History WrongGenreSavvy / VideoGames

* ''VisualNovel/DanganronpaTriggerHappyHavoc'': Byakuya Togami's childhood involved him being constantly forced to compete against his half-siblings, so he easily accepts the premise of the DeadlyGame and openly declares his desire to commit murder to escape, while the protagonists are the students who realize that the game is a farce meant to psychologically torture its participants, Monokuma is the true antagonist, and ultimately the only winning move is not to play and to instead take the fight to Monokuma directly.[[spoiler: Byakuya eventually has a HeelFaceTurn after the chapter 4 unites the students against Monokuma, which turns out for the best as the game and all of Monokuma's motives were based on false premises.]]

* ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil4'' has a hilarious example where the evil mastermind Saddler mocks Leon's belief that he's going to rescue Ada and save the day like the cliché AmericaSavesTheDay ending of a cheesy Hollywood movie. From the moment Saddler makes this comment, the rest of the game plays out like a cheesy Hollywood movie: Saddler goes OneWingedAngel, Leon blows him up with a bazooka after a short fight, then [[LoveInterestTraitor Ada swoops in and nabs the sample off him]] [[PetTheDog but is kind enough to leave him the keys to a jetski]] as [[CollapsingLair the island starts inexplicably blowing up]], [[OutrunTheFireball forcing Leon and Ashley to escape speeding down a tunnel away from a fiery death]], and then it all ends with Ashley flirting with Leon as they go RidingIntoTheSunset.

*** It's also noted that part of Loghain's failings is that he forgot to apply the 'fantasy' part of High Fantasy and thought that the Darkspawn were basically another human nation he could defeat militarily, while this is ''not'' the case- they are very much a fantastic enemy that requires fantastic measures to defeat. Darkspawn are immune to most conventional military tactics; they don't require food or armaments so there's no supply lines to cut, they communicate in a telepathic BlackSpeech so you can't get any intelligence on them, they're practically endless so they can't be defeated by attrition, and the Archdemon [[KeystoneArmy leading them]] can't be killed except by a Grey Warden. He's so stuck in his political view of the world that he doesn't realize that all those heroic tales of Grey Wardens ending blights by defeating Archdemons in personal combat are ''absolutely true'', and there are ''very good'' reasons things are that way.

** Also in Breath of the Wild, Hyrule as a whole fell victim to this in the backstory. They believed they were in for a legendary battle that would end with good triumphing over evil and prepared accordingly. They found TheChosenOne to wield the Master Sword, the princess began training from an early age to master her divine magic, and archaeologists unearthed an army of Guardians to fight with them. In reality, however, they were in the opening act of a tragedy; [[spoiler:Ganon turned the army of Guardians against them and managed to mortally wound TheChosenOne, while the princess's power awakened too late for anything but damage control]], leading to the game's AfterTheEnd setting.

** ''VideoGame/Persona4'': Dojima is actually a fairly competent detective and manages to actually reach some of the same conclusions that the Investigation Team makes at around the same time. Unfortunately, he thinks he's in a mundane murder mystery, when there's actually UrbanFantasy mixed in, meaning that he doesn't have all the pieces since he refuses to consider the supernatural.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Okami}}'', Issun initially believes in BeautyEqualsGoodness in regards to women. He immediately trusts Rao because of her GagBoobs and distrusts Queen Himiko who (initially) refuses to show her face. [[spoiler: Rao has been DeadAllAlong and is impersonated by the evil Ninetails and Himiko is actually good, trying to save her city and people (and also happens to be quite beautiful).]]

* While Monika in ''VisualNovel/DokiDokiLiteratureClub'' certainly understands RomanceGame tropes are in play, she says some inappropriate things that backfire on her because she misses an important point about how the genre works. You won't understand why until a big late-game plot twist, though, so be warned about the next spoiler. [[spoiler: She actually [[MediumAwareness knows it's a game]], and she knows the other characters are therefore not real. As a result, Monika expects the player to laugh along with her when she jokes about the horrible things that happen to them. The whole time, Monika doesn't realise that dating sims generally want you to ''[[VideoGameCaringPotential empathize]]'' with the characters, instead of [[VideoGameCrueltyPotential toying with them for your own amusement]]. WordOfGod is [[IntendedAudienceReaction they intentionally wrote her in a way]] where the player should be ''horrified'' about what happened to the sweet and quirky members of the Literature Club, and hate Monika for forcing them through it. (This interpretation is [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPw9cMWkAMs&t=3s affirmed here]].) It's probably not the kind of game she plays herself at all.]][[invoked]]

* While Monika in ''VisualNovel/DokiDokiLiteratureClub'' certainly understands RomanceGame tropes are in play, she says some inappropriate things that backfire on her because she misses an important point about how the genre works. You won't understand why until a big late-game plot twist, though, so be warned about the next spoiler. [[spoiler: She actually [[MediumAwareness knows it's a game]], and she thinks the other characters are therefore not real, so she expects the player to laugh along with her when she jokes about the horrible things that happen to them -- because she doesn't realise dating sims generally want you to ''[[VideoGameCaringPotential empathize]]'' with the characters, instead of [[VideoGameCrueltyPotential toying with them for your own amusement]], which is [[IntendedAudienceReaction most likely]] going to result in the player being utterly ''horrified'' about what happened to the sweet and quirky members of the Literature Club, and hate Monika for forcing them through it. (This interpretation is [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPw9cMWkAMs&t=3s affirmed]] by WordOfGod.) It's probably not the kind of game she plays herself at all.]]

* While Monika in ''VisualNovel/DokiDokiLiteratureClub'' certainly understands RomanceGame tropes are in play, she says some inappropriate things that backfire on her because she misses an important point about how the genre works. You won't understand why until a big late-game plot twist, though, so be warned about the next spoiler. [[spoiler: She actually [[MediumAwareness knows it's a game]], and she thinks the other characters are therefore not real, so she expects the player to laugh along with her when she jokes about the horrible things that happen to them -- because she doesn't realise it's the kind of game with VideoGameCaringPotential and ''not'' VideoGameCrueltyPotential. (This interpretation is [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPw9cMWkAMs&t=3s affirmed]] by WordOfGod.) It's probably not the kind of game she plays herself at all.]]

** Everyone in ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild Breath of the Wild]]'', including Zelda herself, believes that meditation and prayer to [[PatronGod Hylia]] will awaken her divine powers. However, after ten years of training, Zelda still hasn't summoned a flicker of power. Her father thinks that [[FantasyForbiddingFather indulging in unrelated hobbies]] is keeping her from being truly devoted to her prayers, while Zelda herself hopes that her powers might come once she's finally old enough to visit the Spring of Wisdom. [[spoiler:In the end, her powers awaken when she tries to perform a HeroicSacrifice for Link, implying they're fueled by ThePowerOfLove rather than piety.]]