Retro Game Challenge/YMMV

Ho Yay: Young Arino can ask the player whether or not s/he is single (this can happen for either gender).
It Gets Better: You probably won't get much mileage out of the game if you don't know/aren't a fan of Galaga, but once the easy challenges of Cosmic Gate are completed, the selection of game genres opens up quite a bit.
Woolseyism: The Japanese version, Arino's Challenge, contains several in-jokes towards Japanese gaming culture (including the title, a jab at Takeshi's Challenge, which was one of the worst games played by Arino on the actual TV show). Naturally these were converted to western in-jokes in Retro Game Challenge with the fictional "GameFan Magazine" being changed from a Famitsu parody to an EGM one.
- It's also partially a Nintendo Power parody, although they did leave the console you play on as a mash-up of the Famicom and Master system.

Viewer Gender Confusion: Opinions are still divided on the second party member's gender.

Goddamned Bats: There's three kinds, and they're all birds. The red birds fly down to your level and hover just outside the range of your shurikens, before charging at you. Black birds fly down and immediately careen towards you. Brown birds fly in the same wavy pattern as Castlevania's Medusa Heads. Oh, and guess what? All three varieties appear nonstop in the most hazardous parts of the levels, especially the red and black ones. Admittedly, their appearance is telegraphed by a sound effect, but they almost always show up when you're in the middle of a jump or otherwise don't have room to maneuver.