YMMV / Silent Storm

• Aluminum Christmas Trees:
  • Kenko's files mention the little-known fact that World War One Japan was one of the Allies (along United Kingdom, France, Russia, United States, etc.) and the ''enemy'' of Germany.
  • In the case of Ahmad's background, most of those who aren't specialists in nor World War Two neither Iranian history probably didn’t know that Iran has been invaded by both United Kingdom and USSR to overthrow an Axis-sympathetic government.
• Annoying Video Game Helper: In S3 opening mission, Boris' help is very useful (he is an ally controlled by the AI), but he has the tendency to pick up items dropped by dead enemies. It's impossible to get them back, unless you either kill him or let him be killed^note he drops all his stuff when killed (it doesn't fails the mission). S3 being harder than S2 (it includes the need to buy ammos instead of getting them free, among other changes), losing those items makes the early game even harder than intended; it's actually more interesting to complete the mission without him. Also, since he isn't a party member, each of his own kills steals XP from the player character.
• Breather Level: S2 "Place Marked on the Map" mission is this if you already know what to expect: a ruined house with no enemies and tons of mines (the mission objective is some piece of data stored in the basement or on one of the upper floors). You just have to reach the building and throw a powerful-enough grenade in the mined room, which blows the floor and most of the remaining walls. Then, search the objective in the basement (jump in the hole) or in the upper levels. It only requires a couple of minutes.
• Complacent Gaming Syndrome: Given the relatively realistic way the games use ballistic physics (pistols and automatic weapons basically having a crappy accuracy when used at medium range), the most practical way to play the game is to equip the whole team with rifles. While everyone can use any gun, skills grant varying degrees of proficiency to a specific weapon class, and the only class having explicit bonus with rifles are the engineer and the sniper.
• Demonic Spiders: Any enemy with a SMG or a machine gun. Full auto weapons don't inflict so much damage per hit, it's the burst that is effective; they also are quite inaccurate. But, if one of your units ends standing right next to one of those mooks, the medium-range inaccuracy won't matter, and receiving each bullet from a SMG long burst^note where a character shoots in full auto burst until he consumes all his action points, empties his magazine, or kill his target through the body will usually kill anyone.
• Game-Breaker:
  • Scouts. They have the most action points, they are the best to hide themselves, they are the best to throw knives (it is totally silent and doesn't require a lot of action points), and they have a backstabbing ability. There a reason why they are the favored class for a solo run.
  • Have a scout and a sniper. Use your scout to stealthly scout the enemies' positions. Put your sniper in stealth mode and shoot the enemies with the silenced Mauser rifle. Congratulations, you'll be able to wipe out whole groups of enemies whitout being spotted, especially once your sniper reach higher levels (there is a passive ability related to backstabbing, and another which makes each shot inflict critical hit).
  • The Energy Thor's Hammer Panzerkleins in S2 are pretty much the only viable thing for the extreme late-game as their Energy weapons pierce through alot of things including PK Armor and have cloaking devices making them objectively the best thing to use in any situation though Sentinels nerfs them.
• Good Bad Bugs: In S3 third mission, the party only consists in the Player Character and two guests (Sam, who appears at the beginning, and Captain Wallis, whose rescue is the objective of the mission). They normally leave the party at the mission's completion; sometimes, they doesn't at all, which provides two free companions. The problem is, because they are special characters, they don't appear in the companions' files, and thus it is impossible to properly fire them (you can get rid of them by intentionally getting them killed, though).
• Narm: Most of the voice acting.
• Paranoia Fuel: In some random encountes, you'll occasionally meet armed civilians. Contrary to the unit called "Armed Civilians" who are explicitely considered as enemy, those armed civilians are hostile to the team but are considered as "allies" by the game: since they move in the same turn that the actually neutral civilians, you can't spot them until they start attacking.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: The much better balanced Panzerkleins in Sentinels are alot more fun to both use and fight compared to the original game.
• Scrappy Mechanic: Panzerkleins can outright take no damage from at all alot of the player's weapons in the original game, thankfully S3 makes them alot more vulnerable to rifles and machine guns.
• Sequel Difficulty Spike: S3 is more difficult compared to S2. You start with the crappy Nagant 1910 (with a full magazine - 7 bullets - and no spare ammo) no matter which class you choose (S2 first mission was a cakewalk, especially with a sniper) then must scrounge whatever you find for the next couple of missions. you unlock the shops after another mission and can hire other party members even later (in S2 both features were enabled immediately after the first mission). You must pay to hire new party members and acquire other gears (S2 companions were totally free, its "shop" was a mere quartermaster who let you take anything you wanted until his - quite large and respawnable between missions - stock of items run out). And the game also added Breakable Weapons in the mix.
• Spiritual Adaptation:
  • An espionage story set in the Forties involving lots of action and Dieselpunk superscience... S2 and S3 are probably the closest thing to a Blake and Mortimer videogame we'll ever get.
  • They're also a bit similar to the James Bond franchise. They're both about a multinational team of elite agents fighting against a mysterious criminal organisation with ambitious goals ( supplying both the Allies and the Axis with superweapons in order for them to weaken each others in S2, helping the USSR to get the technology in order to built nukes in S3), and involve lots of travel (Germany, Great Britain, Poland, Switzerland, USSR, etc.).
• That One Level:
  • S2 "German Manor" in the Axis campaign. You begin surrounded by aware enemies. Once half of guards are eliminated, the manor's owner you have to capture will attempt to flee the map by rushing toward a rocket-plane thing in his backyard, and thus must be stopped, which requires to run to the end of the level area through more guards, in order to stop him (if he succeeds, the objective is failed but it doesn't result in a Non-Standard Game Over). ^note The Allies version of the mission is a lot easier: the guards are initially unaware of the squad's presence (allowing a stealthy apporach), and, depending on the order you do the mission, there actually is a chance that the target isn't there (you'd have to capture him in another place), removing the timed objective.
  • S2 "Unknown Complex" (both sides). It's the first encounter with Panzerkleins (you're very likely to not have your own ones at the moment you unlock the mission). The mission requires to get three clues inside a heavily defended complex (guarded by mooks with a very good spot skill), neutralize the local THO leader, and capture him. The trick is that he is a Load-Bearing Boss: after defeating him, you have a couple of turns to leave the map while carrying his body (it requires to retreat the team toa place where enemy can't spot them); failing to do so results in the complex's autodestruction and a Non-Standard Game Over.
  • S2 "Berger's Factory" has one of the main objectives being not killing any civilian in the level. It would've been simple enough if the place isn't littered with explosive barrels that you could shoot by mistake and those civilians aren't dumb enough to take cover near them or between you and your enemies. And the objective will fail if a civilian dies in any case, even accidentals. That means if a civilian is accidentally killed by your enemies, your mission failed, period. and that's the least of your problems. This level is actually a Marathon Level where the first half has you fight your way through the basement in order to get into the factory. Good luck if you bring Panzerkleins with you because, for some reason, the elevator that is supposed to take them down to the basement doesn't work, so you have to take a longer, trickier route using the stair that is the only way going down (which means you're out of luck if you accidentally blown up the part leading to the stairs courtesy of Everything Breaks ). Worse still, when the enemies in this part are down to half, they will bring their own Panzerkleins to deal with you, and they love to block your own route with them, so not only you have to kill them first, you have to waste precious time to move them out of the way first in order for your units to continue. Ditching the Panzerkleins and go for a more straightforward approach? Then good luck in the second half of the level where the stage is full of enemy Panzerkleins and a tough boss battle in his Ace Custom suit.
  • S3 "Act of Terrorism". It begins with a trip through corridors filled with well-hidden enemies wielding SMG or grenades. The goal is to disable bombs; when you reach the last area, it turns to a Timed Mission requiring to kill three tough THO mooks within three turns (before they activate the bombs), inside a wide room filled with stuff which block your team's field of view. How, and any stray bullet hitting a bomb will detonate it, and then... mission failed.