YMMV / Spirit Hunter: Death Mark II

• Captain Obvious Reveal: Douryou and Kinukawa being The Departed is pretty obvious considering their distinct appearances that align with The Departed's motifs, similar sudden romantic feelings for Yashiki, and Plot Armor throughout the story.
• Franchise Original Sin: One of the more contentious parts of the game amongst Western fans was its flattering depictions of Teacher-Student Romances, with Douryou and Kinukawa's pining for Yashiki and Kashima's dream to be with Mr. Hirose being framed in a positive light even with the teachers displaying hesitance about reciprocating. While Spirit Hunter: Death Mark had also touched upon the issue in both Hanahiko and Red Riding Hood's backstories, such relationships were openly condemned, treating the students involved as victims and the teachers as depraved predators. As such, the more prominent and less critical handling of teacher-student relationships in Death Mark II came across as much more flippant.
• Funny Moments:
  • During Suzu's cameo, she asks Yashiki to promise to be careful. One of the possible responses is, "The only guarantee in life is death, kid." Said to a grade schooler.
  • Abe credits his mentor for his interest in the supernatural. Yashiki blames said mentor for why Abe is so weird. "You hate to see it."
  • Late-game, to solve a puzzle, Yashiki and Mashita have to make cat noises. And it works.
• Narm:
  • The early Suspensive Acts that don't involve spirits sound overly dramatic as Yashiki isn't under any real threat. They can also lead to some comical failures like Yashiki trying to give a student her handkerchief but keeps dropping it, Ai approaching two students and tripping on nothing.
  • Taking the stats too seriously and comparing characters leads to funny things like Yashiki being much weaker than teenage girls.
  • The fanservice CG's can kill the mood entirely and make the scene impossible to take seriously.
• Nightmare Retardant:
  • The gratuitously fanservicey CG's return and, as with the first game, they can detract from the horror and the serious tone of the story. Notably, there are more of these types of CG's in this game than there were in the first.
  • Some find that the switch to Side View breaks the immersion and makes exploring less scary or tense as a result.
  • Similarly, climactic spirit confrontations using "Suspensive Acts" instead of a distinct system exclusive to boss encounters can detract from the tension. Rather than throwing players for a loop by requiring them to figure out how to defeat the spirit, the challenge is watered down into multiple-choice, allowing the player to brute force or use process of elimination to complete the encounter. Plus, there's no consequence for getting a bad roll other than needing to use more HP to act again, and you can't accidentally destroy the spirit by coming to the wrong conclusion. This makes it difficult to actually lose and with the stakes being so low, the system doesn't lend itself to particularly scary live-or-die situations. Some also find that this format removes the special "boss battle" feeling of the encounter, since it's handled the way everything else is handled.
  • The Departed's hair makes it look like it's wearing a toupee or a bad wig.
  • Hanako of the Toilet’s fish-like head and google eyes that keep rolling to look every which way. Many players found this part of her more silly than scary, especially with how cartoonish it looks compared to the rest of her.
  • Mr. Kokkuri also has google eyes. The conical growths of mushroom clusters coming out of what's left of his head are probably supposed to imitate fox ears, to go with his Animal Motif, but even with his mask on, people have compared the shape to a common hairstyle for clowns.
• Squick:
  • Due to Hanako's association with the bathroom, the water she uses to attack is sewage.
  • The Teacher-Student Romances, even when the teachers don't reciprocate. The students' feelings are treated as legitimate and pure, and there's barely any acknowledgement of the unprofessionalism, power imbalance, or age gap issues with such a relationship. While the teachers refusing the students does indicate the taboo nature of it, potential reciprocation is treated as a good thing that the students will tragically never experience. Douryou and Kinukawa's Ship Tease with Yashiki is made worse by the fact that they're teenagers and Yashiki is estimated to be somewhere in his 40's.
  • The recurring motif of mold and bugs.
• Strangled by the Red String: Douryou and Kinukawa's feelings for Yashiki and the amount of narrative weight placed on it feel disproportionate. For one, they aren't given many chances to interact with and genuinely bond with Yashiki, or prove who they are as individuals. The only reason why they're even interested in him is because they're influenced by The Departed, whose interest in Yashiki is treated as perverse but somehow the same doesn't extend to the girls. On the other hand, Yashiki bonds with them way too quickly, especially considering he has his fellow Mark Bearers around to support him, making his attachment to them as a source of comfort bizarre. His sadness over them in the normal ending, and the romantic and dreamy atmosphere of the true ending, even when Yashiki doesn't reciprocate, feel unearned due to poor character writing. Not to mention how uncomfortable the whole thing comes across (see Squick and Values Dissonance).
• Values Dissonance: The rather rose-tinted treatment of Teacher-Student Romances can easily be chalked up to the game being developed with a Japanese audience in mind, with its society having rather lax views towards said relationships. As such, when localized for Western audiences, which are far more concerned with the inherent power imbalance and unprofessional conduct in such romances, the presentation of the issue comes across as rather uncomfortable.