History CryForTheDevil / VideoGames

* ''Franchise/FireEmblem''
** In ''VideoGame/FireEmblemTheBlazingBlade'', Nergal is presented as a CardCarryingVillain, boasting that the pain of others does not affect him other than as a means for him to gain power, kidnapping children, and [[IShallTauntYou mocking Hector by offering to raise his deceased family member as a zombie]]. If the player has completed several [[GuideDangIt obscure sidequests]], more of Nergal's backstory is revealed. [[spoiler:Nergal is the father of Nils and Ninian, and in ages past had fled with his family to escape a war, seemingly becoming lost in the process of trying to rescue their mother. To do this, he conducted increasingly dangerous experiments and [[MoralEventHorizon crossed several ethical and moral lines]] to gain power, initially to protect his family and for knowledge's own sake, but eventually [[TheDarkSideWillMakeYouForget forgot his motivation and his ties to his family]], becoming little more than a power-mad sorcerer. In the TrueEnding, Nergal's dying words reflect a [[DyingAsYourself brief recollection of his wife's name]], but he brushes it aside in favor of trying to bring about the apocalypse with his last breath.]] In the GoldenEnding, Nils does indeed find himself crying over Nergal, though no one, Nils included, is sure why.

* In ''VideoGame/FireEmblemFates: Revelations'' [[spoiler: Anankos the true BigBad]] counts, as [[spoiler:killing him is a MercyKill. While he's responsible for the war between Hoshido and Nohr, and the one responsible for the death of Corrin's mother (between other things)... He's an empty shell of his former self. He used to be a benevolent First dragon that helped humans until he began to be DrivenToMadness due to the dragon degeneration, which led to him burning a forest and rejected by humans and in response he isolated himself... which only worsened his sanity and he ended up killing his only friend, the King of Valla. This broke him and caused his soul to split from his dragon body. His soul went on to father the Avatar and to try to limit his ever-growing power, but he failed and his soul was reabsorbed into the original body. When you find him, he's a crazed Sadist OmnicidalManiac that wants to destroy the world, but he is still lamenting: “Why am I left to suffer? Why am I the one left to die? Why do humans flourish while I am buried here...ignored...forgotten? TELL ME WHY!”]]

* ''VideoGame/SilentHill4'': Walter Sullivan. It's ''almost'' enough to excuse the fact that he's a delusional SerialKiller.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Aquaria}}'', you spend the entire game witnessing the effects of the Creator's mad fury, and putting the remains of his creations out of their misery. Once you defeat him, you find out that [[spoiler:he was a little boy whose entire family was killed, and "[[SurvivorGuilt I should have died with them]]". He's spent hundreds of years trying to create someone who would love him like his mother did.]] Yeah, you're gonna cry.

* The Archdemons in ''Franchise/DragonAge''. While we don't know much about the Old Gods and what their alignment was, since the Darkspawn are drawn to uncover them and infect them with the Taint, it's possible they're not so much evil as merely Brainwashed and Crazy. Furthermore it's a telling sign of the physical toll that the corruption takes, when you learn that Urthemiel, the Archdemon of the Fifth Blight, was once known as "The Dragon of Beauty".
* In ''VideoGame/DragonAgeOrigins'', you spend most of the game chasing after Loghain to make him pay for his crimes. When you beat him, you get the chance to execute him. Not only is he suddenly very honourable about it, but [[spoiler:picking this choice will make his daughter, Queen Anora, object. Then Loghain kindly hushes her and tells her it's over. When she tells him she's not a child anymore, Loghain says: "Daughters never grow up, Anora. They remain six year olds with pigtails and skinned knees forever." Suddenly, he's transformed from Big Bad to loving father. If you use him for the DLC content after the main quest he has tons of these, especially in Return to Ostagar where he can present a decent argument for why he retreated.]]
* Killing Jamie in ''[[VideoGame/SplinterCell Splinter Cell: Double Agent]]'', due to his loyalty and genuine friendship with Sam. After your cover is blown, while you're sneaking up on him you'll hear him insisting that Sam isn't a traitor and pleading to B.J. to give him another chance. If you grab him and interrogate him, he'll insist that he knows Sam too well for him to be a traitor, and Sam coldly replies that he didn't know him at all. Sam kills him without a second thought, but to the audience it's a ''serious TearJerker''. However, it is also an arguable question, knowing that Jamie is a terrorist, responsible for many bad things just like the rest of the organization.
--> '''Jamie''' ''(Before being fatally stabbed)'': See? I knew you wouldn't do it... I knew you were on our side.
* The ending to ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil4'' plays peaceful music and shows slides of the residents of Pueblo living happy lives, working the fields, and playing guitar, reminding you that the [[OurZombiesAreDifferent ganados]] were once normal people who fell victim to [[PuppeteerParasite Los Plagas]]. Then the music abruptly turns ominous and cuts to scenes of the cult arriving, the villagers being experimented on and becoming ganados, and even a woman carelessly standing next to her child or maybe even body of it (it may be even possible that she killed a child). It's remembered as the most terrifying part of the game, and that's saying a lot.
* In ''VideoGame/TalesOfSymphoniaDawnOfTheNewWorld'', Richter wants to kill Marta, yet Emil still sympathizes with him. It turns out that [[spoiler: Richter wasn't always a "bad guy", but is against Ratatosk because of the murder of his friend Aster.]]
* In ''VideoGame/FableII'', we meet completely unrepentant bastard Reaver, whose unthinking and casually selfish evil surpasses Lord Lucian's WellIntentionedExtremist. After the game, you have the option of finding out his backstory: [[spoiler:his MoralEventHorizon of sacrificing the entire village of Oakvale was an accident, the unknown cost of a bargain to protect his life and youth. All of his {{Jerkass}} behavior and rampant human sacrifice afterward takes on a new light with the knowledge that his despair collapsed in on itself hundreds of years ago.]]
* The climax of the final episode of ''VideoGame/TheWalkingDeadSeasonOne'' reveals that the man who [[spoiler: kidnapped Clementine, only known as The Stranger, is a soft-spoken father who only went off the deep end because your group (including you, if you chose to be complicit) stole his family's supplies out of their car back in episode two; his wife took their daughter and left him when they came back to find everything gone, and he found them both dead "a day later...in the road." He quickly becomes all too human, and after telling you his story, [[ArmorPiercingQuestion looks you dead in the eye and asks if he looks like a monster to you.]]]]

** [[spoiler:Even worse is that he wanted to kill himself but he was unable to. He tried to limit his evergrowing power at all costs and still failed. This lyrics of End of All (which his soul wrote) sum up his suffering:]]

* The bitter, nihilistic warlord [[VideoGame/OgreBattle Lans Tartare]] - it's revealed in the prequel/GaidenGame ''The Knight of Lodis'', where he is the main character Alphonse Loeher, that the entire reason he's that way is because he was forced to kill his best friend, watch his girlfriend die, then be branded a traitor by his home country before they eventually turned around and made him a high ranking knight.
* ''VideoGame/SilentHill4'': Walter Sullivan. It's ''almost'' enough to excuse the fact that he's a delusional SerialKiller.
* ''VideoGame/TrialsOfMana'' does this with the Crimson Wizard, though it depends on whether you pick Angela or Duran as your main character. [[spoiler: As the second to final boss, you defeat the Crimson Wizard, who then laments doing so much damage, claiming that, in his desperation to gain magic power, he sold his soul to the Dragon Lord. If Duran is your lead character, he feels sorry for the Crimson Wizard and it makes the player do so as well as the Crimson Wizard takes his own life. However, if Angela, who hates the Crimson Wizard, is your main character, you get a much different scene. The Crimson Wizard claims it wasn't his fault; but Angela refuses to forgive him as he brainwashed Valda, her mother, into neglecting her and then tried to make Valda kill Angela. Angela calls him a coward and while the Crimson Wizard still takes his own life, it is made to seem as if Angela wanted to deal the killing blow instead.]]
* Many players of ''VideoGame/{{InFAMOUS}}'' felt this way about Kessler [[spoiler: once they discovered he was Cole from an alternate future, doing everything in his power to ensure that, this time around, Cole will be able to fight "The Beast", the being that destroyed his world and life.]] Cole himself, however, is unmoved -- he refuses to forgive Kessler for his heinous actions, even knowing why he acted the way he did and that he might even be justified in the long run.
** The Beast himself! [[spoiler:It's arguable if he even ''qualifies'' as evil when we learn who and what he actually is. He's just stuck in a situation where it's the {{Muggles}} or the Conduits, and he's a Conduit.]]

* [[VideoGame/{{Myst}} Gehn]] doesn't get much back-story in ''VideoGame/{{Riven}}'' (aside from a journal entry mourning his dead wife), but read [[AllThereInTheManual ''The Book of Ti'ana]] and you learn [[spoiler: he lost his home world and almost his whole family - save only his mother, who was partly (albeit unintentionally) responsible for it. Then, at eighteen, he loses his young wife in childbirth.]] Everything he does is to try and restore his lost childhood.

* In ''[[VideoGame/PokemonDiamondAndPearl Pokémon Platinum]]'', you, at one point meet, an old man, who bemoans not intervening in his grandson's shattering, pressured life when he saw that the boy was falling apart from trying to live up to what his parents wanted. He doesn't mention the boy's name, but there's more than enough clues to point straight to who he's talking about: [[BigBad Cyrus]]. Made even more tragic by the fact that, by this point in the plot, Cyrus has already [[spoiler: exiled himself to a parallel dimension]] and there's no way to tell his grandfather this or take him there or anything.

* In ''VideoGame/PokemonSunAndMoon'' In the post-game, you can visit Guzma's childhood home. His mother tells the player he used to be a rising battle star, complete with trophies. His father says he tried to ''beat'' him, and Guzma fought him off. Golf clubs in the house are bent as evidence of this. This revelation contextualises why [[spoiler: he latched onto Lusamine, who is definitely abusive to her own children. By the time he is trapped in Ultra Space, he is clearly terrified and way out of his depth.]]
** Similarly, one might come to sympathise with Gladion very early in the game because of how he is treated by his supposed Skull team-mates.
* Vergil from ''VideoGame/DevilMayCry'', particularly in the third game, ''[[VideoGame/DevilMayCry3DantesAwakening Dante's Awakening]]'', [[spoiler:after Vergil falls into Hell]].
-->'''Lady''': Are you crying?\\
'''Dante''': [[ItAlwaysRainsAtFunerals It's only the rain]].\\
'''Lady''': The rain already stopped.\\
'''Dante''': Devils never cry.\\
'''Lady''': I see. Maybe somewhere out there even a [[TitleDrop devil may cry]] when he loses a loved one. Don't you think?\\
'''Dante''': Maybe.
** While the above is more an example of SympathyForTheDevil, reading into the [[WildMassGuessing subtext of Vergil's lines]] can invoke this trope in very short order.
** In ''VideoGame/DevilMayCry5'', we get some of V's backstory,[[spoiler:as it's revealed he is dying and the incarnation of Vergil's cast off humanity]]. All he wanted was to be protected and loved. [[spoiler:As he is a part of Vergil, that means this was the case with him as well. Vergil feeling abandoned by his family was what convinced him to abandon his humanity in the first place.]]
* [[spoiler:Moric]] and [[spoiler:Qualna]] in ''VideoGame/{{Mardek}}'' chapters two and three, respectively. [[spoiler:Qualna turns out to only want to peacefully resolve the conflict between Rohoph and the Governance Di Magi. Rohoph goes ahead and seals his soul anyway. And Moric...[[TearJerker Oh]] [[TheWoobie boy]].]]
* ''VideoGame/DarkChronicle'' gives one of these to its villains:
** After [[TheDragon Gaspard]] [[spoiler:reveals his tragic backstory and decides he will no longer fight the the heroes, his boss, Emperor Griffon forces him to attack them by turning him into a giant monster.]]
** [[spoiler:[[BigBad Sirus]]]] is slowly given a sympathetic angle as the player progresses through Moonflower Palace and sees how he was during his life.
* The ''VideoGame/CityOfHeroes'' arcs that explore the origins of [[CorruptCorporateExecutive Countess Crey]] and [[CircusOfFear Vanessa DeVore]] portray both as starting out well-intentioned, but losing sight of that en route to becoming the villains they are now.
* [[spoiler: Wendy]] at the end of ''VideoGame/RuleOfRose''. It was all her fault, but she paid the ultimate price. LoveMakesYouCrazy.
** There is also the Stray Dog, [[spoiler:aka Gregory Wilson, a deluded serial killer who snapped after the death of his son, and keeps then abducting children, mistaking them for the dead boy, and killing them in a fit of rage when he realizes his mistake. He's a completely broken individual, and is at his sanest while contemplating suicide.]]

** On that note, listen to the sad way [[spoiler:[=PotatOS=] says "Goodbye, sir..." after hearing the last recorded message from Cave Johnson, knowing that he died shortly after.]]
* ''VideoGame/{{Nier}}'': [[spoiler:The Shades]]. [[spoiler: and given how they aren't even really villains to begin with...]]
* Repeated in the sequel, ''VideoGame/NierAutomata''. Just like in the first game, the second 'cycle' through the story will provide you with more information about the 'villains', often making them seem far more sympathetic - [[TragicMonster Tragic Monsters]] in many cases. Even before then, several side-quests provides you with background data on the foes you just faces that makes you realize that destroying them hardly counted as heroics.
** The best example may be one of the main bosses, Simone. The first time you face her, she's just a terrifying machine who looks like an oversized opera-singer, bedecked with Android corpses. Even the other machine lifeforms consider her a monster, calling her a 'broken machine' and thanking you for putting her down - apparently, she cannibalized other machines in order to build her body. Facing her on a second playthrough, however [[spoiler: you realize that she was [[LoveMakesYouCrazy madly in love]] with Jean-Paul, the philosophical robot you probably met during a [[HarsherInHindsight rather comical side-quest]] in your first run. Desperate to make him 'look her way', she sought to make herself 'beautiful' by any means necessary, gradually growing more and more monstrous as she went to greater and greater extremes in the hopes of catching his eye. In the end, she realized that he'd NEVER look her way, that his obsession with his own existentialistic musings prevented him from paying any attention to ANY of his many female fans... but by then, she'd already been ostracized from robot society for her actions. Her final thoughts were simply a cry for someone, ''anyone'', [[DesperatelyCravesAffection to look her way]]...]]
* ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim'' gives us Ulfric Stormcloak. Whether he's actually a villain depends on your point of view (and on who you side with during the Civil War). But even if you go Imperial, it's hard not to feel for the man when his backstory consists largely of [[ColdBloodedTorture the universe]] [[SurvivorGuilt kicking him]] [[DeceasedParentsAreTheBest in the teeth]].
* Grasshopper's ending in ''[[VideoGame/TwistedMetal Twisted Metal II]]'' gives this treatment to Calypso. [[spoiler:Turns out Krista Sparks is ''his daughter who had died'', and has since been rebuilt as a living mechanical bomb. Even though he knows she's seconds away from exploding AND that she's not technically even his daughter, ''he still holds and comforts her as she explodes since she's afraid it will hurt''. He might be an evil son of a bitch, but it's hard not to cry for anyone who loved his daughter that much.]]

** Kazuya's son Jin counts for this in Tekken 6 too. Considering the whole ordeal he has gone through, which is much more than Kazuya [[spoiler: Grew up in a broken home, lost his mother when he was 15, trained vigorously for the next 4 years for revenge, sabotaged his life, was betrayed by Heihachi, became consumed with rage and anger, had several identity crises, and then once defeating Jinpachi was granted access to so much power and recognition he had been denied for his whole life of feeling powerless to stop everything he endured)]], it's honestly no surprise he became how he did.
* [[LizardFolk Azala]] from ''VideoGame/ChronoTrigger'', after her last stand, drags herself forward as sad music plays and she asks that the humans never forget that she and her kind fought bravely to the bitter end. She then refuses to be rescued, as it is [[TheFatalist their fate to die there]]. Then, her final words seal it as a TearJerker:
-->'''Azala''': The future... we... have no future...
* The [[BigBad Big Bad of the planet Noveria]] in ''VideoGame/MassEffect'' is Lady Benezia, the [[MakesSenseInContext Indoctrinated (brainwashed) Asari Matriarch]] who has been overheading the resurrection of the supposedly long extinct Rachni, exhibits an example of this trope if you bring Liara (her daughter) along for the fight, whose final words to that point will be of how proud she is of Liara.
-->'''Benezia''': Goodnight, Little Wing... I will see you with the dawn. (pause) No... light... they always said... there would be...
** This continues on in ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'' where Liara will remark that her favourite colour was yellow, and would always wear clothes in that colour. In the same conversation she will reminisce about how Benezia caught her digging for Prothean ruins in a local park, which resulted in Liara's first history book.
* The third installment of ''Monster Girl Quest'' has [[spoiler:Lazarus, the leader of [[FantasticRacism Ilias Kreuz]]. You see through his eyes a FlashBack that reveals he used to be a truly heroic man who took up the sword to protect people, what led him down [[StartOfDarkness his path to become a murderer]], and it's ultimately revealed he still has a heroic heart and [[HeroicSacrifice sacrifices himself to help save the city]]. What clinches it is that nobody else knows this; to Luka and everyone else, he was nothing more than an evil man who simply died [[EnemyMine lending a hand in the battle]].]]
* Lampshaded in ''VideoGame/BorderlandsThePreSequel'', where Brick and Tina (who are [[FramingDevice listening to the story being told]]) hates how the story starts off by making Handsome Jack, the villain of ''Videogame/Borderlands2'', a helpful and somewhat likeable character compared to the megalomaniac in the second game. Of course, [[StartOfDarkness that comes later]].
-->'''Brick''': Man, this story's making Jack out to be a good guy. I hate it.
* You'd think the ''VideoGame/{{Disgaea}}'' series, with its demonic protagonists, would feature this, but actual demons are actually just [[BadButt slightly bad]] most of the time, and have just as little tolerance for "real" evil as regular people. The real example of this trope comes from a human, SmugSnake and OmnicidalManiac Nemo from Disgaea 4. He seeks to end the entire human race, which will also destroy the Netherworld and Celestia, because they require the fear/awe produced by humans to survive. But Nemo goes from detestable to pitiable when you learn his backstory; he was a soldier in a pointless war who was injured and cared for by a nun named Artina, despite her being on the other side. Despite her IncorruptiblePurePureness, she was executed by her own countrymen for aiding the enemy, leading Nemo to conclude that HumansAreBastards, and that demons and angels are no better because they allowed humanity to slip this far. He is also unable to perceive that Artina has actually ''become'' an angel (and is begging him to stop), as losing his faith made her invisible and inaudible to him.
* For most of ''VideoGame/PeretEmHeruForThePrisoners'', Professor Tsuchida is an aggravating, self-serving {{Jerkass}} treating the tour group as his unwitting meat shields. However, he also shows signs of [[VillainRespect warming up to Ayuto]], and after his VillainousBreakdown, reveals his motives: [[spoiler:he lost his daughter in a terrorist attack one year ago, and blamed Dr. Kuroe for [[FailureToSaveMurder not saving her]], as Kuroe wasn't licensed yet and didn't want to risk losing everything by attempting a risky surgery. Tsuchida believes Kuroe put his own ambitions ahead of saving Shizumi's life, and wanted to see him face judgment for his inaction]]. Following this revelation, Tsuchida pleads with Ayuto to be careful that he doesn't turn out like him, embittered by his losses [[spoiler:and dying for it]].
* In ''VideoGame/Fallout1'', the Master plans to conquer the world with his Super Mutant army, [[MasterRace converting all viable humans into Super Mutants]] and prohibiting the rest of humanity from breeding, so that the Earth can be [[VisionaryVillain ruled by a superior version of humanity,]] [[UtopiaJustifiesTheMeans uniting mankind and eliminating war and suffering]]. [[AntiVillain His genuine belief in this ideal]] makes it all the more heartbreaking when you inform him that [[AllForNothing all Super Mutants are sterile]], causing him to [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone break down]] and [[VillainousBSOD kill himself.]]
--->'''The Master:''' '' But it cannot be. This would mean that all my work has been for nothing. Everything that I have tried to . . . a failure! It can't be. [[VoiceOfTheLegion Be. Be. Be...]] I . . . don't think that I can continue. [[VoiceOfTheLegion Continue?]] To have done the things I have done in the name of progress and healing. It was madness. I can see that now. [[VoiceOfTheLegion Madness. Madness?]] There is no hope. Leave now... while you still have hope.''
* ''VideoGame/GuildWars2'' set up the Elder Dragons as being abominations to be hated and killed without regret until the player confront a mortally wounded Kralkatorrik alongside Aurene, his granddaughter. Kralkatorrik reveals that the vision he saw of Aurene replacing him, which was assumed to have terrified the dragon, actually filled him with ''hope'' for a better future. Everything he has done up to this point, even killing Glint and temporarily killing Aurene, was to ensure that vision would come to be. He willingly offers his heart to Aurene and tells her that he hopes she'll never have to kill the things she loves. His last word as he dies is a longing "Mother".