History YMMV / AtelierLuluaTheScionOfArland

*** [[spoiler:At first glance, Ficus seems to be just a traveling magician. In reality, he's Evil Face, the TrueFinalBoss of ''[[VideoGame/AtelierTotoriTheAdventurerOfArland Totori]]'', now with a human form and working under Mana. With Lulua's help, he finally breaks free of his demon form.]]

* StrangledByTheRedString: The general criticism of the handling of Lulua and Stia's relationship, since the story keeps expecting the player to believe she's suddenly become one of the most people in Lulua's life despite the fact they're not shown doing much beyond things like "eat together". Once things get to Chapter 10, Lulua starts making a huge deal about "being able to talk to her" when they hadn't even gotten much that could even be called small talk, but the plot becomes so obsessively about their supposed relationship that [[spoiler:the events of the game happen in the first place due to Lulua's desire to save Stia across all the parallel timelines in the world]], all while sidelining the other characters with better developed relationships to Lulua.

* StrangledByTheRedString: The general criticism of the handling of Lulua and Stia's relationship; while the game had attempted to build up their friendship over the course of the game, the story keeps expecting the player to believe she's suddenly become one of the most people in Lulua's life despite the fact they're not shown doing much beyond things like "eat together". Once things get to Chapter 10, Lulua starts making a huge deal about "being able to talk to her" when they hadn't even gotten much that could even be called small talk, but the plot becomes so obsessively about their supposed relationship that [[spoiler:the events of the game happen in the first place due to Lulua's desire to save Stia across all the parallel timelines in the world]], all while sidelining the other characters with better developed relationships to Lulua.

* ShipsThatPassInTheNight: Ficus and Piana don't actually interact all that much within the story, but they started gaining breakout popularity as a ship among Japanese doujinshi artists after people noticed the irony and potential drama behind putting together [[spoiler:a girl who had escaped the fate of being eaten by a demon and the [[HeelFaceTurn now-reformed]] demon himself, who [[LesserOfTwoEvils would have preferred the idea of not having to eat her in the first place]]]].

* ShipsThatPassInTheNight: Ficus and Piana don't actually interact all that much within the story, but they started gaining breakout popularity as a ship after people started noticing the irony and potential drama behind putting together [[spoiler:a girl who had escaped the fate of being eaten by a demon and the [[HeelFaceTurn now-reformed]] demon himself, who [[LesserOfTwoEvils would have preferred the idea of not having to eat her in the first place]]]].

** Of all the characters who could return from previous Arland games, very few people anticipated Piana, a character who had only had background significance in ''[[VideoGame/AtelierTotoriTheAdventurerOfArland Totori]]'' and wasn't even mentioned in ''[[VideoGame/AtelierMeruruTheApprenticeOfArland Meruru]]'', to return as a major character, let alone in the plot-critical role of Lulua's teacher.

*** [[spoiler:At first glance, Mana seems to be just one of many young orphans at the Arklys orphanage where Eva works. In reality, she's Machina of God, an optional {{Superboss}} from ''[[VideoGame/AtelierMeruruTheApprenticeOfArland Meruru]]'', with her boss battle theme in Chapter 9 even being a remix of the Machina of God battle theme from ''[[VideoGame/AtelierMeruruTheApprenticeOfArland Meruru]]''. To put things in perspective, until ''Lulua'', fans weren't even sure if Machina of God was supposed to be canon.]]

*** [[spoiler:At first glance, Mana seems to be just one of many young orphans at the Arklys orphanage where Eva works. In reality, she's Machina of God, an optional {{Superboss}} from ''[[VideoGame/AtelierMeruruTheApprenticeOfArland Meruru]]'', with her boss battle theme in Chapter 9 even being a remix of the Machine of God battle theme from ''[[VideoGame/AtelierMeruruTheApprenticeOfArland Meruru]]''. To put things in perspective, until ''Lulua'', fans weren't even sure if Machina of God was supposed to be canon.]]

* StrangledByTheRedString: The general criticism of the handling of Lulua and Stia's relationship; while the game had attempted to build up their friendship over the course of the game, the story keeps expecting the audience to believe she's suddenly become one of the most people in Lulua's life despite the fact they're not shown doing much beyond things like "eat together". Once things get to Chapter 10, Lulua starts making a huge deal about "being able to talk to her" when they hadn't even gotten much that could even be called small talk, but the plot becomes so obsessively about their supposed relationship that [[spoiler:the events of the game happen in the first place due to Lulua's desire to save Stia across all the parallel timelines in the world]], all while sidelining the other characters with better developed relationships to Lulua.

*** [[spoiler:At first glance, Mana seems to be just one of many young orphans at the Arklys orphanage where Eva works. In reality, she's the operator of Orthogalaxen, one of the ruins around Arland, and a Machine of God, an optional boss from ''Atelier Meruru'', with her boss battle theme in Chapter 9 even being a remix of the Machine of God battle theme from ''Meruru''.]]
*** [[spoiler:At first glance, Ficus seems to be just a traveling magician. In reality, he's Evil Face, the true final boss of ''Atelier Totori'', now with a human form and working under Mana. With Lulua's help, he finally breaks free of his demon form.]]

** & [[spoiler:At first glance, Mana seems to be just one of many young orphans at the Arklys orphanage where Eva works. In reality, she's the operator of Orthogalaxen, one of the ruins around Arland, and a Machine of God, an optional boss from ''Atelier Meruru'', with her boss battle theme in Chapter 9 even being a remix of the Machine of God battle theme from ''Meruru''.]]

* FanPreferredCouple: The game obviously pushes Stia as Lulua's LesYay ShipTease partner to the point of dedicating the entire last quarter of the plot and the true ending to them, but the sentiment that the entire thing was a bad case of StrangledByTheRedString resulted in Lulua and Aurel, who had still gotten quite a bit of ShipTease themselves and were drawn as a clear parallel to existing MaybeEverAfter pair Rorona and Sterk, becoming much more popular by ''sheer knockout'' in a fanbase that usually is heavily biased towards yuri. Even Lulua/Eva ended up becoming easier to find fanwork of.

* SugarWiki/HeartwarmingMoments: Lulua and Rorona hugging at the end of the game's intro movie.
* LesYay: Lulua and [[spoiler:Stia]] are featured [[spoiler:running the atelier]] together in the Normal Ending CG and [[spoiler:leaving on a journey]] together in the True Ending CG, though the way the game handles their story is controversial.

* StrangledByTheRedString: The general criticism of the handling of Lulua and Stia's relationship; while the game had certainly been building up their friendship over the course of the game, at Chapter 10 Stia is suddenly and abruptly treated like one of the most important people in Lulua's life to the point [[spoiler:the events of the game happen in the first place due to her attempts to save her]], all while sidelining the other characters with better developed relationships to Lulua.

* StrangledByTheRedString: The general criticism of the handling of Lulua and Stia's relationship; while the game had certainly been building up their friendship over the course of the game, at chapter 10 Stia is suddenly and abruptly treated like one of the most important people in Lulua's life to the point [[spoiler:the events of the game happen in the first place due to her attempts to save her]], all while sidelining the other characters with better developed relationships to Lulua.

** Of all the characters who could return from previous Arland games, very few anticipated Piana, a character who had only had background significance in ''[[VideoGame/AtelierTotoriTheAdventurerOfArland Totori]]'' and wasn't even mentioned in ''[[VideoGame/AtelierMeruruTheApprenticeOfArland Meruru]]'', to return as a major character, let alone in the plot-critical role of Lulua's teacher.

* UnexpectedCharacter: Two bosses from the previous Arland games reappear in this game, but as Lulua's acquaintances:
** [[spoiler:At first glance, Mana seems to be just one of many young orphans at the Arklys orphanage where Eva works. In reality, she's the operator of Orthogalaxen, one of the ruins around Arland, and a Machine of God, an optional boss from ''Atelier Meruru'', with her boss battle theme in Chapter 9 even being a remix of the Machine of God battle theme from ''Meruru''.]]
** [[spoiler:At first glance, Ficus seems to be just a traveling magician. In reality, he's Evil Face, the true final boss of ''Atelier Totori'', now with a human form and working under Mana. With Lulua's help, he finally breaks free of his demon form.]]

* FanPreferredCouple: The game obviously pushes Stia as Lulua's LesYay ShipTease partner to the point of dedicating the entire last quarter of the plot and the true ending to them, but the sentiment that the entire thing was a bad case of StrangledByTheRedString resulted in Lulua and Aurel, who had still gotten quite a bit of ShipTease themselves, becoming much more popular by ''sheer knockout'' in a fanbase that usually is heavily biased towards yuri. Even Lulua/Eva ended up becoming easier to find fanwork of.

* FanPreferredCouple: The game obviously pushes Stia as Lulua's LesYay ShipTease partner to the point of dedicating the entire last quarter of the plot and he true ending to them, but the sentiment that the entire thing was a bad case of StrangledByTheRedString resulted in Lulua and Aurel, who had still gotten quite a bit of ShipTease themselves, becoming much more popular by ''sheer knockout'' in a fanbase that usually is heavily biased towards yuri. Even Lulua/Eva ended up becoming easier to find fanwork of.

* AuthorsSavingThrow: ''Lulua'' is very obviously written with a lot of the fan criticisms launched against ''[[VideoGame/AtelierMeruruTheApprenticeOfArland Meruru]]'' in mind:
** Most prominently, the game features Rorona as a 35-year-old mother without restraint after ''[[VideoGame/AtelierMeruruTheApprenticeOfArland Meruru]]'' had taken a widely-reviled OldMaid stance towards her. Most of the reason for the backlash was that ''[[VideoGame/AtelierMeruruTheApprenticeOfArland Meruru]]''[='=]s way of handling it was by destroying all of Rorona's hard-earned CharacterDevelopment and reducing her to a barely functional kid with scrambled memories, so ''Lulua'' compensates by making Rorona a major character again, focusing heavily on her personal relationships and growth in a way that wasn't possible for her in ''[[VideoGame/AtelierMeruruTheApprenticeOfArland Meruru]]'' given her situation.
** Another reason fans had been upset at the above incident was that it had done very little for Rorona's relationship with Sterk, who had been building up a ShipTease-laden relationship with her over ''[[VideoGame/AtelierRoronaTheAlchemistOfArland Rorona]]'' and ''[[VideoGame/AtelierTotoriTheAdventurerOfArland Totori]]'' only for it to go absolutely nowhere in ''[[VideoGame/AtelierMeruruTheApprenticeOfArland Meruru]]'' due to Rorona being reduced to a shell of her former self and Sterk being subject to severe {{Flanderization}}. ''Lulua'' gives Sterk a significant CharacterCheck, has his and Rorona's character arcs tie heavily into their relationship and past together, and amps up the ShipTease to unprecedented degrees, [[spoiler:even giving them a dedicated MaybeEverAfter ending that doesn't even feature Lulua at all]].
** On top of ''[[VideoGame/AtelierMeruruTheApprenticeOfArland Meruru]]'' already being criticized for not developing its new characters very well and focusing too much on the old ones, Keina was especially considered to be a particularly glaring example of this due to her occupying a position blatantly written for a LesYay [[ChildhoodFriends childhood friend]] dynamic with Meruru that also ended up going pretty much nowhere. Keina returns as a prominent recurring character in ''Lulua'', going much more deeply into her relationship with Meruru and how it affects her.
** ''Lulua'' also responds to the criticism of how many characters had been PutOnABus in ''[[VideoGame/AtelierMeruruTheApprenticeOfArland Meruru]]'' without even being mentioned by bringing back a few old faces as [[UnexpectedCharacter Unexpected Characters]] and introducing Jeltje, whose main purpose as a character is basically to rapid-fire namedrop most of the absent characters and update the player as to what they're up to.
** To a lesser degree, while the Arland games having a RiddleForTheAges approach to its worldbuilding was never considered a significant problem since it was a SliceOfLife series anyway, the following games having stronger relationships with their respective lore led to quite a few people being dissatisfied with how little Arland had touched on its own, so ''Lulua'' goes a bit more strongly into worldbuilding and backstory to a mild extent akin the way the Dusk and Mysterious games handled the issue.

** To a lesser degree, while the Arland games having a RiddleForTheAges approach to its worldbuilding was never considered a significant problem since it was a SliceOfLife series anyway, the following games having stronger relationships with their respective lore led to quite a few people being dissatisfied with how little Arland had touched on its own, so ''Lulua'' goes a little more strongly into worldbuilding and backstory to a mild extent akin to that of the Dusk and Mysterious games.