History Main / UtsuGe

* A non-visual novel example with ''VideoGame/OriAndTheBlindForest'', which hits you with boatloads of tragedy before you even begin the game proper with, Ori being taken in by Naru, only for both of them to die slow painful deaths after the death of the Spirit Tree. Meanwhile, [[MinimalistCast what few other cast members there is]], even the villain, turn out to have tragic backstories, and every new plot revelation is sad. [[LetsPlay/raocow]] sums up the game perfect.

** To explain just how far down the rabbit hole this game goes, the ending of the above third girl's arc culminates in [[spoiler:the player character and the girl strangling their [[AlphaBitch primary bully]] [[SoundtrackDissonance while sweet and soft music plays in the background]]. The scene progresses to the point where the bully begins convulsing and pisses herself, followed by the two characters letting go of her throat and laughing about how close they just came to actually killing her. Despite the obscenity of it all, it still manages to come off as a highly cathartic and agreeable ending after everything the MC and girl had been put though for the last 5-10 hours of play]].

%%* Most anything by Creator/KeyVisualArts:
%%** ''VisualNovel/{{AIR}}''
%%** ''VisualNovel/{{CLANNAD}}''
%%** ''VisualNovel/{{Kanon}}''
%%** ''VisualNovel/LittleBusters''
%%** ''VisualNovel/{{Planetarian}}''
%%** ''VisualNovel/{{Rewrite}}''

Utsuge are often populated by {{Bishoujo}}-style characters and aimed squarely at a {{Seinen}} (young male) audience. By far the most of them take the form of {{Dating Sim}}s, where the dramatic material is used to give the on-screen girls more depth and character. In some of those games, the drama actually becomes much more prevalent, overtaking the premise of simply trying to date girls. Most Utsuge, being {{Dating Sim}}s, also contain [[HGame some of the erotic content]] that comes with the territory.

It is rare to find examples without any erotic content whatsoever, although some H-Games have been re-released [[BleachedUnderpants without adult material]] to appeal to a wider audience, usually without suffering any negative consequences for the story or playability. Still, gaming companies generally don't explicitly market their games as Utsuge, instead emphasizing their DatingSim-nature to appeal to the typically male audience.

* ''VisualNovel/HigurashiWhenTheyCry'' and its SpiritualSuccessor ''VisualNovel/UminekoWhenTheyCry'' form an interesting variation. Their main objective is not to make the players cry, but to ''scare'' them. Despite this, the games still manage to move the player emotionally. They succeeded in doing both in both series. The question arcs are supposed to confuse and scare us, but the answer arcs are straight Utsuge. [[spoiler:Well, except for [[EarnYourHappyEnding Matsuribayashi-hen]].]] Tatarigoroshi-hen is also fueled by tears.

* ''VisualNovel/SayaNoUta'' is a [[CosmicHorrorStory Cosmic Horror love story]]. Besides the {{gorn}}, the [[EldritchAbomination nature of the bishoujo]], and the other delightful elements, it fits this trope perfectly.

** To explain just how far down the rabbit hole this game goes, the ending of the above third girl's arc culminates in [[spoiler:the player character and the girl strangling their [[AlphaBitch primary bully]] [[SoundtrackDissonance while sweet and soft music plays in the background]]. The scene progresses to the point where the bully begins convulsing and pisses herself, followed by the two characters letting go of her throat and laughing about how close they just came to actually killing her. Despite the obscenity of it all, it still manages to come off as a highly cathartic and agreeable ending after everything the MC and girl had been put though for the last 5-10 hours of play.]]

* ''VideoGame/FragileDreamsFarewellRuinsOfTheMoon'': the central themes of isolation and loneliness are abundant, given TheHero (and audience) wonders if he is truly the SoleSurvivor of a planet set AfterTheEnd. Meanwhile, the silver-haired heroine is an IllGirl, one whom the BigBad wants to use as an ApocalypseMaiden. Supporting characters come and go, and more often than not, their respective ends are heart-wrenching, but beneath such melancholy and drama are ThePowerOfFriendship and ThePowerOfLove - that despite this post-apocalypic setting, the protagonist simply wants to find a companion to spend what life there is left in the world, regardless of the happy and sad moments that may occur.

* ''VisualNovel/EdenTheyWereOnlyTwoOnThePlanet''. That is all.
* ''VisualNovel/SweetPool'' is another Nitro+Chiral game that is famous, or infamous rather, for having no happy ending. All six possible endings are bad endings, and they are filled with either TearJerker, NightmareFuel, or both.

* The game ''[[VisualNovel/FamilyProject Family Project ~Kazoku Keikaku~]]'' is full of [[TheWoobie unfortunate characters]] and tragic situations. For example, one of the first characters you meet is a homeless Chinese girl. It's another game made by D.O., who brought you ''Crescendo'', ''Kana: Little Sister'', and others, and it's one of the highest rated visual novels on ErogameScape, a Japanese database.

''And now you know all there is to know about Film/TheCryingGame.''

* The game ''[[VisualNovel/FamilyProject Family Project ~Kazoku Keikaku~]]'' is full of [[TheWoobie unfortunate characters]] and tragic situations. For example, one of the first characters you meet is a homeless Chinese girl. It's another game made by D.O. who brought you Crescendo, Kana: Little Sister and others, and it's one of the highest rated visual novels on ErogameScape, a Japanese database.

* ''VideoGame/FragileDreamsFarewellRuinsOfTheMoon'' was so depressingly sad that even the translators for the English release were brought to tears.

* The game Family Project ~Kazoku Keikaku~ is full of [[TheWoobie unfortunate characters]] and tragic situations. For example, one of the first characters you meet is a homeless Chinese girl. It's another game made by D.O. who brought you Crescendo, Kana: Little Sister and others, and it's one of the highest rated visual novels on ErogameScape, a Japanese database.
* Narcissu is about terminal illness. One of the most popular nakige out there.

* The game Family Project ~Kazoku Keikaku~ is full of [[TheWoobie unfortunate characters]] and tragic situations. It's another game made by D.O. who brought you Crescendo, Kana: Little Sister and others.

* The game Family Project ~Kazoku Keikaku~ is full of [[TheWoobie unfortunate characters]] and a lot of tragic situations. It's another game made by D.O. who brought you Crescendo, Kana: Little Sister and others. It's also one of the most well-received visual novels in Japan.

* The game Family Project ~Kazoku Keikaku~ is full of [[TheWoobie unfortunate characters]] and a lot of the things that happen to these characters are tragic. It's another game made by D.O. who brought you Crescendo, Kana: Little Sister and others.

* The game Family Project ~Kazoku Keikaku~ is full of [[TheWoobie woobies]] and many of the things that happen to the main characters are extremely sad.

%% ZeroContextExample entries are not allowed on wiki pages. All such entries have been commented out. Add context to the entries before uncommenting them.

''And now you know all there is to know about TheCryingGame.''

** To explain just how far down the rabbit hole this game goes, the ending of the above third girl's arc culminates in [[spoiler:the player character and the girl strangling their [[AlphaBitch primary bully]] while sweet and soft music plays in the background. The scene progresses to the point where the bully begins convulsing and pisses herself, followed by the two characters letting go of her throat and laughing about how close they just came to actually killing her. Despite the obscenity of it all, it still manages to come off as a highly cathartic and agreeable ending after everything the MC and girl had been put though for the last 5-10 hours of play.]]

* ''VideoGame/SeraphicBlue'': The world of Gaia is a CrapsackWorld with countless problems like world destroying Gaia Cancers, Sera-human children mutating into monsters due to the fact that their existence defies natural laws, corrupt authority figures, etc. On a personal level, the main characters are victims of all these problems along with more personal issues, to the point where almost all of them qualify as TheWoobie. Of note is TheChosenOne, Vene, who was abused and indoctrinated into becoming just as nihilistic and [[DeathSeeker death-seeking]] as the {{Tragic Villain}}s who want to destroy the world, and only thinks of life and saving the world as a painful chore at best. [[spoiler:Most of the characters find some closure in the ending, but Vene continues to struggle with her deeply ingrained nihilism and suicidal tendencies.]]

* ''VideoGame/SeraphicBlue'' [[spoiler:CrapsackWorld where people of a floating continent are forced to dump their children who are infected with a disease that transforms them into monsters onto the surface of the world, seeing the surface as a dumping ground, one said child literally becomes one of the most well known demons that the people on the surface know of, and that is just the beginning. Government conspiracies, outright war, suicides being the norm, and it just goes on of what ills the characters face.]]

* ''VisualNovel/GrisaiaNoKajitsu'' has this as the general setting as each major character including the protagonist have complex issues that essentially requires them to be enrolled in an institution for troubled students.

%%* Michiru's route in ''VisualNovel/GrisaiaNoKajitsu''.

* ''VisualNovel/{{Ever17}}'', especially [[spoiler:Tsugumi's and Sora's paths]], or worse yet, [[spoiler: the Tsugumi/Sora bad ending]].

%%* ''VisualNovel/SymphonicRain'' seems like a slice of life visual novel at first but reveals its more depressing elements later on.

** To explain just how far own the rabbit hole this game goes, then ending of the above third girl's arc culminates in [[spoiler:the player character and the girl strangling their [[AlphaBitch primary bully]] while sweet and soft music plays in the background. The scene progresses to the point where the bully begins convulsing and pisses herself, followed by the two characters letting go of her throat and laughing about how close they just came to actually killing her. Despite the obscenity of it all, it still manages to come off as a highly cathartic and agreeable ending after everything the MC and girl had been put though for the last 5-10 hours of play.]]

* The Creator/NitroPlus boys' love game ''VisualNovel/{{DRAMAtical Murder}}'' is a ''nakige''. The character routes of Clear, Koujaku and especially Ren have the most positive endings. Ren's [[spoiler: is specifically considered the True Ending since ''60%'' of the story is revealed in it]].

* ''VideoGame/SeraphicBlue'' [[spoiler: CrapsackWorld where people of a floating continent are forced to dump their children who are infected with a disease that transforms them into monsters onto the surface of the world, seeing the surface as a dumping ground, one said child literally becomes one of the most well known demons that the people on the surface know of, and that is just the beginning. Government conspiracies, outright war, suicides being the norm, and it just goes on of what ills the characters face.]]
* ''VideoGame/TheCrookedMan'' is pretty sad. At the beginning of the story, the main character David has a really bad life; his sick mother can't remember who he is, his fiancée has just left him, and he's moved to a squalid little apartment. David is constantly haunted by the fact that he can never achieve his dreams of being a pilot due to his colour-blindness. Over the course of the game [[spoiler:the ghost of the previous tenant, who was severely depressed, tries to drag David down with him. A lot of the endings feature David killing himself. At the end, just after confronting the Crooked Man, David's mother finally remembers who he is, before dying. It gets better for David, fortunately.]]

* ''VideoGame/ToTheMoon'': You play a pair of scientists who go into a dying man's memories and try to implant a memory that he has been to the moon... except he has memory problems and doesn't know why he wants to go, so you have to find out why. Throughout the game you discover many tragic events in his life, the most well-known of which is [[spoiler:the story of his wife's death, and their promise to meet again on the moon.]]

* VisualNovel/EdenTheyWereOnlyTwoOnThePlanet

{{Utsuge}} is the Japanese portmanteau for "depressing/melancholy game". As the name implies, these games' goal is to make the player cry. Most of them are of the VisualNovel variety, in which the player is guided through an increasingly (melo)dramatic story, {{Deconstruction}} mostly optional.

Games of this type contain lots of typical [[TearJerker tear-jerking]] material, with death, mental problems, loneliness and rejection as central themes. A lot of them contain at least one [[IllGirl girl with a serious disease]], [[LittlestCancerPatient who has to be helped by the player]]. {{Downer Ending}}s are very common, when the player fails to achieve this goal.

{{Utsuge}} are often populated by {{Bishoujo}}-style characters and aimed squarely at a {{Seinen}} (young male) audience. By far the most of them take the form of {{Dating Sim}}s, where the dramatic material is used to give the on-screen girls more depth and character. In some of those games, the drama actually becomes much more prevalent, overtaking the premise of simply trying to date girls. Most {{Utsuge}}, being {{Dating Sim}}s, also contain [[HGame quite a bit of the erotic content]] that comes with the territory.

Another term with essentially the same meaning, but different connotations is "''nakige''" ("crying game/sob story game"), which usually refers to games with [[EarnYourHappyEnding depressing stories that get resolved in the end]].

* ''VideoGame/SeraphicBlue'' is said to be on par with the LISA games. [[spoiler: CrapsackWorld where people of a floating continent are forced to dump their children who are infected with a disease that transforms them into monsters onto the surface of the world, seeing the surface as a dumping ground, one said child literally becomes one of the most well known demons that the people on the surface know of, and that is just the beginning. Government conspiracies, outright war, suicides being the norm, and it just goes on of what ills the characters face.]]

* ''VisualNovel/KanaLittleSister'', an image source for the trope, it's premise is based on the illness of the main character's little sister and it's exploited to the fullest extend possible in the HGame.

* ''VisualNovel/HigurashiWhenTheyCry'' and its SpiritualSuccessor ''VisualNovel/UminekoNoNakuKoroNi'' form an interesting variation. Their main objective is not to make the players cry, but to ''scare'' them. Despite this, the games still manage to move the player emotionally. They succeeded in doing both in both series. The question arcs are supposed to confuse and scare us, but the answer arcs are straight Utsuge. [[spoiler:Well, except for [[EarnYourHappyEnding Matsuribayashi-hen]].]] Tatarigoroshi-hen is also fueled by tears.