These moments should have just been clicked through and not read.
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Dethroning Moment of Suck. - Please make sure the moment is fictional and is neither an event that occurred in real life nor something gameplay-related. We have a perfectly good Scrappy Mechanic page for the latter.
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- Jicragg: The ending of don't take it personally babe, it just ain't your story, a good free western Visual Novel about a teacher who oversees all of the students conversations and part way through a student kills herself. He starts getting creepy messages saying "why didn't you stop her?" etc, day and night, and eventually a woman will start talking to him asking him why he didn't help her. Throughout the story there's some other drama involving a girl being a homophobic bully — the anvil is dropped onto your face that both of those are bad. Then at the end it all turns out that the students had set up a prank for the teacher to believe the girl was dead so he would lighten up and not take things so seriously... This is apparently okay! It was so... in your face that it wasn't just the darn characters! It was such a stupid prank! For starters there was a parent involved and she was fine with the possible mental and emotional scarring the man could have got from that, but no everybody was completely okay with such an outcome. It wasn't so bad that it was a free game but it felt like a waste of my time - after such lovely characters.
- Catmuto: The above part mentioned was a pretty damn big moment and would have been my own, but I realized another moment that, albeit not as bad, was still bad. There is Akira and his eventual-boyfriend Nolan, who begin dating after Akira comes out of the closet. Late in the game, after the homophobic bully starts messing with their relationship out of hurt feelings (since she's Nolan's ex), Nolan becomes very protective and has one post on AmieConnect that says, "I am totaly in love with Akira. No homo." Those last two words... Those are it. That is my DMoS, the point where I could no longer believe that these guys were actually in a believable relationship. One could say he added the No Homo as a little joke, but given how his ex telling Akira that Nolan wasn't actually gay was the reason why Akira was feeling insecure and horrible, makes it come off as a very bad joke. And that coming from a supposedly loving boyfriend? And that's not even getting into Nolan's vehement mentioning that Akira is attractive, sure, but he could never actually imagine himself fucking him early on. For the homosexual couples in the game being an Author Appeal, this couple certainly seems to consist of a guy who obviously doesn't want to be in a relationship with another guy. If you want your homosexual couple to be believable, do not make even one joke about being 'No homo'.
- Jicragg: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors: The vast majority of this game is superb, with good story, good characters, good puzzles; it was wonderful. The full/True/100% ending had one horrific reveal that ruined this almost perfect game. I am quite happy with the background of the story, that Young Akane needed to connect with future Junpei so she could save herself in the past from being burnt to death alive. What completely destroyed the entire sturdy plot was what held it all together. The reason why Young Akane ended up in the incinerator in the first place. She, "young" 'Seven' and other people, including her own brother, were escaping from the incinerator and a group of insane maniacs forcing them to do life or death puzzles. She was ahead of them on the stairs when she realised she dropped something... a doll. So she went back down to get... a doll... and got caught by the then Big Bad and forced to do the puzzle before she burnt to death. Seriously! The whole story hinged on a piece of fabric! A meaningless piece of fabric shaped to be a doll! I had absolutely no intention of saving her. All that the other characters had been through (and since you need all the endings to get this one, you see everybody die at least once) because she wanted her doll. The sad music plays over all of this and the final puzzle and you're supposed to care and feel sorry that a Too Dumb to Live girl would go back to where she's been running away from to get a doll she got from a friend when another one could be bought easily. She even says she mustn't let anybody see her get it back because they would talk her out of it. Of course they would! They're smart! Any feelings I had towards the characters (cute and likable) was replaced with utter disgust. I felt robbed and cheated. I bought this game, spent time on it, expecting something great and wonderful... and it all ended with a doll. And since the game is all about not judging things by its covers I think it worked out ironically for them. The game is great but was shattered by that... one little thing...
- Capitaine Schizo: Yup, the ending was horrible on many levels. One particular problem stands out too: the heroine does her stupid move and walk back willingly in an incinerator, what the hell? Of course, she is found by the Big Bad, get trapped again, only to finally manage to tap into the morphogenetic field. Something, may I add, that brought nothing but confusion in a game whose strength was in the investigation and puzzles, not in wacky superpowers. She has five minutes to find a solution before her demise. Being in love with The Hero at this time, she creates a contact with him. The player has then to believe that the six paths he went through happened in five minutes. Five short minutes where Akane narrated absolutely everything. Needless to say, the Willing Suspension of Disbelief shattered immediately and no one could collect the pieces anymore, ruining what followed afterwards. It ties in with another problem: the awful storytelling during the Coffin Ending. So, you're here, investigating a good mystery since hours and getting closer to the truth. At this point, the player is likely to want to know what happened nine years ago. Hell, he went through a whole game (probably several times) to reach that point. And then, the game just... stops. For absolutely no reason. Apparently, Akane pushed the reset button during those five minutes just because she felt Junpei didn't have the necessary clues to keep going. Don't expect the game to tell you why.
- Jaydude: A certain scene near the end of the third case of Ace Attorney: Justice For All. Phoenix has proven the identity of the true killer, and Franziska learns that her ordering a search of the killer's room played a big part in helping him catch them. Her reaction upon learning this? Banging her bench and calling herself an idiot for ordering a search. Yes, she's angry that her actions led to the conviction of the true killer, rather than the man she put on trial. She's furious that an innocent man wasn't punished for a murder he didn't commit, because the only thing that mattered to her was beating Phoenix in court, regardless of the consequences of her actions. To me, this is the point where Franziska crossed the Moral Event Horizon, and with her total lack of remorse for her actions in the next games of the series, she's pretty much been a Designated Hero ever since.
- InTheGallbladder: I loved Ace Attorney: Trials and Tribulations, but there's one aspect of the game that still irks me even now: Near the end of "Bridge To The Turnabout" we find that Dahlia Hawthorne is being channeled. As even the case itself shows, this turns her execution into an extreme case of Might as Well Not Be in Prison at All. It also marks the point where the game wrote itself into a corner, as illustrated by her final fate—condemnation to the eternal agony of being herself. In short, since Dahlia's Death Is Cheap (a noteworthy exception to the rule), and there's nothing worse that can be done, she's a Karma Houdini as of "Bridge..." and could never have been anything but. Given everything she did in Trials, this is unacceptable.
- Catmuto: My personal DMoS also comes from Case 3-5. The revelation of the murderer of Elise Deauxnim and how everyone treated it, I never had a shred of sympathy for Prosecutor Godot. I did not care for the murderer's (and writer's) saving-throw attempt at explaining his actions. It sounded like he was excusing himself. Especially since half of his reasons didn't apply to the situation he actually was in, after he first appeared in the game. Looking at the time-frame, he seems to have awoken in August or September and Dahlia was not executed until December, one month prior to Case 3-5. He had ample opportunity to demand an audience with her in the detention center, or prison itself, and get even the slightest of Schadenfreude by telling her that he had survived her poisoning him and simply go 'Nyenyenyenynenyeee' or similar. The murderer came across, to me, like a whiny excuse of a person who refused to move on from his past, tragic as it might be, and decided to wallow in his misery instead of becoming properly proactive; yet everyone acted like he was a poor man whom I should pity and feel sorry for. Also, he knew of the events that would transpire that night, well before things happened, but did nothing to prevent them. A weak reason is given of him wanting to Play The Hero. I never bought that reason. The entire ordeal could have been avoided, had Prosecutor Godot just burned the goddamn letter or exchange it for a different one. In fact, I was more appalled that not more emphasis was put on Pearl Fey who honestly couldn't have done any different, as said character did not know the full meaning of things. That was the character I felt sorry for in that case, not the what-they-called a Sympathetic Murderer.
- DevNameless: I honestly had to debate with myself whether this was a good fit for the DMOS page as while it's definitely something that happened in-universe, I worry it's a little meta as it only happens in the localization. Still, I think it deserves a DMOS specifically because of the fact it's not one of the only major hiccups in what I consider a pretty stellar series localization, but it has done some serious damage to how people discuss my favorite prosecutor in the series. The moment, specifically, is when Godot goes on a misogynistic rant towards Franziska in the English version of Bridge to the Turnabout. I think it subtracts from the moment as a whole, as it was just meant to show the fact he isn't intimidated by how Franziska acts, but the decision to make him come off as prejudiced just feels like a slap in the face to me. To this day, I dislike how it's affected perceptions of a character I really love, and "Godot is Sexist" is perhaps the one argument in particular I will never accept when it comes to people who aren't into him.
- AlienPatch: Agreed, it was infuriating, to say the least, to see Hawthorne get away technically Scott-free after all she had done. Sadly, though, this is perhaps not the worst instance of unfair endings and ineffective punishments in the series. In Investigations 2 we get Ryouken Houinbou (or Shiran Dogen, if you prefer the unofficial translation), a blind serial killer who murdered around twelve people before Miles Edgeworth put an end to his career. In the past games, like Trials, we have seen people get sent to the death row for much less than what he did. However, here not only he merely got a life sentence, and has been in prison for quite some time without his life being at risk, as we find out later, he basically gets anything that he wants whenever he wants it, his dog is free to roam the place, has warden Miwa under pressure, and has many secret allies and henchmen who help him rule the place behind bars. Even worse, at the very end of the game he escaped from prison and appeared in time to save Souta from being gutted by Shelly De Killer, which means, if he wanted, he could have gotten out and resume his killing spree, or merely disappeared without a trace, at any time he pleased. In the end, he ended up returning to prison with Souta, but Dogen refers to it much less as a punishment, and more like “going back home”. All this proves that:
- Punishments in the Ace Attorney universe are highly inconsistent, inefficient and unjust, as certain prisoners don't seem to have it real bad behind bars, and a guy who murdered someone, even by accident, might actually pay the price more than a guy who did even worse.
- Police in this universe, as proven in past games in the franchise, are highly incompetent, as they not only let Dogen escape, but also lose important items and overlook dangerous activities inside prison (one inmate almost escaped successfully until Edgeworth and his allies found out about his escape plan.)
- Prison is being run by Dogen and his cronies. And even after all that happened, chances are, things are not getting any worse for him.
- And then you realize: What about all the extremely wealthy and powerful people Phoenix and Edgeworth sent to prison? If a blind yet highly dangerous guy like Dogen could have avoided capital punishment and make prison more his home and turf than a penalty, what could people like, say, Redd White or Matt Engarde, who had money, connections and influence, do inside prison? And what punishments did befall them, for that matter? Did they, after all they did, merely get sent to jail and not executed for all they did?
- yokaipinata: In Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Dual Destinies, Athena Cykes is set up as though she will be the lead of the first case. But before any gameplay even takes place, she has a traumatic flashback and shuts down, then Phoenix dramatically enters the courtroom before a premature verdict can be passed, which also snaps Athena out of her shutdown, and he takes over for the rest of the trial while Athena gets sidelined into being his co-counsel. This case is supposed to be our introduction to Athena, and in that capacity it's a proverbial middle finger to both her and the audience. Why couldn't Phoenix be the co-counsel, with Athena continuing to lead the defense while getting some advice from him? This would also have drawn nice parallels to Phoenix, Mia and Apollo's own first cases, where they were guided by their respective mentors. (I know this would actually have been Athena's second case, but it's still her first from our point of view, and she's still pretty much a newbie). And no, the fact Phoenix's name is in the (English) title and thus he's implied as the overall protagonist doesn't count as an excuse, because in Japanese the game is just named Turnabout Trial 5, thus not implying a protagonist. In general the series has been sidelining Athena compared to the other main characters since her introduction, but this case is by far the worst offender.
- Trialman: Spirit of Justice was a great addition to the Ace Attorney line-up, with some really compelling cases. However, the 4th case, while having a great set-up, and progressing quite well, ended up pissing me off with it's so-called Sympathetic Murderer. To put it simply, Geiru was intended to get revenge on the victim, solely because he chose a different successor. At the time, the victim was making noodles, which she assumed to be a type she was allergic to. As a result, she decided he must be snubbing her, rather than maybe making himself a meal, or even that he was making a different type (Which is what he was doing, as a way of telling her she can still make it in life, following her own path). Then she killed him, and tampered with the crime scene to frame the victim's chosen successor, specifically implicating a Split Personality who believed himself to be 5 years old. So she intended to get revenge on him, and ended up killing him in a fit of rage, attempted to frame someone who is a mentally a child and we're meant to feel sorry for her? Sorry, writers, but I don't consider this a sympathetic motive, or line of action, in the slightest.
- Melancholy Utopia: In Spirit of Justice, my DMoS was one that boiled my blood to fever level of celsius. I don't exactly remember which episode, but it was when you played as Apollo in Khurain, and he speaks to Emma. He then has the gall to say religion and science are complete opposites... for motherf*ck's sake! No! They are not! Have you never read up on history, Goddammit?! You're a f*cking lawyer, for crying out loud! The Catholic church was the sole supporter of science in medieval times. Heck, many famous scientists, like Albert freaking Einstein and Isaac freaking Newton had faith in God themselves! The only religion we've seen in the game is the Khurainese religion which only relies on supernatural forces in their practices. Then say that the Khurainese religion and science are complete opposites, not religion as a whole! This is coming from a spiritual person who's uncomfortable with supernatural subjects and generally only stick to science to find research on how it lines up with her faith (for those wondering, I play the games for the crime-solving, not the occultism. In fact, it really annoys me how much of it there is in the games). And why did Apollo have to say it?! I love the guy, he's one of my favorite characters in the franchise. If a bad guy said it, it would've been fine. This installment was without a doubt the worst game in the whole series, for portraying religious people as nutjobs disregarding scientific measures. Sorry, Capcom, but you win my contempt this time around.
- Catmuto: My DMoS for Nicole has to be the revelation on who the kidnapper is. Before entering the game, there's the case of disappearances and kidnappings of women on the campus, and you know that one of the dateable guys is the kidnapper. With only four guys, there's a 25% chance of being correct, even if one guesses. Now, I played the game and after an early, mandatory scene with one of the guys, all I could say was "It's you. Isn't it? I hope it isn't, this would just be way too obvious." And it turns out that I was absolutely correct, that guy was the kidnapper. I already have a tendency to predict plot twists before they arrive, anyway, so it's difficult to surprise me — but this was so blatantly, insultingly obvious that it makes me wonder if the creators of the game were honestly attempting to make the mystery section of the game actually decent.
- Master N: Sunrider: Liberation Day in general was a rather disappointing title when it first came out, with a whole slew of issues ranging from bugs to story direction, but the biggest disappointment has to be the ending. Basically, just when it looked like the Prototypes were defeated for good, they stage a False Flag Operation on the Liberation Day celebration, causing the Alliance and PACT to break off the peace they were finally working towards, the crew is forced to split up, the titular ship is destroyed, Chigara is battling Alice for control over the Prototypes, and now a new threat arrives in the form of Crow and the Ryuvian Fleet. So what was billed as the big conclusion to the series turns out to be a giant cliffhanger where everything the heroes accomplished is undone in a manner of minutes. Thank GOD that the [RE]turn DLC Cosmic Retcons this in favor of a more satisfying ending (that still leaves some threads open without destroying the heroes' accomplishments).
- Joestar Runner: As a huge Danganronpa fan, I found the ending of Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony to be massively disappointing. After 6 whole chapters of building up the mystery, the final Class Trial throws it all away by revealing that the entire franchise is merely a Show Within a Show. None of this game's characters are their true selves up to this point, having been "rewritten" by the mastermind, and none of the previous games' characters existed at all. All the suffering those characters went through, all the time we spent connecting with them, and all their accomplishments are rendered meaningless by this twist. It doesn't stop at just ruining the rest of the series, however; it then goes on to introduce the in-universe audience, an unflattering caricature of a toxic fanbase that feels like a deliberate and spiteful insult directed at the player, as if the game is shaming its own fans for enjoying this series and wanting another game. It's not hard to feel as though this ending, and by extension the whole game, was made from a place of spite for both the series and its fans. I was willing to put up with some annoying charactersnote and questionable plot choicesnote for the sake of experiencing the story, but this ending made it all feel pointless. Really, it comes off as an attempt to Torch the Franchise and Run when they could've just not made a new game in the first place.
