Arc the Lad/YMMV

Alas, Poor Villain: Done with Yagun and Gaidel in Arc 2 and with Darkham in Twilight of the Spirits.
Awesome Music: While not very well-known, the series' soundtracks have a few really good themes, like the boss theme of the Romalian generals, the anthem of the Academy in Arc 3, Arc 2's end credits theme (chances are you'd be weeping so much, you wouldn't hear it properly while you were playing) and, of course, the series' main theme.
Complete Monster: Most Romalian generals follow this trope.
Contested Sequel: Every game after Arc 2 has been contested.
Game Breaker: The Romancing Stones allow anyone who equips all four of them to use magic without spending MP. Find them and the protagonist can solo his way to the end credits.
- There's also Choko, the insanely powerful optional character you can acquire in several of the games. In Arc 2, if you power her up in a sidequest she can pretty much single handily win the rest of the game, and it becomes even easier if you give her the Romancing Stone.
Growing the Beard: The second game is a lot more impressive than the first.
Ho Yay: Tosh and Shu.
Moment of Awesome: A lot, especially in Arc 2: despite being one of the darkest RPGs ever made, it still managed to give a lot of Crowning Moments to its main cast.
Moral Event Horizon: Seyra commits a genocide during the first scene of Arc 2, then we learn about the experiments done by Romalia to turn children into monsters used for warfare and to create mind control devices, then we see Gallarno forcing Elc to kill his childhood friend... and that's only the first fifth of the game: the Moral Event Horizon is crossed on a daily basis here.
Nightmare Fuel: the basement of the pseudo-orphanage called the White House contains chairs equipped with huge rotating saws. From the same place, we learn that in order to keep its children (kidnapped at best witnesses of their families slaughter and people's genocide at worst) complients, the people in charge of the facility force kids to take "control medecines" suspicously similar to rape drugs which pretty much end up wiping their memories (it takes Elc a decade to start remembering his past)
Player Punch: Present in every game in the series, but in Arc 2 it is taken to a form of art. Between the constant crossing of the Moral Event Horizon and the fact that every single playable character is a Woobie (yes, even Choko, ESPECIALLY Choko), it almost seems like the story writers were trying to break a record (and probably succeeded).
Tear Jerker: During the second game, you will cry, scream at your TV screen, and curse the story writers as well as their descendants up to the thirteenth generation. The following episodes are not as bad, but have their moments.
That One Boss: Zalbad in Arc 2, and he's not even a Warmup Boss compared to the last one!
That One Sidequest: Arc 1 contains one of the most ridiculous sidequest goals ever: win 1,000 Arena battles. The battles are easy, and by the time you've gotten even halfway to 1,000 wins, you'll have earned enough experience points to bring your entire team to the level cap several times over. The primary challenge involved in getting to 1,000 wins is simply being obsessed enough to keep fighting the same enemies, over and over again, for hour after hour, in spite of the sheer tedium involved in doing so. If you're actually insane enough to reach 1,000 wins, the Arena manager will reward you with a huge supply of the game's best accessories for you to take with you into the sequel, then tell you to turn off the console, go outside, and get a life!
- Most of the jobs sidequests in Arc 2 are decent, but there are the three or four jobs that require you to head into the Banza mountains. Your be forced to tediously kill the same monster groups over and over again each time you re-enter the mountain.
Tough Act to Follow: Neither 3 or 4 is a bad game, but they had the misfortune of being set after Arc 2.
Wham! Episode: a tons of them, especially in the first two episodes, mostly here to show that things are getting worse.
- Arrival at Saryu village: for the first time we are shown the devastating effects of the industrialization of Arc's World, with one of its most ancient human dwellings slowly dying from the pollution caused by the extraction and processing of energy stones. Then, out of the blue, Romalia's airforce raze the village, send it's turned-into-monsters super-soldiers to finish the job and find the key to the water shrine: it's the first time Arc's team is facing Romalia directly, the first time Arc display some real anger and the first punch thrown at the player.
- The last trip to Seyria: Andel fatally wounds Seyria's king, who confess that he is the one who sent Arc's father away in order to inherit the throne, Arc is framed for the King's murder, Seyria turns into a police state controlled by Andel. If this was not enough just after finding the Ark, Arc & co have to give it up to Andel who uses Arc's mother and the other residents of Touvil's lives as a bargaining chip, the seal on the Dark One starts breaking down: Kukuru has to remain hidden in Touvil ruins to maintain what remains of the seal in place while the rest of Arc's group become wanted fugitive: The first episode ends here
- First scene of Arc 2: Elc's -Arc 2 Supporting Protagonist- people get genocided by Seyria's military.
- End of the White House story arc: Elc & co appear successful at first, rescuing Mariel and finding the other orphans, at which points Gallarno turn all the orphans into monsters, forcing Elc & co to kill them, after which he entraps Elc and Mariel, uses his Mind Control Device to forces the two to fight, nearly destroying Mariel mind in the process. When she manages regain her consciousness because she refuses to hurt Elc, Gallarno uses a contingency plan and uses the bomb he had implanted in Mariel's body, critically injuring Eld and leaving him nearly dead.