History BrokenAesop / Videogames

* ''VideoGame/ValkyriaChronicles'' finds a way to break most of its own Aesops because it's trying to cram too many into one game:
** Squad 7 is full of personality and color in an effort to create VideoGameCaringPotential and a scene is devoted to the main characters learning that the enemy is human too, but [[spoiler:the entire Gallian main army is blown up at Ghirlandaio]] and no one cares. The game does make a brief attempt to make the Imperial Soldiers sympathetic, but they do it by having a single young Imperial soldier die in Alicia's lap while his commanding officer walks away peaceably out of respect for his demise. The rest of the Imperial Army runs concentration camps and generally acts like unsympathetic assholes for the entire remainder of the story.
*** General Damon is an asshole, and [[AristocratsAreEvil so is everyone else in the aristocracy]], except Cordelia, who [[spoiler: happens to be a Darcsen.]] It's implied that the army, much like Damon, are at least connected to the Gallian nobility, and therefore as worthless as he is. But they're faceless mooks, the player is expected to judge them according to Damon's example, and that's why we're not supposed to care that [[spoiler:they've been ''mass-murdered'']]. Racism is bad, but classism is fine.
*** There's a bit of an Aesop pileup in the context of Alicia, Cordelia, and Damon: [[spoiler: Alicia leaves her powers aside because a person isn't defined by their race. Damon is an aristocrat, and therefore evil. Cordelia is the princess and the height of the nobility, but she's not evil because she's a Darcsen and is thus defined by her race.]]
** Everyone learns a lesson about how racism is bad and judging people over their ethnicity is wrong, but because Valkyria powers are a metaphor for nuclear weapons and the game is strongly against [=WMDs=], the end result paints the Valkyrur as manipulative, bloodthirsty, all-female monsters. As an added bonus, the two ''living'' Valkyria are genuinely good people who are in full control of their powers, which breaks ''both'' Aesops. This is made worse at the end of the game, when [[spoiler:Alicia]] chooses to completely abandon her Valkyria powers, solely because of the stress the InternalizedCategorism was putting on her. So, racism is bad... [[DistinctionWithoutADifference but there are still bad races anyway]], and if you're from one of them, it's better to just [[TallPoppySyndrome pretend you're not and act like everyone else]].
** The Darcsen are commonly mistreated as victims of FantasticRacism, but then we find out that they ''didn't'' actually cause the ancient calamity they're hated for, and the blame gets shifted to [[spoiler:the Valkyrur]] where it belongs and the idea that they're the worst things to ever happen in Europa is TheReveal, and the Darcsen are presented as being pretty universally wonderful and not even angry about being mistreated for so long. As it turns out, racism's actually fine, you just have to make sure you hate the ''correct'' race.
** It's [[TallPoppySyndrome better to remove everything special about yourself to fit in]] because people will abuse you if you don't, which is exactly what [[spoiler:Alicia]] does, because of how Selvaria's life went. It breaks because Selvaria's life only sucked as much as it did because she lived in the evil empire; none of the things [[spoiler:Alicia]] fears happening to her are even remotely possible. No one even approaches her about it, all her fears are [[InternalizedCategorism in her own head.]]
** Welkin makes a dramatic speech about how Squad 7 doesn't need to rely on [[spoiler:Alicia]]'s Valkyria powers to win the day and beat the Marmotah, continuing the game's thematic Aesop of "teamwork always beats individual excellence", but the only way Squad 7 is able to even get onto the thing is after ''those exact powers'' have been used to blow a hole in its armor plating; before that happens, it's completely hopeless. Even before that, the first time she uses those powers is when she stops Selvaria from mowing down what's left of the Gallian army; we're even explicitly told they would have lost without her intervention!
*** We're also shown that the villains are strongly individualized and none of the generals work together or have any mutual bonds to each other, and that's why they can be beaten one at a time by a unified RagtagBunchOfMisfits like Squad 7. But Squad 7 has Alicia, who is [[GameBreaker Mary-Sue levels of powerful]] even before [[spoiler:she gets her Valkyria powers]] and saves the entire army single-handedly, and can complete several missions alone.
** [[DesignatedEvil Faldio]] is imprisoned for committing treason by awakening [[spoiler:Alicia]]'s Valkyria powers because doing so required her to have a near-death experience, so he shot her. Later, he apologizes for believing that power is the key to victory [[spoiler:and dies in order to [[DeathEqualsRedemption prove his sincerity]]]], driving home any of the game's anti-war aesops. But if he ''hadn't'' done it, Selvaria would have completely obliterated the army ''and'' the militia, and conquered Gallia in time for tea and ''thusly achieved victory for her side'' -- he openly lampshades this at one point.
*** Faldio and Welkin had been friends for years, but when Faldio finally comes around to realizing that he was wrong (even if the events of the game prove he was right), apologizes, [[spoiler:and pointlessly kills himself]], Welkin and Alicia don't react to it any more than they reacted to Ghirlandaio. Friendship and unity, everybody!
*** On top of that, Faldio's big crime is, as stated by the game, believing in power instead of his friends... except not only did the power in question ''actually save the day'', he knew that that power ''belonged'' to one of his friends and his plan ''depended'' on her survival. The activation isn't pleasant by any means, but nothing about the situation meant he was actually choosing the one or the other. If anything, he knew he was risking his career ''because he believed in the power '''of''' his friends''.
*** There's another problem with condemning Faldio for believing in power instead of just trusting his friends to find a solution on their own: '''They never actually find a way to deal with Selvaria.''' She is eventually defeated, but that's because [[spoiler:she throws the fight and then [[TakingYouWithMe kills herself to wipe out the Gallian military]] after she's captured.]] We're supposed to hate Faldio for not being open to ThePowerOfFriendship, but we're shown multiple times that the only thing that can stop a Valkyria... is a Valkyria.
** While it is pay-for DLC, they actually portray one of the Gallian commanders as a heartless bastard by having him use a poison forbidden by their equivalent of the Geneva convention against his enemies, and after he loses, tells his higher ups that his squad had the poison used against ''them''.
** War is bad and only horrible people (or good people with horrible reasons) pursue military careers in peacetime, except Welkin's father Belgan Gunther, a tank commander in the Gallian Army, is considered a great hero and referenced often in relation to Welkin's potential as an officer.
** Varrot finally gets the chance to confront the Imperial officer who tortured and killed her lover back in the day, and Largo convinces her to let him go because IfYouKillHimYouWillBeJustLikeHim, and sometimes you just need to let go because revenge won't solve your problems or soothe your pain. He ends up executed by his own superiors and so everything turned out all right in the end, because EvenEvilHasStandards. Except for the part where the Empire already knew Geld had been torturing and murdering people since the first war, and apparently didn't care [[ProtagonistCenteredMorality until one of the good guys had a problem with it]]. And, like all the others, the player is meant to feel good about it because Geld is a terrible human being... so, actually, revenge is ''awesome'', as long as [[BadGuysDoTheDirtyWork you let someone else do it for you.]]
** The anti-racism Aesop is driven with the Darcsen being a fantasy counterpart to European Jews in its World War II pastiche, but the most prominent Darcsen character is written and designed to appeal to its original Japanese audience [[spoiler:in order to maximize the impact of her death]]. Appreciating other cultures and not judging them for being different is a lot easier when [[YamatoNadeshiko they embody your own culture's ideals instead!]]
** Most of the stuff Valkyria Chronicles has to say about war being terrible tends to ring hollow by the later parts of the game because of how thoroughly the story depends on [[BadGuysDoTheDirtyWork having the villains kill themselves and each other off so that the heroes don't have to.]] Almost all the major conflicts boil down to Squad 7 mowing down a bunch of faceless enemy soldiers to reach one of the bad guys, and then have one side spare the other so that the good guys won't be caught in the crossfire when another villain takes the first one out. So, yeah, war is bad, but since [[BlackAndWhiteMorality both sides know which one is good and which one is evil and act accordingly]], of course it'll all work out just fine.
** ThePowerOfFriendship and WarIsHell themes also get hit with some GameplayAndStorySegregation. You can try to fight the battles using the different abilities of your squad's classes to carefully advance on your objective with minimum casualties... but your score and post battle rewards are determined based on how many turns the mission took. Getting the best scores is usually only possible by using mostly or only scouts with their high movement range to rush your objective. Letting them get gunned down isn't penalized in the score and if you complete the mission within three turns of them going down there is no penalty whatsoever, so you might as well leave them bleeding on the ground.
*** Themes like friendship, teamwork, unity, [[TallPoppySyndrome humility]] and their accompanying Aesops are obliterated by Alicia's insane power level. There are a few maps where the player can field Alicia, and ''only'' Alicia, in a one-woman scout rush and still get the maximum results because she's too powerful to need anybody else. It ''would'' align nicely with her InternalizedCategorism, as it implies she's being isolated and exploited for her unique abilities, except a number of those stages happen before any of those abilities are discovered.

* ''VideoGame/FarCry5''': This game teaches players that they should not let anything such as drugs or overzealous charismatic cults manipulate them because it will cause them to bring a lot of destruction to those around them. This is shown with Joseph Seed’s cult, the mind conditioning they use for their sleeper agents, and the drug they make called Bliss causing those who fall victim to those things to commit multiple atrocities in culturing murder towards those around them including their loved ones and it shows that faith like anything else can be used to bring about disaster to people when used wrongly. Unfortunately the entire moral gets blown up in the “good ending” to the game as after Joseph Seed is defeated and is on the verge of arrest, a nuke goes off and causes the end of the world [[TheCuckoolanderWasRight proving that Joseph’s claims about the collapse were right all along]].

* ''VideoGame/FarCry5''': This game teaches players that they should not let anything such as drugs or overzealous charismatic cults manipulate them because it will cause them to bring a lot of destruction to those around them. This is shown with Joseph Seed’s cult, the mind conditioning they use for their sleeper agents, and the drug they make called Bliss causing those who fall victim to those things to commit multiple atrocities in culturing murder towards those around them including their loved ones and it shows that faith like anything else can be used to bring about disaster to people when used wrongly. Unfortunately the entire moral gets blown up in the “good ending” to the game as after Joseph Seed is defeated and is on the verge of arrest, a nuke goes off and causes the end of the world [[CloudCuckoolanderWasRight proving that Joseph’s claims about the collapse were right all along]].

* ''VideoGame/DetroitBecomeHuman'''s entire plot is a PrejudiceAesop that draws several parallels to the UsefulNotes/CivilRightsMovement. Problem is, this is presented by having the discriminated-against group in question be defective RidiculouslyHumanRobots that are [[JobStealingRobot directly responsible for a second Clutch Plague]] as they've put ''40%'' of America's workforce out of jobs. Not only is the FantasticRacism completely justified as they and [[EvilInc their creators]] are [[CrapsaccharineWorld actively ruining the country]], but the choice to [[CluelessAesop compare literal nonhumans to black people's past struggles against dehumanization]] carries UnfortunateImplications. It's even worse when you take into account the fact that neighboring Canada banned androids altogether, and as a result is doing quite well, with no mass unemployment due to jobs being replaced by androids and the country still keeping much of its environment and political freedoms in the process.

*** As the game gets going, the boss' pet mouse spontaneously starts talking to you, and if you listen to the mouse, you get a game over. The game tells you that you shouldn't listen to mice, because mice ''don't talk''. Weird, but somewhat valid... But then this mouse appears once again in "Sir Basil Pike Public School", being the main dispenser of advice. Plus the mouse's advice (to quit beating around the bush and actually talk about getting a raise) appears perfectly sensible in the context of the game, but that leads us to another problem:
*** In order to succeed, you have to outright abandon the stated objective of getting a raise and ask your boss about his love life. Almost out of nowhere, that leads him to asking you to write a speech for him to give at an anniversary dinner for a lump sum payment of $1500. The game awards you for realizing that your boss doesn't value you enough to give you an actual raise (and the intro mentions a well-received speech you had written as the one noteworthy achievement aside from your otherwise mediocre job performance), but that doesn't explain why talking about your boss' personal life would be the right strategy. In addition, while this does give you enough money in the short-term to pay for your cat's surgery, it ignores the more long-term reason for why you wanted a raise; you can no longer maintain your current standard of living, and a one-time bonus isn't going to help with that.[[note]]It could be justified if it was implied that the player character could leverage the success of this new speech to negotiate a raise in the future, but that is never suggested.[[/note]] It is also possible to propose taking a web design class, thereby making you more valuable to the company. This sounds very much like the proper solution in line with the theme of negotiating a raise, and your boss does indeed state that he will consider giving you a raise in the future if you manage to bring in extra business with your new skills. However, it still counts as a bad ending because while you're on the path to getting the extra income you were looking for, [[DownerEnding it won't do anything about your cat's vet bills]].

*** On the girl's route, one of your friends tells you that her mother is allowing her to host a slumber party, but can only invite four out of her five friends. The correct route ultimately ends with you [[SweetAndSourGrapes invited because you offered not to come so everyone else could]], after which the friend who got left out schemes to get back at her by inviting everyone to go bowling instead. Picking the wrong choice here results in everyone turning on you - even the friend who initially suggested going bowling, who pins it on you to get herself invited to the sleepover - after which you're given the option to turn to a teacher. He starts by saying that talking to an adult is the right thing to do if you're feeling bullied, but then says he doesn't have time to help you and that you should really fix this yourself, and thus dismisses you back to the group of girls that were bullying you, fully aware that you're being bullied.
*** It's an anti-bullying game where the closest thing to a protagonist besides the main character is a girl who randomly punches kids in her class and writes entire songs about how much better she is than they are, which is an activity supported by the only adult who takes any interest in helping the kids deal with their issues. It's not really an anti-bullying game where the correct response is to just be a ''more charismatic bully'' than the ones tormenting you.

*** On the other hand, the same "only take what you need" moral is brought up for the Botanist and Leatherworker classes, which are respectively a Disciple of the Land (a class that gathers crafting materials) and a Disciple of the Hand (a class that crafts things). Since crafting and gathering are ''all'' the crafters and gatherers can do, and several crafting materials are gained by killing monsters out in the field, the moral is much more readily broken: regardless of what [=NPCs=] tell you about only taking exactly what you need, nothing is stopping you from spending several hours gathering these crafting materials until your inventory is crowded out with them - and then actually crafting things with it all to make back a bunch of money for your time investment.

* ''Franchise/AceAttorney'' often tells us that the ends never justify the means. This is even repeated often enough to the point of being ArcWords of Case 3 of ''VisualNovel/PhoenixWrightAceAttorneyDualDestinies''. The thing is the phrase is used to justify using questionable means to achieve ''noble'' goals, while the villain who represents this viewpoint is anything but. The "end" that is supposed to justify those means is getting away with murder, which was commited because the villain was taking bribes and wanted to get away with it. What's more the main characters who generally ''do'' have noble goals in mind has no choice but to use said "means" to save the day. In the very first game, Mia Fey is forced to blackmail Redd White into turning himself in, as he just has too much money and influence to be taken down cleanly. And later games show main protagonists like Miles Edgeworth and Phoenix Wright ultimately being forced to resort to illegal evidence to take down villains who are similarly "above the law".

** During the third act, [[spoiler:Monika, a fictional character who has gained awareness of her fictional status, dismisses the other girls as "a group of autonomous personalities, designed only to fall in love with [the player character]]]. One must wonder if [[spoiler:a visual novel with a fixed script and a limited amount of content (in spite of the many different subjects Monika can talk about)]] was [[CluelessAesop the best place to bring something like this up]], considering [[spoiler:Monika is ultimately exactly what this sequence is meant to criticize, doing what she does only because that was how the game was programmed]]. It's unclear if this was intentional or not, as [[spoiler:while Monika is clearly the VN's antagonist, she is also written to be a TragicVillain]].

* There's a minor case in ''VisualNovel/DokiDokiLiteratureClub'', though it's not the main message of the story or anything. At one point, a character conversationally talks about depression and says that it's good to remind people suffering from it that they have something to look forward to later. This may be good real life advice, and it's probably written with that intention -- but during the actual story, the PlayerCharacter makes kind of a big deal to talk to a depressed [[spoiler: Sayori]] about how they're going to the school festival together the next day, and... well, it turns out it really doesn't help. And besides, it comes between his saying things that ''aren't'' appropriate, so this one just seems like another one in the list.

*** On the girl's route, one of your friends tells you that her mother is allowing her to host a slumber party, but can only invite four out of her five friends. The correct route ultimately ends with you [[SweetAndSourGrapes invited because you offered not to come so everyone else could]], after which the friend who got left out schemes to get back at her by inviting everyone to go bowling instead. Picking the wrong choice here results in everyone turning on you - even the friend who initially suggested going bowling, who pins it on you to get herself invited to the sleepover - after which you're given the option to turn to a teacher. He starts by saying that talking to an adult is the right thing to do if you're feeling bullied, but then says he doesn't have time to help you and that you should really fix this yourself, and thus dismisses you back to the group of girls that were bullying you, fully aware that you're being bullied.

** Anytime faction conflict becomes the focus, the aesop that is delivered shortly thereafter is "Revenge is wrong [[CycleOfRevenge because it leads to neverending retaliations]]" which is, in theory, a solid aesop. Except that the Allaince are the ones practicing RestrainedRevenge and told to "let us ignore the past and move on", while the Horde are the ones shown as either starting hostilities and/or escalating them to absurd degrees, which means the Aesop is either "[[SuicidalPacifism Don't fight back because it's wrong to want justice.]]" or "[[DoubleStandard Wanting the Horde to be held accountable for their atrocities is wrong]]".

** Master Aqua is a tragically perfect example of this trope in action, not by breaking an aesop, but having one taught to her broken in her face. She learns over the course of the game, starting with Fairy Godmother that sometimes, the Light itself may only cause to create a greater shadow and that things aren't always cut and dry "light good, darkness bad"...then she ends up having to deal with Xehanort who uses darkness; which in turn costs her both of her best friends and a psuedo-imprisonment into the world of darkness where she has been fighting for her life constantly for over 10+ years with her sanity and resolve being attacked and broken constantly. This essentially culminates with [[spoiler: Aqua giving up on the light, falling to despair and darkness and turning against the heroes briefly]]! For someone who was supposed to learn about "the balance", Aqua ended up back at square one fully accepting that "Darkness really is only hate and rage".

* ''VideoGame/DetroitBecomeHuman'''s entire plot is a PrejudiceAesop that draws several parallels to the UsefulNotes/CivilRightsMovement. Problem is, this is presented by having the discriminated-against group in question be defective RidiculouslyHumanRobots that are [[JobStealingRobot directly responsible for a second Great Depression]] as they've put ''40%'' of America's workforce out of jobs. Not only is the FantasticRacism completely justified as they and [[EvilInc their creators]] are [[CrapsaccharineWorld actively ruining the country]], but the choice to [[CluelessAesop compare literal nonhumans to black people's past struggles against dehumanization]] carries UnfortunateImplications. It's even worse when you take into account the fact that neighboring Canada banned androids altogether, and as a result is doing quite well, with no mass unemployment due to jobs being replaced by androids and the country still keeping much of its environment and political freedoms in the process.

* The ''Franchise/JurassicPark'' movies biggest message is about preserving dinosaur lives, while most of their video game counterparts is about killing them [[MoreDakka with various firearms]], [[GrenadeSpam tossing grenades at them]], [[ShockAndAwe shocking them]] and [[KillItWithFire setting them on fire]].

* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'' attempts a GreenAesop where industrialization relies on sucking out the life energy from the Earth itself. The solution that characters present to power their society instead is to burn ''coal'' instead, because there's nothing more environmentally-friendly than black clouds of soot.

* One of the central themes of the ''VideoGame/MetalGear'' series is about the cost of killing and the horrors of war. However, in ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid2SonsOfLiberty'', the player can take care of foes non-lethally excluding a few scripted moments. ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid3SnakeEater'' is a particular standout, as there is exactly one character you're forced to kill in the entire game, and the death of that character ends up being [[StartOfDarkness the catalyst for every single horrible thing that's happened for the next fifty years in the series]]... this all in the first game of the series where it's otherwise possible to play through the game and ''not'' kill anyone at all.

* In ''VideoGame/BorderlandsThePreSequel'', it's all but spelled out that [[RogueProtagonist Lilith]]'s [[CycleOfRevenge obsession with revenge]] against anyone remotely connected to [[BigBad Handsome Jack]], [[CreateYourOwnVillain who she caused to go off the deep end in the first place]], was [[SanitySlippage leading her down a dark path]]. However by ''VideoGame/Borderlands3'' all of this is forgotten, and [[CharacterShilling she's hailed as]] TheParagon in spite of the fact that she was the direct cause of half the events of ''VideoGame/Borderlands2'' [[spoiler: including Roland's death]].

* ''REFLEXIA Prototype ver.'', a visual novel on Steam that is a [[NoFourthWall meta-parody]] of DatingSim, is meant to be a [[SatireParodyPastiche Juvenalian satire]] on how visual novels trick people into caring about one-dimensional characters. This is taken so far as to [[TakeThatAudience insult the player for caring about fictional characters]]. However, the second half is devoted to [[spoiler: the character's emotional problems. So, the VN insults you for carrying about fictional characters then expects you to care about ''its'' fictional characters. The hypocrisy is never address despite it undermining the entire satire of the game.

* Used deliberately in ''VideoGame/PhantasyStarIV'', as part of a deconstruction. The entire game (the entire ''series'') sets up a good versus evil, darkness versus light conflict, with the revelation on what Dark Force really is: [[spoiler: The sentient HatePlague spawn of a CosmicHorror that opposed the god-like creator of the sentient races of Algo, who created them and the solar system itself to keep it imprisoned]]. But Chaz realizes that all this means is that the only difference between the good guys and the bad guys is what side of the prison door they're on, and taking up the light side's cause means [[{{Hypocrite}} doing exactly what makes the bad guys bad]].

** The entire game's story involves beating you over the head with how important it is to accept the truth, no matter how awful it is. This is consistent for most of the game, until you get to some of the social links. They have a tendency to backpedal on the message by presenting a personal conflict, taking steps to resolve that conflict, and then concluding it by ''not'' resolving the conflict and realizing that the thing that made them miserable the whole game is really just the thing that makes them happy.
*** A more specific example of this would be Yukiko's social link. Her shadow makes it clear she utterly despises having her entire life decided for her to be forced to inherit the Amagi Inn and wants to get out of Inaba but can't muster the willpower to actually do it. Even early on in her social link involves her plans to get out of Inaba when she graduates. Only to arbitrarily give it up near the end of her social link and decide she wants to inherit the Inn after all.

* ''REFLEXIA Prototype ver.'', a visual novel on Steam that is a [[NoFourthWall meta-parody]] of DatingSim, is meant to be a [[SatireParodyPastiche Juvenalian satire]] on how visual novels trick people into caring about one-dimensional characters. This is taken so far as to [[TakeThatAudience insult the player for caring about fictional characters]]. However, the second half is devoted to [[spoiler: the character's emotional problems. So, the VN [[Main/{{Hypocrite}} insults you for carrying about fictional characters then expects you to care about]] ''[[Main/{{Hypocrite}} its]]'' [[Main/{{Hypocrite}}fictional characters]].]] The hypocrisy is never address despite it undermining the entire satire of the game.

* ''VisualNovel/ALittleLilyPrincess'' has this going on between routes. At the end of Lottie's route, Sara tells her that if someone keeps hurting her, she should get away from that person, even if there are still good moments. Lavinia's route, which depicts her as a LovingBully and has her act like ManipulativeBitch more often than she's genuinely nice prior to her confession, has all the hallmarks of the sort of relationship Sara warns Lottie about, yet still gets a happy ending.

* ''REFLEXIA Prototype ver.'', a visual novel on Steam that is a [[NoFourthWall meta-parody]] of DatingSim, is meant to be a [[SatireParodyPastiche Juvenalian satire]] on how visual novels trick people into caring about one-dimensional characters. This is taken so far as to [[TakeThatAudience insult the player for caring about fictional characters]]. However, the second half is devoted to [[spoiler: the character's emotional problems. So, the VN insults you for carrying about fictional characters then expects you to care about ''its'' fictional characters.]] The hypocrisy is never address despite it undermining the entire satire of the game.

* ''REFLEXIA Prototype ver.'', a visual novel on Steam that is a [[NoFourthWall meta-parody]] of DatingSim, is meant to be a [[SatireParodyPastiche satire]] on how visual novels trick people into caring about one-dimensional characters. This is taken so far as to [[TakeThatAudience insult the player for caring about fictional characters]]. However, the second half is devoted to [[spoiler: the character's emotional problems. So, the VN insults you for carrying about fictional characters then expects you to care about ''its'' fictional characters.]] The hypocrisy is never address despite it undermining the entire satire of the game.

* ''REFLEXIA Prototype ver.'', a visual novel on Steam that is meant to be meta-parody of DatingSim, is meant to be a satire on how visual novels trick people into caring about one-dimensional characters. This is taken so far as to insult the player for caring about fictional characters. However, the second half is devoted to [[spoiler: the character's emotional problems. So, the VN insults you for carrying about fictional characters then expects you to care about ''its'' fictional characters.]] The hypocrisy is never address despite it undermining the entire satire of the game.

** The PowerOfFriendship and WarIsHell themes also get hit with some GameplayAndStorySegregation. You can try to fight the battles using the different abilities of your squad's classes to carefully advance on your objective with minimum casualties... but your score and post battle rewards are determined based on how many turns the mission took. Getting the best scores is usually only possible by using mostly or only scouts with their high movement range to rush your objective. Letting them get gunned down isn't penalized in the score and if you complete the mission within three turns of them going down there is no penalty whatsoever, so you might as well leave them bleeding on the ground.