Better Than It Sounds / Video Games G to M

Ah, video games. No other media allows Refuge in Audacity so often. And most of the time it works.

Please sort new titles alphabetically to avoid duplicate entries.

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• Gabriel Knight: A novelist sleeps with a woman who is holding his family heirloom hostage. He needs to kill her later.
  • The Beast Within: King Ludwig II's former gay lover is still out there seducing men. The novelist would rather not be part of his harem.
  • Gabriel Knight 3: The novelist finally sleeps with his assistant. Also, vampires are after Jesus Christ's blood.
• Gain Ground: Cool Versus Awesome Inside a Computer System that decided not to let its inhabitants leave.
• Galaga: In the face of alien invasion, a pilot allows himself to be captured so that another pilot can rescue him. That way, they can fight off the invaders together. But if both of them are captured without reserves, the game ends.
• Galaxy Angel: Incredibly... weird soldiers have to protect a small child and keep the moon from being eaten by its evil twin.
• Galerians: A drug-addicted amnesiac makes people's heads explode.
• Gal*Gun Double Peace: A poor schmuck has one day to find true love or else he will be forever alone.
• Game Boy Camera: A game that allows players to take heavily compressed pictures.
• Conway's Game of Life: A "game" whose "gameplay" consists entirely of the player drawing a picture (with only black and white, mind you) and then seeing whether the squares will turn on or off. Anyone with a laptop could probably remake this thing in about ten minutes if they really wanted to.
• Garden Gnome Carnage: With the help of a cat, a princess and lots of bricks, a garden gnome swinging on a house with remote-controlled wheels knocks around Christmas elves.
• Garfield's Nightmare: Lazy, gluttonous feline eats a whole day worth in food and is knocked down due to an Acid Reflux Nightmare. Next thing he knows, he's trapped in a Dream Land and has to figure out how to wake up.
• Garfield's Fun Fest: The gluttonous (but not-so-lazy this time) feline has to practice a tango dance to prevent his girlfriend from dumping him for his gray-haired rival (disguised as a handsome dancer).
• Garry's Mod: In a mostly-empty map, create physics contraptions and pose ragdolls.
• Gatling Gears: A Mini-Mecha of The Empire takes down a rebel army! Something's not quite right.
• Gauntlet: A warrior, a wizard, a valkyrie, and an elf walk into a dungeon. Yellow wizard shot the food, and a ghostly voice won't let him forget it.
• Gears of War: Huge, musclebound men with chainsaw guns fight genocidal mutants through a series of ruined buildings.
  • Gears of War 2: Huge, musclebound men with chainsaw guns drill underground.
    • An ex-con and a wife-beater drill for worms and flood their house.
  • Gears of War 3: A group of muscle bound men and a few token women learn that environmental pollution is bad for your health and the only cure is genocide.
  • Gears of War 4: The next generation of musclebound men and women fight the system and learn that the reports of the genocidee's genocide were slightly exaggerated.
• Geist: A dead man scares people with inanimate objects. In a First-Person Shooter.
• Gender Wars: Men and women give up sex and instead kill each other to determine who gets to reproduce. Everything is fueled by gender stereotypes.
• Geometry Dash: Fragile square jumps over spikes, sawblades, and walls while catchy music plays.
• Geneforge: People shipwrecked on an island discover genetic engineering.
  • Geneforge 2: Genetic engineering is a Dangerous Forbidden Technique that everyone uses. Gang warfare ensues.
  • Geneforge 3: Two Cowardly Sidekicks discuss the ethics of genetic engineering with you while helping you steal everyone's stuff.
  • Geneforge 4: Rebellion: Crazy dragons want to unleash even crazier, genetically-modified dragons on the world. It's your job to help them.
  • Geneforge 5: Overthrow: A failed genetic experiment must decide the fate of the world while battling a massive case of heartworm.
• Genji: Days of the Blade: You play a game based on famous battles which actually took place in Ancient Japan. You fight giant enemy crabs and attack their weak point for massive damage.
• Genshin Impact: A blond(e) foreigner just wants to find their missing sibling, but ends up getting involved in everyone elses problems.
• Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy: A man confined to a cauldron tries to drag himself up a magic mountain. Yank the Dog's Chain ensues.
• Gex: Procrastinating lizard man is Trapped in TV Land by a robot.
  • Gex: Enter The Gecko: Lizard man is tasked by The Men in Black to chase the robot through TV land.
  • Gex 3: Deep Cover Gecko: Lizard man saves a government agent from the robot... by chasing them through TV land again.
• Ghost Trick: Housepets develop a bond while solving the problems of their frequently dead owners (and their owners' frequently dead co-workers and associates) in four-minute increments over a period of 10 years.
  • Alternatively: A cat has an identity crisis, and a dog masquerades as a lamp. Alternate timelines are involved.
  • Alternatively: You play as a dead cat. Over the course of a single night, you have to save a woman from dying five times in increasingly ridiculous ways by knocking various objects over.
• Ghostbusters: The Video Game: A rookie exterminator causes property damage around New York City as he and his snarky co-workers try to thwart the machinations of a dead cultist.
• Ghosts 'n Goblins: Legendary knight journeys to save his girlfriend from demons that strip him down to his underwear if he gets too close. And then does it again, because he forgot some trivial piece of equipment.
  • Gargoyle's Quest: The Boss in Mook Clothing tries his claw at Noble Demonhood.
    • Demon's Crest: Boss in Mook Clothing breaks out of jail and hunts the guy who took his stuff.
  • Maximo: Ghosts to Glory: Young knight with similar armor issues rises from his grave to win back his beloved, who was never taken.
    • Maximo vs. Army of Zin: He steals robots' souls and makes them his slaves. Death helps him.
• Ghost Recon: Russian ultranationalists decide to restart the Soviet Union. You are expected to stop them with a fourth as many men as they have in any given level.
  • Alternately: Ubisoft accidentally predicts the Russo-Georgian War, then has America intervene.
  • Ghost Recon: Desert Siege: Ethiopia makes some money selling guns for the above, and decides the best gift they can get themselves for the tenth anniversary of the war with Eritrea is starting another one. America helps stop it since they're in the area.
  • Ghost Recon: Island Thunder: America brings freedom and democracy to Cuba. Also, experience the joy of a long walk on the beach while also dodging an automatic grenade launcher.
  • Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter: Mexico gets in on the coup business. Your attempts to protect their President prove that they may have had a point.
  • Ghost Recon: Future Soldier: Russian hardliners decide to give the coup from the first game a second shot. America sends exactly four people with ridiculously-customized guns to stop them.
    • Alternately: The one Modern Warfare ripoff that realizes it can't match the AC-130 level, so adds tasers to torture your enemies instead.
  • Ghost Recon Wildlands: Bolivians find a way to make a whole lot of money. America sends four guys with ridiculously-customized guns to stop them.
  • Ghost Recon Breakpoint: Elon Musk-Expy finds a way to make a whole lot of money-er, robots. America sends a bunch of people with guns to stop him but things don't go as planned.
    • Project Titan: Elon Musk-expy's giant robots are rampaging around an active volcano. Clearly the logical way to stop them is to cause a natural disaster.
    • Terminator: A robot from the future wants to kill you. It wasn't made by the Elon Musk-expy, but clearly the logical way to stop it is to blow up one of his factories anyways.
    • Deep State: Team up with Michael Ironside to rescue your friend, who has been captured by an American industrialist who has hijacked the Elon Musk-expy's technology to make a robot army.
    • Red Patriot: Disgruntled Russian ultranationalists team up with Elon Musk-expy's former partner to pull a nasty prank on the American Government.
    • Amber Sky: Elon Musk-expy's former bodyguards find a way to make a whole lot of...poison. A multinational task force sends a few more people with guns to stop them and things go a little better than last time.
    • Operation Motherland/Conquest Mode: When no one was looking, the Disgruntled Russian Ultranationalists (with help from the former bodyguards) took the Elon Musk-expy's personal archipelago. The entire archipelago. That's as much as several large islands. And that's terrible.
• Giga Wing: A piece of jewelry is the cause of global warring.
  • Or: Jack up scores by transmuting bullets to medals to throw at your enemies. Also something about stopping a giant medal.
• Ginormo Sword: A man in pink pajamas gathers money to make his sword bigger.
• Gish: You play as a tarball and the controls take a while to get used to. The first level already takes place in a sewers.
• Gitaroo Man: A young boy puts on a goofy outfit and plays keytaur in order to save the universe.
• Glider: Sneak a folded piece of paper past a cat to get it out of a well-ventilated building.
  • Glider 4: The same, except no cat. Also, it's a dark and stormy night.
  • Glider PRO: Now leaving the building isn't the goal. The last Plot Coupon might be floating somewhere in outer space.
• Glitch: It's an extremely glitchy MMO with no fighting and only vague hints at a plot.
• Goat Simulator: A barnyard animal with an Overly-Long Tongue causes chaos and tries to break the laws of physics.
• Gobtron: Kill loads of SpongeBobs using the power of Toilet Humour.
• God Eater: Monster Hunter, now with 80% more teenage angst and Impossibly Cool Clothes.
• God Hand: A cocky punk fights against demons, dominatrices, wrestling gorillas, gay thugs and other freaks capable of killing him very dead with his replacement arm.
  • Alternative: A cocky punk stops everyone from stealing his replacement arm by punching them into space.
• God of War: A serial killer hopes to please his current boss by killing his old boss.
  • God of War II: Said serial killer now sets out to kill his boss and his associates.
  • God of War III: Serial killer goes batshit nuts and just decides to kill anyone else who is peripherally related to his boss and his associates.
  • God of War (PS4): Serial killer transfers to a new company and becomes a father.
    • Alternatively, a father goes mountain climbing with his son.
  • God of War Ragnarök: Serial killer meets the boss of the new company, but tries to suppress his serial-killing urges so not to set a bad example for his son. He has...dubious success at this.
• GOHOME: A little girl tries to go back home, but incredibly loud people with deformities try to stop her.
• GoldenEye (1997): Everything you shoot explodes. It's stealth, and if you set off alarms, lots of enemies arrive. You can't kill everyone in sight, and sometimes have to prevent specific NPCs from dying. And it's based on a movie.
• Golden Light: On a picnic with your girlfriend, she is taken by a hole of meat growing out of the ground. It leads to an Eldritch Location with Ambushing Enemies playing Prop Hunt with you.
• Golden Sun: Two groups of Psychic Teenagers travel the world, one to light lighthouses of power, while the other tries to stop them. The world either withers and dies or erupts in war.
  • The game is based around coloured gems being dropped into holes. It is not a puzzle game.
  • Alternatively: Four teenagers must save the world by keeping lighthouses unlit. In the second game, more teenagers are forced to save the ones they love by lighting lighthouses... Eventually finding out they have to light lighthouses to save the world.
  • Golden Sun: Dark Dawn: Thirty years later, children of the first set of teenagers go on a quest to get a feather. Things go badly wr-.
    • Alternatively: A Chessmaster manipulates the heroes, villains, and entire countries for some unknown goal, while racking up the Power Levels and body count.
• Gone Home: Ransack your parents' house and invade your whole family's privacy in a quest to find out every last detail of your sister's love life.
• Go Go Plant: A walking potted plant needs to punch, drill down and fly over weird obstacles to get to one point to another while old-timey music plays.
  • Go Go Plant 2: More of the same except it now comes with an Excuse Plot in which a man, who has been turned into aforementioned plant, needs to get some medicine after forgetting to take some on time.
• Goose Goose Duck: Aggressive birds do jobs and protect themselves from invasive avian species in an effort to surpass alien memes.
• Gorn: Visceral Reality: As a gladiator, defeat every other cartoony ragdoll-like gladiator with a large amount of weapons, some of which do not fit the era. Played in extreme first person.
• Gotcha Force: Kids throw action figures at each other.
• Gothic: Live the exciting life of a typical prison inmate.
• Gradius: Pilot your rickety space fighter into battle against volcanoes, Moai heads, and a disembodied brain.
  • Parodius: As above, but the selection of playable characters includes a penguin and an octopus, and the enemies are even more ridiculous.
  • Otomedius: As above, but the space fighters are now little girls.
• Grandia: You aren't The Chosen One. This allows you to become The Chosen One.
  • Grandia II: A stoic mercenary with a talking bird must protect a singer with really bad schizophrenia, beat up his beloved older brother, and save the world from the Pope.
  • Grandia III: A boy and his mother embark on a quest to get laid.
• Grand Theft Auto: You run around stealing cars and working for or killing gangsters.
  • Or: A series where you commit felonies where the majority of the characters are mobsters who can't swim.
  • Grand Theft Auto: Vice City: A less than sympathetic gangster gets his money exchange screwed over and vows revenge on those responsible...then says "screw it" and decides to become his own boss. How? By running around stealing cars and sometimes working for or killing gangsters.
  • Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas A slightly sympathetic Gangbanger runs around stealing cars and working for or killing gangsters. One of the missions recreates the opening level of Superman 64.
  • Grand Theft Auto IV: A sympathetically portrayed protagonist runs around stealing cars and working for or killing gangsters in a bad Big Applesauce expy.
    • Grand Theft Auto IV + DLC: The interesting journey of a bag of diamonds as seen through the eyes of 3 different people.
  • Grand Theft Auto V: Three unlikely gangsters steal lots of money in a corrupt world.
    • Grand Theft Auto Online: A bunch of mute criminals go on heists, work for the government, buy a yacht, fleece a private island, engage in psychopathic behaviour against each other and the local populace, and much, much more while occasionally crossing paths with the aforementioned unlikely gangsters from time to time, who have decidedly improved their lots in life.
• Gran Turismo: You drive around in circles for a while. In order to drive around in longer and more complex circles, it is necessary to take license tests.
• Graveyard Keeper: A sarcastic man gets stuck in a new job, and takes up such hobbies as gardening, wood- and metal-working, church work, and necromancy.
• Gravity Rush: An amnesiac with a magic cat falls from the sky into a floating city that seems to be the universe's only existing space, and uses her powers of Not Quite Flight to save the city by fighting demons and collecting gems.
• Grim Dawn: Man gets almost possessed by extradimensional ghost, rampages through the post-apocalypse to kill these ghosts, random wildlife and an Eldritch Abomination. Humanity thanks you dearly.
  • Ashes of Malmouth: Almost-possessed man rampages through evil swamp and a ruined city, finally gets revenge on extradimensional ghosts. Humanity thanks you dearly.
  • Enter the Crucible: Almost-possessed man rampages through arena to entertain a bored god. Bored god thanks you dearly, showers you in useless loot.
  • Forgotten Gods: Almost-possessed man gets dragged to faraway desert, rampages through ancient temples to kill extremely angry god. Said god's usurpers (and humanity) thank you dearly.
• Grim Fandango: A travel agent must stop an evil plot to steal train tickets. Everyone dies before the game even begins.
• GrimGrimoire: A cute young witch transfers to a prestigious magic school and goes to class. Over and Over again.
  • Alternatively: Cute witch creates magical creatures and makes them fight for SCIENCE.
• Grisaia Series:
  • The Fruit of Grisaia: An ex-hitman attends a Dustbin School and romances with five pyschologically-troubled girls.
  • The Labyrinth of Grisaia: Ex-hitman romances with five psychologically-troubled girls even more. His past is revealed.
  • The Eden of Grisaia: Ex-hitman is accused of terrorist attacks and is brought out of retirement to save his long-thought-to-be-dead sister and defeat his former boss (or usurp him instead). Five psychologically-troubled girls offer assistance.
  • Grisaia: Phantom Trigger: Schoolgirls are being trained as anti-terrorist mercenaries. Ex-hitman and five psychologically-troubled girls are no longer the focus.
• Grow: Select unrelated objects in the right order and watch something weird happen.
  • Grow ver.3: Make Mars cooler.
  • Grow RPG: Watch someone else play a RPG.
  • Grow Cube : Watch faceless yellow guys play Minecraft.
  • Grow ver.1: Combine a ball with whatever you have.
  • Grow ver.2: Turn geometric shapes into forest animals.
  • Grow Tower: Build a tower into the Sun.
  • Grow Island: Make an island cooler. Also has a secret ending where everyone becomes an alien.
  • Grow Valley: Make a valley cooler. Also has a secret ending where everybody becomes an underground cyclops.
  • Grow Cannon: Murder a sleeping guy so hard that he wakes up.
  • Grow Maze: Walk around in a maze that you can't actually leave.
• Growing Up: A child grows up, goes to school, makes new friends, gets a job, and gets married, all by collecting icons from a mind map and clearing same-colored blocks to pass exams.
• Gruntz: You control a bunch of not very bright guys who got themselves being sent far away from home and you must bring them back by not only making them do all sorts of manual labor, but also by sucking up the remains of the dead and even resorting to using drugs that make them work overtime.
• Guacamelee!: The Love Interest has been kidnapped by the dead. Are you a bad enough Luchador to rescue her?
  • Alternatively: Dead man put on a mask and runs around punching dead Mexicans.
  • Guacamelee! 2: Time and space are being threatened by a rudo luchador and his cronies. Are you an even badder técnico luchador to save reality?
• Guardian Heroes: Hunky blonde swordsman and the spirit of an undead warrior get caught in a conflict between heaven and hell (and giant robots, because why the hell not?).
• The Guardian Legend: Female cyborg is sent to scuttle MIR before it gets germs on the rest of the planet.
• Guardian's Crusade: Anorexic teenaged knight wannabe goes out on a quest to save his hometown from a bad harvesting season, finds a flying baby pig who's also The Chosen One, and goes around the world trying to collect gemstones while murdering evil shapeshifting cultists and one-eyed world-ending tentacle demons with said pig and some children's toys. The Tower of Babel is destroyed in the process.
• Guardians of the Galaxy (2021): A white guy handles every situation with toxic positivity, pissing off his midget friend. Meanwhile, a cult plans to unleash their god by brainwashing everyone in the Galaxy.
• Guerrilla War: Che Guevara and Fidel Castro end the Batista Regime.
• The Guided Fate Paradox: Unlucky High School Boy wins the lottery. The winning prize is that he becomes God. Being God involves putting your life in danger to answer the prayers of fairy tale characters, zombies, mermaids, etc. So technically, he's still unlucky.
  • The Awakened Fate Ultimatum: Another Unlucky High School Boy becomes God. This time by dying. A lot of his angels hate him. And every choice he makes is wrong.
• Guild Wars: Heroes save the world from destruction in four different ways. Then they do it all over again with stronger enemies because they're bored.
  • Prophecies: Furries drop crystal bombs on your kingdom. Apparently this is the fault of an animated skeleton.
  • Factions: Goths with giant organic robots and nomads with quadrupedic Blastoise hate each other, but get together briefly to destroy an ancient spirit with nothing better to do than turn the populace into mutants.
  • Nightfall: You get to kill God. And then put a blind lady in his place.
  • Eye of the North: Midgets turn to living stone and fight monsters made of animated lava.
• Guild Wars 2: Your main objective is to kill a grave robber for the heinous crime of waking up from a nap. Hundreds of allies are required for this task. You can also make people stop hating each other by following them into various death traps. Eventually, you end up playing sidekick to a tree.
  • Living Story S1-S2: A different tree starts causing chaos. You defeat her with the help of a talking cat, a teenage giant, two Lipstick Lesbians, and Jimmy Neutron. However, you fail to stop her from drilling a hole in the ground, so you have to wander a desert where a colony of sky hippies have crash-landed, then travel 25 years into the past to find out why trees are people.
  • Heart of Thorns: You learn to fly. This helps you find an egg, watch several major characters die, and kill a sapient jungle by sneaking into its dream. Also, everyone is suddenly racist.
  • Living Story S3: A big rock explodes, revealing that an Obviously Evil recurring character is in charge of an ancient evil cult. You team up with a cactus to kill him after an angry orphan figures out how to chip a giant tooth. Then you find out that a real god is posing as a false god in order to take down two of the game's Big Bads. You have to stop him from doing that.
  • Path of Fire: It's up to you and your new pets to trick some mummies into helping you save a baby from a pyromaniac. Unfortunately, this makes a living hurricane stronger.
  • Living Story S4: A narcissistic mummy tries to revive an extinct species of beetle, so your adoptive daughter eats him. This destabilizes a nation, but you don't have time to deal with that because your daughter's biological grandfather is trying to destroy reality, so you have to kill him, which might destroy reality anyway. Crystal Dragon Jesus saves the day by undergoing Soap Opera Rapid Aging Syndrome.
  • The Icebrood Saga: A furry and his old girlfriend try to stop their estranged son and his boss from starting a civil war to please a giant telepathic ice sculpture. After this fails, The Chosen One has an existential crisis, talks to animals, and pledges allegiance to a giant lava monster. Meanwhile, an in-universe Crack Fic author goes on a publishing spree.
  • End of Dragons: A Straw Nihilist kidnaps an entomologist in order to drain all the batteries in Wutai. Several diplomatic incidents later, you have to destroy entropy itself.
    • Alternatively: You've killed all the Big Bads. Now restore balance by killing the Big Good.
  • Secrets of the Obscure: A small village's tourist attraction disappears overnight. This plunges you into a secret millennia-old war between amnesiac wizards and cannibalistic demons. You get a new nickname out of it.
• Guilty Gear: Centuries after living weapons blew Japan off the map, one of them tries to wake up their old boss. Among those out to stop him are a walking Queen reference, a holy knight, and a little girl with a big anchor.
  • Guilty Gear X: Three years later, a girl with wings and a tail gets a massive bounty placed on her. Everyone wants it except the walking Queen reference, who wants to know about the girl's mother.
  • Guilty Gear XX: A woman in red leather causes havoc, and just about everyone wants her to stop.
  • Guilty Gear Xrd: Heroes from around the world unite to beat up a half-naked woman. She doesn't mind.
  • Guilty Gear -STRIVE-: The woman in red leather fuses with the world's first wizard and nearly reenacts End of Evangelion, but gets thwarted by the Depowered walking Queen reference and her time traveling boyfriend.
• Guitar Hero: You get to tap buttons on what looks like a plastic toy guitar to the tune of pre-recorded rock music. Now repeat with fourteen different games.
• Gungrave: Young man gets involved in a Godfather like mafia story, then there's zombies. Said young man becomes an undead gunslinger who kills zombies and drug addicts.
• Gun Nac: An ace fighter pilot (who is actually a Japanese shrine maiden) has to save the universe from genocidal rabbits, octopi, trees, coins, and pottery.
• Gunstar Heroes: Two twins blow stuff up with combining weapons in order to get some jewels and prevent thematically-named villains from taking over the world. They fight these same villains on the moon after fighting them on their home world.
  • Two generic dudes in jumpsuits fire triangles, circles, and rectangles at colors. Involves an anti-gravity minecart.
• Guwange: In Feudal Japan, a murderer, a priestess, and a doctor take down a shikigami. And a giant baby. Playing for score means chaining the entire game.
• Habitica: Kill monsters by going through your daily routine.
  • Alternatively: Being lazy gets you killed.
• .hack//INFECTION: You play a game about a kid playing a MMORPG. He tries to save the world from the evil AI that runs the game. He fails.
  • .hack//MUTATION: Again.
  • .hack//OUTBREAK: And again.
  • .hack//QUARANTINE: And again...
• .hack//G.U.: It's a game... about playing a game. Specifically, an MMORPG.
• Hacknet: Use all the powers of Hollywood Hacking to figure out why a ghost is asking you to solve his murder.
• Hades: Rebellious teenage son escapes his father’s mansion. And dies. Repeatedly.
  • Rebellious teen repeatedly murders his ex-girlfriend to have a shot at murdering his father. Sometimes he murders her sisters too.
• Half-Life: Nerd with thick glasses tries to solve his problems with a crowbar.
  • Alternatively: nerd with thick glasses accidentally applies for a new job when his current employer goes under.
  • Alternatively: A Ph.D. graduate is employed to push a cart. He still manages to screw it up.
  • Alternatively: A mute nerd is herded through cramped halfways by a prick.
  • Half-Life: Blue Shift: A security guard does almost exactly what the aforementioned nerd with thick glasses does, albeit more successfully, and with less armor, weapons, and recognition.
  • Half-Life: Opposing Force: A soldier doesn't make it to a helicopter in time, and later gets stuck on a helicopter for ALL ETERNITY.
  • Half-Life 2: Nerd with thick glasses tries to solve everyone's problems with a crowbar.
    • Alternatively: nerd with thick glasses gets first contract after several years in a nap. First day at work is much better than expected, though his ex-boss wants him dead.
  • Half-Life 2: Episode One: Nerd with thick glasses is forced to solve problems while looking for a crowbar.
    • Alternatively: Nerd with thick glasses goes on a rampage at the city while attempting to flee from the police after he loses his job. The police blow up the city in an attempt to attract backup.
  • Half-Life 2: Episode Two: Nerd with thick glasses looks for a crowbar and a military base.
    • Alternatively: Nerd with thick glasses undoes decades of work at his second week of unemployment.
• Half-Minute Hero: It only takes 30 seconds...
  • Hero 30: ...to save the world from a bunch of pissed-off Evil Overlords.
  • Evil Lord 30: ...to kick those pesky humans out of your beautiful castle.
  • Princess 30: ...for the guards to shut the castle gates because the crossbow-wielding adventurer princess missed her curfew.
  • Knight 30: ...for a wizard to set off a magical nuke while he uses an undead warrior as a meat shield.
• Half-Minute Hero: The Second Coming: A new generation of heroes only have 30 seconds to save the world multiple times. Unlike their ancestors, these ones are freely allowed to explore the overworld.
• Halo: Combat Evolved: An ancient ring possessing ultimate power must be destroyed before the evil forces seeking it can obtain it and use it to destroy all life. No, not that one, this one has Space Marines.
  • A child soldier and his imaginary friend fight against nasty people for a giant hula-hoop.
  • Halo 2: Scary Dogmatic Aliens disagree on what fairy tales they want to believe more. Audrey chats up Space Marines while sitting in his grave, and The End of the World as We Know It is on the way.
  • Halo 3: Space Marines object to the Scary Dogmatic Aliens' archeological projects. Meanwhile, Audrey tries to take over a giant metal space flower that is going to cause The End of the World as We Know It.
  • Halo Wars: Age of Empires with Space Marines and Scary Dogmatic Aliens.
  • Halo 3: ODST: The cast from Firefly form a Badass Crew and go spy on Scary Dogmatic Aliens in urban Africa After the End.
  • Halo: Reach: In the past, Space Marines failed to save a Doomed Hometown.
  • Halo 4: The child soldier and his imaginary girlfriend crash land on an unknown planet. The girlfriend goes crazy because she wasn't meant to live for more than 7 years.
  • Halo 5: Guardians: Child soldier breaks up with his resurrected girlfriend because she wants to be empress of the galaxy. She doesn't get the hint and kidnaps him.
  • Halo Infinite: Child soldier wakes up six months late for the party, gets a Spanish guy to chaffeur him around, and teams up with someone who totally isn't a clone of his dead yandere girlfriend.
• Happy Game: A child had a dream about getting his missing toys back from a giant smiling emoji.
• Hard Corps: Uprising: 4 mercenaries (2 of them needs pre-payment) solve problems by shooting everything. And, for one of them, slicing everything with her sword.
• Hard Reset: A first-person shooter where you can only carry two weapons.
• Harry the Handsome Executive: An action game in which you sit and swivel.
• Hardspace: Shipbreaker: Experience the life of a blue collar worker in one of those cyber-dystopias you usually shoot things in. OSHA is dead and your CEO is a serial union-buster; now grab your toolbox and get to work.
• HarmoKnight: The princess has been kidnapped by aliens. Are you a bad enough rhythm warrior to rescue the princess?
• Harvester: Amnesiac wakes up in a town where everything runs on Insane Troll Logic. He commits progressively worse crimes in order to avoid donating blood.
• Harvest Moon: You take over the old family farm, hang with the locals, and get married. That's about it.
  • Or: A young man takes over an old farm and all the responsibilities associated with it. Probably fits this trope better than anything else... ever.
    • Or: Do virtual chores. You will love it and not know why.
    • Or: FarmVille but better.
  • Harvest Moon for Girls: Same as the above AS A GIRL!
  • Innocent Life: Same as the above IN THE FUTURE!
  • Rune Factory: Same as the above IN THE PAST! WITH MONSTER COMPANIONS!
  • Harvest Moon: Frantic Farming: An out-of-control bumper crop makes life a living hell for a group of islanders.
• A Hat in Time: The protagonist has the power to rewrite history effortlessly. She doesn't. Instead, she makes friends with demons, gangsters, and other people dubbed "bad guys".
• Hatoful Boyfriend: Your protagonist, a female high school student, delights in zoophilia and reveals a massive government conspiracy while she's at it. And she dies before the major plot of the game comes into action.
  • Ryouta's Route: Crossdressing bird falls out of tree.
  • Sakuya's Route: Racist dove runs the school council.
  • Yuuya's Route: Bird spies on evil doctor for the government.
  • Nageki's Route: Ghost bird tries to escape a library and fails.
  • Okosan's Route: Bird jumps on pudding. Later, he turns into the god of pudding, and causes a puddingpocalypse.
  • Kazuaki's Route: Narcoleptic teacher falls in washing machine.
  • Shuu's Route: Girl eats her classmate and is then pickled by evil doctor.
  • Anghel's Route: Delusional Filipino attacks a tree.
  • Azami's Route: Sparrow likes the cut of your jib.
  • Bad Boys Love Route: Insane doctor turns a sickly rock dove into a weapon of mass destruction to wipe out all of humanity.
  • Holiday Star: Fallen Chronicles - Absolute Zero: Pheasant builds a giant laser powered by Fangirls and hallucinogenic blood. He is stopped with the power of Magical Girls and shipping wars. It's as weird as it sounds.
• Haunting Ground: A girl and her dog attempt to escape a castle owned by a relative of her dead parents.
  • Or: A girl and her dog attempt to fight off a childlike giant, an insane maid, the girl's incestuous uncle, and her batshit insane grandfather who was quite the looker when he was young. Fanservice all around.
  • Or: A young girl with magic blood has an awkward day at her grandfather's house. One of the endings has her driven insane from a rape-pregnancy.
• Have a Nice Death (2022): A burned-out CEO takes out his frustrations on his overachieving subordinates.
• Head over Heels: A dog on a cat faces Prince Charles on a Dalek to liberate Ancient Egypt, a prison, a jungle, and a library dedicated to cowboy books.
• Heat Signature: Four conglomerates are fighting over a bunch of battery acid. Grab your Boarding Pod and screw with them until you die or quit. Then do it again and again until they leave.
• Hearts of Iron: A German makes bad weather forecasts.
• Heavenly Sword: A woman uses a forbidden weapon to save her people from an evil empire. Reminiscent of a previous game.
• Heavy Barrel: Find parts to build a gun.
• Heavy Burger: Chefs struggle to deposit money at the bank.
• Heavy Rain: Quick-Time Events: The Game.
  • Alternatively: A depressed guy, a guy with asthma, a guy with OCD and a insomniac reporter try to find the same guy.
• Heavy Weapon: A tank destroys Communist Russia.
• Hedgehog Launch: A tiny island nation decides to enter the space race using vermin and archaic weaponry.
• Helldivers: Fascist propaganda tells you to fight bugs for freedom and democracy. Sounds familiar?
• Hellsinker: A shmup with a large number of on-screen gauges, nonsensical-seeming scoring, and a quest to find a missing cat.
• Helltaker: Kick blocks and skeletons to recruit quirky demon girls into your harem.
• Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure: The biggest British stereotype ever goes hunting for a shiny suit while being opposed by evil Steampunk Willy Wonka. The player suffers.
  • Or: A platformer/block puzzle hybrid on a handheld system made by EA's casual division. A gimmick designed by Nintendo is a vital gameplay element.
• Henry Stickmin Series: A game where failure is highly encouraged.
• The Hex: Six washed-out losers reminisce on their pasts, but don't try to improve as people. Then they blame their problems on their creator.
• Hidden City: Wander around a city surrounded by memory-stealing fog, where nobody seems to remember anything that comes before such that there is pretty much no story continuity.
• Higurashi: When They Cry: Spend your summer days alternating between playing tabletop games with friends at school, and investigating town folklore while growing progressively paranoid.
• Hitman: Bald clone murders for profit. No one seems to notice.
• Hitogata Happa: The Empire kills a girl's family. She decides to take revenge by playing with dolls.
• Hiveswap: A young girl from the 90's is brainwashed by a key and beamed to a tyrannical alien planet.
  • Hiveswap Act 2: The second act, but with boring Ace Attorney references, more blood and swearing.
• Hoard: TROGDOR!: The Video Game.
• Holdover: A girl who wakes up from a coma, the self-sacrificing swimsuit that protects her, and a lot of drowning to avoid.
• Hollow Knight: The Unchosen One gets scammed into becoming a cartographer, kills some people in their sleep, and attempts to fight the sun.
• HoloCure: Idols must pacify rabid fans by force, with plenty of in-jokes included.
• Holy Invasion of Privacy, Badman! (or: What Did I Do to Deserve This, My Lord??): Demon lord who looks suspiciously like Vegeta and Dracula's love-child defends his underground home from groups of meddling heroes by wreaking havoc on the land's ecosystem.
• Homeworld: War criminals violate a treaty regarding methods of transportation, get busted, run from the law, commit fratricide and beat up the cops with help from an incredibly ancient friendly neighbourhood weapons trader as well as a corrupt officer, then move into the cops' house. You're the leader of these war criminals.
  • Homeworld: Cataclysm: War criminals' children find a box full of evil goo that tries to eat everyone and everything.
  • Homeworld 2: War criminals' children under original leader fight other war criminals over something they already have.
  • Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak: The abovementioned war criminals have not yet formed a unified global government, and a world war is on. Your enemy is a nation-clan of fanatically religious terrorists in a desert setting where everyone has vaguely Middle-Eastern names...except these are hell-bent on saving your species from extinction, and thanks to you making them fail, the entire planet is eradicated.
• Horizon Zero Dawn: Motherless girl tries to open a door, ends up playing Monster Hunter instead.
  • Frozen Wilds DLC: Girl tries to turn off a computer.
• Hotel Dusk: Room 215: Ex-cop spends the night in a cheap hotel counting the number of apples in paintings. If he thinks fast he can use a vending machine.
  • Last Window: Same ex-cop spends a week lounging around in his room. If he thinks fast he can use a different vending machine.
• Hotline Miami: You get some weird phone calls telling you to do discrete things while wearing animal masks.
  • Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number: Explore what really happened with the previous phone calls... or not.
    • Alternatively, a rooster becomes The Grim Reaper, while a panther inadvertently sparks World War III.
• The House of the Dead: Secret agents who can't act save civilians who can't act from zombies that look oddly alike.
  • House of The Dead 2 Same secret non-acting agents save civilians in a city that totally not Venice from another equally non-acting yet different mastermind.
  • House of the Dead 3: One of the agents from the first game team up with the daughter of his partner to find them in an industrial building in a Post Apocalyptic future. They said pistols are for chumps and instead use shotguns. Also the civilians got tired of being shot at or skewered by zombies. So they decide to let the heroes save themselves. Least the acting got better..right?
  • House of the Dead 4: Before 3, an agent from the second game takes a young rookie through the underground fighting zombies while speaking about hope every chance he gets. Oh yeah shotguns were so last season, so they traded up to machine guns.
  • The Typing of the Dead: Type faster, or the zombies will get you!
  • Zombie Revenge: Three agents decide they rather fight with their fists (though still use guns) while going after a new evil mastermind. Overacting ensures.
  • The House of the Dead: OVERKILL: Foul mouthed exploitation film characters do battle with mutants while appearing to be on train tracks.
  • House of the Dead EX: Romeo and Juliet the lightgun mini-game game! Oh yeah, you're playing as the zombies this time.
  • House of The Dead: Scarlet Dawn: One secret agent of 4 and the brother of the other agent from 4 that died go to a nice dinner party.... With zombies and military bioweapons, of course. Instead of just choosing one gun for the occasion they decide to go absolutely nuts and lug around an arsenal of weapons that can all be conveniently fired from a sub-machine gun.
• Hover Bovver: Borrow your neighbor's lawnmower...and then don't give it back!
• htoL#NiQ: The Firefly Diary: A little girl wakes up underground where everything can and will kill her. Her only form of protection? Two fireflies. Good luck, little girl.
• HuniePop: Dateless loser is approached by a horny fairy who vows to make said loser capable of scoring with every hottie in town...including the love fairy herself and her boss.
  • Huniepop 2: The dateless loser became The Casanova under the love fairy's guidance. Good thing he did because now horny demons are threatening to destroy the universe.
• Hydorah: Shmup that came from a who-knows-how-many-some, but prominently between Gradius, R-Type and Darius.
• Hypnospace Outlaw: An internet moderator discovers their bosses are jerks. Nevermind that though, look at all the screensavers you can download!
• Ib: A nine year old girl and a purple haired man get lost in an art gallery and must burn a painting to escape.
  • Or, a little girl and a young adult male must escape a world of homicidal paintings with their friend, the homicidal painting.
• Ibara: "Negotiate" with a former professor and her 5 children. And die.
  • Pink Sweets: The 5 daughters take on their father and his artifical maids to save their mother. You're NOT supposed to die this time around.
• Ice Climber: Two children smash endangered animals while making their way up a mountain.
• Icewind Dale: Several powerful demons spend all their time looking for a small gem and get killed for it.
  • Icewind Dale II: Two mixed-race children try and fail to conquer the world after a crappy childhood.
• ICO: A boy tries to save a girl from her mother by breaking out of her house.
  • Or: Horny boy travels around with a white chick and beats up black guys with a stick. The whole thing is one big Escort Mission.
• Iconoclasts: You play as a mechanic. Mechanics fix broken things. Your religion, society, and quite possibly planet all turn out to be broken. Mechanics. Fix. Broken. Things.
• Icy Tower: Jump up an infinite number of falling platforms and don't fall. Forever.
• The Idolmaster: You get to give singing lessons and back rubs to one of nine cute teenage girls (or one sexy, ditzy college girl in her early twenties).
• Iggys Reckin Balls: A very eclectic group of friends (among them including an Elvis Impersonator, a Grey alien, a robot, a Valley Girl, a snowman, a Ninja, a disembodied eyeball, and The Sun itself) decide to destroy a neighboring kingdom's sacred towers for fun. The game is completely on the side of these friends, the game not complete until every such tower is destroyed.
• Iji: A young adult cyborg girl has access to an armoury of destructive guns to mow down an army of alien invaders. She's better off with not using them.
• Ikaruga: Change your color from white to black and black to white to stay alive.
  • Or: A ship named after a bird fights machines also named after birds. And a stone.
• Illbleed: A girl goes to a theme park in order to win a hundred million dollars.
• Illusion of Gaia/Time: A boy goes on a journey to various cultural landmarks and fights creatures with a flute. He also has psychic powers that pull statues and let him cheat at card games. Some say the story is connected to that of at least two other games.
• Impossible Creatures: Create abominations and build armies of them to fight other armies of abominations.
• The Impossible Quiz: You must wrack the inner reaches of your brain to come up with a logical answer to determine how many holes there are in a polo.
• Imscared: Your computer becomes haunted by a ghost from a game. And I do mean your computer.
• In the Hunt: Red submarine saves the day from evil terrorists.
• Inazuma Eleven: Play soccer with superpowers and tons of characters.
• Incredible Crisis: A Japanese Salaryman and his family are having some difficulty getting home for his mother's birthday.
• The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction: A scientist turns into a green monster and rampages through a city and desert.
• The Incredible Machine: Solve all your problems by throwing bowling balls at rodents.
• Indigo Prophecy / Fahrenheit: A man murders a complete stranger in a diner bathroom, and tries to figure out why, while dodging the cops (who are playable characters), The Omniscient Council of Vagueness, and giant phantom mites.
  • Alternatively: Mayans vs. Hobos vs. the Internet.
• Incredibox: Legions of identical men are forced into White Void Room where a mysterious entity adorns them with various outfits and forces them to perform some tunes.
• inFAMOUS: A bike messenger resolves relationship issues with his ex-girlfriend, who blames him for a terrorist attack. She's right.
  • Or: A man with superpowers launches an elaborate conspiracy in which he commits genocide and kills the woman he loves in an effort to make himself strong enough to defeat his arch-nemesis. The man nearly kills himself with his plan, but instead gains superpowers. Ultimately, he successfully kills himself, thus proving himself strong enough to save the world.
• In Famous Second Son: A graffiti artist takes up smoking and fights the government with his older brother.
• Injustice: Gods Among Us: Immigrant has one bad day and takes over the world. Rich guy calls in for backup.
  • Or: Superdickery: The Video Game.
  • Injustice 2: Rich Guy and immigrant team up to stop thief.
• Insaniquarium: You own a fish tank. You feed fish and fight off aliens. And your fish poop money.
• Inscryption: A crazy old hermit forces you to play a collectible card game with him and his friends.
  • Or: Four different Game Masters have a blazing row over their one player.
• Insecticide: A Cute Monster Girl with a Mysterious Past. A veteran cop and giant cockroach. They fight crime... in the soft drink industry.
• Irisu Syndrome!: A really hard Falling Blocks game from Japan that 4chan translated. As you play, it generates text files involving teenagers who angst over not having friends.
• Ivy the Kiwi?: Even the game's title is dumbstruck at the choice of protagonist. She goes where she wants if there's no plants around to walk on.
• I Wanna Be the Guy: The world's most killable child seeks to defeat a number of classic video game villains. He fails. A lot.
  • I Wanna Be The Fangame: Defeat several demons to storm a castle and destroy a computer accessibility option.
  • I Wanna Be The Boshy: A traffic sign must complete his heroic quest to defeat a giant box of oatmeal.
• I Was a Teenage Exocolonist: (Credit goes to an answer to a Twitter "make a fun game sound boring" challenge) Teenagers learn about the importance of fungi in the ecosystem.
• Izuna: Legend of the Unemployed Ninja: You're a ninja who's been fired and, for trespassing, has to fight some really irritated gods.
  • Izuna 2: The Unemployed Ninja Returns: The ninja and her friends team up with their enemies from the first game to fight some other really irritated gods.
• The Jackbox Party Pack: The people famous for making a quiz show that makes fun of you come up with new ways for you and your friends to waste your time.
  • Fibbage: A quiz show in which the players come up with the wrong answers.
  • Bidiots: People spend hundreds of dollars on rush-job artwork. The Loan Shark wins.
  • Fakin' It: People must rat out a player for not receiving the questions, as the odd one out tries to blend in. Online playing is not recommended here.
  • Tee KO: Youkai design clothing via serendipity.
  • Monster Seeking Monster: Monsters disguised as humans indulge in speed dating.
  • Trivia Murder Party: A Psychopathic Manchild forces you and your friends into a high-stakes trivia game.
  • Civic Doodle: A senile politician and his long-suffering secretary hire virtual strangers to make murals democratically.
  • Mad Verse City: Giant robots settle their differences with Battle Rapping.
  • Split the Room: An anthropomorphic cat who talks like Rod Serling encourages you to come up with divisive hypothetical scenarios.
  • Joke Boat: A beleaguered cruise-ship captain hires ventriloquists to do improv comedy for his passengers.
  • Push the Button!: Figure out which of your friends is an alien impostor using personality quizzes.
  • The Devils and the Details: Demons disguised as humans do chores. Selfishly.
  • Champ'd Up: In an underground fighting arena, spontaneously generated fighters defend their titles against attempted plagiarism.
  • Talking Points: Team up with your opponents to improvise a brief TED Talk, and be mercilessly judged by the other players.
  • Job Job: Apply for a job in an office full of supplies, relying entirely on plagiarism.
  • The Poll Mine: Trapped adventurers must work together to acknowledge the opinions of spiders.
  • Weapons Drawn: Celebrities invite their friends to a party to murder them without the host's consent.
  • Roomerang: A reality TV show has difficulty eliminating its contestants.
  • Junktopia: A wizard converts frogs to produce snake oil.
  • Dodo Re Mi: Birds with unconventional voices mimic a phonograph in hopes of staving off a carnivorous plant.
• Jade Empire: A ragtag bunch of martial artists traverse a world that's almost China and almost Japan on their quest to kill the player character's sensei's brother.
• Jagged Alliance: A collection of dysfunctional mercenaries must avoid murdering each other long enough to protect some trees.
  • Jagged Alliance 2: Largely the same collection of dysfunctional mercenaries must now save an entire country, though they spend most of their time piling up and sorting through hundreds of items.
  • Jagged Alliance 2 v1.13: Replace "hundreds" with "thousands and thousands".
• Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy: The tale of a boy and his weasel.
  • Jak II: Renegade: The same as above, but Darker and Edgier.
    • Or: A boy tries to kill a government official over a failed medical operation.
  • Jak 3: More of the same, but with desert cars of unusual size.
  • Jak X: Same as above, but now the big cars are everywhere.
  • Daxter: A weasel lets his friend rot in jail while he becomes a fluffy version of the Orkin Man.
  • Jak and Daxter: The Lost Frontier: A boy, his mechanic girlfriend, and a weasel fly around in a plane and try to figure out why the planet's mojo has stopped working. The weasel turns into a nine foot tall bloodthirsty monster, but no one seems to mind.
• Jamestown: Legend of the Lost Colony: To atone for his crimes against the king, a historical person flies to Mars and makes the rival kingdom really angry.
• Jazz Jackrabbit: An Aesop tale is Recycled In Space as off-colour rabbit with big gun hunts down a turtle with big glasses.
  • Jazz Jackrabbit 2: Second off-colour rabbit joins up in fight against aforementioned turtle, which now involve time travel and a pact with the devil.
  • Jazz Jackrabbit 3: First off-colour rabbit's children are lost in a world ruled by the turtles, he and two other off-colour rabbits must save them. Wait, that has been cancelled.
• Jeanne d'Arc: A young French woman rallies against the English/demons with the help of a set of magic bracelets, a jewel-vomiting purple frog, an alliterative couple and other people/animal/things.
• Jet Force Gemini: A team of twin siblings and their pet dog venture into a galaxy harassed by a colony of ants led by a giant tyrannical insect, in an attempt to dethrone him. White furries are rescued in the process.
• Jet Set Radio: Kids hang out in Tokyo and engage in art competitions. They are threatened by rival gangs and an army of riot police led by a man with an obnoxious pompadour. They eventually stop a Corrupt Corporate Executive from making the world worship a giant golden hippopotamus.
  • Jet Set Radio Future: Kids hang out in Tokyo, listen to music, and use rocket skates and graffiti to defeat a Corrupt Corporate Executive and his personal army of riot police.
    • Alternatively: Tokyo's vandalism problem is so severe that riot police and tanks are called in to deal with it.
• Jet Set Willy: A nouveau riche guy's maid won't let him go to bed until he tidies up after his housewarming party.
• Jimmy and the Pulsating Mass: A boy and his family go on a journey to stop a tumor. They succeed, but also fail.
• Journey (2012): Wander vast, empty landscapes with a second, anonymous person.
  • Or: Nomad runs around desert and sings.
• Joust: Flying flightless avians collide with enemy soldiers in a manner that causes their steeds to give birth to their riders.
  • Joust II: Now your avians can turn into winged equines.
• jubeat: Musical Whack-A-Mole.
• Jumper: A failed experiment has just the right skills to escape the lab.
  • Jumper Two: Said experiment learns just the right skills to get out of whatever situation it gets thrown into.
  • Jumper Three: The experiment crash-lands on an alien planet.
• Jumping Flash!: You are a robot bunny who can triple jump and attack with fireworks. You save people with palm trees on their heads carrying signs. Bonus points if you save them in the right order.
  • Jumping Flash! 2: The Big Bad is a giant who has the world in various bottles.
• Jumpman: A guy who can't land well leaps around to disarm an Osterhagen Key.
• Jungle Book: Teenage boy run around in his underwear and throws bananas at anyone who gets in his way.
• Jupiter Hell: A military-industrial conglomerate's experiments with teleportation go wrong and pave the way for an invasion of Jupiter's moons by The Legions of Hell. They are soundly defeated by a lowly, wise-cracking grunt. If this sounds familiar, it's meant to be.
• Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis: Become the manager of the world's deadliest zoo and make it finally turn a profit for its investors for once, potentially without human casualties.
• Jurassic Park: Trespasser: A HUD-less first-person shooter based on a major film by a big-name director where the player uses guns and other environmental objects to kill dinosaurs while exploring a tropical island. Checking your heath involves staring at breasts.
• Just Cause: Wanton Property Damage: The Game. Or, Player Character Beats Up Everyone.
• Kagero Deception: Sort of like Home Alone. Only without a less likable lead character.
  • Kagero Deception 2/Trapt: A princess dressed like a French maid is framed by the queen (who is also dressed like a French maid) for murdering the king (who is NOT dressed like a French maid). Said princess ends up getting a demonic arm that also allows her to play the first game.
• Kakurenbo Battle Monster Tactics: In a monster hunting tournament run by a king who has been acting suspiciously lately, a combat student goes through dark dungeons trying to combat monsters hide and seek style.
• Kana: Little Sister: The title character is dying. You may or may not end up sleeping with her. Either way, bring plenty of tissue.
• KanColle: Personified WW2 Japanese watercraft and their struggle against alien ships from the deep.
• Kane & Lynch: Two guys who hate each other go on a journey to save one of their families, and they commit a bunch of crimes while doing so.
• Karaoke Revolution: Follow the line with your voice and try to beat your friends.
• Karoshi: Kill yourself, except that the game makes it very hard to suicide.
• Kart Fighter: Two plumbers, two tortoises, a princess, a dinosaur, an ape and a mushroom decide to beat the crap out of each other for no good reason. Depending on how you view it, it may or may not be as bad.
• Katamari Damacy: A prince must pick up litter in order to make up for his father's alcoholism.
  • OR: The King of Space breaks all the stars while drunk and makes his son use a bunch of sticky balls to fix it.
  • We Love Katamari: The prince has to do it again because the first game was so popular. Seriously, they say as such.
  • Me and My Katamari: The prince has to do it again after his father floods a chain of islands.
  • Beautiful Katamari: The prince has to do it yet again after his father's tennis serve nearly dooms the universe.
  • Katamari Forever: The prince has to do it again after his father gets Easy Amnesia.
• Katawa Shoujo: Seduce crippled teen girls in a Visual Novel from 4chan.
  • Alternately, discuss disabilities and manage personal crises with crippled girls and your paranoid, sexist neighbor while coming to terms with your heart arrhythmia.
  • Katawa Crash: Fangame from the above game where the main character is thrown in the air and fall onto girls, only to get higher and faster.
• Kemono Friends (Nexon): Furry girls fight algae monsters with the guidance of anthropozoologists. Has spawned a far better known anime.
  • Kemono Friends Pavilion: Get to know said furry girls by bringing them toys and listening in on their conversations!
  • Kemono Friends Festival: Street Smash or Tin Pin Slammer with the aforementioned furry girls.
• Kenka Banchō: Field trips are boring. Spice things up by beating the crap out of people (who, coincidentally, are also taking boring field trips).
• Kentucky Route Zero: A man attempts to make a delivery of antique goods to an address that doesn't exist.
• Kerbal Space Program: Engineering via trial and error. Emphasis on “error”.
• Kero Blaster: A regular office worker spends a regular day at work, and having to deal with his increasingly out-of-control boss.
  • Zangyou Mode: Said office worker and his male co-worker have to deal with excessive overtime while their female co-worker and their boss go on a hot-springs company vacation ahead of them.
• Ketsui: The United Nations runs a Suicide Attack on a MegaCorp N.G.O. Superpower with 2 helicopters flown by 2 pairs of pilots. Then they fight a butterfly. All while collecting a lot of chips.
• Kickle Cubicle: An Ice Person has to bring about global warming.
• Kid Icarus: Pretty boy with wings risks his life to save a goddess.
  • Kid Icarus (1986): Pretty boy with wings fights an evil eggplant to rescue a goddess.
  • Kid Icarus: Of Myths and Monsters: Pretty boy with wings repeats his original journey to prepare for a fight against a Satan expy.
  • Kid Icarus: Uprising: Massive Troll sends a flightless angel to beat up gods, only to run into another Troll.
• Kiki Kai Kai: Your gods have been kidnapped by monsters. Are you a bad enough shrine maiden to rescue them?
  • Pocky & Rocky: The shrine maiden and a raccoon (who was the Final Boss from the original arcade game) change names, join forces, and kill some poorly described embodiment of darkness.
  • Pocky & Rocky 2: The shrine maiden and the raccoon and some others saves the moon princess.
• Killer7: A Mexican luchador, a blind kid, a shirtless guy with horrible posture, a cocky guy with a huge revolver, a high-jumping thief, a barefoot woman who cuts her wrists a lot, and a black man in a suit shoot smiling, exploding people at the behest of an old Jew in a wheelchair, who spends his days playing chess with a crazed Korean demigod. The whole thing may or may not be a metaphor for something.
  • Alternatively: what would happen if Quentin Tarantino made a video game.
• Killer Instinct: An evil organization beta-tests its best weapons by making them destroy each other.
  • Killer Instinct 2: Everyone who survived the first game goes back 1000 years to try again.
• Killing Floor: Disgruntled british commandos murder a man's children for money, loudly complaining about their sense of dress.
  • Killing Floor 2: After the disgruntled british commandos fail to kill the mans children it's up to disgruntled snarky European mercenaries to take up the charge.
• Killzone: Gas mask-wearing British Nazis invade a planet. The locals object.
  • Killzone 2: The Nazis' planet is invaded and you want to join them, but you can't.
• Kindred Spirits on the Roof: An antisocial high school girl helps two lesbian ghosts pass into the afterlife by turning her own school into a lesbian paradise.
• Kinetica: People in literal bike suits do races. You are distracted by half of the racers' panties/exposed butt.
• King of Dragon Pass: You have two cows. You must decide the best way to obtain more cows.
• The King of Fighters: Whenever criminals want to hide their misdeeds, they sponsor a martial arts competition.
  • Orochi Saga (95-97): However, half of the tournament's participants are more concerned about a white-haired Captain Planet wannabe demigod who thinks that the only way to bring pollution down to zero is to wipe out all of humanity.
    • Alternatively for The King of Fighters '97: A musical rivalry between a J-Pop band and a guitarist results in the unsealing of an ancient dragon. Said guitarist also goes through really aggressive puberty because of said dragon.
  • NESTS saga (99-01): The previous protagonist is missing while a strange organization holds the new tournaments. More scifi themes are brought to play.
  • Tales of Ash (2003, XI, XIII): A new flamboyant French Jerk protagonist wages war against a bunch of really old people who sponsor the new tournaments. He screws everyone in the process.
    • How BlazBlue: Continuum Shift would have gone if Hazama had been French and secretly a good guy.
  • King of Fighters XIV: The first legitimately benign sponsor of the tournament in countless years is twarted anyway by an Eldritch Abomination.
• King's Quest: Members of a royal family have adventures and interact with Expys of Fairy Tale characters. And die a lot.
  • King's Quest I: Quest For The Crown A knight has to collect several MacGuffins before the king dies. They can be permanently stolen.
  • King's Quest II: Romancing the Throne: The king is lonely.
  • King's Quest III: To Heir Is Human: A coming-of-age story about a boy who wants to live on his own.
  • King's Quest IV: The Perils of Rosella: A girl has to save a fairy from a witch and learns that she enjoys reading tombstones.
  • King's Quest V: Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder!: An old man and an annoying Exposition Fairy have to travel across a desert, through mountains, and on the sea in order to become animals.
  • King's Quest VI: Heir Today, Gone Tomorrow: A young man takes a scenic tour of some islands and is eventually introduced to his girlfriend's parents.
  • King's Quest VII: The Princeless Bride: A mother tries to arrange a marriage for her daughter, who throws herself into a lake as a protest.
• Kingdom: A displaced ruler runs back and forth, literally throwing money at all of their problems.
• Kingdom Hearts: A kid tries to save the entire multiverse by beating up monsters with a giant key. His strongest allies are a duck and a dog thing.
  • Alternatively, a Disney/Final Fantasy crossover fic where your primary weapons are giant keys.
  • Alternatively, a bunch of kids get the king of all Mind Screws courtesy of Donald Duck and Goofy.
  • Alternatively, travel throughout many Disney worlds and defeat evil monsters with a magical key while struggling to comprehend the increasingly convoluted Myth Arc.
  • To quote a character from the second game (Setzer Gabbiani from Final Fantasy VI): "Whatever you think is right, you're wrong."
  • Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories A boy and his animal friends enter a castle and acquire Alzheimer's. They overcome this using trading cards.
    • Reverse Rebirth The boy's significantly less brain-damaged friend attempts to fix this by giving himself a lobotomy.
  • Kingdom Hearts II: The boy and his animal friends go around the multiverse again, this time tangling with a bunch of bishounens in black hoodies who think he's one of them. They're sort of right.
  • Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days: Two nobodies go around collecting hearts. One of them tries cosplaying, and goes too far. Tear Jerker ensues.
    • Or, Kid works at dead end job where his superiors are mostly Jerkass bishounen and eats ice cream.
    • The clone of the kid finds out he's a bad guy, but is promptly murdered by the good guys for attempting to atone.
  • Kingdom Hearts coded: A cricket runs across a mysterious message, and creates a digital champion to save the digital world. Also, an inanimate object tries its hand at cosplaying.
  • Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep: Three friends chase each other around the multiverse while searching for a friend of their teacher's. The bad guys win.
  • Kingdom Hearts 3D [Dream Drop Distance]: All two friends have to do to earn their masters is to fall asleep, unlock seven keyholes in their dream, then wake up. Only one of them passes.
    • Alternatively, the boy and his friend attempt to go on a world-saving adventure, only to learn that the bad guys just wanted to watch Inception.
  • Kingdom Hearts χ: You^note That's right, you at home! get to throw keys around and yoink people from a book.
  • Kingdom Hearts III: A boy, a duck, and a dog try to stop an old man from making a key then beat him to death when he succeeds.
  • Kingdom Hearts IV: A boy gets thrown into Not-Shibuya, Japan and loses his clown shoes. Meanwhile, his animal friends search for him in Hell.
• Kingdom of Loathing: An epic quest that spoofs just about every RPG convention known to man or beast... done entirely in stick figures.
  • You're a stick person with a drinking problem.
• Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning: You are Back from the Dead. That gives you the ability to Screw Destiny.
• Kingdom Rush: Every single fantasy monster attacks you because evil wizard wants to play conquest. Build your brand new defense system that is just people standing on top of buildings and shooting monsters with stuff.
  • Frontiers: A new wizard wants to avenge an old one by summoning weird incomprehensible thing. Your defense gets more exotic.
  • Origins: Long ago, white elves and dark elves didn't decide who gets last pizza slice, so they go to war. Now your defense is a bunch of elves and bearded bear lovers who throw stones.
  • Vengeance: Original evil wizard is back. Now every single fantasy monster is on your side as you fight a bunch of overconfident humans and some fantasy monsters that are somehow not on your side.
• Kirby: Pink puffball fights a greedy hammer-wielding penguin and other assorted nasties by eating his enemies and absorbing their powers. He tends to make things worse by accident.
  • Kirby's Dream Land: Puffball attacks penguin for stealing everybody's food.
  • Kirby's Adventure: Puffball attacks penguin because he can't have any dreams. This later escalates to the puffball blowing a crater into the moon.
  • Kirby's Avalanche: Falling Blocks puzzles are Serious Business. Wait a second, they stole the idea from that game mentioned below where "Stacking and killing cute little blobs is a sport"!
  • Kirby's Dream Course: Puffball tries to win a golf tournament - by disguising as the ball.
  • Kirby's Pinball Land: Puffball defeats penguin through use of flippers.
  • Kirby Super Star: Puffball's magnum opus. Game descriptions follow below:
    • Spring Breeze: Puffball fights penguin in a much shorter reimagining of his first game.
    • Dyna Blade: Puffball attacks a bird and raises its chicks.
    • Gourmet Race: Puffball and penguin race to pig themselves out.
    • The Great Cave Offensive: Puffball falls into a cave and right into a Metroidvania.
    • Revenge of Meta Knight: Puffball blows up his rival's ship.
    • Milky Way Wishes: Some grape creates a plan by causing the Sun and Moon to duke it out and asking the puffball to get a cat clock to make them stop. The grape then goes One-Winged Angel to fight puffball.
    • The Arena: Puffball must beat 19 opponents in order to listen to music.
  • Kirby's Dream Land 2: Puffball repairs some Broken Bridges by beating up anyone possessed by a Faceless Eye. An owl, hamster, and fish join him.
  • Kirby's Dream Land 3: Puffball must do good deeds every level for some Heart Power. More animal friends join in. And the Faceless Eye is back again.
    • Or: A child-friendly, pastel-coloured game in which the final boss uses his blood to attack you and rips out his own eye as a Desperation Attack.
  • Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards: Faceless Eye returns to break a crystal. Puffball is joined by a painter, a mook, and the penguin in his quest to help a fairy put the crystal back together.
  • Kirby's Tilt-n-Tumble: Puffball is too lazy to move, so he lets someone beyond the Fourth Wall roll him around.
  • Kirby & the Amazing Mirror: Puffball is split into four and sent into a maze connected by mirrors in order to repair a mirror broken by puffball's rival's Evil Twin.
  • Kirby: Canvas Curse: Puffball needs someone beyond the Fourth Wall to help him move, build roads, and stun enemies.
  • Kirby: Squeak Squad: Puffball attacks rodents in the name of cake.
    • Or: Small round man is denied his cake. He is determined to eat it, but the universe seems to conspire to not let him.
    • Or: Serious Business, Exaggerated Trope. People die.
  • Kirby Air Ride: Puffball races on star-like machines, except sometimes they're not very star-like at all.
  • Kirby Super Star Ultra: A reimagining of puffball's magnum opus. Game descriptions follow below:
    • Revenge of the King: Penguin extracts revenge on puffball in yet another, yet slightly longer reimagining of the first game, this time adding a boss that wasn't there the first second time around.
    • Helper to Hero: Various mooks fight 13 bosses to unlock the original SNES cutscenes.
    • Meta Knightmare Ultra: Puffball's rival gets bored, redoes the first six games, blows up his own ship, and forces a cat clock to release a war criminal so the puffball's rival can be better than someone. None of this is canon.
    • The TRUE Arena: Puffball now must beat 10 bosses to unlock a movie theater.
  • Kirby's Epic Yarn: Puffball turns into yarn... that's epic.
  • Kirby Mass Attack: Puffball is spilt into ten, and needs someone beyond the Fourth Wall to help him move.
  • Kirby's Return to Dream Land: Puffball teams up with Penguin, rival and Ensemble Dark Horse to help a chocolate egg fix his ride. He treats them to an isekai of his home, and later tells them to beat up a dragon.
    • Magolor Epilogue: The Interdimensional Traveler: Chocolate egg starts his microtransaction business after cutting a tree in half.
  • Kirby's Dream Collection: Puffball celebrates the 20th anniversary of the first game by replaying old games, now with the appropriate age ratings. The chocolate egg builds Race to the Finish platformers. We are to assume that he learned his lesson.
    • Or: The Olympic Games, Harry Potter, the ISS, and Barack Obama are canon to the franchise because to this game.
  • Kirby: Triple Deluxe: A queen wasp becomes such a bitch to her kingdom that her subjects ask the puffball to knock her silly. A spider (who serves the wasp) tries to prevent this, but mixes up some names and kidnaps the Penguin istead.
    • Dededetour: The penguin goes on an adventure to colonize the queen wasp's land, and fights his Evil Twin and the puffball's rival's Evil Twin.
  • Kirby Fighters Deluxe: Technicolor puffballs beat up each other, an emotionally sensitive cloud, and 64 penguins.
  • Dedede's Drum Dash Deluxe: Penguin bounces on musical instruments.
  • Kirby and the Rainbow Curse: Puffball needs the help of someone from beyond the Fourth Wall again. Everything's made of clay this time.
    • Or: A sculptor goes through her emo phase, prompting her sister to recruit the puffball, the Ensemble Dark Horse, and two clones of the Ensemble Dark Horse to return a pair of shades to the store.
  • Kirby: Planet Robobot: Puffball is asleep when a technologically advanced MegaCorp sets up shop on puffball's planet without permission.
    • Meta Knightmare Returns: Puffball's rival becomes the new CEO of the mega corp. A supercomputer then makes him fight clones of the Faceless Eye, the queen wasp, and the same war criminal from above. The war criminal is not a clone.
    • Alternatively: Puffball must fight a mega corp. At the end of the game a girl with daddy issues makes things even worse. Now the puffball must fight a planet.
  • Team Kirby Clash Deluxe: Puffball and his three clones go on medieval adventures while the chocolate egg sinks into the microtransaction business.
  • Kirby's Blowout Blast: Puffball jumps around in 3D and becomes chonky. Despite being yet another reimagining of the first game, the tree that he usually fights is not here.
  • Kirby Battle Royale: The penguin funds an entire Tournament Arc that lures in the puffball and the Ensemble Dark Horse in an attempt to humiliate the puffball in front of a live audience. Unlike Portal, the cake does not end up being a lie.
  • Kirby Star Allies: Puffball is asleep when a not-technologically advanced cult showers puffball's planet with love. Puffball proceeds to team up with all of his friends, plus several other people who aren't his friends, along with the power to make certain mooks his friends.
    • Or: Puffball uses The Power of Friendship to fight an Apocalypse Cult and their Destroyer Deity, who may or may not be the puffball's and the Faceless Eye's progenitor.
    • Guest Star ??? Star Allies Go!: Puffball's friends and not-friends go on the same adventure and get jumped by the war criminal for the fourth time, who then gets vaporized by a butterfly.
    • Heroes in Another Dimension: The puffball goes into the PB&J dimension and engages in oddly specific puzzles to save and befriend the cultists that tried to kill him and his friends earlier.
  • Super Kirby Clash: Puffball and his three clones go on medieval adventures in HD while the chocolate egg sinks into the microtransaction business again.
  • Kirby Fighters 2: The penguin and puffball's rival get bored and build a tower so they can fight the puffball and the Ensemble Dark Horse. This game in particular fuels a lot of gay tension between the penguin and puffball's rival.
  • Kirby and the Forgotten Land: The puffball gets isekai'd to another world full of Urban Ruins and must rescue people from animals.
  • Kirby's Dream Buffet: The puffball, rendered unable to inhale his meals, strives to eat as quickly as possible anyway.
• Kitty Powers' Matchmaker: Help a Drag Queen expand her business empire!
• Klonoa: A rabbit cat which looks exactly like a rabbit magically inflates animals and uses them as ammunition to shoot other animals.
  • Klonoa: Door to Phantomile: A rabbit cat which looks exactly like a rabbit magically inflates animals and uses them as ammunition to defeat an evil nightmare guy.
  • Klonoa: Moonlight Museum: A rabbit cat which looks exactly like a rabbit rampages around a museum and wreaks havoc with the exhibits.
  • Klonoa: Empire of Dreams: You are drafted into service by an evil king who sends you to eliminate troublesome subjects. The king's plan works perfectly; your character doesn't make it to the end of the game.
  • Klonoa 2: Lunatea's Veil: A rabbit cat who looks exactly like a rabbit magically inflates animals and uses them as ammunition to defeat a Lady of War Sky Pirate.
  • Klonoa 2: Dream Champ Tournament: A rabbit cat which looks exactly like a rabbit enters a tournament, but never gets around to actually fighting any of the other contestants.
  • Klonoa Heroes: Densetsu no Star Medal: A biker takes advantage of a young boy and abandons him in the desert.
  • Klonoa Phantasy Reverie Series: A rabbit cat which looks exactly like a rabbit magically inflates animals and uses them as ammunition to defeat an evil nightmare guy and Lady of War Sky Pirate, but now in high-definition.
• Knights of the Old Republic: You play an amnesiac helping the guys who brainwashed you defeat their enemies. Your assistants include a sassy robot, a teenaged alien, a frigid sorceress, and an emo gunslinger.
  • Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords: You play a highly-trained warrior monk who was cast out and depowered for committing war crimes, you've suddenly become the number one target for the bad guys, and your new powers all come from the reason you're a war criminal.
• Knytt: Stockholm Syndrome: The Game. You are abducted by aliens, and you roam far and wide to find the parts needed to repair their spacecraft.
  • Knytt Stories: Something about a girl who goes on adventures. Except when she doesn't. Sometimes she doesn't appear at all.
  • Knytt Underground: Society forces a girl to ring a bunch of bells. The canon is somewhat more durable this time.
    • Open-world Author Tract meets Platform Hell.
• Kromer Kollector: A homeless scammer murders people for money by throwing severed heads at them.
• Kuukiyomi: Read the room! The Video Game.
  • Japanese Politeness: The Game.
• La-Mulana: Illiterate archaeologist battles monsters in a vast tomb, smashes pots with his whip and loots the corpses of his fellow researchers in search of video games. He helps get a statue pregnant so he can talk to other statues and solve their mother issues.
• L.A. Noire: An ex-Sergeant Failure with no concept of anger management fights crime by rotating objects and solving riddles.
• La Pucelle: Tactics: Cute demon hunter befriends cuddly monsters and sells them into eternal slavery in Hell.
• The Last Express: A fugitive from justice boards a train and becomes enmeshed in a conspiracy to start World War I.
• The Last Federation: Make sure the aliens that genocided your entire species can form a halfway-decent faction. Or just kill them.
• Last Ninja II: As the last ninja, you must fight hundreds of other ninjas.
• The Last of Us: An aging man takes a young girl on a road trip across the country. One of the most memorable scenes is when they pet a giraffe.
  • The Last of Us Part II: An angry lesbian proceeds to ruin everyone's day.
  • Or: Would-be messiah loses a golf game and goes on a road trip to demand a rematch.
• The Last Remnant: A young man made to appeal for eastern players has to rescue his sister from an evil man made to appeal for western players.
• Last Scenario: Everything you have been told at the beginning turns out to be pure propaganda. The last third of the game consists of trying and failing to get a relative of one of the main characters to see a therapist.
• The Last Story: The hero's best friend tries to make his life better by slowly turning him into a villain.
• Later Alligator: You spend a day filling out a family tree. The main character is relieved that you eventually have a change of heart.
• League of Legends: After a planet-crippling world war, countries settle disputes by mentally subjugating renowned heroes and villains and making them compete in prize fights. Except not anymore - the devs retconned that out, and now the entire plot is All There in the Manual.
  • Alternatively, it turns out that the best way to deal with the many (many) crazy-powerful individuals in your world is to just make them fight each other.
• Left 4 Dead: You and your friends are surrounded by fast zombies and friendly fire is on.
  • A group of strangers go for a walk, thousands of sick people try to stop them.
  • Left 4 Dead 2: The same as above, but down on the bayou! Yee-haw!
    • 4 people battle their way through the Deep South and learn the meaning of friendship (or they laugh at each other's demise at the hands of an emo, depends on the people).
• Legacy of Kain: Vampires travel through time in their battle to overcome a giant squid.
  • Blood Omen: A young nobleman gets mugged, and is promptly hired as an assassin by a necromancer and a ghost who both want him to kill their old friends so that the world can be restored.
  • Soul Reaver: A loyal employee grows wings, gets thrown off a cliff for annoying his boss, and is promptly hired as an assassin by a giant squid who wants him to kill his brothers and eat their souls.
  • Soul Reaver 2: The loyal employee travels back in time in pursuit of his ex-boss, only to decide that he doesn't like himself that much after all.
  • Blood Omen 2: The young nobleman gets Punched Out By Cthulhu and spends a hundred years snoozing in a slum while vampire hunters try to form a police state.
  • Defiance: The young nobleman (who is now several thousand years old) tries to figure out where an old man and a squid are hiding the loyal employee, while the loyal employee tries to figure out a way to stop himself from being eaten by his sword.
• Legacy of the Wizard: A boy must slay a dragon even though his mother, father, little sister and dog are all far better suited to the task.
• The Legend of Dark Witch: A cranky goddess with two-toned hair beats the crap out of a bunch of unrelated people to stop a jewel thief.
  • The Legend of Dark Witch 2: A cranky goddess with two-toned hair beats the crap out of a bunch of researchers to stop an empress who embeds jewels into her skin.
  • The Legend of Dark Witch 3: A cranky goddess with two-toned hair beats the crap out of both sides of a conflict to stop the Roaring Rampage of Revenge of a Stupid Girl. The Stupid Girl is pissed because she took the word of the Obviously Evil enemy commander over her friends for some reason. Nobody disagrees with her nickname.
    • Or: Third mainline entry in a series of Mega Man clones trades in its Mega Man mechanics and New Game Plus options for a (somehow) heavier-than-usual Conflict Ball.
• The Legend of Dragoon: Boy goes out to kill monster, ends up fighting Fairies while humping things for stardust, and decides he doesn't want to kill that monster after all. And becomes a Power Ranger.
• The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky:
  • First Chapter: Girl meets boy. Girl kicks boy. Boy has a headache. They're family now. A pocketwatch made out of rocks can do anything. Their dad's job is harder than it looks, so two not-incestuous siblings go on a road trip to do odd jobs to get better at doing odd jobs. The government gets involved.
  • Second Chapter: After the boy stops having a headache, he breaks up with his sister to go have a chat with his supervisor, his co-workers need a vacation. The girl goes camping. Before going on the same road trip again, the girl remembers what flight tickets are for. Cue the angst.
    • In general, a 1.5 million word-length epic about the love life of a girl with a sneaker fetish who likes a boy who only knows one song. Together, they're joined by a teacher with drinking problems, a bisexual bard who only knows one song, a guy too shy to talk to girls, a schoolgirl and her telepathic hawk, an engineer who doesn't know when to take her helmet off, a Buddhist, a swordswoman obssessed with plushies, a swordswoman obssessed with the plot, an ex-convict, another Buddhist, a guy who's great with diplomacy, and a priest who needs to work on his pickup lines. Together, they do lots and lots of community service.
• The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel: Seemingly-average swordsman with a penchant for helping people attends a special class in a military academy composed of nobles and commoners. They take field trips to stop a terrorist conspiracy while investigating an abandoned magic schoolhouse.
  • The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel II: Civil war breaks out. Giant robots are involved. Seemingly-average swordsman gains his own personal-use robot and fights a corrupt duke and the impending apocalypse, becoming a war hero in the process.
  • The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel III: Seemingly-average swordsman teaches a special class in a military academy of his own. They go on more field trips to stop a terrorist conspiracy while performing battle tests in a mechanical cube.
  • The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel IV: The students of the seemingly-average swordsman have to plant sticks in the middle of nowhere to find their teacher.
• The Legend of Heroes: Trails into Reverie: Three dudes and their groupies end up meeting up in a city.
• The Legend of Kage: Ninja with ridiculous gait must save a Princess three or four times from the same castle.
  • The Legend of Kage 2: Ninja with ridiculous gait buffs up and a Kunoichi saves that same Princess from the villains from the first game who also have been buffing up. We are revealed why the Princess got kidnapped so often.
• Legend of Legaia: You and two friends get Parasites and decide to go beat up one of your friend's misty eyed older brother.
  • Legaia II: Duel Saga: In a different world, you are born with a awesome tattoo that lets you either beat up a guy who was also born with an awesome tattoo, or go decorate your room.
• Legend of Mana: Every attempt you make to put little knick-knacks on a paper map turns into an incredibly depressing story.
  • Jumi arc: Living gemstones that take form of humans and are named after their gems have magical healing tears, and there is a strongly-implied lesbian relationship among them. Nothing to do with any cartoon. Features not one, but two, party members who cannot fight, cast magic, or meaningfully contribute to the game's many fights in any significant way.
  • Faerie arc: A girl's boyfriend goes on a power trip that will kill her and destroy the world. She might be the only person who can talk him out of it. She instead decides to let him do it. For this, she is named one of the wisest beings in the land.
  • Dragon arc: A demon makes you take over the world for him and kill benevolent protectors. Two dogs, who are siblings, fight over this.
• The Legend of the Mystical Ninja: At the behest of a cat, two ninja slaughter an army in search of a missing princess only to learn that someone else kidnapped her. Oops.
  • Mystical Ninja 64: Starring Goemon: Musical theater is Serious Business.
• The Legend of Zelda Series: A boy (sometimes a young man) in a green skirt and tights fights monsters for yellow triangles and other doohickeys while pushing blocks around a lot. His nemesis is a pig.
  • The Legend of Zelda: In the original, a boy collects the hearts of his slain enemies, engages in arson, pesters the elderly and blows up endangered dinosaurs.
  • Zelda II: The Adventure of Link: In the sequel, the boy must find the courage to defeat his shadow, therefore convincing an elderly dwarf to give him the yellow triangle he needs in order to romance a girl in a coma.
  • The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past: In the Prequel, a boy disobeys his uncle, who then instructs him to save the world. A girl is kidnapped by an evil hypnotist, but the boy decides that's too easy and rescues seven by traveling to Another Dimension.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening: The boy from the Prequel has a really bad dream. The best ending involves his literal dream-girl turning into a seagull.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time: In the Prequel to every other game in the series, one of the boys travels to the future to change the past.
    • (Alternatively): The epic adventure story in which you get to pick up somebody's prescription eyedrops.
    • (Alternatively): Boy goes through puberty repeatedly while being accompanied by an annoying ball of light.
    • (Alternatively): A fishing game, with some other optional stuff about a damsel.
    • (Alternatively): A noble quest to give a dancing scarecrow his one chance to see the world through the power of a magical flute.
    • (Alternatively): A rebellious royal figure recruits an unlicensed, unvetted agent for a secret mission without the clearance or knowledge of her father. This goes so badly wrong that the entire kingdom is destroyed.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask: In the sequel of the prequel, a young boy stops a scarecrow dropping a rock on a clock. It takes him 3 days to do so.
    • (Alternatively): The boy is stuck in a "Groundhog Day" Loop trying on masks in a new town on the eve of a festival. A sidequest has him reuniting a child and his adult fiancée.
    • (Alternatively): The boy steals the souls of trees, fish and rocks to awaken the friends of the villain.
    • (Alternatively): MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON!
  • The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons: The boy from the first prequel (not the prequel to the prequel) travels between two worlds that are stacked on top of one another, gains the ability to control the planet's tilt, and saves a goddess.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages: Shortly before or after the game above, the boy travels back and forth between the present and 400 years in the past in a different world in order to save a different goddess. Once both goddesses are saved, it all turns out to be the pig's fault.
    • (Alternatively): A boy plays a harp to keep a lighthouse from being constructed.
  • The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker: Centuries after the prequel to the prequel, a reincarnation of the aforementioned boy rides around on a talking boat. He saves the world by helping his boat destroy the entire continent.
    • Or: The bad guy from long ago isn't as evil as before, so the reincarnation of the aforementioned boy rams a sword through his skull.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass: A short time after the previous one: with the help of a sword serving as a hourglass, the previous boy finds out that some elderly person is a whale.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks: Two generations after the previous one: A very young railroad engineer and a female ghost have to rebuild a tower.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess: Centuries after the sequel to the prequel, but in a divergent time line than the games above, one of the boys sniffs around in the dirt, scares the hell out of innocent townspeople, and hunts for bugs while developing a meaningful relationship with his shadow. He also rides on a Beyblade for part of the game.
    • (Alternatively): A furry farmboy and a tsundere imp join forces to fix a broken mirror.
  • The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap: Centuries before all of the above, a boy shrinks to fight normal-sized enemies as if they were giant monsters.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures: A short time after the above (but before the prequel to the prequel), the boy saves the world again using the power of teamwork... by himself.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword: In some era before both the prequel to the prequel and before the game two bullet-points up (yeah...it's just that type of series), another one of the boys repeatedly jumps from a really high point above the ground because he was told to do so by his sword, whom he may have feelings for (admittedly, the sword is kinda hot).
    • Or: Fembot forces boy to jump off a mile-high cliff because his sword isn't big enough (wink wink, nudge nudge). He saves himself with a small towel, and embarks on an epic quest to save a stubborn old lady from Armless Godzilla, Not-Armless Godzilla, Inexplicably Flying Godzilla, and some dude with a big sword.
    • Or: The origin of an Iconic Item involving skydiving, FABULOUS swords, and manipulative girlfriends.
    • Or: A flamboyant sword interrupts a young man's date with his girlfriend. He gets a little upset.
  • The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds: Generations after the adventures of a boy who saved many girls, a blacksmith's apprentice goes after a Mad Artist who wants to bring back the pig. Turning himself into mobile graffiti plays a role in traveling to another world, as does buying junk from a guy in a bunny costume.
    • Or: A coward runs away, takes over a boy's house, turning said-house into a highly-successful business, and makes said-boy go handle his issues for him.
  • Hyrule Warriors: In a different era from everything else in the series, one of the boys dons an awesome scarf, teams up with a bunch of women, and takes on the world. So does the pig.
    • Or: Fangirl writes a crossover fic and ships herself with the male lead. Everyone in canon who has been shipped with him fights back. Casualties regularly number in the thousands.
    • Hyrule Warriors Legends: Special edition expands the crossover, adding attempted Rule 63 of the main character and the ability to raise and clothe small girls. The fangirl gets a happy ending.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Tri Force Heroes: Three boys join forces to get a suit off a completely different girl and save her from being a fashion victim. Much cross-dressing ensues.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild: 100 years after the pig came back, another one of the boys takes a magical iPad and dicks around the countryside trying to remember the girl who furiously ordered him not to follow her anywhere after her father ordered him to follow her everywhere.
    • Or: A boy wakes up from a nap with a girl next to him, most of his clothes missing, and with no memories of what just happened. But he soon figures it out: The pig has returned and is awaiting a fight with the boy.
    • Or: The girl is Born in the Wrong Century. Finds out her nation's defense system is in dire need of some serious anti-virus. She takes the pig captive in her castle and waits 100 years for the boy to heal from some injuries.
  • Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity: After learning that their friends died a century ago, players pay additional money to watch it happen, and maybe give them a fighting chance.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom: Some time after defeat of the pig, the same boy from the last game must travel the lands and skies in search of girl he previously saved, and in the process learn how to become the best builder there ever was... if he can just stop getting distracted.
    • Alternatively: Boy gets an arm transplant after being destroyed by the pig's human incarnation. He has to explore the lands, skies and undergrounds to find things to fight him. Meanwhile, the girl he saved spends time with her long gone ancestors and witness the events that leads to the pig man's becoming a pig demon.
    • If Ocarina of Time is an adventure-themed fishing game, this is an adventure-themed Duplo set.
• The Legendary Starfy: A smiling star escapes into the ocean after shadowy goons kick him off his cloud.
• LEGO Adaptation Game series: You pretend to play classic movies, but you're actually playing with a bunch of toys.
  • Lego Harry Potter: Toy blocks fight a Naziësque lich.
  • Lego Lord of the Rings: Toy blocks fight a devil.
  • Lego Star Wars: Toy blocks fight a tyrant.
• LEGO City Undercover: A Cop Show pastiche where all the characters are plastic toys. Also contains some sci-fi elements, more so at the end.
  • Or, a police officer commits multiple crimes while playing dress up.
• LEGO Dimensions: A superhero, a wizard, and a DJ team up with various franchises to stop an interdimensional warlord from finding a square.
• LEGO Island: You do stuff as one of five people on an island entirely made of plastic blocks. Eventually the island's sole prisoner escapes who tries to deconstruct the entire island and you have to lure him back to prison by dropping pizza from a helicopter.
• Leisure Suit Larry: Middle-aged dork tries to get laid.
• Lemmings: You are tasked with guiding a bunch of incredibly dumb, suicidal rodents to safety.
• Lethal Company: You and up to three of your friends are traveling in space to find scraps while dealing with deadly fauna and supernatural things. There is a catchy song about being a great asset when you start a new game.
• Lethal League: A game made by people who think baseball is a Blood Sport. If a game goes on for long enough, the colors get trippy.
• Let's Go Jungle: A British couple (possibly) bonds over an attack by giant arthropods.
• Level Up: Forgetful girl searches for gems, starts relationship with amnesiac boy who broke her fence, and tries to cure her insomnia by doing the same mundane actions repeatedly. They break up when she's cured.
• The Liar Princess and the Blind Prince: Young boy goes into monster-filled forest, blames everyone else for the ensuing consequences.
  • Or: Girl takes boy to the doctor and picks flowers while hiding the fact that she's a furry. It ends with really bad singing.
• Libble Rabble: Two arrows must round up mushrooms and odd hooded creatures while tending to their garden.
• Lies of P: What if The Adventures of Pinocchio had the aesthetics and general gameplay of Bloodborne combined with the combat of Sekiro?
• Life Is Strange: Teenager uses her new-found superpowers to become popular.
  • Or: A student in photography saves someone who turns out to be her old friend. She'll learn everything about the butterfly effect while maybe being in lesbians with her friend.
  • A teenager in an art school studying photography chills with her childhood friend, learns about the butterfly effect, and nearly causes a local level 0 apocalypse.
• Life Is Strange 2: Teenager loses his father, becomes homeless, then finds out that his brother has superpowers.
  • Or: Sixteen-year-old kid takes "Go back to your own country!" a little too seriously.
  • Or: Two hispanic kids find out that racism is bad by meeting a lot of extremely racist people.
• LIMBO: A boy goes looking for his sister. She's already dead.
• LISA: The Painful: Man attempts to overcome his abusive childhood by being a good father to his daughter. He fails.
  • LISA: The Joyful: Kill Bill, if the Bride was a preteen drug addict.
• LIT (2009): An Emo Teen and his girlfriend try to escape from a school by turning on light sources and breaking windows to stay out of the dark.
• Lit (2021): Collect color energy to get light and decide what to spend it on.
• LittleBigPlanet: Sack-like beings run around a world created through dreams and imagination. They can also create their own worlds.
  • LittleBigPlanet 1: Sack-like being meets people around the world. Then everyone gets kidnapped and he fights robots. Having friends is Serious Business.
  • Metal Gear Solid 4 Pack: Sack-like being kills robots with a paintball gun. Achievement grinding is Serious Business.
  • Pirates of the Caribbean Pack: Sack-like being learns how to swim. Oh, and there's pirates. Fighting angry sea creatures is Serious Business.
  • Marvel Comics Pack: Sack-like being stops villains from destroying moons with a laser. Other heroes randomly cameo, but make the sack-like being do all the heavy lifting. The levels lost in the moon destruction are Serious Business.
  • LittleBigPlanet 2: Sack-like being has to save the world from a cosmic vacuum cleaner. Piloting giant robot animals is Serious Business.
  • Playstation Move Pack: Sack-like being harnesses the power of telekinesis by wearing a hat and uses said power to fight an evil pastry. Vacation houses are Serious Business.
  • Toy Story Pack: Sack-like being fights an evil piggy bank. Train driving is Serious Business.
  • Muppets Pack: Sack-like being guest stars in a puppet show while fighting a man who has a paper bag and a mustache. Being the guest star is Serious Business.
  • Cross-Control Pack: Sack-like being crashes a spaceship into a space prison, teams up with Space Pirates, and hunts for space treasure. Also, chickens are involved for some reason, and treasure is Serious Business.
  • DC Comics Pack: Sack-like being teams up with different superheroes, then has to rescue them. The sack-like being again ends up doing most of the heavy lifting. Wall jumping is Serious Business.
  • LittleBigPlanet Karting: Sack-like being drives cars to stop greedy people from stealing the world. Racing is Serious Business.
  • LittleBigPlanet Vita: Sack-like being tries to stop an invasion of zombie puppets. Puppet shows are Serious Business.
  • LittleBigPlanet 3: Sack-like being teams up with three different sack-like beings to stop a purple lightbulb from destroying the world. Owning marbles is Serious Business.
  • The Journey Home: Other sack-like beings visit places that the original sack-like being went to. Mailing party invitations is Serious Business.
• Little King's Story: After becoming the king of a small island by taking the (vacant) throne, you move to unite its regions under your malevolent benevolent rule.
• Little Nemo: The Dream Master: A young boy must save the princess of Slumberland by drugging poor, defenseless woodland creatures and wearing their skin.
• Little Nightmares: A really small kid tries to find a decent meal. Eventually, they get less picky about what they eat.
  • Little Nightmares II: Television rots your brain, you guys!
• Little Samson: A boy that likes spinning and throws bells, a dragon, a golem and a mouse are told to lock three of them in a giant bell and defeat four evil wizards and their leader. The dragon disagrees on the bell part.
• Little Town Hero: A boy repeatedly defends his hometown from invading monsters. However, it's all because a high-ranking government official wants to be friends with him, which for an unexplained reason involves manipulating other high-ranking government officials into collecting large amounts of a very strong, dangerous mutagen.
• Little Tail Bronx: Sky furries with Mini-Mecha and Not-So-Mini-Mecha. There are only canine and feline species, and most characters are named after foods.
• Live A Live: Seven unrelated heroes all fight the same boss they all already killed before.
  • Or: A caveman, two martial artists, a ninja, a cowboy, a psychic, and a robot are drafted by a knight to help him get over his fiancée leaving him for his best friend.
  • Prehistoric Chapter: A young caveman protects his older girlfriend from a man with a crotch lizard.
  • Imperial China Chapter: An old man chooses which one of his pupils will survive a massacre through kung fu training.
  • Twilight of Edo Japan Chapter: A ninja is tasked with invading a nobleman's home. He can decide if he gets to kill everyone there or not.
  • Wild West Chapter: A cowboy makes the local town villagers get rid of a possessed horse's mooks for him.
  • Present Day Chapter: Aspiring martial artist learns new skills by getting beaten up by other martial artists.
  • Near Future Chapter: Psychic orphan pilots a Humongous Mecha to stop the government from feeding a god human slurry.
  • Distant Future Chapter: A robot on rollerskates defeats a murderous AI by playing a video game.
  • Middle Ages Chapter: The Lancer completely ruins the life of The Hero because he hates being second banana, dooming all of reality in the process.
• Llamatron: Everything Trying to Kill You, where "everything" means Coke cans, brains, cigarette packets, telephone boxes and absolutely anything else, and "you" means a laser-spitting llama. Actually, that's just a straight description.
• Lobotomy Corporation: Perform scientific work with Eldritch Abominations to harness their power and solve the world’s ongoing energy crisis. Just don’t give them an excuse to break out of their containment holds...
  • Library of Ruina: A robot with daddy issues and a disgraced handyman open a library and invite many interesting people to come check it out.
  • Limbus Company: A ragtag group of mercenaries ride a man-eating bus around a city, trying to find some cool sticks.
• LocoRoco: A game where you escort amorphous blobs to the exit. Not only can't those asexually reproducing blobs fight on their own, but they'll almost never stop singing with blue people. After that you'll get several ear worms.
• Logical Journey of the Zoombinis: A population escapes slavery by going through a journey filled with puzzles. The puzzles are conveniently always related to each person's personal features, and nearly everyone the population comes across is obsessed with order and logic.
  • Zoombinis Mountain Rescue: Another population of the same creatures does all of it again to rescue some people trapped in a cave. They then meet up with some people who only ever look happy or sad, and they need to go find their king.
  • Zoombinis Island Odyssey: A seagull tells ANOTHER population of the same creatures that the antagonists of the first game trashed the island they came from while they were busy getting off. They go back to fix it by reintroducing a native species of moth.
• Lollipop Chainsaw: A cheerleader armed with a chainsaw and the severed head of her boyfriend goes on a rampage at her old high school. She's the hero.
• Lonely Wolf Treat: The story of how a wolf girl befriends a rabbit and a fox. They face racism while falling in love with each other.
• The Longest Journey: It's like 1984, except the world can only be saved by a disgruntled 18-year-old art student who really hates her dad. She accomplishes this by befriending a creepy, old Mexican man with whom all of her friends think she is having intimate relations.
  • Dreamfall: The Longest Journey: It's still like 1984, except now the world can only be saved by a lazy college dropout who spends her days lounging in her underwear and receiving random, personalized messages from a creepy ghost girl via TVs.
  • Dreamfall Chapters: Yes, it's still like 1984 and the world can still be saved by a lazy college dropout. But this time, the college dropout is in a coma and the world can also be saved by a gay ex-Nazi on death row.
• Look Out, Mr. Johnson!: A man of the world is oblivious to danger and scared of his protector.
• Loom: A child of a gigantic loom follows a bunch of swans to save the world from some maniac and grows feathers at the end of the game. Oh, and ripping the universe into two while he is at it.
  • Alternately: Almost everyone hates an orphan kid. He retaliates by breaking the world.
• Lost Dimension: Psychics play Survivor to decide who gets to fight the final boss. For half of them, you're the final boss.
• Lost in Blue: You're trapped on a desert island. You have to not die.
• Lost Odyssey: Immortals try to get back at another Immortal for being a prick. This is accomplished by making the player cry like a little girl.
• Lost Words: Beyond the Page: A young girl's quest for insects and other flying creatures is stymied by the writer's personal life.
• Love Esquire: A dashing hero plays wingman in his squire's quest to get laid before their land is consumed by war.
• Love Youto Bits: A girl exploded due to a pink dinosaur and her boyfriend has to collect all her body parts.
• Luck be a Landlord: The only way to pay the rent is by gambling.
• Lufia & The Fortress of Doom: The four evil gods your ancestor killed got better. The Girl Next Door has a deep, dark secret.
  • Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals: You are the ancestor, and the only way for you to kill those four gods is to push a lot of blocks into exactly the right place.
  • Lufia: The Legend Returns: A goddess sets off on a quest to find a hero capable of slaying her. Her brothers object.
  • Lufia: The Ruins of Lore: Three kids chase their dreams of becoming performers of odd jobs. They get an odd job.
• Lugaru: A rabbit fights raiders and wolves using kung-fu.
• Luigi's Mansion: A cowardly man saves his brother from kidnappers and becomes independently wealthy, solely by vacuuming his house.
  • Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon: A Bad Boss forces cowardly man against his will to clean his properties and convince his ex-employees to get back to work.
  • Luigi's Mansion 3: Cowardly man receives invitation to a five-star hotel, and goes there alongside his brother, potential sister-in-law, and some mushroom-headed friends. It's a trap, and now he has to do some house-cleaning yet again.
• Lumines: You spend your time building squares of two colors, but the music you're listening to erases all of your hard work. Repeatedly.
• Lunar: The Silver Star: A boy wants to be a hero, so an Evil Overlord obliges him by stealing his girlfriend.
  • Lunar: Eternal Blue: Centuries later, said Evil Overlord feels bad for being such a jerk and tries to make it up to you.
• Lux-Pain: From NGamer's review: "What's gotten into the good people of Kisaragi City? Mind worms."
  • Persona games, without the dungeon crawling or RPG elements.
• Mad Maestro!: Bug people into joining your orchestra by playing classical music loudly next to them.
• Mad Rat Dead: A guy listens to his heart only to ignore it. A lady promises him cheese but lies about it. Rats are stupid.
  • Or: Experience the excitement of being a dying rat for 24 hours.
• Mad Stalker: Full Metal Force: A pilot takes control of a mecha to fight against other rogue mechas led by an evil supercomputer rampaging in a futuristic city with its fists, blades, and guns.
• MadWorld: A man with a chainsaw grafted to his arm goes to work painting the town red.
  • Or: Old-Timey graphics combine with a hip-hop soundtrack, rampant announcer chatter that constantly says disturbing and immature things for the sake of humor, and incredible levels of violence.
• Mafia: A taxicab driver decides to join the mob after they give him a good tip, betrays them because they didn't pay him enough, and gets shot in the gut.
• Mafia II: Two Italian Juvenile Deliquents spend their winter doing crimes for even bigger criminals to pay back money to a Greedy Jew and later just out of their own Greed and along the way meet a bunch of people that die in many horrific ways
• Magia Record: Puella Magi Madoka Magica Side Story: A young girl became a magical girl in order to find her younger sister; only to fight a cult of Magical Girls who believe they can liberate them. Also, getting your favorite Megucas in an unfair gacha is suffering.
  • Witch of Happiness: Three little girls tried to save their big sister from meguca suffering. It didn't work, and one of them got wiped from everyone's memory. Their big sis, now amnesiac, has to beat up the other two, who are now evil from losing their friend.
  • Gathering of One Hundred Calamities: Our heroes successfully creates a method to avert meguca suffering. Other magical girls think that it's neat and wish to control it themselves. Now the city has 6 meguca clans fighting for the jeweled bracelets that control the system. Mob War (with magical girls) ensues.
• Magical Battle Arena: A little girl that just wants to make friends, a little girl that can't even stand ghost stories, a not-so little girl who's scared of her own sister, and other similar characters must beat each other up in a girly tournament so the Big Bad can save The Multiverse.
• Magical Drop: A busty goddess wearing nothing but a ribbon, a busty dominatrix, and more than twenty other Tarot-themed characters that nobody remembers compete in a puzzle game to win candy.
• Magical Starsign: Magic-using schoolgoers go on an adventure to save the whole solar system.
  • Or: Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors IN SPACE!
  • Or: Tap on a screen so a lizard named after a kind of tea can do magic. Everything is a gummy.
• Magic Carpet: The world got blown into tiny pieces, so obviously you have to put it back together.
• Magician's Quest: Mysterious Times: Wake up, go to school, befriend furries, and learn magic.
  • Or: Rip-off Animal Crossing and Harry Potter while dating furries. Gather fossils to help a dead guy who is clearly planning on betraying you. Ask a creepy girl who hangs out in the boy's bathroom for dating advice.
• maimai: Washing machine with a game on it.
• Makai Kingdom: Demon lord accidentally destroys the universe and has to wish soldiers into existence to steal the universes of other overlords for him.
  • Alternatively, pompous ass nearly commits suicide, has someone else commit suicide because he Cannot Spit It Out.
  • Demon lord accidentally destroys his world because a book called him stupid.
• Maldita Castilla: The king sends four knights to slaughter folklore creatures.
• Mana Khemia: Alchemists of Al-Revis: A homeless boy comes to a prestigious academy and proceeds to be ordered around by everyone, face near death for the sake of grades, and beat people up with his pet cat.
  • Mana Khemia 2: Fall of Alchemy: Years later, a manservant and a country bumpkin attend the same school. They hate each other, but work together to fix the mess caused by the new VP beating some guy in a fight.
• Manhunt: A convict on death row becomes a movie star.
• Maniac Mansion: An average teenager and two of his many friends break into a scientist's house with the express purpose of ruining the scientist's latest experiment.
  • Alternatively: A trio of teenagers break and enter into the residence of a family with a peculiar skin condition, vandalize everything in their reach, horribly mutilate a hamster and mess with a nuclear reactor in order to retrieve a chunk of rock.
  • Day of the Tentacle: The geeky teenager from the first game and his two roommates break into the same scientist's house with the express purpose of saving the scientist's pets.
    • Alternatively: Three incompetent college students must travel in time-toilets to save the world from a purple cone that has grown a pair of arms. They succeed in altering the American flag.
    • Alternatively: Three geeks destroy tentacle hentai forever.
• MapleStory: You talk to some helpful NPC's which prepare you to endlessly commit genocide against snails, mushrooms, slimes, walking stumps, and pigs that may or may not wear ribbons. From there, the slaughter continues...
• Mappy: A police mouse must get back stolen loot from houses that have trampolines instead of stairs. A gangster cat and his gang want to put his lights out.
• Marathon: Door-opening computer with horrible job satisfaction sics alien bugs on human race. Faceless, Voiceless Space Marine guy defends the galaxy's most useless spaceship crew from aliens, then helps door-opening computer move house.
  • Marathon 2: Durandal: Door-opening computer kidnaps Voiceless Faceless Space Marine Guy, keeps him on ice for 17 years, then drops him into some sewage to look for long-gone alien race.
  • Marathon Infinity: Sore loser alien bugs Kick the Dog, Voiceless Faceless Space Marine Guy tries to fix the mess. Things get weird.
• MARDEK: Video game characters become self-aware. Dirty jokes ensue.
• Maribato!: The characters from Maria Watches Over Us start acting violently, and physically attacking each other.
• Mario & Luigi: Two plumbing brothers team up and fight things.
  • Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga: The two brothers go to the land of beans to fight a witch and her minion.
  • Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time: The two brothers team up with their infant selves via Time Travel in order to fight an Alien Invasion.
  • Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story: The two brothers stop a dangerous plague and furious dictator by getting devoured by a giant monster.
    • OR: A giant turtle takes mushrooms from a stranger and unintentionally teams up with the aforementioned brothers. They fight... just about everything.
    • Bowser Jr.'s Journey: Young prince raises an army to obtain nutritional supplements and pisses off everyone in the process.
  • Mario & Luigi: Dream Team: The two brothers try to save a tourist trap from a powerful demon. One of them takes naps half the time, and the hero of the previous game overthrows the demon instead.
  • Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam: The two brothers team up with a flat doppelganger of the older brother.
• Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games: Two former arch-enemies and their friends enter the Olympics. Every other athlete is completely absent.
  • Mario And Sonic At The Olympic Winter Games: Same arch-enemies enter the winter olympics. The other athletes are still absent.
    • Adventure Tours: The foes of the arch-enemies decide to start their own olympics with slave labor. The arch-enemies form an Enemy Mine and enlist their friends to do their bidding to stop them. The foes' greatest creations are jealous and decide to form their own challenges after the adventure is over.
  • Mario and Sonic At the London 2012 Olympic Games: The arch-enemies head to jolly ol' England for some more Olympic shenanigans. By this point we've given up on the other athletes.
    • Story Mode: The Foes are petty dicks and decide to just blow colored smoke on everything.
  • Mario and Sonic at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games: The arch-enemies travel to South America where they can't play online against each other, but instead have Miis participate in most of the events for them.
    • Road To Rio: You get involved in fandom wars between Miis dressed as the arch-enemies to do commit petty crimes and frame them. Turns out they're working for the foes.
  • Mario and Sonic at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games: Travel expenses are getting too high. The arch-enemies decide to just stay home and have the Olympics there instead. Twice. Decades apart.
    • Story Mode: The foes are stupid and trap themselves within a game console with the arch-enemies. The brother of one of the arch-enemies travels around town asking random people for help.
• Mario Kart: A relaxing go-kart drive, with turtle shells, mushrooms and banana peels ahoy.
  • Or: A Blood Sport in which the racers shoot at, electrocute, blow up, and incinerate each other. Performance-enhancing substances are encouraged. One particular explosive soon becomes Nightmare Fuel for anyone who's played it. The racetracks often contain man-eating plants, creatures lethal on contact, big rigs, crushing weights, angry dog-like monsters, and molten lava. If this sounds incredibly awesome, bear in mind that this is a series your grandma has likely played and enjoyed enough to get her own copy of.
• Mario Paint: A music composer, with a console version of MS Paint included.
• Mario Party: A plumber, his brother, and a handful of friends, enemies, and casual acquaintances play giant-scale board games. Many times.
  • Mario Party: Everyone argues over who gets to stop the villain.
  • Mario Party 2: Everyone argues over the setting's name, and stop the villain anyway.
  • Mario Party 3: Everyone is trapped in a board game by a MacGuffin impersonator.
  • Mario Party 4: Enemies unironically celebrate your birthday. Lots of size-changing ensues.
  • Mario Party 5: Everyone dreams about playing board games. A gorilla ascends to the position of benevolent overseer.
  • Mario Party 6: The day/night system is in conflict.
  • Mario Party 7: Everyone goes on vacation, making the villain angry.
  • Mario Party 8: Two carnival emcees get their 11th-Hour Superpower that was originally stolen from another franchise stolen from them by the villain. This is the second time that the villain stole the 11th Hour Superpower.
  • Mario Party 9: Outer space is converted into MacGuffins, and everyone is forced to sabotage each other as a team.
  • Mario Party 10: The villain finds success by becoming playable. In response, everyone else locks him up and considers playing with toy figures instead.
  • Mario Party Advance: One player helps as many villagers as possible. Otherwise, play a real board game.
  • Mario Party DS: Everyone is shrunk so that the villain can obtain a video game.
  • Mario Party: Island Tour: Everyone's vacation is ruined by bubbles.
  • Mario Party: Star Rush: Four players who look identical collect allies. Everyone moves around the board simultaneously.
  • Mario Party: The Top 100: The Clip Show of the series.
  • Super Mario Party: The villain demands equal representation. Dancing and cooperation ensue. Things don't go awry.
  • Mario Party Superstars: Another Clip Show of the series, only two games after the last one, but this time paying more attention to setting.
• Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle: A plumber, his brother, a princess, and a dinosaur team up with rabbits cosplaying as them to fight against more evil rabbits who work for a hole in the sky.
  • Alternatively: Rabbits steal video game merchandise from a girl and stuff it into a washing machine. The girl's robot sidekick follows them into a space-time disaster and indirectly supplies the locals with guns. The girl only finds out about any of this through photographs of a jungle.
  • The crossover everyone wanted between the most iconic characters in Video Game history and the Video Game equivalent of Minions.
• Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope: The plumber, his brother, a princess team up with the cosplaying rabbits again and go to space to fight more evil rabbits and save the space traveller, Who has become glued to a fragment of the hole in the sky from the prior game. The dinosaur disappears and a Giant Turtle takes his place.
• Mario Sports Mix: A plumber and his acquaintances inadvertently steal the world-saving Cosmic Keystones from another dimension and use them as trophies in team-based physical competition.
• Mario Strikers series: A plumber, his friends, enemies, and enemies' henchmen play soccer/football. In addition to applying his universe's Rule of Fun, it unexpectedly makes it Darker and Edgier.
• Mari0 Everyman with a portal gun.
  • Or: Time is suddenly altered so that a blue-collar worker can shoot holes at things.
• Mars Matrix: Stop a Martian revolution with a ship with one fire button. Go play it.
• Marvel vs. Capcom: American superheroes and weird Japanese characters beat up each other senseless.
  • Marvel Vs Capcom 2: American superheroes and weird Japanese characters continue to beat each other up at the behest of a pirate lady looking for some kinda rock.
  • Marvel Vs Capcom 3: American superheroes and weird Japanese characters now have a legit plot of some of their world's bad guys teaming up to take over both worlds. They only succeed in pissing off a cosmic planet eater and putting everyone in jeopardy. But not as pissed off as gamers were when an updated re-release came out not half a year after the original game.
    • Scientists perfect energy fusion on a literally cosmic scale. The most powerful being in the universe decides he doesn't like this.
  • Marvel Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects: Superheroes get lost, wander around aimlessly, and occasionally stop to fight supervillains who are also wandering around aimlessly.
  • Namco × Capcom: Said Japanese characters meet another group of Japanese characters and join them on a quest to save the multiverse while not beating up one another.
  • Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: The original batch of Japanese characters set their sights on Japanese superheroes inspired by the American ones. They still beat the living crap out of each other.
• Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2: American superheroes in a game based on a divisive storyline with a Third Act Twist involving superpowered expies of The Borg.
• Mary Skelter: Nightmares: Boy willingly becomes an anemic to help a bunch of girls named after fairy tales bathe in the blood of their enemies. The objective? Escape a sinkhole.
  • Mary Skelter 2: The first game, except The Power of Love screws everyone over on an exponential scale. You then play the first one again (the actual first one) and dig up a dead body to prevent this one from ever happening.
• Mass Effect: Space Marine attempts to stop evil alien and a race of robots from bringing back an older race of robots for unknown reasons, whilst simultaneously trying to get into underling's pants. Stuff blows up.
  • Explore space searching for why the Neglectful Precursors haven't given you a call lately.
    • Or: Crooked Space Cop has problems with his pre-owned vehicle. A very good argument to always buy new if there ever was one.
    • Or: A very long sci-fi movie, with many Big Lipped Alligator Moments optional, where you decide if the protagonist is a Knight in Shining Armor, a Jerk with a Heart of Gold, or simply the lesser evil.
  • Bring Down The Sky DLC: A bunch of terrorists led by a major racist hijack a rock.
  • Pinnacle Station DLC: Prove your badassery in combat by playing a killer video game.
• Mass Effect 2: The story begins with the main character being set on fire and choking to death at the same time. Things get worse from there.
  • Alternate: An undead space cop working for a terrorist organization tries to curb a species' collective hoarding habit by committing genocide with his/her ludicrously dysfunctional team. All to stop ancient giant mecha space squids from killing everything for the 838th or more time in the history of forever.
  • Alternate 2: Cockblocking Cthulhu: The Game
  • Alternate 3: Interspecies Romance: The Game
  • Zaeed: The Price of Revenge: Your asshole friend ripped straight out of Firefly wants to kill one of his asshole friends for being an asshole to him. Either let him or help him get all the way there only to stop him from doing it.
  • Kasumi: Stolen Memory: Go Ocean's Eleven on a pompous rich guy so your friend can look at pictures of her fiancee.
  • Overlord: A guy tells his brother to talk to robots. Almost everyone dies.
  • Lair of the Shadow Broker: You try to talk to an information broker. In the process, an office building explodes, you get in a car chase with a corrupt cop, and you kill a rare alien.
  • Arrival: Throw rocks at portals.
• Mass Effect 3: The enemy you just tried to stop from coming in the entirety of the last two games comes anyway. Mecha Space Squids try to kill everything. Are you a bad enough dude to stop them?
  • Alternate: The Earth gets attacked by a race of genocidal robots. Instead of staying to help, your character takes their ship and runs away to the other side of the galaxy. Through the rest of the game they hang out with friends, drink heavily and possibly get some one-night stands, while humanity slowly goes extinct.
  • Leviathan: You hunt down a Mecha Space Squid killer, only to find that it's scared of you.
  • Omega: An organization ends all gang violence in the most wretched of Wretched Hives. A crime lady wants to get rid of them and reinstate the former lawlessness. You help.
  • Citadel: While on shore leave, you shoot up a sushi restaurant and a library. A toothbrush saves the day.
• Master of Magic: Magic: The Gathering meets Civilization without even a semblance of balance and a seemingly limitless number of bugs.
• Master of the Monster Lair: You and your talking shovel dig holes for a living while infesting the town's only cave with monsters.
• Master of the Wind: Wide-Eyed Idealist and his dead best friend fight crime.
  • Arc I: Hero attempts to thwart a serial killer by throwing water at him. Unsurprisingly, this doesn't work.
  • Arc II: Local Walmart-equivalent seeks world domination with Religion and The Power of Rock.
  • Arc III: Hero goes to school, studies for class, and spends time with his classmates. Hint: Not Persona.
  • Arc IV: Heroes beat up lots and lots of people who are already dead.
  • Arc V: Hero has a heated argument with his girlfriend about their relationship.
  • Arc VI: Hero goes all emo and tries to kill himself. The villains prevent him from doing this.
  • Arc VII: The heroes and villains have thoughtful and complex theological discussions.
• The Maw: Adorable alien solves his problems by feeding his pet.
• Max Payne: Man seeks vengeance for the death of his friend while overdosing on meds and thinking in metaphors.
  • A Film Noir allegory for Ragnarök as directed by John Woo.
  • Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne: Man gets hassled by hitmen disguised as crime scene cleanup company while overdosing on meds and thinking in metaphors.
  • Max Payne 3: Man gets fired and moves south to retread his life in an even more decrepit place, as well as to think in metaphors some more.
• Meat Boy: Skinless boy saves mummy girl from unborn baby in a jar. It's also ridiculously hard.
  • Super Meat Boy: Man with a skin problem seeks medical care. He goes to hell, the world blows up, and his girlfriend mutilates a stillborn.
• MechWarrior: Man goes on quest of revenge after his family is murdered.
  • MechWarrior 2: 31st Century Combat: Two tribes go to war when the leader of those tribes and some others is threatened with impeachment.
    • Ghost Bear's Legacy: A different tribe goes on a lengthy quest to right the wrongs done to them after the military of Space Japan steals the tribe's sperm bank.
    • Mercenaries: Years before the events of the above two items, a mercenary enters the profession after another mercenary was killed in combat.
  • MechWarrior 3: Several empires band together to curbstomp yet another tribe.
    • Pirate's Moon: Two kinds of people who kill for riches fight each other.
  • MechWarrior 4: Vengeance: A different man goes on a quest of revenge after his family is murdered.
    • Black Knight: He then faces some mercenaries.
    • Mercenaries: A grizzled veteran relates stories about him killing people for money.
• Mega Man: The adventures of various technological boys with an affinity for wearing blue (Or red).
  • Mega Man (Classic): The adventures of a scientist's robot and another scientist who is the living definition of "persistent".
    • Mega Man: The bad scientist kidnaps the good scientist's robots and makes them fight his own robot.
    • Mega Man 2: The two scientists make their robots fight each other. Again.
    • Mega Man 3: the bad scientist pretends to go straight, but secretly makes his robots fight the good scientist's robot while the two scientists build a Humongous Mecha. A robotic transformer-dog and robot's long lost brother make a debut.
    • Mega Man: The Wily Wars: Same as the above three, but with time-travelling and the cast of Journey to the West involved.
    • Mega Man 4: A new scientist makes his robots fight one of the good scientist's robot. It turns out he was manipulated by the bad scientist.
    • Mega Man 5: Robot's long lost brother kidnaps the good scientist. It turns out he was a copycat created by the other scientist. Robotic bird makes a debut.
    • Mega Man 6: A tournament sponsor makes some robots fight one of the good scientist's robot. It turns out he was just the bad scientist in a Paper-Thin Disguise. That scientist finally goes to jail.
    • Mega Man 7: The bad scientist escapes from jail and resumes making his robots fight the other scientist's robot. Robotic rival and his own robotic transformer-wolf make a debut.
    • Mega Man 8: The two scientists make their robots fight each other while a robot from space destroys some energy.
    • Mega Man & Bass: Two scientists make their robots fight... not each other, but another robot entirely. Turns out the other robot was made by the bad scientist.
    • Mega Man 9: One of the scientists's robot must fight his creator's new robots while the other scientist raises money. Also, uses powerhouse consoles...for NES graphics!
    • Mega Man 10: Two robots made by one of the scientists attack the ill. The other scientist is behind it, and somehow the first scientist and his robots are actually surprised. Still uses NES graphics.
    • Mega Man 11: Two scientists overclock their robots before making them fight each other.
    • Mega Man: Dr. Wily's Revenge: One of the scientists uses robots from his first two shenanigans to fight the other scientist's robot on the Game Boy. He also made a new robot who only exists to kill him.
    • Mega Man II: One of the scientists goes through time and brings back a future version of the other scientist's robot. The fight between the two isn't very impressive.
    • Mega Man III: One of the scientists makes another robot who exists only to kill the other scientist's robot. The robot fails at doing this.
    • Mega Man IV: One of the scientists makes yet another robot who exists only to kill the other scientist's robot. The robot ends up saving his life instead.
    • Mega Man V: Ancient alien robots attack Earth. Although one of the scientists is behind this (again), he is surprisingly not the Final Boss.
    • Super Adventure Rockman: A large eyeball from space turns off everyone's computers. A little girl dies in the Game Over sequence.
• Mega Man X: A Technical Pacifist kills a bunch of animals and a bald man. His friend dies. Twice.
  • Or: Save the world by committing acts of animal abuse and discrimination against bald people.
  • Mega Man X2: Quirky Mini Boss Squad helps their friend get better. Technical Pacifist kills them.
  • Mega Man X3: A scientist reforms criminals. Technical Pacifist and his friend kill him.
  • Mega Man X4: An idealistic military force wants to make the world a better place. Technical Pacifist and his friend kill them. Alternatively: An army colonel refuses to turn off his Laser Blade when asked. He and his entire army die because of this.
  • Mega Man X5: A group of innocents are infected by a horrible virus. Technical Pacifist and his friend kill them. The friend dies again.
  • Mega Man X6: A scientist revolutionizes robotics and brings the world back from the brink of oblivion. Technical Pacifist kills him. His friend was just hiding.
  • Mega Man X7: Technical Pacifist becomes an Actual Pacifist. His disappointed friend instead makes an uneasy ally and kills all the new ally's friends.
  • Mega Man X8: Messianic robot attempts to create a new world where everyone can live in peace and harmony. Technical Pacifist and his friends kill him. A different friend dies for once.
  • Mega Man X: Command Mission: Another military group wants their views to be heard. Technical Pacifist and his friends kill them before destroying the tower of Babel.
• Mega Man Zero: Humans are winning the fight against the robot rebellion. The robots retaliate by sacrificing many of their own to unseal an ancient god of destruction. It can be destroyed rather easily though.
  • Mega Man Zero 2: The robot commander attempts another unsealing in a bid for more power, with the god of destruction following close behind. Everyone wants to fight with you rather than protect the can.
  • Mega Man Zero 3: The half-clone of the god of destruction must beat his half-original self to renounce his title. No one tells you this.
  • Mega Man Zero 4: A century-old war machine is used to stop climate change.
• Mega Man ZX: The eponymous character tries to commit genocide and reset the world. Same eponymous character tries to stop him.
  • Mega Man ZX Advent: Different eponymous character impersonates the eponymous character to stop the eponymous character behind the eponymous character from finishing the job.
• Mega Man Legends: The hero shoots robots and collects their Power Crystals. This is called digging.
  • Mega Man Legends 2: The hero blows up a crystal in the center of a hurricane, and it has a naked girl inside who speaks in Creepy Monotone. She sends him on a Fetch Quest for some keys hidden behind the above robots. The moon nearly obliterates everything. Oh yeah and the hero gets stranded in a cliffhanger that almost got resolved in a coming sequel, but that game got cancelled so he's still stranded.
  • The Misadventures of Tron Bonne: The spotlight shifts to the local Goldfish Poop Gang, who pay off a debt via crime spree and occasionally shooting robots and collecting their Power Crystals.
• Mega Man Battle Network: Two brothers play on the Internet.
  • OR: An Idiot Hero forces a guy to do his bidding.
  • OR: Internet-addict kid forces his twin brother to go through dangerous situations to stop a terrorist group.
  • Battle Network 2: Said brothers stop The Mafia, travel to a radiation-infested deserted town and abuse a lonely kid, all to an awesome soundtrack.
  • Battle Network 3: Brothers then break the original Internet, shoot a wronged AI who has lost all trust in humanity, go to Internet heaven and beat its overlord to a bloody pulp.
  • Battle Network 4: Brothers win a trio of tournaments to get launched off into space where they destroy a godlike AI judge of alignment. They then go to Internet hell where they abuse said wronged AI even further and one of the brothers shoots his mirror image.
  • Battle Network 5: The Internet is actually a dog. The antagonist wants this dog to unite mankind by the soul and corrupt them by uploading the manifestation of all evil into it. Brothers stop him, break into his personal website, break it to pieces and abuse the wronged AI even further.
  • Battle Network 6: One of the brothers seals an Eldritch Abomination within himself. It is then freed and killed by the brothers. They then disrespect the dead, abuse said wronged AI who has now attained a severed animal head even further three times.
• Mega Man Star Force: WiFi and social networking are Serious Business.
  • Star Force 2: Boy saves world by defiling the lost continent of an ancient civilization and killing their god.
  • Star Force 3: Same boy huffs corruptive exhausts to kill a celebrity, mentally break the last of the precursor guys, abuse a pair of orphans and stop a black hole by going into it.
• Mercenaries: Drop into North Korea, capture terrorists, blow stuff up, and sell yourself to the highest bidder. All in a day's work.
  • Mercenaries 2: Do the same thing in Venezuela (offer void in the real Venezuela).
    • Alternatively: Your pain-in-the-ass boss won't pay you, so you'll just have to go on a shooting rampage.
• Metal Gear series: Estranged military man sneaks into work, steals equipment, waxes philosophical with former colleagues, kills them all while experiencing life-affirming bouts of depression.
  • Metal Gear: Guy named after a penis builds a fortress named after a clitoris and is defeated by a guy named after an erection.
  • Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake: Man spends Christmas Day with his father, reunites his best friend with his estranged fiancee, and helps orphans.
  • Metal Gear Solid: The top entry, but as a remake of the above entry, and then turned into an eight hour movie about how nukes are bad.
  • Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty: The same as above, but there's loads more talking and the final boss is an elderly, half-blind politician.
    • Or: A man who is named after a boner becomes a supporting character, an obese man rollerskates, and girly man gets fondled by the president.
    • Or: A man finds out he's been tricked into playing the game you're playing which is the previous game which was the previous game.
    • Or: A sequel that is almost exactly like the previous game. A bunch of confusing shit happens, and you end up crossing swords with a one-eyed snake. There's a scene where the guy named after the erection gives you a phallus while inside a robot's colon. It was all a set-up so the guy who made the game could call you a girly wannabe.
    • Or: Two guys with mental problems bicker and illegally destroy military hardware. This only applies to the first chapter, and people got really really pissed off that it doesn't apply to the rest of the game.
  • Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater: Distractingly manly gourmet kills a MILF so someone else can get their money back.
    • A man named after a penis fights a group of freaks, mugs a gay man for his clothes, and gets fondled by a scary Russian guy, and commits matricide. (all in the span of about 2 days).
    • An amazing, near-perfect game that lets you throw snakes at people.
  • Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops: A man kidnaps people and forces them to make friends with him, and it works.
  • Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots: Two sad old men fight over drugs.
    • Or: The man named after an erection has become old and unable to live up to the name. So he and another old man fight over drugs. Meanwhile, an effeminate soldier turned cyborg ninja fights a vampire.
    • Or: A man named after a penis goes on a mission to kill his Arch-Enemy - an old, physically handicapped Russian gay cowboy. After failing five consequetive times and having his thunder stolen by the man named after an erection, the man named after a penis decides to commit suicide
    • Or: Man named after an erection finds out he has only a year to live. He spends that time fighting the spirit of his evil twin brother. Except, not really. Also, nanomachines.
  • Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance: The cyborg ninja from the previous game, now far less whiny and far more badass, has a disastrous first day on his new job. He sets out to resolve the issue by getting a shiny new suit, a kickass dog, and painting the countryside red with the blood of his enemies.
    • Or: Man named after lightning kills a Quirky Miniboss Squad named after winds in style. Man also confronts a politician. Most people remember the latter half.
  • Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker: Che Guevera Guy named after a penis builds an army out of kidnapped enemies to fight UFOs.
  • Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes: Man named after a penis has to rescue a boy and a girl while everyone were being played like damned fiddles.
  • Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain: Man named after a penis gives himself a new codename named after a poison and goes on an intentionally pointless Roaring Rampage of Revenge. One of the boss fights sees our man named after a penis slap around a young boy named after a flaccid penis.
  • Snake's Revenge: Clumsy translation suffering fanfiction by a guy who met the series creator on a train once.
  • Metal Gear Ac!d: Guy with a shadowy split personality plays card games to save the world.
  • Metal Gear Ac!d 2: The same as above only with loud neon colours and dreadful biology.
• Metal Max: Supercomputer utterly fails at his job and becomes an ecoterrorist, tries to save the world by killing everything. Local boy expresses his displeasure with armored vehicles.
• Metal Slug series: Soldiers do battle with the most emotional Mooks in video-game history. Later there are mummies... and zombies... and man-eating plants... and did I mention the aliens?
  • Metal Slug 6: Kill mooks, then ally with them to fight aliens, then ally with them to fight other aliens.
• Meteos: An evil force threatens to wipe out all intelligent life in a galaxy by destroying their planets. When these civilizations learn how to use the evil force's resources against it, they join up together to blow up each other's planets instead—as a sport!
  • There's only one way to prevent the destruction of an entire galaxy's worth of sentient life: Match-three puzzling.
• Metro 2033: Russians run around in the remains of the Moscow underground, kill demons.
  • A boy is told to walk to another train station with a piece of paper. Along the way, he meets Nazis, Communists, religious fanatics, and rats.
• Metroid: Pirates try to conquer the universe using vampiric jellyfish, and the only one who can stop them is an orphaned girl raised by birds.
  • Metroid II: Return of Samus: The girl commits genocide. In hindsight, this turns out to be a bad idea.
  • Super Metroid: Pirates steal the girl's pet. She goes on a rampage to get it back. She doesn't, and blows up their (also her own) home in the process.
  • Metroid Fusion: A girl impersonates a jellyfish and runs away from her previous fashion choices.
  • Metroid Prime: The girl saves her adoptive bird parents after they've already Ascended To A Higher Plane Of Existence. The final boss gets his weapons through a massive plot hole.
    • Alternatively: The girl chases a giant space dragon and tries to find it. Meanwhile, the pirates try (and fail) to use this glowy blue radioactive magic fibrous stuff.
  • Metroid Prime 2: Echoes: A rock breaks a planet in two. A girl fixes things by destroying one half.
    • Alternatively: The girl lands on a planet and, after being attacked by (literal) Demonic Spiders, has to destroy all of the spiders' stuff to save some moths. She also encounters a rogue powerup and the pirates, who once again are trying (and failing) to use the glowy blue radioactive magic fibrous stuff.
  • Metroid Prime 3: Corruption: More rocks are thrown. The girl's body is altered to run off of said rocks.
    • Alternatively: The pirates successfully use the glowy blue radioactive magic fibrous stuff. This time, the rogue powerup comes back and gives the girl, An Ice Person, a cyborg who gets pissed off when in his suit, and a purple electric shapeshifter girl the power to use the glowy blue radioactive magic fibrous stuff. All of this is accompanied by giant teleporting space squids which transform whatever they run into. The girl also learns how to create nuclear explosives.
  • Metroid Prime: Hunters: The girl is in a race-and-chase against five men and one person of ambiguous gender to collect eight things.
    • Alternatively: Six bounty hunters go on a quest to get the ultimate power only to find it doesn't exist.
  • Metroid Prime Pinball: Badass fights against an evil alien science project with the power of flippers, pins, bonus rounds, and copious tilting.
  • Metroid: Zero Mission: Same thing as the top title. But with fanservice, which only stops after the girl fights a mirror version of herself.
  • Metroid: Other M: A girl is authorized to remember a mysterious black man and a guy in a nice hat. She doesn't remember the bunny.
    • Alternatively: A girl runs into some military buddies while investigating a research facility. Murder and government conspiracy ensues.
  • Metroid: Samus Returns: Same thing as the second title, but in 3D. Also, there's an annoying robot.
  • Metroid Dread: Fruit snacks are Serious Business. The robots are even more annoying. Also, the extended relatives of the girl's adoptive family turn out to be massive jerks.
• Metal Wolf Chaos: The U.S. President has a very, very heated argument with the Vice President.
• Miasmata: A sick man hides from a cat.
• Michael Jordan: Chaos in the Windy City: A basketball player becomes a superhero and saves his kidnapped teammates from a Mad Scientist by throwing basketballs at everything.
• Michigan: Report From Hell: Do nothing but watch as TV news reporters are devoured by monsters.
• Microsoft Flight Simulator (entire series): You fly around in a plane. That's literally all you do, and it is Serious Business.
• Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor: A ranger who can't die tags along with a wraith to kill the bastard who killed his family. He does this by fucking around with his minions, kills his general and helping slaves. It's not part of the story.
  • The Bright Lord DLC: In the past, the wraith steals some jewelry. It ends badly for him.
  • Middle-earth: Shadow of War: The ranger decides to forge some jewelry. It ends badly for everyone involved.
  • The Blade of Galadriel DLC: An acquaintance of the ranger helps him fight monsters, only for the ranger to go murderously berserk when she demands some jewelry as payment.
  • The Desolation of Mordor DLC: Batman IN A MEDIEVAL FANTASY!
• Mighty No. 9: A timid robot boy with self-doubt issues and the power to manipulate nanomachines answers the call to save the USA from other nanomachine-based robots after a viral outbreak caused them to run amok.
• Miitopia: Play as a traveler who recruits 9 other friends who all stop a dark lord that uses a face-stealing device to round up his army. Rated E.
  • Or: The most nonsensical crossover ever, featuring fictional characters and real people from a massive variety of different sources. The central characters get along a little TOO well.
• A Mind Forever Voyaging: A computer runs a simulation to predict the effects of a legislative bill.
• Minecraft: Dig holes and stack blocks in a pixelated wilderness. Then die while trying to shuffle through inventory for weapons and food.
  • Alternately, punch trees while running away from monsters.
  • Or, Dig to the center of the Earth in order to escape from Zombies and green exploding penises
  • Get lost in a cavern system, then fall into lava.
• Minesweeper: A sadist forces you to clear a minefield the hard way.
• Mini Metro: Mapmaking: The Game.
• Mini Robot Wars: Cute little robots fight big evil robots.
• Mirror's Edge: Run away from cops and try not to fall to your death.
  • Mail delivery is serious business.
• Mitadake High: An unpopular student finds a way to get others interested in his or her favorite extracurricular activity.
• Moirai: Walk into a cave, ask questions to a suspecious farmer, then later have those questions repeated to you.
• Mondo Medicals: A doctor stands in a maze shouting for a good 20 minutes and then cures cancer in the most abrupt fashion possible.
  • Alternatively, cure cancer by traversing unnecessarily confusing mazes and getting yelled at and shot at by a madman with a TV for a head.
  • Mondo Agency: A man does his best to protect the president from the locals by being screamed at by his superiors.
• Monkey Island series: A Disney ride come to life! Well, not really.
  • The Secret of Monkey Island: A young man becomes a pirate by learning how to make fun of people, committing burglary, and digging up a T-shirt. He defeats his worst enemy with root beer.
  • Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge: A young pirate cheats and burgles his way across the Caribbean in pursuit of a fabulous treasure that never really existed. He defeats his worst enemy with a kewpie doll.
  • The Curse of Monkey Island: A young pirate proposes to his girlfriend. She swiftly turns into a statue. He defeats his worst enemy with black pepper.
  • Escape from Monkey Island: A young pirate discovers his wife is legally dead, and must stop a greedy Australian land-developer from teaming up with his worst enemy to insult everyone in the Caribbean.
  • Tales of Monkey Island: A young pirate spreads a plague after accidentally bringing his worst enemy back to life.
  • Return to Monkey Island: A not-as-young pirate tries to prove he isn't a has-been by finding the thing he was supposed to find in his first adventure but didn't. He does so by swabbing his worst enemy's ship, helping his worst enemy brew a potion, talking his worst enemy's employees out of disobeying his worst enemy's orders, preventing his worst enemy from walking into a death trap, and playing his worst enemy's theme song. They remain worst enemies.
• Monster Hunter: You hunt monsters that are often at least four times as large as you are with weapons that are often twice as large as you are.
  • Monster Hunter 2 (dos): A persistent metallic dragon is messing with the weather by increasing the chance rate of storms. Along the way, other powerful Olympus Mons (namely a mischievous large chameleon, a floating sentient forest with tentacles and two fiery lions) appear as well.
  • Monster Hunter Freedom 2: What would happen if Tony the tiger got too much vigor and energy from eating cereal and then went to a cold alpine where normal hunters and explorers were, minding their own business?
  • Monster Hunter Freedom Unite: Same as before, but with Bagheera in a jungle where neither Mowgli nor Baloo existed to ease his heart.
  • Monster Hunter 3 (Tri): You save an island village by giving a whale a haircut.
  • Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate: In addition to the above, you fix a child's hat by letting him get attacked by monsters.
  • Monster Hunter Portable 3rd: The Hot Springs Episode gets interrupted by a wolf and some really bad weather.
  • Monster Hunter 4: You are hired into a caravan full of crazy people. You fit right in as you promptly join a shady egg lover club and end up adopting so many cats that you can only keep a small fraction of them with you at a time, while leaving the rest on a desert island.
  • Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate: Same as the original, but after the story seems to be over, a persistent metallic dragon (which got some wrinkles since its species' debut) and later a flying golden pinecone on steroids join the fun by terrorizing humans and monsters alike.
  • Monster Hunter Generations: Travel around the world doing random jobs. A giant squid is eating everything, but only a few people are worried about it.
  • Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate: Travel around the world doing even more random jobs. You help a young scientist learn astronomy through The Power of Friendship (and oversized weapons). An entire fortress gets stolen, but only a few people are worried about it.
  • Monster Hunter: World: Travel to a whole new continent, where you have to stop a walking volcano from dying in the wrong place.
  • Monster Hunter: Rise: A horny couple woke up their entire neighbourhood with their extremely loud foreplay. Now they're all cranky and you have to deal with it.
• Monster Loves You!: The fate of a hidden civilization depends on the results of a personality quiz.
• Monster Monpiece: Rub a monster girl's most sensitive spots in specific ways to stop a girl from spreading insanity worldwide.
  • Moero Chronicle: Boy terminally scared of talking to girls must rub a monster girl's most sensitive spots in specific ways and fight anthropomorphic sex toys to discover why monster girls have gone insane.
    • Alternately: Boy and childhood friend go on an adventure with a talking perverted otter. Their objective? Find a pair of panties to show off to the childhood friend's ancestor - preferably with the childhood friend wearing them.
  • Moero Crystal: Country hick must rub a monster girl's most sensitive spots in specific ways and fight anthropomorphic sex toys because some talking peverted otter stole a bra and is making every girl he comes across wear it. The solution is obviously to take its paired panties, put it on another talking peverted otter, and make every girl the hick comes across wear that, too.
  • Seven Pirates: Girl pirate must rub her own sensitive spots in specific ways and fight anthropomorphic sex toys to find treasure.
• Monster Party: A gargoyle shanghais a young boy with a baseball bat into popping pills and fighting monsters, including giant fried shrimp.
• Monster Prom: You - yes, you - get to repeatedly try to fuck various monsters (the key word is "try") while being ruthlessly mocked for voluntarily playing a game with that as its entire premise. Also, memes. If it makes you feel any better, you can put your friends through it with you.
• Monster Rancher: You raise hares, mis-named wolves, pet rocks, Cute Monster Girls, eyeballs, and traditional Japanese rice cakes on a farm. Then they die.
  • Or: Turn Your Mom's Hair Metal CDs into monsters. Send the monsters on vacations where they learn to breathe fire. Receive fan mail.
• Monster Tale: A little girl befriends a monster. The girl teams up with the monster to beat up other children.
• Monster Train: Hell froze over, catch the train so you can set it back on fire.
• Moonbase Alpha: Text-To-Speech software: The Game.
  • Or: Space organization spends a ton of money to create a painstakingly accurate simulation of moon colonization. Everyone ignores the gameplay to focus on Microsoft Sam's Texan cousin.
• Mortal Kombat (1992): A demonic horde can only conquer Earth if they can prove their kung-fu is better than our kung fu in a ritualized contest created by the elder gods.
  • Mortal Kombat II: The demons say Screw the Rules, I Have Money! and try to conquer Earth anyway.
  • Mortal Kombat 3: Earth is conquered, and our only hope is to go after the wife of the one responsible.
  • Mortal Kombat 4: An elder god tries to conquer the dimensions. He is backstabbed by a mortal.
  • Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance: Two evil sorcerers team up to defeat Earth's defense forces. They succeed.
  • Mortal Kombat: Deception: A Giant Demon Dragon From Nowhere kills them in under a minute and takes over. You play as the human who spent his whole life summoning him.
  • Mortal Kombat: Armageddon: A Man on Fire tries to destroy the Multiverse. Everybody (and we do mean EVERYBODY) from the previous games sets out to stop him.
  • Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe: A merger of two Big Bads from two different universes attempts to merge his homeworlds. This infects their inhabitants with Unstoppable Rage directed towards the other world.
  • Mortal Kombat 9: Japanese thunder god tries to fix crucial events in the timeline to prevent The End of the World as We Know It by sending a telepathic message to his past self.
  • Mortal Kombat X: Another god tries to invade Earth who is currently suffering an inter-dimensional refugee crisis. Warriors and their children must sort through family issues along the way.
  • Mortal Kombat 11: Dissatisfied with the writing staff, the Goddess of Time retcons the very angry Japanese thunder god and causes robot ninjas, evil corpses, people meeting themselves, and a multiple choice ending.
  • Mortal Kombat 1 The overall protagonist of the series became God and creates a new universe where the japanese thunder god became the chinese thunder farmer with a japanese name, mutants with shoulder blades are actually suffering from an illness, the evil queen became good, two ninja rivals are now brothers and an evil sorcerer is now a Snake Oil Salesman. It was a bad idea.
• Motionsports: A rider and his horse are continually reintroduced by a kindly older adult figure. This game has been known to cause a strong emotional response in some gamers. Also there's something about a Kinect minigame collection.
• Mount & Blade: An adventurer with a Multiple-Choice Past conquers multiple kingdoms with their own soldiers, funded entirely by arrogance and silk sales.
• MouseHunt: Evil mice are invading the kingdom of Gnawnia! You have to stop them!
• Mr. Do!'s Castle: A game where unicorns get whacked with hammers.
• Mr. Driller: The son of the protagonists of Dig Dug and Baraduke digs holes in a cutesy environement.
• MS Saga: A New Dawn: Xenogears with Gundams.
• M.U.G.E.N: Your own hellish - and most likely controversial - hodgepodge of a fighting game.
  • Alternatively: A generic fighting game that only has one character and two stages. Has an extensive modding community.
• Mugen Souls: A girl conquers the world by acting moe.
• M.U.L.E.: Learn economics with the help of space aliens and robot donkeys.
• MultiVersus: The multiverse is in the process of being destroyed by an entity that devours stories. Its only hope is a band of beings from different worlds and universes (which includes, among others, a hippie, several superheroes, a wise-cracking rabbit, a bickering cat and mouse duo, an adventurer and his shapeshifting dog, a criminal dressed like a jester, and a pro basketball player) that initially are too busy beating each other up before they do something about it.
• Muramasa: The Demon Blade: The soul of a murderer possessing a young woman tries to gain imortality while dealing with a body he isn't used to be in. Meanwhile, an amnesiac ninja tries to find what happened to him and his girlfriend.
• Muscle March: Camp muscle-men are the victims of petty larceny. They resolve their problems by relentlessly chasing the culprit (through walls, if necessary) and flexing their muscles, all set to J-Pop music.
• Mushroom Kingdom Fusion: Two plumbers meet a lot of video game heroes. Then an eyeball squishes everything together.
• Musou Stars: Ancient Chinese warriors, ancient Japanese warriors, a moe alchemist and her book/doll, an Irish samurai, three pairs of breasts and a gothic lolita, a half-demon lesbian and a demon who loves opera, a ninja, three monster hunters, an imperial demon hunter and an handsome demon, two evil women, a casino manager, a space guardian and a cat are fighting in a world of furries to figure out who's gonna rule the land.
• Muv-Luv: Ordinary High-School Student loses happy life, tries to get it back, but it turns out that Failure Is the Only Option, again and again and again.
• My Little Pony (Gameloft): You rebuild a town for horses and get rid of darkness.
• MySims: You move into a town and have to build your own house. You help random citizens by building objects in your workshop (that you built) with food, emotions, fish, animals, flowers and other objects and in return get clothes and blueprints to build more stuff.
• Myst: In the early nineteenth century, a person finds a book in a New Mexico desert and becomes involved in the life of a troubled man and his family problems.
  • Riven: You run around five islands situated in an archipelago and try to outsmart an old guy with a gun who thinks he's God. The world violently implodes into outer space at the end, but it's okay.
  • Myst III: Exile: You have to save a magical book from Gríma Wormtongue armed with a hammer. To defeat him you have to build a blimp and a roller coaster pinball machine and electrocute a bird-eating plant.
  • Myst IV: Revelation: A guy kidnaps his sister and you have to fall asleep in a giant fungus and travel through a trippy dreamworld to save her, but first you have to decide which of the girl's brothers did it. One is a murderous psychopath and the other has exploding musical crystals.
  • Uru: Ages Beyond Myst: In the present day, a whole bunch of people get to wander around various worlds touching cloths and moving pillars back and forth. However the company keeps losing funding, making you do it on your own.
    • Uru: To D'ni: Enormous scavenger hunt for invisible circles in an ancient underground city in order to turn on a giant GPS machine.
    • Uru: Path of the Shell: You have to negotiate the ridiculously complicated and misleading puzzles of a Magnificent Bastard who died two hundred years ago in order to prevent him from committing suicide. He will defeat you frequently despite this obvious impairment.
    • Uru Live: First time, the above. Second time, a civil war comes to a cavern. Third time, a 3d chatroom with puzzles.
  • Myst V: End of Ages: You draw on stone slabs to tell aliens what to do while an Emo and a bald, insane member of an ancient society squabble over the fate of the creatures in question.
• Mystery of Time and Space: An amnesiac solves puzzles and navigates a maze of set pieces in order to figure out his identity.
  • Or: A clone busts out of a prison in a laboratory complex in space, finds out he shouldn't even have bothered. Note: This also describes 1213.
• My World, My Way: Bratty princess becomes a heroine by screwing the rules and writing her own.

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