YMMV / The Unexpectables II Alton Frontiers

• Arc Fatigue:
  • The trip to cleanse the second bead of Hoketh, due to introducing the bulk of reoccurring characters, locations, and plot-lines in the arc, takes 24 episodes, over half of the entire Isenvale Freedom arc. Not helping is that the party was only level 2 during it, so combat became rather repetitive after a while.
  • The story about Ky getting his class during the campaign, due to Bosco's self-admitted love of obfuscating it. During most of the first arc Ky's class was a complete enigma to everyone outside the table with only a few scattered hints on what he could possibly be. It takes until episode 36 to reveal that he's one of the full caster classes^note Warlock, Wizard, or Sorcerer but then spends the rest of the arc refusing to use any class-related abilities openly making people groaned that despite the potential answer being narrowed down to three guesses Bosco is still doing everything he can to make people guess.
• Base-Breaking Character: Ky is the most controversial character in the game so far. Supporters appreciate the brotherly love he has for Otho, his interesting perspective as what feels like an NPC being thrust into the roll of a main character and find the plotline of him eventually earning his class to be interesting. Detractors however criticize Ky for being a borderline non-entity for multiple sessions ^note there are often times when Bosco will only have Ky speak if he's directly spoken to which can lead to entire sessions where Ky says nothing and find that the plotline of Ky not having class abilities to be a very drawn out crutch as he otherwise isn't interesting and believe that Isqan does the whole "player character who's discovering his abilities during the campaign" bit better.
• Funny Moments:
  • Electrum as a currency, for whatever reason, is Monty's Berserk Button, which the group is happy to push every time they talk about splitting up money between themselves.
  • Pretty much the entirety of the group's arrival in Martoralo, due to the background music having a baby crying in the background, leading to jokes involving Gaius having to shut it up, babies getting kidnapped by seagulls, and Mark's utter confusion when Goomba brings up the last time he stole a baby.
  • The creation of Fort Dort Z. A shitty little dirt barrier that the players joke about being an impenetrable fortress.
  • The first room in a generally very unnerving and creepy dungeon is a variant of Zee Bashew's "waiting puzzle", consisting of an enclosed room with just a button that triggers the door and a 3-minute countdown before the second door opens, all while increasingly tense music plays. The hilarity comes after the party figures out the puzzle, and they are forced to wait out the timer every time they use the room, making awkward small talk at incredible volume to talk over the scary music.
  • The party at one point is attacked by a group of bandits hired to kill them. They find this out by digging through their bags and finding a collection of wanted posters…which all appear to be amateurishly drawn (except for Gaius whose poster has a photorealistic goat head) by Wormtongue.
• Moral Event Horizon: While he was the reason the Ash Plague razed Isenvale, a lot of people were willing to at least emphasize with the king of Isenvale due to the indication that his main motivation was to try and resurrect Lynne, his dead wife. Then it's revealed that that the only reason she married him was because the king sent assassins to murder her friends until she agreed to marry him, which caused any potential sympathy to disappear.
• Nausea Fuel:
  • During the fight with a group of zombie squirrels Isqan lands a few successful attacks on them by biting them and Monty does not hold back any details in describing the taste and texture that a half-rotten animal would have.
  • Similarly, Monty's descriptions of waterlogged zombie corpses and what happens when the party attacks them.
• Nightmare Fuel: The entire region of Isenvale is afflicted by the Ash Plague. All of its inhabitants are undead abominations that stalk the land, the sky is constantly dark, and the borders of the country are shrouded in horrible mist containing unseen things and whispering voices. Everyone outside of Isenvale avoids the place and for good reason.
• Shocking Moments: Safe to say that Blightwing wiping out the entire region of Isenvale was something nobody saw coming. Being a showing of destruction more apparent than nearly anything from the first campaign.
• Slow-Paced Beginning: While the first episode ended on a strong point, the first arc suffers from a lot of growing pains as the cast and Monty get used to their new roles and implemented mechanics in a much less colorful and eccentric world than Alivast. It's not helped by spending a long time in pre-subclass levels limiting the party's options. By the time the quest for the third bead begins, the party's mostly settled on their roles, most of the mechanics have been ironed out and there's a lot more willingness to have NPC's behave as they did in the first campaign.
• Tear Jerker:
  • In Episode 7, when Lynne is cleansing the first Bead of Hoketh, the party is set upon by the zombified remains of the people of Runnel. Seeing the kindly villagers, who the party had befriended in the first session, return as undead monstrosities is distressing for the players and the party both, and poor Ky is even in tears for a good part of the fight.
  • Otho's father leaving him for dead to an ogre wife. Especially since unlike Ky Otho still clearly cares for the man and is more confused than angry at the seeming betrayal.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: The way Monty brings it up, the punishment that the town of Acorn received was supposed to be seen as a type of Laser-Guided Karma due to their rampant deforestation. But considering that said punishment was forcibly turning the entire town into Trees with no way to atone or turn back without outside intervention, it comes off to some as Disproportionate Retribution.