quality translation, predatory business practices, and aggressive censorship, among other issues, sparked a lot of backlashes. Infamously, the pre-order page for the Apple App Store listed several poor translations of the characters' names (Pecorine becomes Pecoline, Karyl becomes Cal, and Rei becomes Ray), which the Twitter account quickly had to clarify was a "data error". What's especially ironic is that the translation of the game itself is of a much higher calibre than previous CR efforts, and much more in line with Cygames' own Granblue Fantasy work.
• That One Boss:
  • The boss of Area 14, the Smoldersaurus, is the first major roadblock in the player's quest. It's attacks hits like a truck and it can hit three party members in the front, effectively chipping away at your damage dealers and making your tank effectively useless. It's UB is also capable of knocking out your Squishy Wizard healer in the backrow effectively taking away any chance of victory.
  • The Tribal Orc. Its attacks hit the first three of the party like the Smoldersaurus, but unlike the Smoldersaurus, it's the orc's normal attacks. Even if you can somehow tank it, the orc has another trick up its sleeve: a partt wide magic attack that confuses any unit below a certain HP threshold. Consider the frequency of its normal attacks, there will be a party member that will get confused and take out your other party members for the orc. And if it wasn't bad enough, you have to fight it twice. Good luck.
• The Woobie: Pecorine. Beneath all that cheerfulness and optimism lies a broken girl who had lost her parents, her people and her royal lineage thanks to Mana tampering all of their memories. Crosses over with Iron Woobie, as despite all the terrible things that has happened to her, along with her new underlying fears, she still continues to do the best she can for the people around her, and her basic pertness isn't an act; she is that upbeat when not weighed down by her cares.