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Your least favourite plot cliche in gaming.


Omega_Ra1der

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Let's try and keep it to video game examples though... this is the Gaming General Forum after all. It's these cliches in gaming ((and they're possible effect in regards to mechanics of the game.)) not anime lol.

He brought it up first...

But yeah, I can agree with that. Though almost all of these cliches apply outside of video games as well.

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Not sure if this was mentioned, but a thing I really dislike in all media is when the villain is SO EVIL that when their henchman or mercenary or just hired help or someone forced into working for them ask for their reward (payment/freedom) the villain just kills them instead! Yeah, I get it, they're bad bad people! Doesn't mean they go around kicking every puppy on the street! >:c For once, I'd like to see a bad guy make good on their word and pony up what they owe. After all, every villain is the hero of their own story, so they don't HAVE to be pure jerks like that.

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Those times in video games when you are tasked to beat up a guy, so you do. You beat the bloody pulp out of him. Then the cutscenes happens and it shows you getting beaten up instead or your character complains about how powerless they are. Despite just proving to the player how powerless they aren't...

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I hate the video game cliche of "Oh you were actually helping the bad guy the entire time". It pains me, because they are usually quite obvious halfway through the game, but you got to trek on like an oblivious idiot. I'm looking at you Shadow of the Colossus and Bravely Default.

The other cliche which i think might have been mentioned already is when an NPC helps the bad guy because "it will save (insert person here)". I know we as the player are fickle because we have seen this used before, but come on NPCs. Do you really believe that the main villain is just going to be good just because you were nice or they will really keep up their end of the bargain. Heck 9 times out of 10 they are the ones that caused the problems for the NPCs in the first place.

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Idiot heroes. I don't mean they look dumb in the sense that if you go back and replay the game or a cutscene reveals information to you that lets you know something the hero doesn't. No, I mean the kind of hero that is so incredibly, unforgivably stupid that you know what they are doing is really dumb even without extensive trope knowledge. The kind of hero that is so dumb even when other characters point out their stupidity it can't hang a big enough lampshade to cover how convoluted their decisions are. I'm talking about the kind of hero that makes you wonder how they aren't dead yet, even if they were living as a simple farm boy until the plot started. Though this is a cliche usually manifested in main characters, the bizarre absence of gray matter also applies to villains, plucky sidekicks, and especially to mentor characters.

Surely the hero doesn't have to have a negative number of brain cells in order to drive the story forward? I like playing games in which all the characters act as if they are at or around a level of average intelligence.

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Humanity/humans suck. It's rarely ever us defending another race, or just watching from the sidelines. And that's another thing: always being the center of attention, the protagonist. Why can't we ever just be the quirky sidekick, or better yet, a normal person who just happens to live in a chaotic world. So many RPGs could do this, but instead you're always the chosen one.

Take Skyrim for example. Sure, it's fun to be the Dovakhiin, but why can't I just be a farmer with a family to look after and feed? Why can't my wife serve any purpose other than kill things as I kill things, and effectively just being a walking chest? Why? I want to know what it's like, living a peaceful life whilst also having dragons rain hellfire upon my hometown, and how I cope.

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Females on the main cast for the sake of being female.

You know what i'm talking about; that girl that main character always end up falling in love with or is just "there". If at least they had a well-written personality or development or actualy added something to the story besides being a pretty face that will invariably at some point in the story need to be rescued... But no, they're always presented with the same old plain, generic and flat attributes that can be associated with a "girl".

You can be a girl in the cast without being a walking cliché.

I actualy really like it when i see a well-written female on the main cast, bonus points if she's the main character.

but then when they do it right, it's pretty awesome. Have you met my waifu Lilith from Borderlands 2? Or how about Tiny Tina?

Oh yes, i've seen those two. they definitely fall under "well-written". I love them.

Edited by Telos
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the corrupt corporation executive trope. cuz you know: all rich businessmen are evil and most of them are a part of a secret organization in taking over the world.

as if running a multi-dollar company isn't enough, they have to take over/blow up the world while they're at it. its very common in gaming/anime.

That's real life shit though. It's seriously like a mental condition where they have to keep obtaining more and more.

Humanity/humans suck. It's rarely ever us defending another race, or just watching from the sidelines. And that's another thing: always being the center of attention, the protagonist. Why can't we ever just be the quirky sidekick, or better yet, a normal person who just happens to live in a chaotic world. So many RPGs could do this, but instead you're always the chosen one.

Take Skyrim for example. Sure, it's fun to be the Dovakhiin, but why can't I just be a farmer with a family to look after and feed? Why can't my wife serve any purpose other than kill things as I kill things, and effectively just being a walking chest? Why? I want to know what it's like, living a peaceful life whilst also having dragons rain hellfire upon my hometown, and how I cope.

Then you're playing the wrong game. Harvest Moon and Animal crossing are over that way, buddy. Skyrim is an action adventure game, not a medieval drama sim. Even if it does have said drama, mostly of the political kind. On the bright side, you can be a non-human race.

You know what i'm talking about; that girl that main character always end up falling in love with or is just "there". If at least they had a well-written personality or development or actualy added something to the story besides being a pretty face that will invariably at some point in the story need to be rescued... But no, they're always presented with the same old plain, generic and flat attributes that can be associated with a "girl".

but then when they do it right, it's pretty awesome. Have you met my waifu Lilith from Borderlands 2? Or how about Tiny Tina?

Idiot heroes. I don't mean they look dumb in the sense that if you go back and replay the game or a cutscene reveals information to you that lets you know something the hero doesn't. No, I mean the kind of hero that is so incredibly, unforgivably stupid that you know what they are doing is really dumb even without extensive trope knowledge. The kind of hero that is so dumb even when other characters point out their stupidity it can't hang a big enough lampshade to cover how convoluted their decisions are. I'm talking about the kind of hero that makes you wonder how they aren't dead yet, even if they were living as a simple farm boy until the plot started. Though this is a cliche usually manifested in main characters, the bizarre absence of gray matter also applies to villains, plucky sidekicks, and especially to mentor characters.

Surely the hero doesn't have to have a negative number of brain cells in order to drive the story forward? I like playing games in which all the characters act as if they are at or around a level of average intelligence.

This. Very much this. I'm looking at you, Luffy, Naruto, Fairytale...

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"First contact" plots in gaming (and other media) are already very rare especially compared to the ancient evil/enemy/monster awakens/returns/revives plot but people for some reason see the need to ruin the fact that this is a new enemy that the world may never had faced before by having some kind of half-arsed expositional character who has already somehow completely figured out this "new" enemy. rendering it the same thing as an ancient evil/enemy/monster awakens/returns/revives plot.

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"Oh, you're already well aware that what you're about to do is a very terrible idea? Too bad, the plot demands that you do it anyway!"

This reminds of a certain thing in Reborn where you were forced to read someone's diary. ;)

As for me, I hate the cliche JRPG anime coupling, as in, "I'm your childhood friend and so I'm bound to fall in love with you!" I really hate that forced romances have become a thing in the games, I'm not against couples with the main characters, but c'mon, do it right.

The collegehumor vid on the first page really summarizes everything but except for the romances I like those JRPG cliches actually. xD

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So I know this an old thread, but I just thought of something that really irritates me and I want to rant about it.

I hate when an antagonist just blows off being beaten with stereotypical lines like "You got lucky" or "I was going easy on you". Take Blue and Silver, two of the most popular rivals in Pokemon for example. People like them because they're jerks that talk down to you and that gives players satisfaction in beating them, but I've always found them boring. Blue uses both of the above mentioned excuses, which have been used probably literally billions of times in all of fiction, and by real people. To me, he's just a generic stuck-up brat. Silver's excuse is "You won because my Pokemon were weak" which is just stating the obvious because being stronger or smarter than your opponent is exactly how you win any kind of fight excluding literal dumb luck. And after that he still thinks he has room to monologue about how weak you are. Both of them are just like "I'm trying to act tough but it doesn't work because I just lost. I'm a chihuahua barking at a wolf." I know a lot of people want another asshole rival, but I'd want one if and only if they're against us but still acknowledge our skill. This is also why I don't get so worked up about Fern in Reborn. His personality and motives are garbage and he needs to be straightened out but he uses the exact same excuses that Blue does. His worst/best moments are outside of battle ex leaving you in the cage if you don't beg to him and mocking Corey but in battle I can't take him seriously at all.

I know there are some villains that actually DO go easy on the player and go progressively less easy in subsequent fights since I've played games where that's happened, and I'm not talking about them. Those are the ones that are their endgame power level from the start and just like playing with you or want to challenge themselves. I'm talking about ones that actually get stronger and smarter throughout the game. Ones that have to go through trials and rank up just like you do.

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One used in most RPGS that I hate are trope that I call the "Main Fetch Quest"

The former is when the Main quest consists entirely of going to arbitrary locations to find some objects to beat the Main villain. If the objects can actually help advance the story (Star Spirits and Crystal Stars in the Paper Mario games, Fused Shadows in Twilight Princess) then it's fine, good even. But when it's something like Earthbound, just going there and not really feeling like there was any immediate point, that's when it irks me.

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One used in most RPGS that I hate are trope that I call the "Main Fetch Quest"

The former is when the Main quest consists entirely of going to arbitrary locations to find some objects to beat the Main villain. If the objects can actually help advance the story (Star Spirits and Crystal Stars in the Paper Mario games, Fused Shadows in Twilight Princess) then it's fine, good even. But when it's something like Earthbound, just going there and not really feeling like there was any immediate point, that's when it irks me.

Skyward Sword kind of got on my nerves with this. There was one before almost every dungeon.

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While this isn't really a Cliche, but something that really bugs me is doing the same fight, over and over again. Looking a Skyward Sword, you had to fight two different bosses three separate times, plus one boss two times, and had an optional gauntlet area. While some of these battles were slightly different, it bugged me to no end to have to fight that creepy clown thing three different time, and that freaking time toothy son of a gun on multiple occasions! I hated that so much, since Nintendo usually has super creative bosses in Zekda games, but no, go fight Gigraim again.

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1. Hey, i'm a protagonist. That means i can do anything, and no matter how stupid it is, people are gonna praise me for doing it anyway

2. Oh look, a stranger that i've never ever met offered to help me just from me asking. Surely i can believe him and follow his lead, right ? He will never betray me right ?

3. What ? I'm betrayed by that very stranger ? Well, it's ok, because i'm gonna somehow get my stroke of luck/genius (plot armor) and waltz straight out of his evil scheme. Yay me.

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Games where your character doesn't really feel like a character, just an avatart o interact the game with. Dark Souls suffers from this and there feels like very little personal motivation for you to be doing what your're doing. You're effectively a puppet that just does whatever somebody tells you too.

Really I think Dark souls, good as the series is, sucks at storytelling.The world building is fine(the lore people love so much), but the story feels disjointed and half baked, and the endings are always flat out terrible.It always felt more like they came up with an interesting backstory and setting but could never piece together a coherent main story.

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