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| 7 | %% Image removed per Image Pickin' thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1345118977095926800 |
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| 10 | VideoGames are a medium that still today is treated very vaguely by outsiders, [[PacManFever some of which]] have a very generic idea of it, some have an exaggeratedly negative [[MurderSimulators opinion of the medium]] and, in the most extreme cases, some who don't even bother [[CowboyBebopAtHisComputer doing their homework]] before talking about it. |
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| 12 | However, this doesn't mean video games can't be incomprehensible even to those who actually play them. [[MindScrew Read and be confused.]] |
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| 16 | * ''VideoGame/AlanWake'' gets more and more screwy as things go on. It's not long before other characters think that Alan is crazy, and he's not only admitting the possibility, but saying it might be a ''good'' thing: "It takes crazy to know crazy." Then the ending tops it all. The DLC mini-sequels get pretty surreal too. |
| 17 | * ''VideoGame/AnotherSight'': The 'Only One' ending achieved by walking into the Node shows the empty inside of a house, with Kit's mother narrating to her that the world is hers. We cut to outside the house, on a vast empty grass plain, and watch it disintegrate. Unlike the other two endings, this is not explained. |
| 18 | * The trailer for ''VideoGame/{{Antichamber}}'' starts with a quote from a critic saying "Even as the developer told me what the game was doing to mess with my brain, ''it still succeeded in messing with my brain''." On top of all of the geometry screwery and visual aesthetics, half of the game's score is of [[http://robinarnott.bandcamp.com/album/meditation-walk-with-antichamber field recordings of nature.]] (On a related note, the [[http://f1.bcbits.com/img/a2547813274_10.jpg two soundtrack album covers]] show the flocking red balls breaking through a wall on one cover, and an identical image replacing the balls with birds and the wall with trees on the other. The balls in-game make the sound of a swarm of birds. Now think about the rest of the game.) |
| 19 | * The ''Franchise/AssassinsCreed'' franchise tends to have screwy endings. |
| 20 | ** ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedI'' ended with [[spoiler:the player character somehow having manifested his ancestor's "[[AuraVision Eagle Vision]]" and seeing [[RoomFullOfCrazy the floor and walls covered in symbols written in blood]]]]. |
| 21 | ** ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedII'''s playable credits sequence wasn't that crazy, but the ending had [[spoiler:the holographic "ghost" of a pre-human being somehow knowing that in 2012, Desmond Miles would use an Animus to see Ezio's memory of meeting her -- and therefore using the Flying Eagle of Florence as ''an answering machine to the future'']]. |
| 22 | --->'''Desmond Miles:''' [[PunctuatedForEmphasis What. The.]] ''[[PrecisionFStrike Fuck]]''?\ |
| 23 | '''Ezio''': Wait! Who is [[spoiler:Desmond]]? |
| 24 | ** ''[[VideoGame/AssassinsCreedBrotherhood Brotherhood]]'' ends with [[spoiler:Juno taking control of Desmond's body and forcing him to stab a paralyzed Lucy, then in the post-credits we're left wondering if Desmond even ''is'' the player character... or whether he himself is an ancestor called up through a future Animus]]. |
| 25 | ** ''[[VideoGame/AssassinsCreedRevelations Revelations]]'' involves a situation of[[spoiler: Desmond entering Ezio's memory of entering Altair's memories. And that's before Ezio tells Desmond to listen to Jupiter.]] |
| 26 | ** ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedIII'' DLC, ''The Tyranny of King Washington''. If the title isn't enough, here is a brief summary; [[spoiler:Connor finds himself in an alternative universe where his mom is still alive, there a magic tree which corrupts everyone who drinks its tea in exchange for [[CastFromHitPoints life-draining powers]] via MushroomSamba, there are fragments of the real world rendered in [=PS1=] graphics everywhere, and the American Revolution apparently never properly happened.]] Then there's the excessive Mason symbolism, that EverythingIsTryingToKillYou, and whoever the hell that royalty supporter was at the end. |
| 27 | ** Not an ending example, but ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedOrigins'' has ''Curse of the Pharaohs'', which initially seems like typical Assassin's Creed stuff (someone misusing a MacGuffin to make it look like the Pharaohs are going around killing people). [[spoiler:Then Bayek stumbles on to portals to the afterlife hidden in their tombs, wherein he meets and interacts with Anubis, or other characters (including one side-quest involving talking to a character who gets murdered, then finding him in one of the afterlives). All of this without any sort of handwave as to just what the hell's going on.]] |
| 28 | * An obscure Atari Jaguar game called ''VideoGame/AttackOfTheMutantPenguins'' is so convoluted that it requires an [[WebVideo/TheAngryVideoGameNerd Angry Video Game Nerd]] to [[http://www.gametrailers.com/video/angry-video-screwattack/47108?type=flv explain it to you]]. |
| 29 | * ''VideoGame/{{B3313}}'', a ROM hack of ''VideoGame/SuperMario64'' based in large part on various {{creepypasta}} surrounding the game, can be rather hypnagogic: |
| 30 | ** There's little indication of what even is going on. Did Bowser kidnap Peach as usual or is she somehow the villain luring Mario and Luigi to their doom? Are the Shadow and Faceless Marios representations of the "Personalization A.I." from the iceberg and creepypasta memes? |
| 31 | ** Warping to the [[HubLevel main lobby]] from the pause menu will actually land the player on a ''version'' of it in cycling order, which can be identified by the numbers marked on the doors. This references the concept of an [[HauntedTechnology haunted A.I.]] editing ''Super Mario 64'' on the fly. Similarly, dying or clearing levels will warp the player to certain rooms instead of their entrance to make them lose their sense of direction. |
| 32 | * ''Bad Milk'': The story opens with the main character drinking a very small amount of expired milk, and then apparently blacking out [[spoiler: or dying]]. The rest of the game is spent in a black void where you can select different images to enter puzzles which hardly even qualify as puzzles (like having to click on a man to make him crawl across a room) or bizarre dialogue sequences (like a man submerged in water coming out to give an inexplicable hint, then returning to the water). There is also a mysterious man who gives you instructions on the telephone, but, naturally, he is never explained. The "game" ends with an awkwardly paced cutscene featuring [[spoiler: the character being reborn in a hospital]]. The game is no longer available for purchase, but you can watch a playthrough of it [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ve569GjY5M here.]] |
| 33 | * There's a fairly minor one in ''VideoGame/BaldursGate'' -- in the catacombs under Candlekeep, you meet Elminster, Tethoril and your stepfather Gorion- who was murdered at the end of the prologue. They tell you that Gorion was actually poisoned and made to look as if dead, and that for some time you've been trapped in a grand illusion created by the BigBad and his doppelganger minions- and you've just murdered most of your childhood friends, believing them to be doppelgangers. [[spoiler: If you believe them and follow them, they lead you past a load of apparent Doppelgangers, who chase you- and the three characters turn into Greater Doppelgangers and, if you aren't careful, kill you. [[MagnificentBastard Bastards]]. And even if you ''don't'' believe them and doubt their story, they offer up utterly bizarre rebuttals in their defense, such as one invoking ''copyright law''.]] |
| 34 | * The little-known ''VideoGame/{{Baroque}}'', which takes place in a distorted world where people physically transform into a metaphor for their twisted delusions. It's confusing enough from the very start that, by the time you learn that [[spoiler:the flying babies with deformed faces are actually the physical manifestation of God's pain, and you've been firing them out of your [[InfinityPlusOneSword Infinity Plus One Gun]]]], you'll be relieved that the plot is starting to make more sense. |
| 35 | * ''Every'' time Scarecrow makes an appearance in ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamAsylum''. |
| 36 | ** Particularly the Scarecrow sequence where Joker apparently shoots you, at which point a fake game over screen appears telling you to use the middle control stick to dodge the bullet. [[http://www.collectedcurios.com/HTP_031_Batman_Arkham_Asylum.jpg This comic]] puts it brilliantly. Or tilt the mouse if you're playing on PC. |
| 37 | ** You get little to no warning at all that you've received a faceful of scarecrow toxin. Especially the [[spoiler:fake game crash glitch and fake game reset that turns into a modified version of the intro cinematic where a very serious Joker is driving the insane Batman to Arkham.]] These sequences are made worse by the ButThouMust factor being in effect. Even if you know where the gas is, you can't grapple to avoid it (if you do, you still get gassed), there are no passages around it, and the door you entered that corridor through locks behind you. ''Nighty-night, Bats...'' |
| 38 | * The SecretLevel in ''VideoGame/BatmanDoom''. It's called "No Comment..." and "Weird!", and both names fit. Batman finds himself on a giant island made of flesh, floating in the middle of inky blackness and with biting mouths in the ground, with [[Creator/SalvadorDali trees with half-melted clocks]] growing out of it. He must fight against floating eyes that fly out of the eyeholes of a giant mountain made of meat and throw batarangs at him. Once you beat the eyes, you can enter the mountain's toothy mouth and proceeds down its... digestive tract? to the room with the exit. And the level music? The cheesy theme of the ''[[Series/Batman1966 Batman]]'' TV show. |
| 39 | * The basic premise of ''VideoGame/TheBindingOfIsaac'' (a small naked boy trying to escape his homocidal, religiously fanatical mother before finally defeating her) is fairly straightforward, but the game doesn't tell you much else beyond that. Where did all those bizarre monsters in the basement come from? Why are you fighting the AnthropomorphicPersonification of the seven deadly sins ''and'' the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse? Who are all these extra characters you can play as? [[spoiler: Was Isaac actually DeadAllAlong? Why are the final two bosses of the game (at least until ''Rebirth'' added more) Isaac himself with angel wings?]] Who the hell knows? And WordOfGod tends to just make things even more confusing (such as explaining that [[spoiler: the game is apparently tied to another [=McMillen=] game, the equally confusing ''VideoGame/TimeFcuk''.]]) |
| 40 | * The [[GainaxEnding ending]] of ''VideoGame/{{Bioshock Infinite}}'' features [[spoiler:the "sea of doors", an ocean filled with lighthouses, each representing a potential parallel universe adhering to the basic template of the Bioshock storyline]]. The quirky seemingly omnipotent twins who appear around Columbia to give the player advice also count, at least until you find out what their deal is. |
| 41 | * ''Franchise/BlazBlue''. The plot is a tangle of alternate timelines that actually happen successively thanks to continuous cosmic resets. At least one character perpetually exists one loop behind all the others, several are aware of the time loops, and others end up in loops that haven't happened yet and take information back to their current loop. All this means that ''every one'' of the mutually exclusive Story and Arcade mode endings have actually happened, the difficulty is in figuring out which ones are [[GoldenEnding "canon"]]. Put it this way: Noel should never exist in the original, "Phase 0" timeline, but after inheriting the Eye of the master unit, whatever timeline she perceives ''is'' the "real" timeline, and this paradox actually ''simplifies'' the story. |
| 42 | * Playing ''VideoGame/BlueRevolver'' as Mae gives you a pretty straightforward plot: fight against an armed group who wants you to stop building cool things ([[JerkassHasAPoint that so happen to be very dangerous to the environment]]). Val's? The first two stage bosses don't speak (instead you get a silhouette of Val and VisibleSilence), [[spoiler:Mae is in control of a boss for whatever reason and she says she can't find her ship, and [[FinalBoss Dee]] (who is after Mae in Mae's campaign) ''teams up with Mae'' if you unlock the TrueFinalBoss.]] Even if [[spoiler:[[AllJustADream the whole thing was one bad dream]]]], just ''what'' is going on in Val's life that causes her to [[spoiler:dream of such things]]? |
| 43 | * In one part of ''VideoGame/BoxxyQuestTheGatheringStorm'', there’s a seemingly normal house with a doll tucked away in a dark corner of the basement. Picking up the doll sends you on an utterly surreal and frightening trip involving, among other things, multiple looping instances of the same basement, faceless clones of your friends, disembodied weeping, a rope bridge that extends as you cross it, and the house’s owner melting out of the wall in a really grotesque way. And at the end of all this… you just get dumped back into the main room like it never even happened. The real kicker comes if you try to reopen the basement door: ''[[spoiler:“It’s just painted on.”]]'' |
| 44 | * ''VideoGame/{{Braid}}'' has a highly confusing story to go along with its tricky time-manipulating gameplay. Absolutely everything is metaphorical. What appears to be a simple tale about rescuing a princess turns out to be a complex story of a man's obsession, and the atomic bomb, [[EveryoneIsJesusInPurgatory or something]]. |
| 45 | * ''VideoGame/TheBrightInTheScreen'' combines this trope with a hefty dose of {{Nightmare Fuel}}, thanks to the... ''thing'' communicating with the player through TV screens. To say nothing of the [[FissionMailed fake ending]], or the [[GainaxEnding real ending.]] The creator says it's about "human social behavior," which explains ''absolutely nothing.'' |
| 46 | -->"I look out my window and see a world of red. Then I close my eyes, and realize that my darkness is red." |
| 47 | * TheStinger of ''Bubble Symphony'' aka ''VideoGame/BubbleBobble II'' can act as a kind of MindScrew. [[spoiler: Were the four children (or original protagonists and girlfriends, whatever) ''[[AllJustADream just pretending]]'' to be [[ForcedTransformation transformed]] into bubble dragons and go on that quest, or [[OrWasItADream did it]] ''[[RealAfterAll really happen]]'' and they all managed to make or receive suits of their bubble dragon forms and toys of the items, [[PlotCoupon Plot Coupons]] and cute baddies, and play around with them afterwards? Why don't you [[http://www.vazcomics.org/mamend/png/bubl0140.png take a look and suggest something?]]]] [[spoiler: The alternate {{Downer Ending}}s (specifically the OrWasItADream ones) do ''not'' have any relation.]] |
| 48 | * ''VideoGame/CallOfDutyBlackOps'': Most of the game, ESPECIALLY the penultimate level where [[spoiler:it's revealed that Victor Reznov's been dead for ''years'' (or has he? "they never found the body"), and the last cutscene at the end of the campaign which implies that Mason participated in or committed John F. Kennedy's assassination.]] |
| 49 | * ''VideoGame/ChronoCross'' has some particularly Mind Screwy moments, especially compared to its rather straightforward predecessor ''VideoGame/ChronoTrigger''. The Dead Sea, in particular, is left almost completely unexplained, to the point where [[http://www.chronocompendium.com/Term/Salt_for_the_Dead_Sea.html several]] [[http://www.gamefaqs.com/ps/196917-chrono-cross/faqs/11051 articles]] have been [[http://www.chronocompendium.com/Term/Dead_Sea_/_Sea_of_Eden_FAQ_Refutation.html written]] by fans trying to explain exactly what it is. |
| 50 | * ''VideoGame/TheCompanyOfMyself'' appears to be a simple platformer with elements of [[RealityWarper manipulating space-time to create shadows of yourself]] to solve the puzzles involved. [[spoiler:Actually, it's a journey through the mind of a man who had inadvertently killed his own soulmate and thus became lost in his memories. The page for this game even lists some of the [[EpilepticTrees screwier attempts]] to fully explain his "interactions" with the psychologist.]] |
| 51 | * ''VideoGame/CondemnedCriminalOrigins'' had a pretty standard "ClearMyName and catch the serial killer" plot. But it also had all the homeless people go crazy and mutate, and the main character hallucinate for no adequately explained reason, which made the whole thing creepier. Unfortunately, they explained it in the [[VideoGame/Condemned2Bloodshot sequel]]. Said sequel runs out of plot after about three levels, though. It starts off as a horror game but suddenly you're fighting animated suits of armour and figures made of black goo, and you cure Ethan's alcoholism by fighting the living incarnation of it, and you learn he has the ability to make people's [[YourHeadASplode heads explode]] by yelling at them ''really loud''. And aliens are behind it all. Maybe. |
| 52 | * ''VideoGame/{{Cryostasis}}: Sleep of Reason'' lives on this trope. Filled to the brim with symbolic meanings, philosophical subtexts, biblical quotations, metaphorical Russian Folk tales, and a main character [[spoiler: who is dead the entire game but eventually saved through winning a fight with the God of Time.]] Think Bioshock and STALKER combined and then directed by Creator/DavidLynch. |
| 53 | * Level-specific example: ''VideoGame/CTGP7'' has Miku's Birthday Spectacular, a crash-prone, ridiculously difficult level that looks weird due to surrealism. |
| 54 | * ''VideoGame/DeadlyPremonition'' does a good job of tying up most of the plot threads by the end of the game, but there are still quite a few other questions that are never really answered. Like, how much of the action sequences were actually real? What exactly ''are'' the Shadows? Why could Emily see them? How much of Harry's story was true? What did [[spoiler: the military]] have to do with all this? Why was [[spoiler: Kaysen ''in'' the military at all?]] Did the final boss fight even happen? Why does everyone intuitively know [[spoiler: to call you Zach]] after The Reveal? Does that mean that you only thought [[spoiler: you were calling yourself York?]] Why can Isaach and Isaiah see dead people? Why were they in the Red Room? What was the Red Room? What did [[spoiler: Kaysen]] mean when he said that he was from the "Red World?" The biggest remaining questions revolve mainly around how much of it was meant to be taken as occurring, and how much was meant to be symbolic representations of the events of the game. |
| 55 | * ''VideoGame/DearEsther'', a mod of ''VideoGame/HalfLife2'', is famous for this. You're walking around an island all by yourself, and there is no gameplay. The entire story is told through narrated letters, and you won't hear all of the letters in one playthrough, meaning your understanding on the plot changes. Not only that, some of the letters contradict each other; sometimes the narrator was shipwrecked on the island, other times he is a hermit seeking solitude. At the end you [[spoiler:turn into a seagull and fly over the letters, which shouldn't be on the island.]] |
| 56 | * ''VideoGame/DeathStranding'' has this in spades. For example, there is a lot of fetal imagery in the game, and there's Sam falling into the ocean early on and then waking up as if nothing had happened. |
| 57 | * The entire ''VideoGame/DeptHeaven'' series. If you can comprehend the entire series thus far, you either are a. part of the team developing the games, b. a VERY dedicated fan, or c. an alien. |
| 58 | * ''VideoGame/TheDollShop'': Downplayed, but at times it's difficult to tell what, exactly, is going on due to the game being through the doll maker's perspective. [[spoiler:Particularly puzzling is the ending where you kill the childhood friend, which has you "put her face back together" by using the doll shards you found throughout the game... before her actual death.]] |
| 59 | * ''VideoGame/DreamfallTheLongestJourney''. The ending. [[spoiler:Zoë has been told to save April, and near the end she is told she succeeded. In the time between that and the last of many times she was told April hadn't been saved yet, the only thing Zoë did was to watch April get killed, unnoticed by everyone until after the fact (i.e. not affecting the incident in any way).]] |
| 60 | * The obscure British point-and-click adventure game ''[[VideoGame/DrownedGod Drowned God: Conspiracy of the Ages]]'' somehow manages to take just about every major conspiracy theory you can think of from Stonehenge to the Philadelphia Experiment and combine them into one giant conspiracy that the creator of the game probably believed was true at least partially, and the characters (including both real and mythological figures) speak exclusively in riddles. |
| 61 | * ''VideoGame/{{EarthBound|1994}}'': A number of odd occurrences happen throughout Ness' journey, and while some are just jokes, there's also the possessed street signs, a glowing neon DarkWorld of backwards talking shadows, an afterlife that looks like a Grateful Dead album cover, and the final boss (whom you, the player, not the characters you are playing as, have to fight). The plot itself is vaguely explained and dives into cosmic horror at the end. [[VideoGame/EarthBoundBeginnings Its predecessor]] had you entering someone else's mental world, by... touching a seashell and reading a diary? And then came ''VideoGame/{{Mother 3}}'', which is even stranger, with a highly symbolic and artistic tone, especially at [[GainaxEnding the end]]. And of course, [[spoiler:"What did Porky do?"]] |
| 62 | * ''VideoGame/EasternMindTheLostSoulsOfTongNou''. Even taking [[RuleOfSymbolism its symbolistic philosophy]] to account, it's still very strange. ''Chu-Teng'', ''Tong-Nou''[='=]s sequel, makes just as much sense, and was only released in Japan. |
| 63 | * ''Franchise/TheElderScrolls'' series' lore (cosmology, deities, even history) is generally [[{{Understatement}} not clear-cut]]. Reasons for this range from [[UnreliableNarrator biased]] in-universe sources intentionally only giving you only one side of a story, to sources lacking critical information or working from [[BlatantLies false information]], to the implication that AllMythsAreTrue, despite the contradictions and paradoxes, or that at least all myths are MetaphoricallyTrue. [[WordOfGod Out-of-game developer supplemental texts]] (frequently referred to as "Obscure Texts" by the lore community) are more trustworthy (particularly those of Michael Kirkbride), but are frequently left [[LooseCanon unofficial]] and sometimes later contradicted. Because of this, it is entirely possible for two (or more) contradictory statements in the below examples to ''both'' be true. (And due to frequent events in-universe that [[TimeCrash alter the timeline]], both may ''literally'' be true in-universe.) To note: |
| 64 | ** The cosmology of the series' universe is ''extremely'' hard to wrap one's head around. Piecing together (often conflicting) clues from various lore sources and developer-written supplementary texts, the structure seems to be: |
| 65 | *** At the top level, ''everything'' ever exists only as a dream within some utterly unknowable entity called the Godhead. Within the Godhead, there exist multiple sub-dreams known as Amaranths, each separate, but connected in some ways. (The Godhead is heavily implied to be the player and/or the developers themselves.) |
| 66 | *** Between each Amaranth is the Dreamsleeve. This is basically a roiling foam of pure information. When someone dies in the Elder Scrolls universe (and their soul is not otherwise claimed by a lesser deity or bound to the mortal world for some reason) their soul -- or rather, the information that makes up their identity -- returns to the Dreamsleeve and is broken up and returned back to the chaotic mass it came from. Eventually, [[GodOfGods Anu]] (or another Amaranth) will combine bits and pieces into a new identity, attach it to a soul, and send it back to be reborn into a new person. |
| 67 | *** Back to the Amaranth, within the one we care about, there was Anu and Padomay, the {{Anthropomorphic Personification}}s of the concepts of stasis/order/light and change/chaos/darkness, respectively. Their interplay led to "Nir", also known as "Aurbis" (the universe) or creation itself. Nir favored Anu, which angered Padomay. Padomay killed Nir and destroyed her "twelve worlds of creation". Anu wounded Padomay and presumed him dead. He collected the shattered pieces of the twelve worlds and put them together to create one world, Nirn. However, Padomay returned, wounded Anu, and attempted to destroy Nirn. To protect Nirn, Anu pulled Padomay and himself "outside of time forever". (From their intermingled blood rose the et'Ada, "original spirits", who, depending on their actions during the creation of Mundus, the mortal plane, would become known as the Aedra ("our ancestors") or the Daedra ("not our ancestors"). |
| 68 | *** The Aurbis is divided into Aetherius, Oblivion, and Mundus. Aetherius is the "Immortal Plane", origin of [[{{Mana}} Magicka]] and a form of SpiritWorld. Oblivion is the infinite void surrounding Mundus. It is here that the Daedra (and other beings of immense power) carve out planes of existence, which function as combination {{Eldritch Location}}s, {{Fisher Kingdom}}s, and GeniusLoci of their creator beings. |
| 69 | *** Mundus, the mortal plane, is where things get more [[StealthPun mundane]]. While the [[OurElvesAreDifferent Races of Mer (Elves)]] and the Races of Men have ''very'' different interpretations of exactly what happened, a being known as Lorkhan convinced/tricked some of the other et'Ada (the Aedra) into creating Mundus. However, doing so required them to sacrifice vast amounts of their divine power and their CompleteImmortality. Some fled (Magnus and the Magna-Ge), puncturing holes between Mundus and Aetherius that would become the [[AlienSky sun and stars]]. Many sacrificed so much that they died, becoming the "Earthbones", essentially the laws of nature and physics a functioning world requires. Still others created children together to populate the world, known as the Ehlnofey ({{Precursors}} of the modern sapient races). The eight most powerful surviving Aedra tried Lorkhan for his perceived treachery, "[[GodIsDead killing]]'' him and tearing out his heart ("divine center"), which they cast down into the world he had them create, forcing his spirit to wander it. Nirn's [[WeirdMoon two moons]] are said to be his sundered and rotting corpse "flesh divinity", while the eight Aedra are the eight planets visible from Nirn. |
| 70 | *** At the bottom, you have the planet Nirn. It contains five known continents (as well as numerous other smaller bodies of land), some of which have been "lost" or destroyed - [[{{Wutai}} Akavir]], [[{{Atlantis}} Aldmeris]], [[EndlessWinter Atmora]], [[UnderwaterRuins Yokuda]], and Tamriel, where all of the games in the series have taken place to date. |
| 71 | ** Anything involving [[OurGodsAreDifferent divine powers or godhood]] also tends to get ''very'' screwy ''very'' quickly. To note: |
| 72 | *** Sithis, referred to as a "[[PowerOfTheVoid great void]]", is a primordial force associated with Padomay representing chaos, change, and limitation. Sithis is described as an equal but opposing force to Anui-El, "the soul of all things" associated with Anu, making Sithis the ''antithesis'' of all things. Sithis Is Not. |
| 73 | *** The Daedric Princes are the 17 most important and powerful of the Daedra, et'Ada ("original spirits") who made no sacrifices during the creation of Mundus and thus remain at full power. Several of them are immense Mind Screws. For example, Boethiah is the Daedric Prince of Plots, whose sphere includes [[ManipulativeBastard seemingly all]] [[ChronicBackstabbingDisorder manner of high crimes]]. In the ''36 Lessons of Vivec'', Vivec frequently refers to Boethiah as the "House of False Thinking". By contemplating what must be "untrue", one can see into the true nature of reality. Additionally, Hermaeus Mora is the Daedric Prince of [[TheseAreThingsManWasNotMeantToKnow Knowledge]], specializing in [[KeeperOfForbiddenKnowledge Forbidden Knowledge]]. While most of the Daedric Princes [[AFormYouAreComfortableWith assume a humanoid form when dealing with mortals]], Mora assumes a truly [[EldritchAbomination Eldritch]] form, an endless mass of tentacles and eyes. According to Mora himself, he ''is''/arose from detritus concepts ejected from reality during creation. Hermaeus Mora ''is what could not be''. Further, there is Sheogorath, the Daedric Prince of [[MadGod Madness]]. Sheogorath is connected with both Sithis and Lorkhan, said to be a "Sithis-shaped hole" in the world, brought into being when Lorkhan's "divine spark" was removed. Wildly unpredictable, he can go from [[AffablyEvil affable]] to [[ColonyDrop planet-hurlingly]] AxeCrazy in an instant. |
| 74 | *** Akatosh is the Aedric Divine [[DragonsAreDivine Draconic]] God of Time, and TopGod of the Imperial [[SaintlyChurch Nine Divines]] pantheon. Akatosh willed linear time into being at the end of the [[TimeOfMyths Dawn Era]], and, as most often done by mortals wielding divine implements, [[HijackingCthulhu tampered with]] to cause {{Time Crash}}es and {{Cosmic Retcon}}s. Further, like most of the Aedra, Akatosh is recognized by different cultures under different names and with different traits. To the Aldmer, he is Auri-El, a [[NobleBirdOfPrey noble golden eagle god]]. To the Nords, he is Alduin, the draconic BeastOfTheApocalypse (and Alduin is also his ''first-born son'', while Alduin himself denies also being Akatosh...). To other cultures, he is Alkosh, Aka-Tusk, and even possibly Tosh'Raka and shares many similarities with the Yokudan deity Ruptga. All of these beings are thought to exist independently of one another while, for the most part, also [[LogicBomb not being distinguishable from one other]]. |
| 75 | *** [[DeityOfHumanOrigin Deities of Human Origin]] almost always cause a Mind Screw when digging into the mechanics and effects of their apotheosis. A prime example is Talos, the Ninth Divine. Talos is the ascended god form of Tiber Septim, [[FounderOfTheKingdom founder of the Third Tamriellic Empire]], possibly among others in a MergerOfSouls and/or BecomingTheMask situation. Another prominent theory regarding Talos is that the beings who make him up were all part of the same "Enantiomorphic Oversoul" from the start. Tiber Septim himself has a MultipleChoicePast, with each version offering conflicting and mutually exclusive accounts that cannot be reconciled. Was he born in Atmora as Talos Stormcrown, or in High Rock as Hjalti Early-Beard? Was he a legendary conqueror in his own right (Talos) or a conniving schemer who rode his powerful friends to success and betrayed them the moment it became convenient (Hjalti)? Or was the latter true ''at first'', and, upon his apotheosis, he used his powers to [[CosmicRetcon make the former true]] instead or as well? |
| 76 | *** In a similar vein are the Dunmeri Tribunal, a trio of {{Physical God}}s who tapped into the divine power of the aforementioned [[CosmicKeystone Heart of Lorkhan]]. In particular is Vivec, who may have originally been a low-born, [[TheStarscream devious general]] of [[LongDeadBadass Nerevar]]'s but, similar to the above example of Talos, might have made his fantastic origin story as a demigod WarriorPoet true [[CosmicRetcon retroactively with his acquired divine power]]. Further, in Obscure Texts written by Michael Kirkbride, Vivec claims to have even achieved CHIM. |
| 77 | *** In addition to the [[AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence normal methods of becoming a god]] (or at least as "normal" as they can be in this universe), there are the concepts of CHIM, Amaranth, and Zero-Sum, which, to date, have only been hinted-at in-game or have been mentioned dripping in heavy metaphor. The first of these states is CHIM, where one [[LeaningOnTheFourthWall becomes aware of the nature]] of [[GodOfGods Anu's]] Dream but exists as one with it and maintains a sense of individuality. (Vivec claims to have achieved this level.) Taking another step, the second is Amaranth, where one exits Anu's Dream [[TheOmnipotent to create one's own]]. If one fails to maintain their individuality in either step, they instead experience Zero-Sum, where one simply [[CessationOfExistence fades into Anu's Dream]]. (Dagoth Ur, BigBad of ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIIIMorrowind Morrowind]]'', is said to have found a dangerous middle ground between these three. Instead of exiting the Dream, his twisted, traumatized, and broken mind is ''being imprinted'' on the Dream of Anu, making him something truly terrible and [[EldritchAbomination Eldritch]].) |
| 78 | *** The [[OurDwarvesAreAllTheSame Dwemer (Deep Elves or "Dwarves")]] were an industrious, highly intelligent, and [[{{Magitek}} extremely]] [[SteamPunk technologically]] [[RealityWarper advanced]] people, essentially a fantasy version of SufficientlyAdvancedAliens. Contemporary accounts describe them as "unfathomable" and "unknowable", with truly alien belief systems unlike anyone else in Tamriel. According to contemporary sources, the Dwemer's personality and culture were utterly ''alien'' by human and even other Mer understanding. A major part of their outlook was the idea of refuting everything as real, whether it be something they sensed, something that was actually there, or [[FlatEarthAtheist even the gods themselves]]. After discovering the Heart of Lorkhan, they constructed the [[HumongousMecha Numidium]] to house it. Their apparent intent was to turn Numidium into a "new" god, the AnthropomorphicPersonification of their skepticism and refutation. Simply ''activating'' it is enough to [[RealityIsOutToLunch break and rewrite reality]], causing multiple timelines to happen at once. It exists to refute everything around it, up to the point of refuting ''itself'' out of existence. |
| 79 | ** The eponymous [[TomeOfEldritchLore Elder Scrolls]] themselves have some extremely mind-screwy elements as well. Referred to as "Fragments of Creation", the Scrolls irrefutably record what has happened, what is happening, and what may yet happen, all being heavily associated with prophesy. Without taking special precautions (such as those used by the Cult of the Ancestor Moth), mortal readers will be irrevocably struck both [[GoMadFromTheRevelation insane]] or [[BlindSeer blind]] from reading a scroll. Further, the Scrolls are of an unknown number, and any Scroll that isn't actively being kept track of by a sentient mind may simply disappear without a trace while others may appear out of nowhere. It is implied at points that the Scrolls may be a representation of the games themselves, ''within'' the games themselves. Yeah, they're like that... |
| 80 | ** The "Warp in the West" is the in-universe explanation for the [[MergingTheBranches merging]] of ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIIDaggerfall Daggerfall]]''[='s=] MultipleEndings, each of which is mutually exclusive from the others. As later works explain, the activation of the aforementioned Numidium caused a TimeCrash, [[CosmicRetcon rewriting the surrounding reality]] so that ''all of the endings happened at once'', though [[BroadStrokes none to the same extent]] they would have individually. |
| 81 | * ''VideoGame/EYEDivineCybermancy'' starts off in a trippy dream world full of pillars and a gate of light, then you go through it and wake up in a cavern with no memory of anything. You fight your way through monsters and a civil war until the time comes to kill your evil boss Rimanah, after which another gate appears where Rimanah, Your Mentor, and Mysterious Person all deliver peculiar lines of dialog before sending you back to the start. Characters scattered around deliver dialog relating to other events that don't seem relevant until [[spoiler: you get all three endings, go back to the tutorial again and find a gateway leading to a labyrinth. If you fight your way to the end of it you get to talk to a woman in white then step through a final gateway leading to a bizarre place where you earn the achievement Rimanah's Dark Secret. The game leaves it up to you from there to figure out what the hell just happened and how much was real.]] |
| 82 | * ''VideoGame/FallenLondon'' has a few of these, although most get [[MindScrewdriver explained the further into the lore you get]]. However, there's one incredibly screwy one in the [[spoiler: Discordance. This predominantly derives from the fact that the Discordance doesn't actually exist. In spite of its nonexistence, it is able to exist. And upon existing, it stops being the Discordance, because the Discordance doesn't exist. Perhaps unsurprisingly, to study it properly you have to go to a location that is equally nonexistent and even that doesn't clear it up all that much.]] |
| 83 | * Both ''[[VideoGame/FirstEncounterAssaultrecon F.E.A.R.]]'' and ''Project Origin's'' hallucinations are generally chaotic mindfucks that in a lot of cases don't make a whole lot of sense at first glance... or even after you've got the proper context. And in ''Project Origin'', there is a ''literal'' case of a MindScrew, where [[spoiler: Alma rapes Becket during a hallucination.]] |
| 84 | * ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'': |
| 85 | ** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'', the memory fuck-up part. [[spoiler: Cloud finds his entire history is a lie and proceeds to angst for a good portion of the game.]] Followed by a trip into [[spoiler:Cloud's subconscious where the player has to talk to various spectres of Cloud representing fragments of his past while a giant Cloud writhes in anguish overhead]]. |
| 86 | ** The climax of ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVIII''. First [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8MN_0-XqEg Time Compression]] occurs, the villain attempting to squeeze all of time and space into a single point and getting a good ways into it before the heroes abort her attempt. Then for [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vuCpgbwtQE the ending]], Squall tries to fixate on a place and person he knows and cares for in order to go back to his home time-period before he disappears into the time-compressed dimension and never comes back, and so finds Rinoa and the flowering field they made a promise to see each other again at. The ending's timeloop of [[spoiler: Squall being the Legendary seed who persecuted Ultimecia as a child, causing her to become the monster she is, and Ultimecia being the Sorceress who gave Edea her powers, AND caused the events leading Squall to become the Legendary seed who persecutes her in the future.]] They truly were meant to battle each other for eternity. |
| 87 | * The ending of ''VideoGame/TheFinalFantasyLegend'' -- You've been climbing up a tower that leads to various worlds. You fight the BigBad. And then you walk through the door that leads to the top of the tower... [[spoiler:only to fall through a trapdoor all the way to the first world at the bottom. You pull yourself back to the top, the door to "paradise" opens, and... you're in a featureless white room. Wandering around leads you to The Creator of the World, who says you've won "the game"; you promptly decide to fight him. You discover a door behind him but decide not to investigate and to go home instead.]] The Gameboy equivalent of Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion, that ending was. |
| 88 | * The ending of the videogame adaptation of ''{{WesternAnimation/Futurama}}'', written by David X. Cohen, has the crew getting ''killed'' by Destructor, which leads to the events that ''begin'' the game, resulting in a StableTimeLoop in which the crew is ''dead''. |
| 89 | * ''VideoGame/FiveNightsAtFreddysSecurityBreach'': The rooftop ending in which Vanny is killed by Freddy by throwing her off the roof reveals that she is Vannessa via a DramaticUnmask. However, TheStinger at the end reveals [[spoiler:another Vanessa on the roof looking on at Vanny's body, completely baffling the playerbase.]] |
| 90 | * The ''Gadget'' duology, in particular it's 1997/8 remake ''VideoGame/GadgetPastAsFuture'': A surreal point-and-click adventure game taking place in the dingy Dieselpunk setting of "The Empire". The game starts off relatively straightforward, you take on the role of a government agent tasked with tracking down seven scientists who claim the world is going to end from an incoming comet, but things get weirder from there as you encounter more and more bizarre things, and questions arise as to who is lying or telling the truth, and how much of your journey is real or imaginary. Who is the mysterious boy you keep bumping into? What are the true motives of your handler, [[TheDragon Theodore Slowslop?]] Are the scientists using you for their own benefit? What is that alien-looking spaceship out in space? If you're expecting answers to most of these questions, you're not going to get them. |
| 91 | * ''VideoGame/TheHalloweenHack'': Varik is the main character of the story. He is joined by Jeff, Paula and Poo -- but not Ness. Where is he? The game often draws strange parallels between the two, as if they're the same or Varik has replaced him in more than a story role, with his appearing where Ness should be and even Andonuts being confused as what he is seeing (in his own mind). |
| 92 | * ''VideoGame/{{Hellsinker}}'' is visually and musically [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLC8_omZ8AM&feature=related very surreal]], but the plot is even stranger than any of the gameplay would lead a player to believe. The full version of the game contains [[http://www40.atwiki.jp/hellsinker/pages/57.html#id_04037ec6 hidden poems]], loads of cryptic Japanese text, [[EveryoneKnowsMorse Morse Code]] messages in the title screen, [[UnreadablyFastText flashing screens in between levels and during bosses]], [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIUiwZqqeKg distorted voices]] and all sorts of fun things to spend time decrypting. It's ''Literature/HouseOfLeaves: The Game''. Strangely enough, Version 0.95 of the game was almost perfectly normal. After it was released, the creator disappeared from the internet for a while before creating a [[http://sanagimaru.nobody.jp rather cryptic new website]] and releasing the full game at Comiket 72. With the release of the English patch [[MindScrewdriver some things start making more sense]], while others are even more confusing than before. |
| 93 | * The MagicalGirlWarrior [=RPG=] ''VideoGame/{{IMGCM}}'' has TheMultiverse, as one of major plot points. The GutPunch in Chapter 4 Episode 5 depicts [[spoiler:Kaori, one of magical heroines, dies after being ambushed by a demon in the battle, and subsequently corrupted into a demon]]. In the next episode, player character Tobio (using his MentorMascot avatar Omnis with his computer) finds that Kaori and the rest of heroines are alive and intact. Then the next episodes shows that [[spoiler:a number of heroines die all over again in the battle (and in some cases, subsequently corrupted into demons), and he finds that all of heroines are alive and intact again]]. However, they’re later revealed that it’s not {{nightmare sequence}}s, '''not''' even GroundhogDayLoop or TimeTravel, but actually he merges the universes where he previously screwed-up in with the alternate universes Omnis has created from possibilities he has made and wanted, where the heroines are alive and intact. Both living and dead heroines are merged with ones from the universes he recently created, except ones who are corrupted into demons due to certain immunity against merging. Instead, the corrupted ones are replaced with newly created ones. Although Kamisaman [[HandWave partially explains]] it, the game is still somehow confusing to players, even the canonicity of bond episodes, some dress episodes and even the [[{{NSFW}} DX version]] are questioned, as bond episodes are "possibilities" that might happened, while some dress episodes are {{alternate reality episode}}s. |
| 94 | * Chapter 5 of ''VideoGame/KidIcarusUprising'' takes Pit to Pandora's Labyrinth of Deceit, a bizarre place filled with moving walls, fake tunnels, and passages that are actually much longer than they appear. [[spoiler:Chapter 21's Chaos Vortex is even more screwy, and [[NightmareFuel pretty frightening as well]].]] |
| 95 | * ''Franchise/KingdomHearts'' stopped making sense somewhere around the middle of ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsChainOfMemories''. |
| 96 | ** ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsII'' made an admirable and mostly-successful attempt at cleaning up loose ends, but still left a few questions unanswered, and then introduced a whole host more with the UpdatedRerelease's secret ending video (which turned out to be a teaser for the PSP prequel ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsBirthBySleep''). |
| 97 | ** The first time Axel, Roxas, and Xion sit on the clock tower. At first you think the hood thing might be a silly developer error you caught. Then it happens again, and again, and again... but it gets explained when it's revealed [[spoiler: everyone sees Xion differently and the hood being up is the game not trying to reveal that until later.]] |
| 98 | ** The "Snarl of Memories" cutscene from ''VideoGame/KingdomHearts358DaysOver2''. The most logical explanation is [[spoiler: Xion is experiencing Riku's memories]] but that still doesn't explain everything. |
| 99 | ** ''VideoGame/KingdomHearts3DDreamDropDistance'' made things even more difficult to follow, with a plotline involving dream worlds, [[spoiler:TimeTravel, and dreams inside dreams]] all at the same time. It also brought together plot threads from every other game that had been released up to that point, painting many of the previous games' plot points in a new light as part of a larger whole. It's possible, but very difficult to follow just what exactly is going on in the endgame. |
| 100 | ** The secret ending of ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsX'' might be the biggest of all. It features you waking up in Enchanted Dominion no worse for wear despite [[spoiler: you apparently dying in the Keyblade War and it is implied everything after Foreteller Ava asks you to join the Dandelions (which you apparently decided to join) was AllJustADream.]] Then there is the real MindScrew; [[spoiler: Maleficent is there as well and she mentions Sora not being able to stop her this time, which suggested that you traveled forward in time, somehow ending up in the present day Enchanted Dominion. The actual answer, though, is ''even crazier'': Maleficent is the one who actually traveled back in time (Riku stabbing her with the Keyblade in the first game somehow granted her TimeTravel powers)... which doesn't actually matter anyway because the Enchanted Dominion both the player and Maleficent found themselves in is just a digital copy of the real one, because someone [[GambitRoulette already foresaw that the latter would travel back in time]] and made sure that she could only end up in the digital Disney world replica (by exploiting a particular rule of TimeTravel in the series), preventing the witch from arriving at the real Enchanted Dominion, thus leading Maleficent to just go back to the present after being told all this by a mysterious unseen figure. At the very least, this explains how Maleficent was alive all along in ''Kingdom Hearts II'' and is aware of certain concepts from the distant past in games taking place in the present, although at the expense of the fandom's sanity.]] |
| 101 | ** ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsIII'' is rife: |
| 102 | *** The saga's EvilGenius antagonist is [[spoiler: actually no more than an incompetent puppet, part of a scheme centuries or millenia in the making, spearheaded by his [[TheDragon Dragon]] who’s actually [[Really700YearsOld a body-surfing Keyblade apprentice from before the Keyblade War.]]]] |
| 103 | *** The Foretellers, who were also killed in the Keyblade War centuries or millenia ago [[spoiler: actually survived and appear in the present day.]] |
| 104 | *** [[spoiler: Ventus]], who lived long ago but somehow ended up in the present without his memories somehow recognizes Chirithy, a character from his own time who he should have no recollection of if he was truly amnesiac. |
| 105 | *** The game's secret ending [[spoiler: shows the series' protagonists in a setting that could be anything from a scrapped project from the game's developer to [[RealLife the real world]], watched over by Yozora, a character who had up to that point only been seen in a [[ShowWithinAShow Game within the Game]], and the Master of Masters, who has been missing since before the keyblade war. All of this comes only after Sora vanishes abruptly from his home.]] |
| 106 | *** The ''Re:Mind'' DLC and ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsMelodyOfMemory'' add another layer to this particular madness cake. [[spoiler:In the DLC's secret episode, Sora fights Yozora in his world. Said world, Quadratum, exists on the "other side" of reality, said to be a [[TheWorldAsMyth fictional world]] by Ansem the Wise in ''Melody of Memory''. ''Melody of Memory'' also reveals that the Nameless Star, who Sora met in the Final World, is somehow from there as well. Which makes it more confusing because this implies that the Final World is reality and unreality. The fact that before their battle, Yozora recognizes Sora's name without believing that he is in fact Sora suggests the possibility of the two even being MutuallyFictional.]] |
| 107 | * ''VideoGame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublicIITheSithLords'' was [[ExecutiveMeddling not completed]], and thus has given rise to a [[EpilepticTrees tremendous number of]] [[WildMassGuessing theories about precisely]] [[MindScrew what the hell is going on]]. Among the most screwy are the theories that [[EvilMentor Kreia]] is one of the True Sith and orchestrated the events of both games for an increasingly unlikely series of reasons and the theory that Kreia knows she's in a video game and is out to kill the developers. |
| 108 | * ''Videogame/KnyttStories'' levels [[http://knyttlevels.com/levels/UncleSporky%20-%20Don%27t%20Eat%20the%20Mushroomv121.knytt.bin Don't Eat the Mushroom]] and [[http://knyttlevels.com/levels/googoogjoob%20-%20Carousel.knytt.bin Carousel]]. The former because it's a drug trip and the latter because of its GainaxEnding. |
| 109 | * ''VideoGame/{{Korsakovia}}''. At first you think you are simply experiencing things in a screwed mind, while hearing your neurologist, Dr. Grayson, talk to you, but then things get weirder and weirder, until eventually a chapter title reads "The Assimilation of Dr. Grayson". |
| 110 | * ''VideoGame/TheLastDoor'' has wall-to-wall mindscrew. It's in every Chapter and in scene after scene. Here's an example from Chapter 3: [[spoiler: after falling out of the coffin you were buried inside of in Scotland, you find yourself in a London slum with a ticket in your pocket. A man with a red beard and a cape appears to lead you around the city. After solving a slew of puzzles, you find yourself wandering through a misty forest filled with the sounds of cicadas, crows, ocean waves, rushing wind, and (somehow) silence. Through the mist you find a manor house at which the man you've been following asks for your ticket. When you turn it in and step into the house, the camera pans to show four statues that represent you, two friends, and your old teacher. The inside of the manor is a theater and a school friend is on the stage. He babbles about finding answers about the Bird that has taken you under its wing and then raises the curtain to show you a group of people in expressive white masks all laughing and crying. Your friend holds out a mask and tells you it's yours.]] Even when you have the context of plot, it makes precious little sense. |
| 111 | * The ''VideoGame/LegacyOfKain'' series has TimeTravel, [[BlackAndGreyMorality ambiguously moral]] [[EvilVersusEvil characters]], and [[GambitRoulette hideously convoluted plans]] from nearly [[GambitPileup every major character]] except one. Several fansites actually do a good job at discerning what took place in what time, but the [[LeftHanging ending of Defiance]] still leaves some questions in the air. |
| 112 | * ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'': |
| 113 | ** The Dark Link fight in ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime''. Link has been through a dungeon that was in the bottom of a lake before finding himself in what appears to be a wide, empty, foggy area with shallow water and an island in the middle, surrounded by {{Invisible Wall}}s. His reflection is visible in the water until reaching the island, where it disappears. After a short while, a shadowy clone of him appears on the island and fights him as a miniboss, and after beating him the room changes to resemble the rest of the temple. (With the walls of the room being where the invisible walls of the "open" area were.) Attacking Dark Link also makes him appear to fall through the floor. It's implied that there's some illusion magic at play here, likely from [[BigBad Ganondorf,]] but it's never explained why Link is suddenly fighting what's implied to be his reflection brought to life in an illusion room and Dark Link never shows up in that game after, although he is a recurring character in the ''Zelda'' series. [[ExpositionFairy Navi]] does not help explain the illusion since her only comment is "Conquer yourself!" |
| 114 | ** The entire climax of ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaMajorasMask''. You follow Majora's Mask up to the moon and find a bright, grassy field, with four kids wearing the dungeon boss masks that are playing, while a fifth kid wearing Majora's Mask sits in a TroubledFetalPosition under a tree. The kids each teleport Link to a themed dungeon to play hide and seek, and wax poetic on the symbolism of masks and happiness. Then when Link finishes the dungeon, they've vanished from the field. Finally, you talk to the kid in Majora's Mask and he asks you to play with him, which translates into the final battle. You're transported to an AmazingTechnicolorBattlefield, where Majora suddenly summons the four boss masks against you and mutates into increasingly monstrous forms as the battle continues. |
| 115 | ** The scene in ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTwilightPrincess'' where Link is supposed to learn what happens when the powers of the Fused Shadows are abused... It ends with an army of giggling clones of Link's best friend Ilia, falling from the sky. And that's just ''how it ends''. |
| 116 | * The ''Series/{{Lost}}'' videogame ''Via Domus'', true to the TV show it's based on, features a major mind screw at the end. Throughout the game, the main character, Elliott Maslow (a survivor of Oceanic Flight 815 who has never been seen on the show), who is suffering from amnesia, has been trying to retrieve his lost memories. It turns out that Elliot used to be a [[spoiler:journalist who ratted out his girlfriend Lisa, also a journalist, and took a photo of her being shot in the head by the guy the two were after]]. On the island, he is repeatedly haunted by [[spoiler:visions of Lisa]], eventually making him regret his selfish ways. The game ends with Elliott [[spoiler:leaving the island on a sailboat, ''only to witness Oceanic Flight 815, the very plane he had crashed with, break apart above his head.'' Suddenly Elliott wakes up on the beach (instead of in the jungle, like he did in the beginning of the game) amidst the burning wreckage, when suddenly Lisa comes running towards him, relieved that both of them survived the crash]]. It should be pointed out that this ending was explicitly suggested by Damon Lindelof, one of the show's executive producers/main writers, and the concept of [[spoiler:time travel]] had already been established on the show by the time the game came out. Fans of the show are torn whether this ending is really bad, or one of the few things that are actually good about the otherwise critically panned game. |
| 117 | * ''VideoGame/LSDDreamEmulator'' was an early PSX game based on the [[BasedOnADream dream diary]] of a real woman. This is important to know because the "dreams" you can have in the game are insanely absurd. The game itself is very open and you can interact with nearly anything, but the more you interact with things and the more dreams you have, the stranger the dreams become. The limited edition book that came with the game is a copy of the woman's own dream diary. Fans still endeavor to understand what it all means, though. |
| 118 | * An earlier Bungie series, ''VideoGame/{{Marathon}}'', certainly qualifies as this, to the point where [[http://marathon.bungie.org/story/ a fan community]] sprang up around trying to decipher its story. The entirety of the story is told through a series of text-based terminals, many of which are extremely cryptic and full of mythology references. It didn't help that many of the terminals were in hard to find locations and easily missed. Also, ''Marathon Infinity'', when [[spoiler: jumping between different timelines in order to find the one where the universe can still be saved from the W'rkcacnter, you go through very strange "dream" levels.]] The terminal messages found on [[http://marathon.bungie.org/story/wherearemonsters.html Where Are Monsters In Dreams]] are perfect examples of this. |
| 119 | * While quite coherent in its main narrative, ''[[VideoGame/{{MaxPayne}} Max Payne 2]]'' contains a fair amount of mind screw: the prime examples are Max' dream sequences, throughout, and the [[{{ShowWithinAShow}} in-game TV show]] ''Address Unknown''. It also manages several chronological leaps, a few instances of... interesting symbolism and several NPC conversations (on which you can eavesdrop) that are somewhat surreal. |
| 120 | * ''Maze: Subject 360'' takes the line between dreams and reality and plays jump rope with it. The unreal blurs into the real and vice versa, courtesy of a RealityWarper in the form of a five-year-old CreepyChild who can do just about ''anything'' to the main character while she's within the dream world. |
| 121 | * While the varied stages in ''VideoGame/{{McPixel}}'' are frequently off the wall (and, sometimes, have solutions fitting into this category), the real examples are the bonus stages you reach for solving three puzzles in a row without failures. They include a room full of [=McPixels=], standing on a rainbow of a cow pretending to be the [=NyanCat=], and a stage deliberately designed to resemble a glitched out level. |
| 122 | * ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid2SonsOfLiberty''. It was a landmark game using postmodernism to question the links between character, player, and designer in a game, in ways that most people had never seen. The [[GainaxEnding ending]] is [[Recap/MetalGearSolid2SonsOfLiberty especially epic.]] |
| 123 | * The prologue mission of ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolidVThePhantomPain'' has the player waking in a hospital in Cyprus after a nine year coma. Snake undergoes plastic surgery to change his face, but ends up unchanged, and then a female assassin comes in, kills the medical staff helping you and is about to do you in when a patient with a bandaged face sets her on fire with a bottle of medical ethanol. Together you sneak through the hospital as a SWAT team moves through killing everyone they come across while also being pursued by an invincible flaming man and a bizarre flying child with a gas mask. Fighting all three, Snake and the patient escape in an ambulance and then he is rescued by a cowboy when a helicopter gunship arrives, but then a giant flaming whale streaks through the sky and ''eats the helicopter in one gulp'', and then you are chased by the flaming man on his badass flying, flaming winged horse. [[spoiler:The game's True Ending is unlocked by playing an alternate cut of this mission at the end of the game that explains all the insane shit you saw.]] |
| 124 | * ''VideoGame/MilyaBroken'' takes place in an AcidTripDimension where the text boxes explaining the backstory are hard-to-read because of a (deliberately) shoddy machine translation. [[spoiler:Milya]] noticeably speaks in a more comprehensible manner and with better grammar, and her explanations make some sense of the game, but it can still be a bit odd. On top of that, the puzzles require a lot of outside-the-box thinking, to the point that the game readme file contains a link to an official walkthrough. |
| 125 | * ''VideoGame/{{Minecraft}}'''s ending implies in a roundabout and poetic manner that [[spoiler:the entirety of the player's life [[AllJustADream has been a dream]] -- no, we're not talking about the player character. We're talking about the player. ''Minecraft'' is just one of many dreams, all of which make up the total of your mental manifestations that is reality.]] |
| 126 | --> Sometimes the player dreamed it was a miner, on the surface of a world that was flat, and infinite. The sun was a square of white. The days were short; there was much to do; and death was a temporary inconvenience. |
| 127 | --> Sometimes the player dreamed it was lost in a story. |
| 128 | --> Sometimes the player dreamed it was other things, in other places. Sometimes these dreams were disturbing. Sometimes very beautiful indeed. Sometimes the player woke from one dream into another, then woke from that into a third. |
| 129 | --> [[spoiler:[[WhamLine Sometimes the player dreamed it watched words on a screen.]]]] |
| 130 | * The ''entirety'' of ''VideoGame/MondoMedicals'' and its sequel ''VideoGame/MondoAgency''. Unless you have a complete understanding about ''CURING CANCER BY SHOOTING PEOPLE WHILE THINKING LIKE A STAR'' or how killing Indians in order to save technology will somehow save the president... before you kill him, then you're screwed with these games. |
| 131 | * ''VideoGame/MonkeyIsland2'' has a bizarre avant garde ending that had to be promptly retconned, hand-waved, and everything else in order to make a sequel possible. |
| 132 | * The ending of ''VideoGame/MysticArk''. Nowhere in the game does it tell you exactly what you're doing or why you're doing it until right after you beat the final boss, and then the end of the credits only makes it all the more confusing. |
| 133 | * ''VideoGame/{{OFF}}'' starts off as mildly quirky and a little unsettling at times, and begins a slow descent into madness until the end, which becomes full-on bizarre, confusing and horrifying (it doesn't help that the English translation initially misinterpreted and mistranslated the relationship between the Batter, the Queen and Hugo.) |
| 134 | * A lot of ''VideoGame/ThePath'' has this; for example, pictures and patterns randomly flashing over the screen, the random items you find littered around the woods and anything you see in grandma's house after encountering the wolf, especially if you've unlocked the secret rooms. The lit up items in your inventory don't seem to be the ones that are counted at the end of each stage, and when you don't unlock anything, you'll still see the same scenery (but unlocking does let you know about it in advance). There are collectable gold clovers in the game -- What happens if you get them all? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. The entire scorecard and "game" features of the game seem to be there sheerly to mock the concept of a traditional game, something which VideoGame/ThePath is ''most definitely'' not. |
| 135 | * ''VideoGame/Pikmin2'': Most of the creatures encountered in the series are based on anthropods or other animals, and generally like one would expect non-magic fictional animals to act. Then there's the Waterwraith, a humanoid being made out of a transparent liquid of sorts that goes around in stone rollers. The Waterwraith is also normally invincible, and for some reason being hit with Purple Pikmin turns it purple, freezes it, and makes it vulnerable. The Hocotate ship reports having difficulty detecting it (being able to "see" the Waterwraith but otherwise not sense it) and Olimar's notes implies that the thing is a hallucination, yet it's somehow "real" enough to wipe out an entire Pikmin army. It lacks the "ghost" that usually appears when an enemy is killed, suggesting that it was not killed or was technically never alive to begin with. Overall, it's easily the most supernatural being in a game that otherwise avoids concepts like other dimensions and hostile spirits, [[MaybeMagicMaybeMundane and it's never made completely clear if the thing even exists or not.]] In ''VideoGame/Pikmin3'', [[spoiler:the final boss is a similar-looking being that ''also'' has "Wraith" in its name, but with a slightly different body-type made of gold and a fixation on Olimar. What connection the two have, if there's any, is anyone's guess.]] |
| 136 | * ''[[http://jayisgames.com/games/pirouette/ Pirouette]]'' is one of the most Mind Screwy web games out there. The game stars a presumably female character with multiple wives -- one of whom died twenty years before she was born -- as she meets the wives in the final seconds before they die while half-heartedly warning them of their impending doom. The bizarre, vaguely written PurpleProse seems to imply that all the relationships may have been toxic, and the dialogue about screwing is screwy -- "intercourse" is used to refer to both conversation and sex, often only a few sentences apart. To demonstrate just how bizarre the game is: at [[http://jayisgames.com/archives/2011/12/pirouette.php Jay Is Games]], which features detailed reviews and comments on web games, MindScrew art games are fairly commonly featured, so the people in the comments are usually savvy enough to properly interpret such games and come to a consensus on said interpretation. With ''Pirouette'', the people in the comments had ''no clue'' what was going on, and the interpretations that actually sprung up were more humorous, half-hearted attempts to sift out ''some'' sort of meaning. To quote one person: |
| 137 | -->'''Echoloco:''' ''Okay, if I'm interpreting this correctly (which I highly doubt) then, taken at face value, with as little induction as possible, the main character is a she-male and/or transgender and/or imaginary friend with benefits who is also a time-traveler and/or dimension shifter and/or a necrophiliac and/or a polygamist and/or a lesbian and possibly the last of his/her/its kind. To be honest, I'm not sure if he/she/it/they is/are human. Trippy.'' |
| 138 | * The [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAxqSFRTmDc Arceus]] event from ''[[VideoGame/PokemonGoldAndSilver Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver]]'' definitely qualifies as a Mind Screw. |
| 139 | ** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4puhzOiQW8 The opening of]] ''Pokémon Crystal''. It might just be the biggest MindScrew in the franchise before the Arceus event in the remakes. The LastNoteNightmare, dramatically setting up TheReveal [[TheUnreveal that never happens...]][[note]]To be more specific, the relationship between Unown and Suicune is never explained.[[/note]] well, everything in the intro. And given there's still no MindScrewdriver to date despite the remakes of Gold and Silver, it's unlikely there will ever be one. |
| 140 | ** [[VideoGame/PokemonVietnameseCrystal A certain bootleg version of Pokemon Crystal]] is this for the whole game. |
| 141 | * ''VideoGame/PonyIsland'': The game. And that's ''without'' considering [=PonyIsland.META=]… |
| 142 | ** Or you playing a game, made by the devil, about ponies? [[spoiler: Or... he is playing a game, made by God... '''about you?''']] |
| 143 | * The end of ''VideoGame/ProfessorLaytonAndTheCuriousVillage''. [[spoiler: Everyone in St. Mystere aside from Bruno and Flora is a ROBOT.]] |
| 144 | ** Even more so in the sequel [[spoiler: where the old city is an hallucination induced by the vapors of a rare ore that Pandora's Box is carved from. It makes the affected person extremely suggestible and it just happens that the first thing you see getting off that train are pictures of that old town. It also explains the coma of those who handle the box as the story of the "curse" has them expecting this to happen.]] |
| 145 | * ''VideoGame/QuestFantasy'', especially the first one where things are not nearly as explained as they are in later entries. One particularly memorable example, though: |
| 146 | --> You open the chest. |
| 147 | --> [[spoiler:You were inside!]] |
| 148 | * ''VideoGame/RealityOnTheNorm'' has some games like this, especially ''Nihilism'', ''Davy Jones C'Est Mort'' and ''Surreality'', which are basically UsefulNotes/{{Dada}} in video game form, with no plot to speak of and bizarre characters in strangely drawn locations. |
| 149 | * In ''VideoGame/{{Robopon}}'', Illusion Village is this on purpose. Its inhabitants all speak backwards or in roundabout ways, and the village itself vanishes at times. |
| 150 | * ''VideoGame/RuleOfRose'': Probably AllJustADream, but even then raises a huge number of questions in the vein of what actually happened and in what order, as the chronology is severely muddled up. It has served as fan fodder for five years and counting! |
| 151 | ** The game does make perfect sense if you view it through dream-logic and child-logic simultaneously. Assuming that you've found most of the semi-hidden plot points (the game lets you skip ridiculous amounts of exposition without realizing it). Yeah, it's not easy... |
| 152 | * At the beginning of ''VideoGame/{{Sanitarium}}'', you wake up in a mental hospital with no memory and bandages wrapped around your face. Flashbacks appear sporadically as you play through the game and alternate between roaming the grounds of the hospital and going into bizarre settings where you actually seem to be other people, to the point where it's unclear what's real and what's delusion. [[spoiler: Turns out that it's all delusion - more specifically, it's a big dream you had while you were in a coma after your car wrecked because your evil business partner cut your brake lines.]] However, the symbolism of the settings and actions during [[spoiler: the dream]] is still of great note. |
| 153 | * Ladies and gentlemen: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arB_3L3SSq0 Scrimmy Bingus and the Crungy Spingus]]. The "Family Deluxe Edition" for PC (as played by Vinny of WebVideo/{{Vinesauce}} [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sbHokC4Fs0 here]]) is barely any less screwy. |
| 154 | * ''VideoGame/SDSnatcher'' is probably the closest to examining the innards of Creator/HideoKojima's brain most people would like to come. The plot's perfectly straightforward (if a bit odd) until about halfway through, where it begins a slow downwards slide -- starting from Gillian being forced to pretend to be [[VideoGame/MetalGear Solid Snake]] in order to clear his name after [[StupidityIsTheOnlyOption killing a priest]] and ending with Snatchers in fursuits and clown suits colonising a ripoff of Disneyland (hidden behind a painting) because it looks like the Kremlin. Actually, no, it's probably when the master Snatcher manifests out of a pool of liquid skin. |
| 155 | * ''VideoGame/SecondSight'''s last few levels, though not as bad as most of the entries on this page, was still rather mind-screwy. [[spoiler:Mutant kids eating the BigBad! The present is the future! The past is the present! Jayne's dead! Jayne's alive!]] |
| 156 | * ''VideoGame/SilentHill1'' screws with the player by taking things a step further than simply having a confusing plot: the game has no third-person narrative; it's played entirely through the point of view of the PlayerCharacter. Because he's kept in the dark over what's going on, the player is never let in on things either. It isn't until ''Silent Hill 3'' that the full story is finally revealed. |
| 157 | ** The game screws with you more in VideoGame/SilentHill3, where it's suggested that [[spoiler: the monsters you've been killing may be innocent people, and all the dangers you've faced are all in your head.]] |
| 158 | ** ''VideoGame/SilentHill2'' gets really mind-screwed in its second half, with the stuff that goes on in the Historical Society Abyss and the Hotel. |
| 159 | * InteractiveFiction work ''VideoGame/{{Shade}}''. To avoid unnecessary spoilers, it starts getting weird fast, and ends with one of the most cryptic, incomprehensible scenes ever seen. [[spoiler:How did the tiny human figure crawl out of the sand if it's dead, and what did it mean by "You win. Okay, my turn again"?]] |
| 160 | ** Fortunately, a combination of WordOfGod on the official thread and GuideDangIt clues make it far more comprehensible. [[spoiler: The fact that the PlayerCharacter changes without any ingame indication adds to it.]] One interpretation is that [[spoiler: the player character already went to the event in the desert, and is, in fact, one of the persons whom the radio mentions going missing. As the player character suffers the effects of dehydration, he begins to suffer from psychosis and hallucinates that he is back in his apartment prior to leaving. As he dies, he begins to see through portions of his delusions, and portions of his "apartment" turn into the sand that is really there.]] |
| 161 | * ''VideoGame/ShadowOfDestiny'' is a more mild example than some on this page, but nevertheless tends towards this. The game is designed so that you have to play all of the MultipleEndings to know what's going on, but at least two of said endings directly contradict each other; the ones that DO let details slip don't explain what they mean; certain details are revealed and then re-revealed as something completely different; and the only character who knows what's going on refuses to enlighten the rest of the cast. [[LampshadeHanging Lampshade hung]] when one character admits that TheReveal she's just given you is based on things she's been told and that "not all of it may be true". Its SpiritualSuccessor, ''VisualNovel/TimeHollow'', falls squarely under this too. Don't expect to understand the real motivation behind anything or anyone until the epilogue, and it's a bit iffy. |
| 162 | * ''VideoGame/{{Singularity}}'' is not quite as bad as many other cases, but has its fair share of MindScrew and ParanoiaFuel mixed in together due to hidden messages that can only be revealed with the Time-Manipulation Device. They'll tell you not to trust some person or another until finally telling you, "Don't trust ''me''." You can also find the mysterious messenger's attempt to diagram the time loop you've just intruded into. The messenger [[spoiler:is the player character, Renko, having gone through countless iterations of the time loop]]. In fact, the nature of the time loop can make one question whether the "base" timeline that resembles the real world is in fact the base, or just another warped iteration. Maybe the original timeline looked nothing like modern Earth? |
| 163 | * In the ''VideoGame/SonicForces'' prequel campaign ''Episode Shadow'', Shadow ends up experiencing one in the third level. [[spoiler: Rouge contacts him to retrieve Omega three months after he was destroyed, only for her to later claim it never happened. Then Omega enters the conversation, eventually devolving into a MadnessMantra of "I am not weak". Turns out this was all a virtual reality simulation courtesy of Infinite.]] |
| 164 | * ''VideoGame/SpiderManEdgeOfTime'': How does something that takes place in the future affect the past?? |
| 165 | * ''[[VideoGame/SpongeBobSquarePantsCreatureFromTheKrustyKrab SpongeBob SquarePants: Creature from the Krusty Krab]]'': Considering the game is all about dreams, it make sense. The game's BigBad is a sentient Krabby Patty and the AmbiguousEnding doesn't help matters. |
| 166 | * ''VideoGame/{{Spore}}''[='=]s ending: [[spoiler:You zoom in to the planet, and then you get teleported to a new universe, receive the staff of life, and god offers you a timeshare in earth.]] |
| 167 | * ''VideoGame/TheStanleyParable'' takes another stab at screwy postmodernism many years later. A narrator tells you what to do and everything that you're doing (the game demonstrates a clear hatred towards linear video games), even though there are obviously other choices. If you follow everything he does, Stanley turns out to have been under mind control and frees himself, but you still wonder if he's actually free. If you defy the narrator at any point, he attempts to bring the story back on track, find a new one, or even murder Stanley so the story can start again, and he repeatedly states that it's just a video game. As you progress, you begin to wonder if you're Stanley or someone controlling Stanley, if the narrator is the designer, or if the narrator is just another character. It's so extreme that one of the first LetsPlay videos of the HD Remix was called "The Stanley Parable -- A Story About Mindfuck". |
| 168 | * ''VideoGame/StarOceanTillTheEndOfTime'' involved a massive MindScrew late in the game. It was revealed that [[spoiler: the entire universe was, in reality, a MMORPG for 4D beings, thus making all the characters computer programs that happened to gain sentience.]] If that wasn't enough, [[spoiler: the BigBad succeeds in ''deleting the entire universe.'' It no longer exists, but it still happens to exist because people still thinks it exists even though it got deleted.]] Is your head splitting open yet? |
| 169 | ** [[spoiler: Let me put it this way. If you make a bell through a mould, the bell isn't affected by the mould's destruction, so long as casting is complete. Lucifer only destroyed the mould; nothing happened to the accidentally-created bell. Better still, Lucifer had ''no idea'' any casting had happened, and dismissed out-of-hand that any casting ''could'' happen; he only knew of the mould's existence, not the bell's. To be honest, you'll have a slightly better idea of what's going on if you're familiar with UsefulNotes/{{Gnosticism}}.]] |
| 170 | ** However it REALLY gets bad when you consider [[spoiler:before attempting to delete the universe entirely, Lucifer sends the Executioners to manually delete the inhabitants of the Milky Way, including whole civilizations, ships and Earth itself. It is specifically said that these have been deleted. Yet the universe still exists when it is deleted? The implication is that the inhabitants of Earth and such ''didn't'' think they existed!]] |
| 171 | ** [[spoiler:[[DefiedTrope Or you could also realize... Blair had backups of the entire Eternal Sphere.]].. and she simply rebooted everyone-and-everything once the ordeal was dealt with. (Lucifer, on the other hand is probably... gone.)]] |
| 172 | ** Even the main characters are left wondering what happened. But after a few minutes considering the implications, they decide that the whole thing's way over their heads and leave it be. Or to paraphrase: "Screw it. We're still here, right? Let's call it a win and go home." |
| 173 | * Several works by developer Goichi Suda (b.k.a. "Creator/{{Suda51}}"). The extent of the weirdness depends on how seriously the game tries to take itself: |
| 174 | ** ''VideoGame/{{Killer7}}'' stands to define Mindfuck but it becomes 'a little' easier when you realize most of the plot elements are supposed to be disjointed. [[spoiler:It's all just Harman Smith and Kun Lan playing chess with the world. Emir Parkreiner killed the Smith Syndicate and after he thought he killed Harman, suppressed the memory and became the entire Smith Syndicate in his own mind. All the ghosts were people Emir had killed and in the end he was just the chessboard, the Heaven Smile were Kun Lan's pieces, and the ghosts were Harman's pieces (except for Iwazaru, who apparently was Kun Lan trying to fuck with Emir to mess with the game but in fact he was helping Emir not remember who he was to keep the game intact? And the bosses were actually Harman's pieces to develop Emir's fake identity and keep him from realizing the truth.]] |
| 175 | ** ''VideoGame/NoMoreHeroes'' plays this for the laughs, with many symbolic elements that wouldn't make sense in other games but do in this one because it's part of its overall presentation. In comparison, the plot of ''VideoGame/NoMoreHeroes2DesperateStruggle'', while still containing [[EveryoneIsJesusInPurgatory plentiful symbolism]] and [[BigLippedAlligatorMoment odd incidences]], is a measurably more sane story about the CycleOfRevenge. The side game ''VideoGame/TravisStrikesAgainNoMoreHeroes'' is slightly odder with its plot of being trapped in video games, but it mostly makes sense as long as the in-game [[AllThereInTheManual supplemental material]] is read. ''VideoGame/NoMoreHeroesIII'', on the other hand, plunges into the deep end yet again, with such elements as plot developments that happened entirely off-screen prior to the start, and one scene that actually expects the player to be confused if they didn't at least play ''VideoGame/TheSilverCase''. It gets so trippy to the point that even ''the protagonist himself'' is baffled by the apparent ending of his story. |
| 176 | ** The plot of ''{{VideoGame/Contact}}'' is largely ambiguous and open to interpretation, especially the Professor's and Mint's motives. The ending is pretty confusing as well, and probably creates more problems than really solves any; there's a divide amongst those who've played the game as to whether it was really unique or just anticlimactic. The post-credits scene, which only occurs on some games and not others, only heightens the ambiguity. |
| 177 | ** Suda's pre-killer7 work is like this too, although unfortunately most of it has not been released outside of Japan. One exception, though, is ''VideoGame/FlowerSunAndRain'', which is basically like if killer7 was about helping people out instead of assassinating them. By the end, several plot points have been hinted at and even connected, but still not exactly explained. It's a little bit harsher to westerners than in the original Japanese, though, as the plot is [[StealthSequel actually connected to the other early games]]. |
| 178 | ** Both ''VideoGame/TheSilverCase'' and ''VideoGame/TheTwentyFifthWard'' would go on to have remakes that did get exported. Aside from [[MaybeMagicMaybeMundane a few odd plot elements]], the former is a reasonably sane cyberpunk detective story, but its sequel goes into the deep end of [[JigsawPuzzlePlot fractured plotting]] with a story told from three different perspectives, some elements are only explained in other games, some character allegiances aren't entirely clear, and future games are set up by the lingering threads. |
| 179 | * ''VideoGame/{{Superliminal}}'': The whole game can feel rather screwy, as altering perceptions is a key mechanic. For example, you may need to stand in a specific location so an image of an object becomes real, and then turn it around to find parts you could not have seen before. |
| 180 | * Two of the bosses in the VIP 5 ''VideoGame/SuperMarioWorld'' hack are complete and utter 'what is that' things, such as [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enH4oj6tyjo Tanasinn]] and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTQaiXO86Po&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.smwcentral.net%2F%3Fp%3Dthread%26id%3D21910&feature=player_embedded Julius]]. The first has some weird quotes too, such as ''Don't think. Feel and you'll be Tanasinn.'' and ''I lose. However, I am immortal. Anything can become Tanasinn. You are also the same''... It's the strange embodiment of Japanese Message Board memes... |
| 181 | ** Julius, at least, is nothing more than a special guest appearance by the final boss of ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyAdventure''. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fw2ZyMELay4 And he got his old theme song back.]] Everything relating to [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEOJa6FFiV4 this hack]], too. |
| 182 | * ''VideoGame/TimeFcuk'' not only Mind Fcuks the player, it [[SanitySlippage Mind Fcuks the main character]]. Radio messages from his past and future selves let you chart his descent from TheEveryman through PerkyGoth all the way to TalkativeLoon as he tries to figure out where he is and what's going on. |
| 183 | * For every question that ''VideoGame/{{Transistor}}'' answers, it leaves one or two (the Camerata's plans, the true nature of Cloudbank, ''anything'' about the Man in the Transistor, [[GainaxEnding just what the hell was up with the ending]], etc.) with nothing but vague answers at best. |
| 184 | * ''VideoGame/TrioThePunch'' is a game that tries to be SoBadItsGood but ends up being so absurd and nonsensical that it ends up originating the "''kusoge''" genre, literally "shit game" in Japanese. The technical problems are their own bucket of worms (you could accidentally clip yourself out of bounds by using your LimitBreak, for starters) but the plot deserves special mention, if only because it has to be read while sitting down. A street punk, a ninja, and a ripoff of ''VideoGame/GoldenAxe'''s Ax Battler fight an army of tiny ''VideoGame/{{Karnov}}'' knockoffs, [[DemBones skeleton warriors]], cyber-ninjas, and slime aliens. To do this, they are equipped with grill lighters, shurikens, and yelling "Oof" so loudly the onomatopoeia damges the enemy. Notable bosses include an evil Karnov statue, a giant disembodied hand, a giant disembodied foot, and [[CaptainErsatz a knockoff]] of [[UsefulNotes/KentuckyFriedChicken Colonel Sanders]] being [[MobileSuitHuman piloted by a dodo bird]]. At one point, you defeat a fluffy pink sheep boss and are [[ForcedTransformation cursed to turn into a fluffy pink sheep yourself]]. [[LethalJokeCharacter This fluffy pink sheep is the most powerful character in the game]]. This game defies explanation. |
| 185 | * ''VideoGame/TwistedMetal'' series: |
| 186 | ** How can Marcus and Needles, who are revealed in ''Head On'' to be the same person, co-exist as separate people and fighting each other in the contest? That said, if they are the same person, how is it that one of them could STILL survive after killing the other since they're the exact same person? |
| 187 | ** Twisted Metal's alternate universes are also very confusing to get it right: |
| 188 | *** While Black does takes place in Needles' mind, Marcus also made an appearance in that universe (as Minion) who as we've known, is always paranoid about Twisted Metal being just a nightmare. He says that he misses the colourful world. But in the colourful universe, Marcus is still as paranoid as ever, forever stating that everything isn't real while Calypso always tells him that Twisted Metal is as real as how he wanted it to be. This could be suggested that the colourful universe takes place in Marcus' mind. That said, the Black and colourful continuities are both just dreams and that nothing is real. |
| 189 | *** Small Brawl is a LighterAndSofter version for kids. You wouldn't expect ''this'' to be connected to the Black and colourful universes, right? Well, in Spectre's ending, it was revealed that the boy was the son of Ken Masters, the Spectre in Twisted Metal 2, which is set in the colourful universe Marcus always regards as a nightmare. This makes Small Brawl a dream ''within'' a dream. |
| 190 | *** The Alternate Universe of the 2012 game, which shows a connection to both the classic and ''Black'' universes thanks to Calypso's [[ContinuityNod trophy case]]. |
| 191 | |
| 192 | * ''VideoGame/VampireTheMasqueradeBloodlines'': The coffin is a mindscrew. The player is filled with legend speculating on its contents, is given a life-threatening mission to recover it, and the one character who begs you not to open it is acting pretty out of character... who ''wouldn't'' open it? |
| 193 | ** Playing as a [[MadOracle Malkavian]] turns the entire game into a mind screw; your character has an almost frighteningly good grasp of what's happening and what ''will'' happen, all the way to the end of the game, but they hide it in flowery metaphors and fourth-wall-breaking comments confusing enough that you won't realize it until a second playthrough. It's still a Mind Screw when ''[[spoiler: Caine himself]]'' shows up. Cue the freakout. |
| 194 | * ''Winter Voices'' has battles which take place entirely in the protagonist's mind, traps like "Buried Sorrow," enemies like "Uncertain Mystery" and skills like "Betrayal." (Which, according to the description, grants you increased damage evasion abilities by ''changing your personality''.) Even some of the Steam achievements have obscure, confusing names like "Genius Of The Mountain Pastures" and "The Only Water In The Forest Is The River." |
| 195 | * In ''VideoGame/AWitchsTale'', both endings are really, ''really'' confusing. |
| 196 | ** The first playthrough ends with the Eld Witch killing Alice. After her defeat, Loue and the Wonderland inhabitants try to force Liddell to become their new Queen. The screen goes red, and then Liddell wakes up—the entire playthrough was a dream when Baba Yaga hit her on the head, but it's later revealed it was a test from Queen Alice. |
| 197 | ** The second playthrough ends with Liddell killing the Eld Witch, who is revealed to have been Anne and transforms into her as she dies. Liddell begs her to live, but it's too late, and she dissolves into ashes. Liddell works her way through the maze and is told that death isn't always the end. Then she meets the six princesses, who tell her that this was all a dream Queen Alice created on Liddell's side of reality, and it's time for her to wake up. They hope to meet Liddell in real life and bid her farewell. Liddell wakes up in her room and can't remember her dream, but she has Anne's bracelet with her. Loue is seen on the rooftop above her. |
| 198 | * ''VideoGame/TheWitness'': Many of [[spoiler: the environmental puzzles]] come across as this, considering that you have to draw them [[spoiler: on the sides of buildings, cracks in large objects, and even, in at least one case, ''the sun'']] and that unlike most of the puzzles, which have a patient build-up, [[GuideDangIt the game gives you no indication that they even exist]]. |
| 199 | * Occurs a few times in ''VideoGame/{{The World Ends With You}}''. First and foremost, [[spoiler:to play the Reaper's Game, you have to be dead.]] Shiki [[spoiler:had her appearance taken as her entry fee, and takes on the appearance of her best friend Eri.]] Neku [[spoiler:was killed by Joshua.]] Hanaekoma [[spoiler:is not only CAT, but is also an angel.]] The last, and probably biggest Mind Screw [[spoiler:is that Joshua is the composer, and the three Games are part of another Game between him and Kitaniji to determine the fate of Shibuya.]] |
| 200 | ** The entire battle with Tigris Cantus (aka Mitsuki Konishi), a ''thoroughly bizarre'' PuzzleBoss. |
| 201 | * ''VideoGame/{{Xenogears}}'', like the whole thing. It starts off as a standard plot about an AmnesiacHero getting caught in a war between two nations using LostTechnology, then it gets a little weird when the story gets into the hidden groups pulling the nation's strings behind the scenes, then it gets really weird with TheReveal of who is pulling the strings of the previously mentioned string pullers. Long story short: [[spoiler: a DoomsdayDevice powered by {{God}} created humanity so it would have the building materials to rebuild itself with the aid of several immortals, and {{God}} tried to stop the device's plans using the power of reincarnation, and one human went along with the device's plan in an attempt to unmake humanity and end human suffering.]] ''VideoGame/{{Xenosaga}}'' ramps the Mind Screwing up to eleven. And there are hints that all ''Xeno'' games (including ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles1'' and onward) are connected somehow. |
| 202 | * Most of ''VideoGame/YumeNikki''. Three of the many fan-spinoffs are ''even stranger'', in order; |
| 203 | ** ''VideoGame/DotFlow'''s ending has [[spoiler: one of the creatures from the dreams, a chainsaw-wielding maid, pop up in the real world. The implication is that she kills you.]] Even before then, going to certain parts of the dream world too often, and triggering certain events, leads to [[spoiler: your "real" room rusting, and eventually, an [[OhCrap IV monitor showing up.]] ]] |
| 204 | ** ''LCD DEM'' is pretty standard Yume Nikki-spinoff fare until its ending, which has Chie exiting her room to find [[spoiler: what appears to be her mother, dead and bloody on the floor.]] This happens with zero foreshadowing on even a symbolic level. |
| 205 | ** ''Answered Prayers'' is unfinished, so its mindscrewiness may be at least partly because of that. But it has a short text opening that is difficult to explain, and the very method by which you enter your "dream world" is odd, as it involves you ''praying in a temple'' instead of going to sleep. |
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