History Main / UtsuGe

* ''ef: A Fairy Tale of the Two'', which has been adapted into ''[[EfATaleOfMemories ef: A Tale Of Memories]]'' and ''[[EfATaleOfMelodies ef: A Tale of Melodies]]''. All main characters have so many issues behind them, [[spoiler:with the most egregious one being Yuuko]].

%%* ''ef: A Fairy Tale of the Two'', which has been adapted into ''[[EfATaleOfMemories ef: A Tale Of Memories]]'' and ''[[EfATaleOfMelodies ef: A Tale of Melodies]]''.

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

* ''VideoGame/{{Omori}}'' takes place in the aftermath of a traumatic incident in the protagonist's childhood life. The nature of this incident is barely hinted at in the early game, which mainly focuses on adventures in a symbolic DreamLand, but even this setting is not free from themes of social isolation, mental dissociation and personal loss. "A tissue box for wiping your sorrows away" is one of the few objects to be found in the starting area; these have no in-game function, but the player may need some.

Another common feature, or lack thereof, is the [[NoAntagonist absence of any real villain]]. The sorrow instead comes from intangible forces like disease- which, in a way, makes the game ''sadder'' because there is no BigBad, no easy target to blame for the tragedy, no reviled antagonist whose wrongs can be righted, as if to say that sometimes, bad things just ''happen.''

* ''VideoGame/{{Arcaea}}'' seems innocent enough at first, but the main story is a horrible tragedy where two girls fight to the death with several incredibly depressing reveals at the end and side story characters regularly drive themselves insane [[GoMadFromTheRevelation from the revelation]] or have tear-fueled backstories. Oh and it's a ''ball-bustingly'' hard rhythm game.

* ''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 DelicateAndSickly, one whom the BigBad Shin 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. Even Shin turns out to be a WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds.
* ''VideoGame/Mother3'' is perhaps the best known example in video game form. The game definitely has its own upbeat moments, quite a few of them, but there are several scenes intended to hit the player hard, and hit hard they do.
* ''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, high suicide rates, 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/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.]]

* 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/{{NieR}}'' is a video game example. Set in a CrapsackWorld, nearly nothing positive happens the entire game and it's filled with heart-wrenching moments, the frequency of which increases even more as the game progresses.
** ''VideoGame/NierAutomata'' also qualifies. The player (and 9S) go through a TraumaCongaLine for the latter half of the game, and like its predecessor the game as a whole is incredibly depressing with nearly no hope shown [[spoiler: until you get its GoldenEnding, which the game didn't require supplementary materials or a remake to access, is somewhat of a respite]].

* 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, to the point that nearly every new plot revelation is a sad one, and though it does eventually pull out a [[EarnYourHappyEnding happy ending]], it's still very bittersweet due to [[spoiler: Kuro's [[RedemptionEqualsDeath redemptive sacrifice,]] and the death of Gumo's entire species meaning that he's TheLastOfHisKind.]] LetsPlay/{{raocow}} sums up the game perfectly.
--> '''raocow''': The game that rewards you with sadness.

* ''VideoGame/{{Omori}}'' takes place in the aftermath of a traumatic incident in the protagonist's childhood life. The nature of this incident is barely hinted at in the early game, which mainly focuses on adventures in a symbolic DreamLand, but even this setting is not free from themes of social isolation, mental dissociation and personal loss. is "A tissue box for wiping your sorrows away" is one of the few objects to be found in the starting area; these have no in-game function, but the player may need some.

* ''VideoGame/{{Omori}}'' takes place in the aftermath of a traumatic incident in the protagonist's childhood life. The nature of this incident is not revealed in the early game, which mainly focuses on adventures in a {{Crapsaccharine|World}} DreamLand, but even this setting is not free from themes of social isolation and mental dissociation.

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 [[DelicateAndSickly 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.

* ''VideoGame/{{NieR}}'' is a video game example. Set in a CrapsackWorld, Nearly nothing positive happens the entire game and it's filled with heart-wrenching moments, the frequency of which increases even more as the game progresses.
** ''VideoGame/NierAutomata'' also qualifies. The player (and 9S) go through a TraumaCongaLine for the latter half of the game, and like its predecessor the game as a whole is incredibly depressing with nearly no hope shown [[spoiler: until you get its GoldenEnding, which the game didn't require supplementary materials or a remake to access, is somewhat of a respite.]]

* ''Kurutta Kajistu'' (''Crazed Fruit''), a 1992 softcore visual novel, begins like many others do; Romantic interest subplot, funny dialogue, and some basic H-scenes... until [[spoiler:every woman that the lead character is with starts mysteriously dying in gruesome ways.]] And it doesn't get any better for him from there ''at all''. Let's just say this is one of the oldest works to regularly get the "Utsuge" tag on database sites for a good reason.

Another common feature, or lack thereof, is the [[NoAntagonist absence of any real villain]]. The sorrow instead comes from intangible forces like disease- which, in a way, makes the game ''sadder'' because there is no BigBad, no easy target to blame for the tragedy, no reviled antagonist whose wrongs can be righted, as if to say that sometimes bad things just ''happen.''

Another common feature, or lack thereof, is the [[NoAntagonist absence of any real villain]]. The sorrow instead comes from intangible forces like disease- which, in a way, makes the game ''sadder'' because there is no BigBad, no easy target to blame for the tragedy, as if to say “sometimes bad things just ''happen''”.

* ''VideoGame/{{Arcaea}}'' seems innocent enough at first, the main story is a horrible tragedy where two girls fight to the death with several incredibly depressing reveals at the end and side story characters regularly drive themselves insane [[GoMadFromTheRevelation from the revelation]] or have tear-fueled backstories. Oh and it's a ''ball-bustingly'' hard rhythm game.

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.

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.

* ''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 Shin 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. Even Shin turns out to be a WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds.

** 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 pissing herself, followed by the two characters letting go of her throat and laughing about how close they just came to actually killing her.]].

* ''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. Whether their issues will ever be resolved in a satisfactory manner will be up to the player, and even then the path is thorny for the characters involved.

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.

* ''VisualNovel/YuNo'' is arguably a TropeMaker. Its True Route has tragic plot elements similar to those later used by Nakige titles.

** 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.]].

* 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, to the point that every new plot revelation is a sad one, and though it does eventually pull out a [[EarnYourHappyEnding happy ending]], it's still very bittersweet due to [[spoiler: Kuro's [[RedemptionEqualsDeath redemptive sacrifice,]] and the death of Gumo's entire species meaning that he's TheLastOfHisKind.]] LetsPlay/{{raocow}} sums up the game perfectly.

* 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, to the point that every new plot revelation is a sad one, and though it does eventually pull out a [[EarnYourHappyEnding happy ending]], it's still very bittersweet due to [[spoiler: Kuro's [[RedemptionEqualsDeath redemptive sacrifice.]]]] LetsPlay/{{raocow}} sums up the game perfectly.

* 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, and though it does eventually pull out a [[EarnYourHappyEnding happy ending]], it's still very bittersweet due to [[spoiler: Kuro's [[RedemptionEqualsDeath redemptive sacrifice.]]]] LetsPlay/{{raocow}} sums up the game perfectly.

* 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, and though it does eventually pull out a [[EarnYourHappyEnding happy ending]], it's still very bittersweet due to [[spoiler: Kuro's [[RedemptionEqualsDeath redemptive sacrifice.]]]] [[LetsPlay/{{raocow}}]] sums up the game perfectly.