Dragon Quest VIII/YMMV

Accidental Innuendo: To quote Morrie:

Morrie: "You know what they say: You never know the depths of your own passion until you play with yourself."

- It simply has to be on purpose with this guy, judging from many of his other lines:

Morrie: "You give my monstrous pit a good licking."
Morrie: "You keep it up, and you will go far in my monstrous pit!"

Alternative Character Interpretation:
- Marcello. Manipulative, self serving Jerkass, or Well-Intentioned Extremist? Or he could be both.
- Just how much influence the Scepter has over its wielders isn't explicitly established, leading to some speculation on how much of the original personality remains intact.
Complete Monster: Rhapthorne not only gleefully murdered the descendants of the Seven Sages, but he forced Marta to surrender herself to him by threatening the life of her son, ordered Gemon to murder Empyrea's unborn child, transformed Trodain's citizens into immobile plant people.
Crowning Music of Awesome: Quite a bit of the soundtrack.
- Particularly, the song when you first gain the ability to fly. Especially as you recall that the embodiment of your flight is Empyrea's dead son whose spirit was shown just before you start flying.
- No love for Remembrances? Crowning Music of Sadness for the entire game.
- Apparently, the original versions of the game got synthesized music, whereas localizations got an orchestral soundtrack, and the theme that plays while fighting the final boss is probably the most awe inspiring orchestral you will ever listen to.
Draco in Leather Pants: Marcello, due to being Tall, Dark and Snarky.
Ending Fatigue: A rather famous video game example of it. Dhoulmagus (who is thought to be the Final Boss) is actually fought only halfway through the game.
Ensemble Darkhorse: Yangus, popular enough to earn his own spin-off. Marcello qualifies, given his fangirls.
Fan-Preferred Couple: Angelo/Hero, by sheer volume of fanart. Since they are the only two young males in the game that interact on a frequent basis: that alone is enough for yaoi fans to latch onto. Angelo/Jessica has the second most amount of fanart and is the most popular heterosexual pairing with every Dragon Quest spin-off game featuring some sort of Ship Tease between the two.
Fetish Fuel Station Attendant: Just about everything Jessica does. Her original outfit is very prim and proper, she can dress up like a bunny girl, a dominatrix, wear a leotard, bikini, or dancer's outfit to battle.
Game-Breaker: The roulette wheel in the casino is hilariously broken. Betting the maximum amount of tokens on every possible space you can bet on leads to you earning more tokens than you spent, no matter where the ball lands. Doing this for just a few minutes will earn enough tokens to buy the Disc-One Nuke weapons and armour from the casino's store with ease.
Germans Love David Hasselhoff: In contrast to the general Cult Classic status of the series outside Japan. When it comes to entries that the western fanbase has at least heard about, this is the Dragon Quest equivalent to Final Fantasy VII.
Idiot Plot: The Purgatory Island chapter, which only happens because the party let some rank-and-file Templars manhandle them off a floating island, into a boat, and into a pit of a prison cell. They're quite literally the strongest characters in the entire room, and have zero reason to go along with it. The party has no business there, except to witness Rolo's redemption arc.
Jerkass Woobie: Geyzer can be seen as this, considering the pain he suffers from his wound.
Les Yay:
- Jessica getting a Puff-Puff counts as this.
- Also as a Crowning Moment of Funny: "Jessica laughs triumphantly, having won the battle of the bulges." What's even funnier is that not only is Jessica essentially immune, but that the offender loses their next turn out of shame.
- Also in the Puff-Puff Club, if you have Jessica as the first character. The puff-puff girl has no problem whatsoever to give a nice "Puff Puff" to Jessica and even call her "cherié and mademoiselle. Still, Jessica doesn't look amused. Yet if you talk to her after getting a puff puff, she says she'd love to have a "pair" like that.
Magnificent Bastard: Marcello, for a while. Despite acting mostly for petty reasons, you almost have to respect him for becoming Lord High Priest in a matter of weeks, effectively playing politics with the entire Church and winning. Not to mention resisting Rhapthorne's possession, because he's just that focused. Not even one of your party members could do that.
Memetic Badass: King Trode is a ninja, as shown in the normal ending.
Mis-blamed: When footage surfaced of the 3DS version showing that Jessica's outfits had been altered, as well as a few scenes being altered, some people immediately blamed Nintendo of America for the changes. However, the changes are present in all regions, including Japan, and the real reason for the change is due to the CERO ratings board in Japan not wanting to give the game an A rating with the old costumes and some scenes intact.
Moral Event Horizon:
- Rhapthorne was always evil, but when he murders an old woman in cold blood... that is when he crosses the line.
- It should be noted that said old woman was one of his badass archnemeses and not only fought, but even harmed him.
- And that's not even going into Gemon destroying Empyrea's unborn son with himself, which Rhapthorne is implied to have ordered if Gemon was ever defeated.
- It could have also been when Rhapthorne kills David, who's even more defenseless than Marta since all his family's magic went to Dominico's.
- Let's not forget what Marcello pulls once he gains control of Rhapthorne's power for a while...
Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: King Trode is snobby and demanding, and comes across as a whiny, useless plot device early in the game. However, as the story progresses, it becomes clear that he is not a total buffoon, but a compassionate (if fairly egotistical) monarch who wants to preserve what little dignity he has left. He also builds (and later upgrades) the Alchemy Pot for you, which is absolutely essential for getting higher level items. And of course, there's his showing of ninja skills during one of the endings.
The Scrappy: Charmles is literally hated by everyone who encounters him except his father. Yes, that includes everyone who has played the game and gotten far enough to see him.
- Actually, his father does seem quite aware his son is a severe wuss and a Jerkass, and strongly implies he would love to see the boy man up and assume some responsibility. In either ending, I won't spoil it, but King Argonia gets a Crowning Moment of Awesome for taking this to its logical conclusion.
- Also, for those who have played Dragon Quest V and Dragon Quest VI, Charmles is an unsympathetic Expy of Prince Harry (V) and Prince Howard (VI). Unlike those two, who actually grew some balls and became honorable and mature, Charmles...doesn't.
Ship-to-Ship Combat: Between Hero/Medea (which is the Official Couple of the original game and default in the 3DS remake) and Hero/Jessica (which is optional ending in the 3DS remake). Quite a number of flame wars on gaming forums both argue over which heroine the Hero is better suited for. Angelo/Jessica shippers also do not get along with Hero/Jessica shippers.
That One Attack: The "wave of ice/Disruptive wave" boss ability. It's on over half of the bosses after Dhoulmagus, and it clears every buff on your party, meaning that if you just spent the last several turns buffing up your party, raising tension, etc, those turns were just completely wasted. It doesn't deal damage, so it's not particularly dangerous, but it certainly is incredibly annoying.
- Granted, this is a pretty typical for Dragon Quest bosses: most players actually prefer when a boss does this, because if they use one of their rounds removing buffs on you, then they're not attacking.
- Dhoulmagus in Memoriam's thorn attack can be a downright Total Party Kill if he and his copies use it on you.
- Evil Jessica in Memoriam's charm attack will always work on your male party members, effectively forcing you to switch to using Red and Jessica for most of the battle.
That One Boss: Dragon Quest VIII can be difficult if you have a habit of skipping fights, but Dhoulmagus is the crowd favorite for this title, though. He has two forms - his first, where he splits into three copies of himself, and the second, where he assumes a demon form that is somehow even stronger than the combined might of the three from the previous fight.
Tier-Induced Scrappy: Just about everyone has at least one useless or underperforming skill besides Fisticuffs (which are, ironically, only really good on Yangus).
- Yangus deserves special mention due to the fact that Axes are essentially his only good skill tree due to the abilities being good and Axes being the most available weapons for him. Sure, he gets a rather hilarious attack if he maxes out Humanity, but to a lot, his low MP really doesn't justify investing so much, especially when he can learn some very useful axe abilities instead.
Unfortunate Implications: Don't tell me you didn't raise an eyebrow when you saw the 'priest' in Tryan Gully.
- Well, in this world Our Demons Are Different, and they aren't all evil. You can even meet a good Archdemon monster inside the inn.
Values Dissonance: The 3DS changes: the censorship of Jessica's outfits were actually because what the game could get away with in 2004 versus 2015 has changed.
Win Back the Crowd: After the resounding failure of Dragon Quest VII (in the west), Dragon Quest VIII was released to massive sales and critical acclaim and successfully renewed interest in the franchise in the west.