Gameplay And Story Segregation / Role-Playing Games

Instances of Gameplay and Story Segregation in Role-Playing Games.

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• Fray, the hero of Alphadia Genesis starts off the story by already having a reputation as a famous Guild member and even wins a local tournament for the very first in-game battle. He starts at level 1.
• Alpha Protocol:
  • The bosses will enjoy heavily modified laws of biology and physics during their fights, but immediately after the boss, they are suffering nothing more than a few non-lethal headshots and gunshot wounds. One example of this is the fight with Sis; as you're wrapping up the fight against her, she'd be peppered with gunshot wounds and (depending on your fighting style) explosive wounds. The cutscene immediately following shows Sis in seemingly near-perfect condition, as if she was only punched a few times.
  • Enemies you defeat bare handed are always treated injured but alive. Even if the finishing move used against them clearly snapped their spine.
• Anachronox has the main character in trouble with a local mob boss who he owes a large amount of money to. However, being an RPG you can make huge amounts of money from fighting monsters. Alternately, the next locale you visit has trading robots which you can use to make a fortune with. Problem is, you cannot use this money to pay back the mob boss — the option simply doesn't exist and the debt comes back to bite you later on.
• At the end of the second part of Ar tonelico: Melody of Elemia, Lady Shurelia sings Suspend, a spell that shuts down the Tower except for basic environmental and self-maintenance, and Aurica and Misha confirm that they can no longer use song magic. Shortly thereafter they Hand Wave magic as simply "much weaker," but even when you use it in Phase 3 before reawakening the Tower, spells are no less powerful than before and you can still use one that involves painting a target lock for the Tower's own energy cannons.
• Atelier Series:
  • Atelier Lydie & Suelle: The Alchemists and the Mysterious Paintings:
    • Many of the character events don't actually involve Lydie or Suelle, but triggering them requires navigating to the area where they take place. This creates the odd effect of whichever twin the player is controlling appearing in the location of the event after it's over, even though it's obvious neither of them were in the vicinity at the time.
    • On the other hand, the events in the Heavenly Flower Garden mysterious painting do very much involve Lydie and Suelle, as well as their father, Roger. There is no cut-scene evidence indicating that any of the other playable characters enter the painting with them, yet all are still present for battles.
    • The stated requirement for the test to earn S Rank is for the twins to pour their passion into a single item of amazing quality to turn in to Mireille. However, all you're actually required to do is turn in an item that's good enough to pass the first line, and if it doesn't, you can just deliver two or three crappy D-level items until you pass the line and then choose the "report" option. Mireille will tell you that just barely passed and to do better next time (though there isn't one) and everything else will play out exactly the same, with Mireille praising Lydie and Sue for successfully reaching S Rank and saying how proud she is of them.
  • Atelier Sophie 2: The Alchemist of the Mysterious Dream: The first fight against the Zmei, an evil dragon who's Diebold's Arch-Enemy, is a Heads I Win, Tails You Lose scenario: you defeat it, but fail to finish it off, so it manages to run away, allowing it to come back stronger a few dungeons later. Despite this, you still get Organ Drops (which include the dragon's heart and a part of its respiratory system) as a reward for the fight. The Zmei does not seem particularly impaired by you carving out these vital organs.
• Baldur's Gate:
  • In this and other Infinity Engine games, there are a number of resurrection spells and items that can bring your group members back from the dead. However, when the plot calls for a character to die, they die... and the option of resurrection is never even brought up. It is however pointed out at least two times in the sequel that a character is too irremediably decomposed, profaned, mailed or corrupted for any resurrection or healing spells to work.
  • Irritating example: The background fluff claims that lots of people prefer carrying handy little gems instead of weighty gold coins. For the player, the utility is reversed: Gold is weightless and its value is precise, while gems' values are unknown and they clutter up your limited inventory space.
  • In the sequel, after you escape the chapter 1 dungeon, a cutscene will trigger with Imoen casting magic missile, even if she used all her spells while controlled by the player. More silly if the player erased all her learned spells from her mage book.
  • The sequel establishes a canon party that traveled with the protagonist during the first game. Some other characters returning from the first game can be met and the player can ask questions like "didn't you die?", that can sound a bit silly to say to someone in the middle of a conversation, but is a quite reasonable way to manage the dissonance between a character effectively dying during the playthrough and later appearing in the sequel as if nothing happened. However, there is one case that induces a plothole: Imoen is revealed to be a child of Bhaal, thus she can't be normally resurrected, as when she dies, her corpse turns into dust (like Sarevok and Charname) and her soul rejoins the essence of Bhaal, speeding his resurrection. However, in the first game she can die and be resurrected every time the player wants. She could also die at the beginning of chapter 1 and be resurrected after months of in-game time for the final fight. In the expansion Throne of Bhaal the developers seem to acknowledge this dissonance by having Imoen discuss death and resurrection ("tell me, how is dying?" "I'm surprised that you make me this question, silly girl, I would expect you to have a discount at the local Helm's temple" "yes but it's not the same thing, it's like darkness and then you awake elsewhere" — the latter potentially a dissonance itself if she never died during your playthrough).
  • In the sequel you are forced to join one side in the struggle between the shadow thieves and the vampires, even if the character is a paladin who would have big moral troubles in joining any of the parts (although the player could roleplay that it's the only available path to advance to the final goal, the main character simply accepts without questioning, while some companions might argue against specific choices). An undead hunter main character, or a ranger with vampires set as the racial enemy, could even join the vampires without any question. Some modders have created a mod called "Alternatives" which allows for different paths in order to progress the story, for those players who find hard to roleplay certain choices.
  • Speaking of undead hunters and ranger racial enemies, in the Enhanced Edition there is Hexxat that can potentially join the party without any problem from Charname. Even if the player activates the turn undead button, no effect happens. Neither Minsc, who has vampires as racial enemies, raises any opposition at any point in the game. The only alternative is attacking her when you meet.
  • A wizard slayer Charname can freely recruit only magical companions with no one of them ever complaining.
  • A paladin robbing a mansion or paying for gladiatorial combat between slaves? No problem, your status won't drop (in the Forgotten Realms, paladins get their powers from a deity and they lose them if they betray their vow) unless you get caught and kill the guards, thus losing enough reputation.
  • Minsc is the only one who can bend the bars of his cage in the initial dungeon, even if your character has a higher strength.
  • It is perfectly reasonable to just meet a new character at the moment and then bring him/her into an epic final boss battle 15 seconds after joining the party for the first time, without any complaint, he/she even make comments like a seasoned companion.
  • You can murder innocent people, raise your reputation through donations or specific quests, and everybody will forget your crimes and never rise any question.
  • You can behave as a good paragon or an evil bastard, yet choose dialogue lines that are the complete opposite of your backstory. Even silly, you can choose a good line and then an evil line and viceversa, or even choose the same question and answer differently to the same character, ultimately contradicting yourself many times during a dialogue.
  • If you summon monsters or undead in the middle of a city or inside someone else's home, nobody will complain.
  • Leaving characters will walk towards the nearest "exit" be it a doorway, stairs, sewer grate or just transition edge of the map. This happens regardless of the most logical direction from a narrative perspective, which could lead to silly situations, like the mage in the chapter 3 of bg2 who will go towards the vampire lair despite saying that he did everything he could and was now leaving for good from that place which unnerved him.
  • Descending through the various levels of the Nashkel mines is immediate, but when you cross the final passage and emerge on the surface, you will find yourself in an area 16 hours of travel away from the mines entrance.
  • When unhappy, Shar-Teel will complain about how she can't take much more such male stupidity, even if your protagonist is a female and all your companions are women. Perhaps the voice lines were written assuming that Most Gamers Are Male.
  • Baldur's Gate: Siege of Dragonspear starts with your character that off-screen entrusted all the money to Ophyllis for keeping it secure, only for the latter losing all of it through wagers. Even if you didn't have any money to begin with for whatever reason. You later discover that your "fortune" was for the most part used to help the refugees, and what was left becomes a golden bust of yourself valuing 1000 gp. Some players even purposely end Baldur's Gate 1 after spending all the money into powerful gear to sell once Siege of Dragonspear starts, just to bypass the money reset, yet you still pass through this quest.
  • Baldur's Gate: Siege of Dragonspear also establishes that Imoen decided to practice magic on her own with duke Jannah after Sarevok's death, and that's also the plot reason for why she can't follow you through the campaign. Unless you already dual classed her during bg1, even reaching the max level possible as a mage to sling powerful spells until the final battle... only to see the new campaign automatically start with Imoen suddenly not being anymore available because she has to study magic otherwise she would only be a burden (ironically the latter an example of Gameplay and Story Integration, as dual classed characters can't use the abilities of their former class until they reach a superior level with the new class).
  • When you later meet Caelar for a final attempt to stop the incoming battle from occurring, you can never mention what you discovered about her not so trusthworty mage.
• Baldur's Gate III has this in spades. Ignoring the fact that many characters are weaker than they should be:
  • Halsin looks, and is noted by many people to be, extremely strong (he beat Minsc at arm-wrestling). In-game his Strength score is 10, that is to say, perfectly average and lower than Minsc's own (that is due to Halsin being a Druid, where Strength is something of a Dump Stat, so when he joins the party his stats are allocated as they would be for a player druid. When Halsin fights alongside you as an NPC, he as the much more adequate 16 Strength).
  • Minsc himself, despite having Strength as high as they could be in the first two games and also shown as being extremely physically strong in this one (he manhandles a Mimic easily in his introduction scene), suffers from the same problem. His class is Ranger, which means his stats are allocated to give him amazing Dexterity (17), but middling Strength (12).
  • This is practically guaranteed to happen if you choose to respec your party members. Some like Astarion, Lae'zel and Karlach downplay it because their class plays no significant role in their characterization, but Halsin for instance is explicitly stated to be an archdruid, so making him any class other than druid breaks his entire backstory. The same goes for Gale, Wyll, and Shadowheart (although in her case it can be used to invoke the opposite if you change her cleric subclass to better suit her potential Heel–Face Turn in Act II).
    • Speaking of Shadowheart's potential Heel–Face Turn, she will retain the Trickery Domain subclass even if she completes it, despite that subclass not being aviable to Clerics of the god she changes to in-lore or in-tabletop, presumeably so that the player can continue playing her the way they got used to rather than forcing them to relearn an entirely different subclass.
  • Using the ilithid powers granted by the tadpole in your brain and/or empowering it is described by almost everyone as a bad idea, since no one knows how strong the protection you have from turning into a mindflayer is, and making your tadpole stronger could eventually allow it to still transform you. Only your Dream Protector encourages you to use them, and that's because they're actually a sentient ilithid, and don't see anything particularly wrong with you becoming one. Gameplay-wise, however, there are no side-effects from relying on your ilithid powers and you're always safe.
  • The charisma stat is, in-lore, supposed to represent the strength of someone's personality, their ability to influence people (and to resist others' influences), to stand up for themselves in tense social situation, and the likes. Despite Wyll having a high Charisma mechanically, character-wise he is easily influenced (he fell for Mizora's lies relatively easily), not really respected by the rest of your party, and his attempts at flirting with the female party members are quickly shot down. By contrast, despite having perfectly average Charisma, Karlach is outgoing, friendly, and the only party member everyone (even the more evil and standoffish ones) appreciate.
  • Early in Act 3, you have several instances where you encounter Orin the Red, an Ax-Crazy shapeshifter and one of the central villains of the game, who takes the form of various minor characters to ambush you, taunt you, then teleport away so you can't fight her then and there, even when one of these instances can happen on a beach where nobody's around to risk being caught in the crossfire. Maybe not a problem for players who are playing martial classes that lack spellcasting options, since even if you land a hit on her she can teleport away, but spellcaster classes would have many ways to stop her (for starters, Command is a 1st level spell that can essentially prevent her from taking any action, and Counterspell, a 3rd level spell (by this point, the player is likely unlocking fifth to sixth level spells) that is cast as a Reaction and can prevent a person from casting a spell).
  • A minor one with enemy cosmetics vs their loot. Generally every character can be looted after they're downed, which typically includes their weapon, armour, any magic gear, and possibly other possessions. For most this tends to line up, where the armour they're wearing is visibly one of the many generic armours available in the game, but sometimes a character will have a very distinct, unique looking outfit, only to drop the same basic looking equipment. Additionally, unless the character is a recruitable companion, they will always remain visibly dressed even when they've been effectively mugged for their clothes, except for Ketheric Thorm due to him having originally at one point been recruitable.
• Used very painfully in Baten Kaitos, where almost all the characters have wings and are shown to be fully capable of flight over reasonably short distances [depending on their wing shape] in cutscenes. There are still a lot of Insurmountable Waist-Height Fence and Broken Bridge puzzles, at heights and distances that cutscenes and battle animations (and ladders in Baten Kaitos Origins) show that the characters are perfectly capable of flying over. The series does have some good moments of Gameplay and Story Integration, but not enough to balance out the wings problem.
• Chrono Cross has a feature where in New Game Plus, you can pull all of the characters you had in your party whenever you had previously beaten the game; even the ones who are in contradictory paths. While some might have a special attack or two; they do not interact. (Especially huge is being able to bring Harle back.) Somewhat justified, since the existence of parallel worlds is one of the main story points of the game.
• Chrono Trigger
  • During the first mandated travel to the pre-historic era, the Gate Key gets stolen and the party has to get it back to travel to various points in time. This includes using a metaphorical hop to the End of Time to swap out party members. Despite the key being stolen, the player can easily swap their third party member (since Crono and Ayla are mandatory members at this point) around at will.
  • At one point your characters' weapons are taken when you're captured by the enemy. Unless you have Ayla in the party, who can fight without weapons, engaging enemies results in automatically being tossed back in your cell, and even then, only characters that have retrieved their weapons will participate in the battle. This completely ignores the fact that most of your party members can use magic, and could quite easily demolish enemies with balls of fire or bolts of lightning in spite of being completely unarmed.
  • Ayla is portrayed as holding a club in her artwork and within the FMVs. She uses nothing but her bare hands to fight within the game itself.
• In Mobile Phone Game Cutie Riot, the same types of human and elf enemies are fought during quests, when according to quest dialogue the player is fighting goblins and other types of monsters.
• In Cyberpunk 2077, the main plot of the game is that you are desperately seeking cure for a condition that is killing you. You are given only a few weeks to live and are constantly given reminders of your condition like choking, visual effects, as well as NPCs commenting on your imminent demise. However, a massive chunk of the game is about doing odd jobs for criminals and Fixers that will yield you money you can only spend on luxury items. A lot of gamers rush through the game, expecting to do the side content later, only to find out the story doesn't allow you to do so.
• From Darkest Dungeon:
  • The game's hunger system is implemented as a random event which forces the characters to consume food or face health / stress damage. Food can also be consumed outside of that to restore health — but the hunger system completely disregards that. You can eat till the character refuses to take any more because they're full, and the next moment their hunger event strikes. ^note This is because the hunger system is not decided by a meter which depletes when actions are taken and refilled when consuming food, as one might expect, but is instead a tile event which is randomly set when the map is generated. If you are really unlucky, you can end up with multiple hunger events right next to each other.
  • The torchlight system is mostly just a straightforward way to manage risk / reward: you're safer in the light, but can get better rewards in the dark. Some of the ways in which it's implemented make sense, like getting better scouting events in the light or being at a bigger risk of an ambush in the dark; some really don't, for example finding more loot in the dark (as if it's easier to find stuff when you can't see it) or having a higher chance of ambushing enemies in the light (somehow it's harder to notice you approaching if you carry a bright torch).
  • When traversing a corridor, it's possible to make the characters walk backwards, towards the door through which they entered. Doing so will prompt them to become concerned that they may be ambushed like that and inflict stress penalties. However, as the game is not programmed to be able to spawn enemies that attack the party from the back, it's one of the few occasions when the party is actually completely safe.
• Part of the Dark Souls series' gimmick is that when you're killed in the game, your character actually dies and respawns at a bonfire in-universe. This is why your souls end up where you died, why some enemies stay dead after you kill them, and why changes you make to the levels persist (such as opening doors or activating elevators). However, multi-stage boss fights retain their phases, even when this doesn't fit: for example, the final boss of the Ashes of Ariandel DLC has you kill Friede, at which point Father Ariandel flips out and starts trying to beat you to death or set you on fire; when you die, however, you walk into the boss arena and he's obligingly chained himself back down until you kill her again.
  • Some items also don't make much sense. For example, the Undead Legion used the Farron Ring to improve their sword technique...but because the Farron Ring reduces the focus cost of weapon skills, and the Undead Legion's Farron Greatsword doesn't consume focus for its skill (parrying is free), the ring is dead weight on a character using it.
• Deconstructed in Death end re;Quest with DLC Ripuka. Normally the DLC characters in Compile Heart games aren't that well integrated into the main story. In this case, the playable Ripuka, even if she is suffering from amnesia, is aware of this, that she's been summoned into the world as extra combatant who can't even be seen by the party members or even Arata, which means that she's aware of the Fourth Wall like the enemy Ripuka and the other Ludens. When you're chatting with her, she's directly addressing you, the player. Not only that, her knowing this fact also slowly drives her insane.
• Divinity: Original Sin II:
  • The Undead are believed to be unholy abominations and are attacked on sight, requiring an undead PC to hide their skeletal body. However, all potential companions and most NPCs important to the main story are fine with it, even if the PC reveals themself as undead in their first conversation ever.
  • Sebille is armed with an absurdly sharp needle that's frequently mentioned in dialogue and can deal One Hit Kills in cutscenes, but is absent from her inventory and from regular gameplay.
  • In the story, Source Magic Is a Monster Magnet that can cause Voidwoken to appear with "just a drop". In gameplay, you can use all the Source you like; Voidwoken attacks, even those nominally attracted by Source, are scripted events or cutscenes.
  • Although Source magic is highly illegal and reviled, and one Sidequest treats a Source spell scroll as incriminating contraband, every major vendor has Source skill books for sale by Act II onwards.
• Dragon Age:
  • Throughout the games, extended exposure to darkspawn blood is said to cause characters to become tainted. No mechanic for this exists: BioWare considered allowing your non-Grey Warden companions to undergo the ritual after long-term exposure in Origins but ended up not implementing it.
  • Dragon Age: Origins:
    • Blood Magic is a forbidden dark art that can only be learned in-game by bargaining a child's soul away to a demon (barring an incredibly high Coercion score), and it's practitioners are severely persecuted. And while the Player Character using it, even in presence of blood mage-hunters, can be justified since you're a Grey Warden, meaning you're above "normal" law, it's very unlikely that the kindly, by-the-book mage Wynne would be willing to learn and use Blood Magic, but in-game nothing stops you from having her do it anyway.
    • Lyrium is stated to be a highly addictive substance that gradually poisons the drinker over time. Despite this, every mage in your party can gulp down flagons of the stuff without any ramifications. There was originally going to be a "lyrium withdrawal" debuff that got stronger the longer you used it, but it was taken out before release.
    • If you complete various DLC achievements, you unlock special equipment for future playthroughs of the main game, no matter what origin those playthroughs have. Meaning that the City Elf and Dwarf Commoner start out virtually skint, barely having two copper pieces to rub together, even though their inventory contains nearly 350 gold in dragonbone weapons alone. This equipment is also never taken away; even though the Dwarf Noble is arrested, found guilty, and thrown into the Deep Roads with sword, shield, and prison clothes, they won't confiscate the Orlesian-made high-grade leather armour, dragonbone axe, or magical stat-boosting belt (and indeed, if your Strength score is 20 or above the former will be donned automatically as soon as play starts).
    • One of your companions, Sten, is a Proud Warrior Race Guy, who values his personal sword so much that when it got stolen he went berzerk and slaughtered an entire innocent family. He cannot return home without it, even if he completes his mission, because his people will just kill him. You can go on a quest to recover the sword and return it to Sten, to his immense thanks. The sword then becomes an equippable weapon, which you can give to another party member, sell for a quick buck or even destroy in front of Sten. He will not care.
  • In Dragon Age II, Kirkwall is a city on the verge of becoming even more of a Wretched Hive because of the paranoia of the Templars. The Templars can even arrest The Hero's mage sister Bethany. However, you can walk 3 mages, robes and staffs in plain sight, past a crowd of Templars outside the Templar headquarters without anyone batting an eye. Hilariously, at one point, Cullen might tell a mage Hawke that "mages aren't people like you and me". Right after having seen Hawke use magic. One has to wonder how they train Kirkwall's Templars.
  • Dragon Age: Inquisition:
    • If you offer the rebel mages a full partnership, Cassandra will defend your actions when your advisors ask you what you were thinking, and if you talk to her afterwards, she'll say she doesn't disapprove and respects that you made a decision when necessary. In-game, however, she greatly disapproves of the decision and it can lower her disposition towards you if her approval score is borderline.
    • Raw lyrium is incredibly dangerous to anyone who isn't a dwarf (and is even risky for dwarves). People who spend extended time around lyrium risk physical and psychological damage, and mages can be killed by direct exposure to raw lyrium outright. The red version is even worse, as just having a small piece of it can drive even a dwarf completely crazy. And yet throughout the game, you can walk your character right up to deposits of both versions, even touch it, with no adverse effects.
• Dragon Quest:
  • Dragon Quest III: After retrieving the Mirror of Ra, the party sneaks into the "king" room at the night and reveal his true shape: a giant troll who suddenly awakens and attacks the party. For a guy who just woke up, though, he's definitely alert throughout the fight.
  • Dragon Quest IV: During the fourth chapter, you have to search for some gunpowder in order to make a loud noise and scare the Chancellor of Palais de Leon. Never mind that Maya already knows a spell called "Bang" that creates a big explosion...
  • Dragon Quest V:
    • In perhaps the oddest example of this trope and a complete inversion of the usual Take Your Time present in this game, a series of events that can take the player roughly a couple hours to get through is implied to take two YEARS^note especially the process of meeting your prospective wives, adventuring to get their hand in marriage, getting married, and the birth of the twins. Going by plot? A year or two. Going by the game mechanic days, about three weeks at most. This happens at least twice in the game, in addition to normal story time skips. (The last era of the game is explicitly mentioned to have taken two years.)
    • A rather more disappointing example: the hero's son is the legendary hero, so you'd expect his stats would at least notably decent. They aren't. He is outclassed by his twin sister, a mage, in every category but Strength, and dwarfed in every category by his father (who is twenty years older, but come on, they're the same level!).
  • Dragon Quest VIII:
    • At one point you cannot get past a northern checkpoint because the game involves going around with a king who has been transformed into a monster, and they won't let a monster in. However, at this point the hero has learned a spell to teleport him and his party to any city he has been to. If the story treated this spell as existing, he could go through the checkpoint alone, reach the next city, return, then teleport back to the city with the king and party. For that matter, half the stores in the game sell an item that has the same effect (Chimaera wings), so it wouldn't necessarily have to be the hero who could go alone. Heck, they could find a random guy who's been to the city and pay him to transport them there. If the game's plot considered this, though, then keeping borders secure would be nearly impossible.
    • The main plot involving the villain's murder spree, complete with you being forced to sit through a funeral for one of the victims. Instead of, I don't know, dragging the victim back into the church to be resurrected like you did all the times someone in your party has been killed in random battles.
• Dyztopia: Post-Human RPG: Battles can happen underwater and the appropriate visual effects will be applied, but fortunately, there's also no consequence for using fire or thunder type skills underwater.
• In EarthBound (1994), if you play for more than two hours in one sitting, Ness's father will call to encourage him (or rather you, the player) to take a break from playing. The strange part is that this can occur before you get the Receiver Phone, the item that allows you to get (but not make) phone calls anywhere. Since this happens a few hours into the game, it's easy for you to get a call from Ness's father before Ness has a phone able to receive the call.
• Elden Ring:
  • The Scarlet Rot is a seemingly-incurable disease that will kill anything it afflicts. One NPC afflicted by it could only be saved by an unalloyed gold needle, but it didn't cure her and the disease would return if it the needle was ever removed. To the player character however, Scarlet Rot only lasts a few minutes and can be cured relatively easily with a spell or consumable - though admittedly none of those are particularly easy to find or make. While unstated, it's possible that there's just a difference between a long-term terminal infection of it, and an acute short-term one. The in-game Scarlet Rot status effect rapidly drains health and, in its most potent form, kills anything in under a minute (the damage is percentage-based) without intervention of magic, but it only retains that form for some 90 seconds, after which it will cease to have an effect (you could simply survive it by out-healing the damage, for example). Meanwhile multiple in-universe characters are dealing with long-term infections that don't kill anywhere near as rapidly but are much more difficult to remove. This is backed up by the fact that you can inflict the acute, in-game infection on characters who explicitly already have Scarlet Rot killing them over the course of years (like Radahn), and the result is a very clear visual difference followed by them dying in seconds.
  • Dragon Communion results in practitioners eventually going crazy and transforming into Magma Wyrms. In-game, Dragon Communion just allows you to purchase dragon-based spells, and the only side-effect is your eyes turning draconic.
  • There are several things that are, in-story, able to bypass your character's Resurrective Immortality: Godrick grafts his victims to himself while keeping them alive, Scarlet Rot as noted above is able to infects even Tarnished bodies and minds and resurrection doesn't remove it, the Rune of Death make its wielders able to permanently kill anything, and so on. In-game, however, while these things are encountered, dying to any of them still sends you to the last Site of Grace you visited rather than deleting your character. It's also hinted that it is possible for a Tarnished's immortality to "run out" after dying too many times, but that will never happen to you, even though it does to literally every other Tarnished in the world.
  • The game guides you so your first Great Rune is obtained by killing Godrick and will have NPC comment on it being your first, but it is possible to kill a couple of others demigods and obtain their Great Runes before him if you explore off the marked path. NPCs will still comment on them as if you got your first Great rune from Godrick.
  • Enemies will remain hostiles even if they in-lore should become friendly after some event. The most glaring example is the Kenneth Haight's fort which is supposed to be garrisoned by friendly demi-humans after you kill the original owner and have Haight take his place. Except that on your subsequent visits here, only Haight will be friendly, and he won't comment on the fact that you are now killing his own men, or that his men are attacking you on sight.
• The Elder Scrolls:
  • Recurring examples in the series:
    • The Umbra Sword is described as an evil Empathic Weapon that slowly corrupts and drives mad the person who wields it. The player can use it for the entire game after earning it and suffer no ill effects.
    • Moon Sugar and Skooma are highly addictive drugs, but the player can consume them with no negative long term consequences.
    • "Proper Lock Design", an In-Game Novel appearing in Oblivion and Skyrim, points out that higher-quality locks aren't any good if the chest or door itself is easily broken. Putting this to the test yourself isn't an option; while there are chests and doors placed pre-broken as part of the landscape, you can't ever break one no matter how hard you hit it. Presumably all of the wood-workers on Nirn took this advice to heart!
    • In an example of gameplay-and-story segregation caused by later changes in game mechanics, the plot of "A Hypothetical Treachery" no longer makes sense in Oblivion and Skyrim because magicka now regenerates quickly, unlike in Morrowind.
  • Morrowind:
    • One mission during the main quest requires the player to rescue an Argonian being bullied and threatened by racist Dunmer. The Argonian says they refuse to listen to anything he says because of his race. Despite this, the player character can talk to the Dunmer and convince them to leave the Argonian alone, even if the player character is an Argonian him/herself. The racists don't even mention this.
    • It is possible to become the leader of two Guilds or Factions which hate each other. For example, take the Mages Guild and House Telvanni. One quest for the Mages Guild requires you to root out a Telvanni spy within Guild leadership. You can be the Archmagister of House Telvanni, root out the spy who now technically works for you, and be rewarded by the Mages Guild for your good work. Another example, you may be the Mages Guild Archmage, but a House Telvanni quest will have you get the Mages Guild's monopoly on magical training dropped.
    • Several characters will comment that outlanders are not well liked by the native Dunmer. This supposedly includes foreign-born Dunmer. However, a Dunmer Player Character will still get the standard +10 "same race" disposition boost when interacting with native Dunmer NPCs.
    • Mistress Dratha, the Telvanni lord of Tel Mora, really Does Not Like Men. All of the retainers, merchants, and citizens in her city are female, with one exception: a single generic Telvanni Guard. Justified, as there are no female generic Telvanni Guards, and only generic guards can arrest the player if a crime is committed.
    • An early Mages' Guild questline involves a bet between the alchemist Ajira and the enchanter Galbedir on which apprentice will become journeyman first, with the player helping Ajira gain an edge... but Galbedir is already set as being a journeyman when the game starts, despite the plot treating her as still an apprentice. Oddly enough the game does have the mechanics to avoid this — there are scripting commands to raise or lower an NPC's rank in a faction — it just never uses them.
  • Skyrim:
    • A big deal is made about how Khajiit are strictly forbidden from so much as setting foot in a Hold's capitol city. However, if the player is a Khajiit, they can freely enter and exit even Windhelm (where even Argonians aren't allowed) without any trouble aside from the occasional rude comment. While this can be handwaved after the player goes to see the Greybeards and it's revealed that they are The Chosen One, the player can go straight from the tutorial in Helgen to Windhelm with no trouble at all.
    • The Skeleton Key can unlock much more than just locks, including the mind and Nord puzzle doors. Mercer even collapsed a tower with it. In the battle against him, he also used two of the Nocturnal abilities, one of them constantly, while normally a person can only possess one and it can't be used constantly. In the player's hands, it can only be used as an unbreakable lockpick and can't pick unpickable locks. The player character doesn't see the Skeleton Key the way Mercer does, though.
    • In the Dawnguard DLC, one quest of the vampire questline involves turning the moth priest into your thrall. The player uses vampire's seduction and then feeds on him to make him a thrall. The player can feed on almost any NPC like this, but it never makes a thrall.
    • The College of Winterhold questline involves you enrolling at the local Wizarding School and eventually becoming its Arch-Mage (basically the headmaster). However, you aren't actually required to cast very many spells over the course of the questline and can spend about 99% of it just caving in skulls with a warhammer. What few spells you are required to cast are Novice-level spells anyone can use. Hell, the penultimate boss of the questline uses a staff that drains your magicka, so you'll probably have an easier time caving in his skull than actually having a magic duel with him, even if you're a mage. Regardless, all of the students and faculty will praise your incredible magical prowess by the end of it and declare you the only one fit to be Arch-Mage. Also, despite being Arch-Mage, you still have to pay to get back in if you murder one of your students. Evidently, the position doesn't come with tenure.
    • The Companions questline is basically a reverse of the College. They're a mercenary company of warriors who value physical prowess and frown upon magic. To join them you have to spar with one of their members and will be yelled at if you cast a spell during this sparring match (including summoning a bound weapon). However, once that's over, you can spend the rest of the questline chucking lightning bolts at everything or having your atronachs do all the fighting for you and they will no longer care. And yes, at the end, you are made the new leader of the Companions, because you're such a strong and honorable warrior and not one of those sissy magic-users whatsoever, no sir.
    • The quest Forbidden Legend has you reforge an amulet that was reputed to be powerful and dangerous enough that even split into three it caused problems. This amulet's power? +30 to health, magicka and stamina. Useful, but not that powerful.
    • Hired Thugs have a contract that states that they don't need to kill the Dragonborn, but can do so if they deem it necessary. Hired Thugs will always attempt to kill you regardless of whether or not you fight back, because the engine has no way to allow players to be captured except by scripted events when the story demands it.
• Eternal Sonata:
  • People who suffer from incurable illnesses develop the ability to use magic. As you advance into the game, you see that in fact everyone in your party is capable of using magic in battle; each character has "Magic" as a value in their stats. Still, the game says that just Polka and Chopin are ill and the only ones in your party that can use magic. Some characters even praise that capacity.
  • It's said that nobody is buying floral powder from Tenuto anymore because of the cheapness of the mineral powder. Yet just about every store in the game that sells items to your party carries healing powers that are described as powders made from flowers from Tenuto. This sort of segregation is probably also the reason why, once your party has a massive amount of Gold, Allegretto and Beat don't hand a bunch of it over to the kids in the sewers so they don't have to live there anymore.
  • This is also the main reason why Allegretto can't stop mocking Beat's obsession with photography, even though 12 haphazard shots of any random monster nets you more Gold than he's probably seen in a year, maybe even his entire life.
  • Even if you go through the trouble of getting Claves back from the bonus dungeon Mysterious Unison, the game basically acts as if she isn't there for any few remaining scenes in which her presence would be a factor, including the game's ending sequence. In fact, the only time this isn't true is in the Updated Re-release exclusive bonus dungeon in which you can get an altered scene with her presence in the party.
• Caster from Fate/EXTRA states that she's just a normal girl in terms of physical prowess. She's not even heavily skilled in melee combat by normal, real-world standards. Doesn't stop her from physically striking iron-bodied servants that can move faster than sound and actually hurting them.
• Fate/Grand Order:
  • The Assassin class is stated to be the worst physical combatant of the various classes, and best for stealth tactics and picking off specific priority targets who can't overpower them (especially normal humans). However, in the game proper, an Assassin is no weaker than any other Servant of the same star level aside from a 10% damage penalty (which they share with the Caster class and isn't much lower than the penalty Archers get). To the contrary, due to the game giving Assassin a Tactical Rock–Paper–Scissors advantage over the Rider class, and many giant enemies being Riders, Assassins are somewhat memetic in the fandom for these sneaky rogues, serial killers, and executioners being able to tank the blows of giant monsters and kill them in one shot, while the powerful mages, demigods, and dragon-slayers struggle to do the same.
  • Due to the game's summoning mechanics, it's very possible to have a character who's a major player in the story mode in your party by the time you reach that point. For instance, say you roll Merlin on a banner or use your friend's Merlin through Supports, and then reach Babylon, where you meet a mysterious mage who helps you out. The characters still act shocked when the mage turns out to be Merlin, even if they've been fighting alongside him for some time and know exactly what he looks like. This was given a bandage by a system where many newer Servants are not referred to by their True Name until you reach their part of the story; for instance, if you haven't played Shinjuku and you summon or use Moriarty, then the game refers to him primarily as "Archer of Shinjuku" and even blanks out the name of his Noble Phantasm to avoid making it obvious who he is.
  • Overlapping with Popularity Power, a lot of Servants have rarities or stats that don't correspond to their in-lore power. Arash is Famed In-Story as Iran's greatest hero, but he's a one-star, the lowest rarity, and mostly useless at first glance. Cu Chulainn, who is considered pretty damn powerful in the lore of the series, is three-star, putting him below people he canonically managed to fight to a standstill or outright defeat. Jack the Ripper is considered a "young" Servant and therefore quite weak, but a five-star in-game, the top rarity. And then there's the large number of Servants given out for special events, who inexplicably gain or lose a star and completely change their focus because they're wearing a bathing suit, and all of whom end up at four or five stars.
  • A microcosm of the above oddities is Okita and Nobunaga. In lore, Okita is a pretty weak Servant with no standout traits besides Agility, owing to being only a few centuries old. However, this makes her a natural counter to Nobunaga, who (due to the historical Nobunaga being infamous as an anti-spiritual modernizer) has hefty advantages against older and more legendary Servants but is basically limited to "shoot easily-dodged muskets at it" against younger ones. But in game mechanics, this is reversed. Okita ended up being the five-star for the event that introduced the duo, so she's very strong in general, able to crit for tons of damage and bring down powerful opponents. Meanwhile, Nobunaga is an Archer (class advantage over Saber, Okita's class) who also gets bonus damage against characters with the Riding trait (which Okita has), so bringing Nobunaga along to fight Okita is actually a very good idea.
  • In general, for the purposes of any story event, the game assumes you've summoned whatever Servants are convenient. For instance, the Agartha arc involves the premise that Astolfo, d'Eon, Fergus, Heracles, and Drake have all been summoned by you at some point and their disappearance is significant, even though it's very likely to get to that point in the story with pretty much every character on that list except maybe Fergus absent from your Chaldea.
  • In one of the later chapters of Part II of the story, one of the Servants, Musashi, sacrifices herself to defeat a major enemy, resulting in her ceasing to exist entirely, even from the Throne of Heroes. In the materials accessible in My Room, that Servant's icon is replaced by a blue icon that reads "DATA LOST", and the profile is no longer accessible. However, if the player has successfully summoned the Servant previously, the profile remains accessible and visible from a different menu, and it remains playable.
  • A lot of lore elements end up getting defied by the game's mechanics. Probably the funniest case is Medea's Rule Breaker attack. In canon, it's stated that the ability is Awesome, but Impractical: it's a dagger that can undo most spells and magical contracts, but Medea is a Squishy Wizard and the dagger is fragile, short-range, and unergonomic, so it's not really feasible for her to use it in actual combat. However, since "range" isn't really a factor in the combat system, ingame Medea has no problem just floating up to a giant monster and shanking them in the face. In fact, considering how good Medea is at charging up her Limit Break, chances are good she'll be stabbing people almost every other turn, making it actually the inverse, a Boring, but Practical source of steady damage.
• Summons or other spells with extensive animations that never affect reality in the RPG world. The earthquake spell never takes out any buildings, Bahamut Zero can fly out of space and zap your enemies even when you're underground, and the most infamous offender, Final Fantasy VII's Supernova, destroys Earth's whole solar system, doing some damage to the characters but leaving them and the planet, which is not even Earth, intact.^note The attack is implied to be an illusion, though, which would make it make more sense. Moreover, the villain can cast it multiple times. On the other hand, Little Girl Rydia summons Titan in a battle-cutscene and creates an entire mountain range.^note Long before she learns how to summon Titan, at that. Likewise, in Final Fantasy IX summons are pivotal to the plot as the beasts enact massive actions in cutscenes; apparently, their attacks are much more surgically precise during gameplay.
• Fleuret Blanc:
  • Completing the confrontation associated with a character will let you see their part of the "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue. Normally, this makes sense, as the subplot and confrontation typically revolves around learning more about them and turning their life in a new direction. However, Masque's confrontation has almost nothing to do with him personally, as it's only the first half of Le Neuvieme's subplot, so it's possible to see his epilogue without understanding any of its significance.
  • When fighting Kant, their quips have the same confident, cocky tone as the other members', despite the fact that they're a terrified, traumatized wreck at that point.
• In Gene Forge, Shapers are barred from ever making certain Creations, but nobody will comment on you wandering around Shaper cities with a small army of illegal creations in tow. Indeed, you can march right into a city of Drayks and Drakons who are rebelling against the headship or even equality with humans, and go and chat with Drayks about how little they're being respected, and they won't bat an eye if you happen to have a force of obedient cannon fodder servant Drayks at your heels.
• Genshin Impact:
  • You can have four characters in your party, or five if you get a Guest-Star Party Member as part of a quest, but cutscenes and NPC dialogue will always assume that you only have the Traveler in your party and/or any said Guest-Star Party Member(s). Certain dialogues will cause you to temporarily change to the Traveler regardless of whether they're in your party or not, but most won't, so you could be playing as someone like Amber, and the NPC will still treat you as if you're playing as the Traveler.
  • Regardless of what weapon the Traveler has equipped, cutscenes will generally depict them as wielding a Dull Blade, the sword they start the game with, or a Silver Sword, a slightly better weapon that you'll inevitably obtain not long after starting.
  • With the sole exception of the Archons, Neuvillette, and Fatui Harbingers (if Wanderer wasn't included, since he became playable after leaving the Fatui), the rarity of stars (resulting in naturally more or less high stats) of the characters does not always reflect their true power and/or their role within the story and lore in general. Some classic examples are Diluc (5★) and Kaeya (4★), who can stand up in an equal fight with each other, or Ningguang (4★), who is essentially both the unofficial leader of the Liyue Qixing and one of the most powerful Vision users in the game, has one less star than her colleague Keqing (5★). Likewise, Beidou (4★), a legendary warrior and sailor from Liyue who obtained her own Electro Vision by killing a powerful millennial sea monster, and Hu Tao (5★), a mere owner of a funeral home.
  • Every character's specialty dish has increased effects from the dish that it's based on. This includes the dishes of Lethal Chefs Amber and Bennett, which are described as being improperly cooked but will still restore an additional 10% of a fallen character's health.
• In the Game Boy Color adaptation of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Harry may have Ron, Hermione, and at one point even Neville following him. They'll never help him out.
• In Hyperdimension Neptunia Victory they make a fairly big deal out of Neptune not being a CPU in the alternate dimension, and the first chapter of the game is devoted to finding the object that can restore her power. The same is done for her sister, Nepgear, and she isn't playable until she receives the CPU Memory from Vert. However, it's never brought up again, and when Uni, Ram, and Rom join the team at the end of the Good/True Ending route, they're able to flip back and forth between dimensions just fine.
• In Inazuma Eleven every soccer player can jump almost as high as Saiyans in a soccer match to create supernatural moves, but none of the members in your team thinks of jumping across a small river to get to pieces of wood to create a bridge so that their van can cross, and you have to go around the whole maze-like forest.
• Indivisible: Dhar had recently led an assault on Ajna's village, burned it to the ground, and murdered her father in front of her in Ravannavar's name. Naturally, when he gets sucked into her third eye and they become stuck together, they are on bad terms. Dhar becomes a playable party member from that point and isn't necessarily being controlled by Ajna, just bonded to Ajna and can come out when he needs. Eventually, Ajna finds Ravannavar and tries to kill him. Dhar can be used in both fights against Ravannavar, despite still being fiercely loyal to him (Albeit unremembered) before he makes his Heel–Face Turn.
• Jade Empire:
  • The philosophy behind the Open Palm/Closed Fist Karma Meter is explained in quite a bit of depth and is debated in-universe but is closer to Harmony vs Individualism than Good vs Evil, and the Big Bad especially is Open Palm but very evil. In actual practice the game rewards points like it was good vs evil, even though lots of the acts you'll get Closed Fist points for petty puppy-kicking cruelty that are just as bad in that philosophy and a fair few you get Open Palm for are just as good.
  • The player character can not harm spirits with weapon styles and this is explained as just how spirits work in this universe, but none of the companions have this restriction.
• Kingdom Hearts:
  • Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days: Emblem Heartless are said, in the story, to release hearts whenever they are defeated by a Keyblade. In the Organization, only Roxas (and later Xion) can use the Keyblade, making them invaluable to the Organization. In Gameplay, though, the hearts are collected when any of your allies defeat an Emblem Heartless, even if it was defeated by someone without a Keyblade. You also get the hearts if you (or an ally) defeat them with magic instead of a weapon.
    • Going with the above, the story likes to say that Heartless can only be defeated at all with a Keyblade and demonstrate by giving you a mundane weapon early on that has no effect on Heartless until you get the Keyblade, but in game anyone can fight them as if they were regular monster. Even worse, in the first game, you temporarily lose the Keyblade — this does torpedo your Attack and Magic stats, but you're still capable of dealing some damage with the very same wooden toy sword that passed through Shadows at the beginning of the game like they were intangible. Gameplay And Gameplay Segregation?
  • In Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep, you may have leveled up any or all of the 3 main characters to the point where any of them can defeat Xehanort and/or Vanitas in their numerous boss battles in about 2 seconds, yet they will STILL kick all 3 characters' asses repeatedly during cutscenes both before and after these fights.
  • In Kingdom Hearts II:
    • In Port Royal, Jack Sparrow turns into a skeleton in sections of moonlight after becoming cursed, just like the other pirates. However, he can be damaged when he is non-skeletal form, while the other pirates cannot, and is able to be hurt by mundane means while the Pirates can only be harmed because of the Keyblade's foreign magic.
    • The first fight against Armored Controller Xemnas is one of the few bosses that has a chance to trigger the King Mickey rescue mechanic should Sora die. In a cutscene before the fight, King Mickey is trapped on the other side of the closed Door to Darkness and shouldn't be able to get there. In the post-fight cutscene, however, both Mickey and Kairi are seen in fighting stances and the former congratulates everyone for doing great, suggesting he and Kairi eventually got through.
    • Completion in certain areas, such as the Hundred Acre Wood and Atlantica is not required to clear the game. Despite this, if you beat the game without clearing these areas, you will still see happy cutscenes of resolution in the credits as if you had.
  • Kingdom Hearts III: The Thirteen Seekers of Darkness are comprised of Master Xehanort and his incarnations from across time and numerous allies and former Organization members, many of whom served as either a Final Boss or Climax Boss in their own right. However, in the climactic Keyblade War, they are all fought in groups and none of them display anything close to the amount of power they showed in past games. This is especially egregious with foes such as Ansem, Xemnas, Young Xehanort, and Marluxia, the aforementioned final bosses of past games. Word of God later clarified that this de-powering was deliberate so that a player could be reasonably expected to defeat two-to-three Organization members in a single fight, especially newcomers to the series. The Limit Cut episode from the DLC later added one-on-one fights with each Seeker of Darkness in which they are more powerful than they've ever been in past games and regain many of their old abilities and attacks; Word of God elaborated that this is the power level that the Seekers were actually at when Sora fought them in the base game.
• In Knights of the Old Republic, despite the Sith guards on Taris supposedly looking for Bastila, they'll never comment on her presence even when she walks past them in her Jedi robe wielding a lightsaber. Maybe they're just that stupid, which might explain why Malak so quickly opted to destroy the entire planet.
• Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords:
  • Nar Shaddaa is home to the Jekk'Jekk Tarr, a bar that caters to aliens and sports a piped-in atmosphere toxic to humans. When the Player Character goes there as part of the game's overarching story, he/she is informed that a breathmask will be insufficient protection and a full-body containment suit is called for, as the poison can be absorbed through the skin. This will come as a surprise to any player who already completed an earlier sidequest by, yes, putting on a breath mask and just walking around as normal. And when you actually enter the JJT, you walk in, nearly asphyxiate, and then Kreia teaches you a Force power called Breath Control, which makes you immune to poison. But you don't even have to use it if you just... equip a breath mask (despite being told that won't work).
  • Subverted later in the game. The various Jedi Masters you're searching for will act as though your character is still cut off from the Force when you talk to them, totally ignoring something like the possibility that you were mind-controlling mercenaries or blasting entire rooms of people with lightning from your hand right in front of them not five minutes prior. There's a reason for that, though.
• In The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky, the local Orphanage of Love is burnt down, meaning that its Matron will have to earn ten thousand mira to rebuild it. However, players are never given the option to donate money to her. Even if they're carrying triple that amount.
• In The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel, this is avoided as much as possible. At one point, Machias and Jusis' and later Laura and Fie's inability to get along even leads to the Tactical Link system breaking. Rean and Alisa's dispute doesn't break the Link system because they get over their issues before they end up in the same party. That said, there are some issues...
  • The story makes a huge deal about how important and battle-changing combat links are but they hardly even make a difference during actual gameplay battles, especially during early and mid game.
  • The story also makes a big deal about how much more powerful Laura and Fie are compare the rest but in gameplay, (barring overpowered skills like Rean's Arc Slash) they aren't too different from any of the other physical-based characters.
    • This is most exemplified during the battle where you play as Fie and Laura vs Rean and Machias, which is arguably one of the hardest, if not the hardest, battle in the game, especially on the higher difficulties.
    • Perhaps as to try to make this more consistent, both Laura and Fie are the only ones to start the game with an S-Craft.
    • To make the hard fight more believable, it was placed after Laura and Fie exhausted their energy in duel.
    • Although you can switch in and out party members in a fight, you're only required to fight with four. Regardless, everyone gains EXP as if they had all participated in the battle. Furthermore, characters will sometimes compliment another character's fighting after the battle and how much they helped out, even if they weren't part of your chosen battle team.
• Live A Live: The player is first introduced to Hong Hakka running from an angry restaurant owner with great speed. He's the slowest of the chapter's party members.
• Muramasa: The Demon Blade: The party in A Cause To Daikon For is mentioned to split up to groups of two at most whenever they're moving, yet Gonbe is able to summon his two assist characters wherever he is. This is likely to compensate for the fact that he's a horrible fighter by himself.
• Neverwinter Nights: Your character tries to get into a palace by claiming to be an emissary from Mulhorand (the local Egypt-equivalent.) The guard doesn't fall for that, as Mulhorandi emissaries are dark-skinned and wear ornate garb. He says this even if your character is, in fact, dark-skinned and dressed ornately.
• Kaelyn the Dove in Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer calls herself a doomguide, but has no levels in that Prestige Class since it wasn't added to NWN2 until the Storm of Zehir expansion. Furthermore, Doomguide, in addition to being used for priests of Kelemvor with special Kelemvor-suited training (IE, having levels in the Doomguide prestige class), is also used as a term for priests of Kelemvor — which Kaelyn the Dove (no longer) is.
• Lampshaded in NieR. As part of a story event, a smith gives you a broken sword and promises to fix it. He does this again on a New Game Plus, which carries your inventory over. Nier asks if he doesn't have it already. Weiss just tells him this is how things happen the second time through.
• Octopath Traveler:
  • As far as gameplay is concerned, the characters are traveling together as a party, dealing with their stories together and helping common folk along the way. Cutscenes, meanwhile, portray them as overcoming these hurdles on their own, often in situations that would make little sense with a full crew of eight people. And then you get to the party banter scenes, where party members act as if they were present during the other's story cutscenes...
  • No matter what a party member's quest is, they'll join up with the others without a word. Especially noticeable in the case of Therion: nearly all the other characters are out to do some good in the world, only to immediately join a criminal on a heist, and Therion will reject other thieves because he works alone and then decide to get help from random passers-by.
  • The side-jobs have no impact on plot or characters. For example Therion will always refer to himself as a thief no matter what his side-job is. There are no interactions between two party member who share jobs (as primary and side-job).
  • Arianna will comment in Primrose's Chapter 2 that Stillsnow isn't far from Flamesgrace. In reality, it's just about the furthest away two towns in the same region can get. The frostlands are one of only two regions where you can't go straight from the Chapter 1 town to the Chapters 2-3 town and then from there to the Chapter 4 town. To get from Flamesgrace to Stillsnow, you have to make a massive detour through the forest to the west.
  • Ophilia's Chapter 4 involves her in a Town with a Dark Secret. The villagers are all hostile to her, and will actually capture her as part of the story. Despite this, they will also do business with her as she can still use the pub, inn and even the weapons shop.
  • Early in H'aanit's Chapter 4, it's mentioned that when Redeye moved into the Grimsand ruins, it caused all the monsters to flee the ruins to the surface. Yet when the Player makes it to the ruin, there will be plenty of random encounters as usual of any dungeon. (Downplayed by many of the remaining monsters being partially petrified — presumably by Redeye's curse — implying they were simply too slow.)
  • With all the sheer amounts of horrible things you can do to townsfolk (see Video Game Cruelty Potential), this barely affects the overall plot, so it will still continue despite that you just beat up an entire village. Sometimes they'll even be considered noble path actions — even if you're beating up pregnant women. It's quite hilarious.
  • Your party can only include up to four of the eight main characters at any given time. But unlike with many other role-playing games, non-cutscene dialogues with NPCs don't change depending on who's in the party. So when you meet NPCs with deep personal connections to one of the characters (such as Tressa's parents), their dialogue remains oddly generic and impersonal even if said character is right there in front of their eyes.
  • During Therion's first two chapters, he has to trick guards in order to pull off a heist. After he succeeds, the guards' dialogue doesn't change, meaning that they'll still say things along the lines of "No unauthorised persons are permitted to enter!" even though your characters can just walk right past them into the place they're "guarding".
• Odin Sphere: Most prominently when you fight other main characters as part of one character's story; they're several dozen times more powerful than they would be at that point in time in their own story. This is painfully obvious when you're forced to fight Mercedes, who is one of the hardest PC-boss fights, but when you get to her book, she starts as the weakest of the five. Of course, "starts" is the keyword here.
• At one point in the RPG Odium, your team medic gets attacked and poisoned by an invisible monster, cannot be cured, and dies at the end of the battle (and states that the grotesquely deformed bodies you found earlier are, too, victims of this poison). Near the end of the game, you battle a group of these monsters, but their poison can be cured away and only does minor damage like any other monster's poison.
• In Parasite Eve Aya can be wielding a shotgun, rifle, machine gun, grenade launcher, or even a damn rocket launcher, but these weapons are never rendered outside of battle. Aya is always shown using a handgun on the overworld maps and during cut scenes.
• Pathfinder: Kingmaker: The final stage of Valerie's companion questline has her put through a church trial over the circumstances of her quitting the Church of Shelyn. Should you talk your way through to the "good" ending where Shelyn forgives Valerie and removes her scar, the paladin leader will lose his temper and attack you. On tabletop this probably should have cost him his class features on the spot for violating Shelyn's paladin code and/or ceasing to be Lawful Good,invoked but since this is the only situation in the entire game where such a mechanic would be relevant, Owlcat Games probably didn't consider it cost-effective to write code for it.
• Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous:
  • Using bite attacks, even against explicitly diseased undead who give you disease with a touch, does not subject you or companions to any negative effects.
  • There are times where your character has a mechanically suitable ability that should solve a plot problem but doesn't. For example, a cleric cursed to die a painful death via rats eating him from the inside out if he lets you go into a part of his temple will die even if you possess the ability to remove curses via the appropriate spell. There's neither the ability in dialogue to break the curse, nor does manually using it on him do anything. There are several such cases like this where you should be able to do things but you can't, other times the game will reference your gameplay abilities (for example by letting you heal someone). Even the Aeon-path commander cannot fix this, despite being able to cure the otherwise-doomed corrupted soldiers in Molten Scar.
  • Your character is always treated as having to get around by walking. This is even when you're someone who clearly should have the ability to fly, like a winged Aasimar or Azata or a gold dragon. And characters who can fly can still fall to their deaths in a Bottomless Pit by failing certain skill checks.
  • Taking the Kitsune racial feat that gives you extra tails and spells to go with them does not affect your character's model.
  • The pre-finale Logistics meeting has your advisor tell you the Crusade has no money and will have to requisition, which tanks morale. She says this even if the player has hundreds of thousands of every resource, fully fortified garrisons and multiple army units.
  • Casting spells labeled with the Evil descriptor like Animate Dead will never turn a neutral- or good-aligned character evil, unlike in the tabletop game.
  • Of course in classic videogame fashion, no amount of resurrection spells will let you raise someone who dies from a Plotline Death. And while sometimes the game will let you heal people with a spell or potions, other times people will be too grievously injured to save, but yet healthy enough to have long detailed parting conversations.
  • The Logistics council events in Crusade mode will always talk about how you're running out of resources and funds no matters what your actual campaign finances are like. You can be sitting on hundred of thousands of finance points, and your advisor will be talking about how they basically have to resort to robbery or draconian taxes in Mendev to finance the crusade.
  • Council events will sometimes discuss events that just don't happen. Hal for example will talk about how the good dragons in your army feel awful about repeatedly having to burn down encampments despite those enemies being unable to fight back against the dragons. This never actually is something you see, do or order.
  • Much is made of each mythic path having a "Transformation" where the player fully becomes an Angel/Demon/Lich/Dragon. And while in story this is true, in gameplay (aside from Lich as Lich is a template applied on top of the player's character), the player is never treated as such: They retain their original race, racial abilities, and racial features. In the case of Gold Dragon, their Gold Dragon form can outright be dispelled off them in combat by enemies, as it's treated as a buff, not the player's actual form.
  • Evil characters can still see and hear the Hand of the Inheritor during Act 4 despite the fact they shouldn't be able to.
  • Party member Arueshalae is a succubus seeking redemption, and a potential romantic partner for the PC. Part of her Romance Sidequest involves her angsting over her feelings for them, partly because a mere affectionate touch from her could be lethal. However, mechanically this is an energy drain effect (there's plenty of enemy incubi and succubi in the game), to which dhampyr PCs are immune, and the death ward spell is available for other races, but using such protection to safely sleep with Arueshalae is never brought up as a possibility.
• An infamous scene in Persona 2 Innocent Sin involves Hitler and his Last Battalion being summoned to Sumaru City, courtesy of rumors. Even though they take over the city, and presumably the rest of Japan, without much resistance, and despite the fact that said battalion is parading around in mech suits, they don't bother wrecking whatever malls and shopping areas are left (some get wrecked during the game, but before the Last Battalion showed up). This allows Tatsuya and co. to do whatever shopping they need unmolested.
• A nefarious case in Persona 3 comes when Shinjiro is shot to death by Takaya. No one attempts to heal him (it is still the Dark Hour when it happens, so someone could use a healing spell), revive him (Ken, who is right behind Shinjiro when he's shot, has by this point likely learned a spell that can revive even someone hit by an Instant Death Attack), or even attempt to stop the bleeding normally, despite the fact that the party at this point has arguably gotten far worse injuries in their battles with Shadows and have come out of them without much of a problem. This also mixes with Cutscene Power to the Max — Junpei is also shot and killed by Takaya a month later, dying almost instantly and only being saved by Chidori's Sacrificial Revival Spell. However, when you fight Takaya in battle, his bullets don't do too much damage.
• In Phantasy Star II; Rolf is unable to use the teleport station in Paseo to go directly to other cities at the start of the game. It's required to visit a city once before you can teleport there from other cities. This creates an odd paradox since he's unable to go directly to Piata. A city he had travelled to in the past, right before a rather important story-related event unfolded.
• The opening scene of Phantom Dust has a team of espers scorch scores of monsters with single attacks when two of said monsters would be challenging to the player. This may be justified by the fact that some of the monsters look a little more sickly they do in the game proper. Another example is characters performing feats like telekinetically hurling what appears to be half a sky scraper at you when the player, who is easily the most powerful esper in the game, has no such abilities.
• Pokémon:
  • In FireRed and LeafGreen, there's a ranger on Seven Island who claims that city trainers (meaning trainers from Kanto) "sure are tough". Seven Island is an area that can only be reached after the game has been beaten, so the trainers living there are actually stronger than nearly any Kanto trainer.
  • In Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire, losing against the first rival battle will result in the standard white out instead of the game proceeding, forcing you to win against Brendan/May to proceed. When you return to Professor Birch's lab, he congratulates you for winning "on your first try" even if you lost beforehand.
  • Also in Ruby and Sapphire, there's an extremely rare but possible chance for Wally to knock out the Ralts he's trying to catch during the catching tutorial. Despite this, he'll still act like he caught his first Pokémon after the battle ends, and the story proceeds as normal.
  • During a cutscene in Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers, Grovyle blinds several opponents using a Luminous Orb to cover for an escape attempt. The Orb's sole use during gameplay is to reveal the layout of the dungeon floor it is used on.
  • In Pokémon Black and White, N will always say that your Pokémon like you regardless of what their in-game friendship stat says. (In some fairness, having a decent Friendship stat with a team you've been with for any decent period is something you have to go out of your way to avoid.)
  • A counterargument given against Team Plasma's agenda in Black and White is that Pokémon would simply leave their trainers if they disliked them. But having a Pokémon with low friendship contradicts this as it doesn't result in the Pokémon leaving you.
  • In Pokémon X and Y it's stated that Mega Evolution is supposed to be possible because of strong bonds between a trainer and their Pokémon. The Friendship stat (which controls the moves Return and Frustration as well as enabling certain evolutions) has no bearing on the ability to trigger Mega Evolution, so it's possible to activate it on a freshly-caught Pokémon (for example, the Lucario you're handed during the main story) or even one that hates your guts.
  • Also in X and Y, a Big Blackout hits most of Lumiose City apart from the Southern Avenue, and the player cannot move beyond Southern Boulevard until they solve the situation at the Power Plant causing the blackout. However, the whole city is still brightly lit when playing at night, and NPCs freely walk in and out of the "blackout" zone.
  • Goomy is described in the Pokédex as "The weakest Dragon-Type Pokemon", when Noibat was introduced in the same game as Goomey. Noibat holds the dishonor of being the Dragon-Type with the lowest base stat total, with Goomy outclassing Noibat in every stat except Speed.
  • In Pokémon Sun and Moon, Aether Paradise's jamming signal for Poké Balls only affects the battle against Nihilego; they can still be used in Trainer battles (though, of course, the Trainer will block the ball).
  • In Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, when the player character takes Art class at the Academy, one of the three friend characters (Nemona, Arven and Penny) can be seen at random sitting to the left of Professor Hassel. Despite that, a postgame event set in the Art class has Penny state this is the first time she ever entered that classroom.
  • Despite the series's long-running theme of "Pokémon are friends, not weapons," for a long time, your Pokémon could only be used for fighting and breeding. The latter actually rewards you for churning through dozens of mons, disposing the inadequate ones, until you get one with perfect stats. There is a Friendship stat, but it rarely does anything — it triggers evolution for a handful of mons, increases the damage dealt by Return (but decreases the damage dealt by Frustration), and helps you get certain Cosmetic Awards — and can only be measured by talking to certain NPCs. This didn't change significantly until Pokémon X and Y introduced the Pokémon-Amie pet-care minigame, which was replaced with the similar Pokémon Refresh in Pokémon Sun and Moon.
  • Pokémon whose natures increase their Special Defense stat prefer Poffins or Pokéblocks with a bitter flavor. However, using herbal medicine on such Pokémon will still lower their friendship "due to the bitter taste". Similarly, honey (called Sweet Honey in Japanese) will still attract Pokémon that hate sweet flavors.
  • All Flying-type Pokémon have an immunity to Ground-type moves, meant to be a Logical Weakness for Ground-types due to the fact that a being that flies wouldn't be affected by the moves of a creature that's stuck on or in the ground. However, this applies even to Flying-types that aren't capable of actually flying, like Doduo, Dodrio, Archen and Gyarados. While Gyarados has the excuse that it's able to float in the air and Archen learns to fly after it evolves, there is no such excuse for the ostrich-like Doduo and Dodrio. Additionally, some ground moves should theoretically be able to hit even something flying, such as Bonemerang or Mud Shot, but they still obviously do not work on Flying-types.
  • There's also the inversion: Pokémon who are depicted as flying or hovering but can be hit by Ground-type moves like Magnitude and Earthquake due to them not actually being Flying-types or having Levitate as their Ability. Some of, them, like Nihilego, Magnezone, and Mega Charizard X, even take super-effective damage from these moves. Sky Battles in the sixth generation ban Pokémon that lack either Levitate or a Flying typing, which creates some strangeness when you use Pokémon that explicitly can fly but don't fit the above (i.e. Garchomp).
  • Pokémon with visible flames on their bodies (the Charmander line, Moltres, Magmar, etc) should logically be snuffed out if they're in the middle of a rainstorm or when hit by a water based attack. Despite how certain Fire-type Pokémon are said to die if their flames go out, said flames never get extinguished. This gets taken to a ridiculous degree in Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire where you can send out fire-based Pokémon to battle while underwater.
  • Kangaskhan are always shown with a joey in their pouch, even if you've just hatched the parent itself.
  • Poison Is Corrosive is in effect, with acid-based moves like Acid, Acid Spray, and Corrosive Gas being classified as Poison-type. This means that Steel-type Pokemon, which are made of metal and are immune to poison, are unaffected by acid, even though you'd expect such attacks to be extra-effective against them.
  • A lot of the Flavor Text provided by the Pokédex directly contradicts gameplay or Pokémon stats.
    • Supposedly, Charizard's fire breath is hot enough to melt boulders. A Fire-type move used by Charizard on a Rock-type will still deal half damage. (Possibly justified since melting is still much less than what would happen to a flesh and blood opponent.)
    • Metapod and Kakuna are supposed to be totally immobile and only know Harden. Although Metapod and Kakuna (and other cocoon mons) caught in the wild will only known Harden, any such mon evolved by the player will carry its previous moves — String Shot and either Tackle or Poison Sting — forward.
    • Psyduck and Golduck's defining trait is their strong Psychic Powers, but while they're capable of learning several Psychic-type moves their typing is pure Water. In Generation 1 this was justified by having Confusion be the only Psychic move they learned naturally, but later gens continued to add more and the typing was never corrected due to tradition.
    • Arcanine is renowned for its impossible speed, but its Speed stat isn't that high and easily beaten by other Pokémon. (Gen 2 did fix this somewhat by letting it learn the rare, increased priority move Extreme Speed by level up.)
    • Abra is said to sleep through most of the day, teleporting away from danger in its sleep. They are not immune to being inflicted with the Sleep status, and are affected by it normally (ie they can't use Teleport).
    • Its evolved form, Alakazam, remembers everything — but can still learn only four moves.
    • Many Pokédex entries for the Slowpoke line make mention of Shellder biting onto a Slowpoke's tail/head in order to evolve. Having a Shellder is not required for Slowpoke to evolve, and the evolution can happen on top of a mountain miles away from any ocean.
    • Similarly, Magneton is said to be the result of three Magnemite being linked together by a powerful magnetic force. Three separate Magnemite are not required for obtaining a Magneton. Diglett and Dugtrio are more ambiguous, as the Pokédex entries seem a bit indecisive as to whether or not Dugtrio has three heads or is a case of The Dividual. However, they are often claimed to be triplets.
    • Doduo is stated to be a poor flyer that makes up for it with its fast ground speed. Nothing impedes it from learning Fly, and using that move to travel from one side of the map to the other while carrying a child that weighs as much as it does. Vullaby is even worse, being explicitly flightless and still able to learn the move. Meanwhile, there's a lot of Flying-types that seem like they should be able to fly around while carrying a person, but can't learn Fly (Noivern, Gyarados, Scyther, Togekiss, and especially Yanmega, which has has a dex entry claiming it can carry people while flying).
    • Drowzee and Hypno are said to live off of dreams; it's their defining trait. The one attack that literally involves this, Dream Eater, is not in their level-up movepool, although they can learn it by TM.
    • Cubone is said to wear the skull of its dead mother, but you can freely breed Cubone without any ill effects on the mother.
    • Magikarp is claimed to be worthless in terms of both power and speed. Despite this, Magikarp's Speed stat is actually decent by the standards of unevolved Pokémon, at 80. Furthermore, it has the ability Swift Swim, which doubles its Speed in the rain.
    • Despite multiple Pokédex entries describing Ledian's nocturnal behavior, it and its pre-evolution Ledyba can typically only be encountered in the morning and day.
    • According to its Pokédex entry in Legends: Arceus, Togetic has never been seen in the wilds of Hisui. You can find it flitting around in Tranquility Cove, Bolderoll Slope, and Cottonsedge Prairie.
    • Unown are supposed to become stronger in numbers, greater than the sum of their parts. Carrying multiple Unown in your party doesn't influence their strength at all.
    • Qwilfish is often referred to as a bad swimmer, but one of its abilities is Swift Swim (which doubles its Speed in rain).
    • Magcargo's body temperature is supposedly hotter than the surface of the sun. While this should kill any trainer and most Pokémon that come near it, it doesn't.
    • Staring into the hole in Shedinja's back is supposed to mesmerize and then steal the soul of the victim. All of its player-side battle sprites have the hole clearly visible, but nothing unusual ever happens to the player character.
    • Feebas is stated to be a very common Pokémon that flocks in stagnant ponds and is often ignored by trainers due to its ugly appearance and low stats. When it was first introduced, it may have been the single hardest Pokémon to find in the wild at the time. Also, the only place you could find it at was a river, not a pond, and it was highly sought after by players, since evolving it was the only way to get Milotic. Mercifully, it was made much easier to find in later generations, but it's still far from common.
    • Wailord is supposedly 14.5 meters tall and is presumably the length of a real blue whale, yet its battle model shows it smaller than its trainer. This is obviously so it doesn't take up the whole screen and force the camera to be zoomed ridiculously far out. Some even say that its Dynamax form is how big it really is normally.
    • Regice is stated to be so cold that it can be dipped in magma without harm and can freeze anything that gets near it. It's still weak to Fire-type moves and Pokémon can make contact with it without any ill effects.
    • Spiritomb is supposed to be made up of 108 souls sealed in a stone, but it can breed and create more Spiritomb.
    • Female Unfezant are claimed to be better flyers than their male counterparts (possibly as a nod to how the long flashy tails of some real male pheasants tend to weigh the birds down when they're flying). The base stats for both sexes are exactly the same.
    • Whimsicott's Pokédex entry in Sword claims that they become too heavy to move when they get wet. Its blisteringly high Speed stat remains exactly the same even when in rain or when hit by a Water-type move.
    • Hisuian Lilligant's Pokédex entry states it developed its powerful legs from spending its life on mountains covered in deep snow, but it cannot be found in the Alabaster Icelands nor the Coronet Highlands. Hisuian Lilligant can only be found in the Crimson Mirelands—and only during massive mass outbreaks, at that.
    • Gothita are described as "still only babies" in their Sword Pokédex entry. While this is true of their baby-like appearance and them being the first in their evolutionary line, Gothita are not baby Pokémon by definition, as they can still breed with other Pokémon.
    • The Pokédex entry for Escavalier says it flies around at high speed. Its base speed is twenty, making it one of the slowest Pokémon in the entire game.
    • Although Vikavolt's Sun Pokédex entry says that it "zips" around while flying, it has a terribly slow Speed stat of 43.
    • Tinkaton is defined in large part by its rivalry with Corviknight, with its immense hammer being partially made of Corviknight's steel and Tinkaton's Scarlet Pokédex entry describing it taking the metallic avians down. In-game, Tinkaton is pretty terrible at fighting Corviknight, which is bulkier, harder-hitting, and doesn't take super-effective damage from any of Tinkaton's moves. However, it can be explained that Tinkaton ambushes Corviknight by hurling rocks at it, letting gravity do the work when Corviknight loses flight rather than having a direct and fair confrontation.
    • The Violet Pokédex entry for Zero Form Palafin states that its physical capabilities are no different than a Finizen's. While Zero Form Palafin's stats pale in comparison to its Hero Form's, they are actually still greater than Finizen's; adding up to a base stat total of 457 versus Finizen's 315.
    • Many entries for legendary Pokémon describe them as having various kinds of powers that should devastate the local area or the world (Lugia for example is said to have the ability to cause days-long storms by just flapping its wings). While legendary Pokémon do have high stats in-game, they aren't strong enough to decimate their opponents easily and can be taken down by more common Pokémon. Likewise, legendary Pokémon don't make a dent in the area if you use them in battle.
    • Certain pairings of Pokémon that canonically have a rivalry are able to breed with no issue; Zangoose and Seviper are the most infamous example. Similarly, Mareanie kill and eat Corsola, but they can breed.
  • Similarly, any Pokémon can have any nature, regardless of how its species is described in the Pokédex. Piplup can be Modest. Loudred can be Quiet. Exeggcute can be Lonely. Misdreavus can be Serious. Archen can be Brave. Necrozma can be Docile. Mewtwo can be Gentle...
    • In the Pokémon Scarlet and Violet Teal Mask DLC, this is averted with Ogerpon, who will always have a Lonely nature. This checks out how she became lonely as a result of being shunned.
  • In a similar vein to natures, Pokémon have different "characteristics", which correspond to whatever their highest IV is. Vigoroth is unable to sit still, yet you can have one that "Takes plenty of siestas". Absol dislikes fighting, yet you can have one that "Likes to fight". Slowpoke is quite dim-witted, yet it can be "Thoroughly cunning".
• If you use a character enough in Recettear, you get their "True Card" which lets you have them in your party immediately in New Game Plus. This includes having them fight themselves in battles where they are originally antagonistic. Or you could just go on the boss rush with the character that appears at the end (and sometimes the middle) of the rush.
• In Reverse: 1999, several times the events in cutscenes do not match up with the gameplay. You could have the same character in two different places at once or have them active and well when they're supposed to be near-fatally posioned, your account may not have certain playable characters so they won't participate in the fight they've just gotten into, and even the player character, Vertin, is portaryed as getting into fights and duels despite having no playable version available.
• In Rune Factory 5, one event has the player and Scarlett hunting down a monster that's been seen in town and frightening the townsfolk. They're later aghast to discover that the monster is a townsperson's pet, and that they've gone so far as to name it. However, taming monsters (and giving them names) is a major game mechanic, and the player can bring their own pet monsters with them around town with no one being bothered by it at all. In addition, the Buddy Battle contest establishes that having pet monsters is totally normal, and nearly everyone in town has a few monster pets.
• Shin Megami Tensei IV: If this was your first SMT game, chances are you got sorted into the law route on your first playthrough, because the only way to not get sorted into the law route is to actively play the game like a complete sociopath. Generally, any dialogue option where you show the most basic amount of human decency is weighted towards law, while the vast majority of dialogue options that tip your alignment towards chaos are ones where you have to go out of your way to be an asshole. Which makes it all the more jarring when the law ending has you commit genocide against the people of Tokyo.
• Star Ocean: The Second Story:
  • The battle against Dias at the Lacour Tournament of Arms cannot be won, even if you use a cheat device to max out your level or use an exploit to get the powerful Eternal Sphere (one of Claude's best weapons, with several hundred more attack power than Dias' best weapon at that point in the game). This is supposed to be justified by Dias being a master swordsman, but if you're playing Rena's game and get him, his stats aren't all that great and he's outclassed by many of the fighters on the team once they level up enough/get better weapons.
  • The Superboss and associated dungeon can only be accessed by "searching your memories" via a complicated method (trigger the last save point just before the last boss, leave the dungeon and talk to a random NPC in the gameworld). This method allows you to go back to an area previously destroyed in your dreams, yet somehow, you can obtain items and equipment in that dream-world that transfer over to the other planet. Even the characters themselves don't have an explanation for it.
• Star Ocean: The Last Hope has one of the most unusual and perhaps bizarre examples ever, after beating the game at least once it is possible to choose to keep Faize in your battle party at the point in which Arumat would normally join. The thing is, he joins your battle party only, everything else about the game's plot and all of the cutscenes proceed as if Arumat was with you, up to and including the fact that a form of Faize is the final boss. This means that it is actually possible to have Faize fighting himself in the final battles.
• In Superhero League of Hoboken, superpowers comes in two types: the ones that work in fights, and the ones that work in puzzle screens. Even though they show up in the lists of available powers on puzzle screens, combat powers are waved off with a limp "that power only works in combat" message. Even when it's a power that should be devastatingly effective in that puzzle screen, like "put animals to sleep" when the problem you're facing is the villain preparing to unleash a horde of mutant animals.
• The Tales Series is generally pretty bad about plot-based injuries and the fact that you're usually carrying around a ton of medicine or food items that you can cook with. It's often Hand Waved by the healers, trying First Aid for a couple seconds and going "there's nothing I can do" or "they're too far gone." And then all the games have their own little quirks...
  • In Tales of Symphonia while Colette can fly, her in-battle motion only changes its animation, not its nature. She never uses her flight to bypass any of the random puzzles, even though she does use her flight to pick up a vital key — once, in the game's 40-hour plotline.
  • In Tales of the Abyss, Guy, one of the protagonists, has a crippling fear of women (to the point that being glomped by one early in the game is sufficient to give him a momentary Heroic BSoD). This doesn't seem to pop up when in battle, even against female enemies. It's indicated that he can overcome it given sufficient motivation, like when he grabs Anise's arm to pull her up when she almost falls off a cliff, so it's possible battle is one such case (or else, that he never physically comes into contact with them during it).
    • Tear put an entire mansion of people to sleep and almost assassinated one of the most powerful members of the Oracle Knights in an early cutscene. In actual gameplay, she's the White Mage (though she can be played offensively, she's got the better set of healing spells).
    • Also, the technique Tear uses to send the entire mansion to sleep is supposed to be a powerful spell that only does just that. Gameplay wise, it does damage like a normal attack, without any special effects.
    • Despite how Natalia and Luke are supposed to be terrible cooks, they seem to do just fine when asked to cook recipes.
  • In Tales of Legendia, once Grune gets her memory back and is revealed to be an all-powerful Physical God, you'd think she'd get stronger now that she actually knows who she is, what her powers are, and how to properly use them. Nope. Although there is some Integration here, as her battle quotes (and even the pitch of her voice!) all change to reflect her sudden change in personality.
  • Tales of Berseria:
    • Regardless of how modest, prim and proper whatever costume you choose to dress Velvet up in might be, certain NPCs will comment on the scandalous nature of Velvet's clothing as if she's wearing her default outfit.
    • Flamestone is said to be increasingly rare due to the global cooling and therefore increasingly valuable. Despite this, the Flamestone Chips you can find lying around as a random treasure specks on the ground sell for only a pittance and always for the same amount.
• Ultima:
  • Ultima VI: Despite being a Wide-Open Sandbox, not all NPCs respond accurately to what's going on in the game world. Casting your best healing spell on Matt the cook does nothing, nor does it help the wounded soldiers Ed , Artegal, Gertan and Gilron in Cove. Thindle the weaver points to your stomach in dialogue even if you are wearing full armor. Freeing Boskin or other prisoners in Yew will not alter their behavior or dialogue. Solving the Skara Brae murder does nothing in-game. Like most Ultima games, dialogue about other characters being alive will remain that way even when the character has been killed, unless there is a specific flag triggered by that character's death such as Phoenix. Some characters will have different dialogue about each other if another character is in the party or in proximity, but only if scripted to; otherwise moving another character close by will have no effect. Terri mentions silver and copper pieces as standard currency; only gold can be found in-game. Selganor's questions about Mandrake Root prepared with a silver fork, the cap of Nightshade Mushrooms used in spellcasting, and Black Pearls being used as a propellant, are not evident in game, though there are cannons and powder kegs. The Compendium states reagents are prepared at the moment of spellcasting, with descriptions for each reagent which are not reflected in-game. Black Pearls are a one in ten thousand rarity, and only those perfectly formed are suitable or they are worthless. Blood Moss is found under rotting bark. Garlic is washed and ground. Ginseng is reboiled in fresh water forty times. Mandrake Root is boiled and dried. Spider Silk is used by the ounce. In-game, reagents are used as whole items, with no preparation, measured in stones. The Ultima 6 Project fixes some of this.
  • In Ultima VI, one is told by Lord British to be a guest upon the house and dine in the banquet hall and partake of a dinner which is most eloquently prepared and indeed one does so by grabbing the very utensils which one would expect to utilize at that very moment and then all in the area will say STOP THIEF and aggro upon thine ass and then one will regret banqueting upon the very dinner of Lord British and this is referenced later as The Fork of Doom!
  • Ultima VIII: The Plateau is described as having mysterious balls of light. None are found there, aside from the Ethereal Void Mythran's house is inside of.
• In Uncommon Time, Saki has the second-best HP growth in the game, despite repeated claims that he's extremely frail and sickly. This is mechanically necessary since it would be inconvenient for the healer to always go down first, but it's still quite glaring.
• Valkyria Chronicles has a bunch of these. The mission where Alicia sprains her ankle and must hobble around the map to find a plant that Welkin can use to gradually heal it. The player can still use Ragnite to heal the wounds she gets during the mission, but it does nothing for the sprain. The teamwork themes occasionally suffer, since the game can't predict whether or not any of Squad 7 may die, so it's likely that many of the player's favorite squad members have no impact on the plot and don't appear in cutscenes. After Alicia becomes a Valkyria she has an existential crisis over her new ability to kill enemy soldiers and tanks... except she's a powerhouse on the field, and can easy rack up a higher body count than most of your shocktroopers because of her extremely high accuracy and headshot rate, which means she's apparently okay with taking Mooks down execution style, but not with a laser. And after having taken Marberry Shore, during this and all other missions, your troops can take an anti-tank round to the face at point blank range and be rescued by a medic, but in the cutscene Isara takes a shot in the back and neither the medic nor ragnaid is a benefit.
• In Valkyrie Profile, two late-game bosses are directly responsible for two of your einherjar's deaths much earlier in the game. If you bring either of these characters into the battle with their killer, neither will say anything.
• Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines:
  • The game is based on the tabletop RPG Vampire: The Masquerade. Of course, for gameplay reasons, disciplines work differently in the game than in the RPG... except in cutscenes. For example, in one scene, Beckett uses his Protean discipline to change into a wolf, which is a perfectly valid usage in the tabletop RPG but something you can't do even with maxed Protean in-game. Later on, a vampire uses Presence to seduce a mortal: Again, perfectly valid in the RPG, but in the game Presence is entirely useless to you outside of combat. Likewise, an empty dumpster or wooden crate shouldn't be able to stymie your progress toward the end of the game, by which time you have Strength and Potence 5; in the actual tabletop game, you could deadlift a truck at that point. The Unofficial patch actually fixes some of these issues, granting the option to change Protean's final form so you can turn into a wolf and making Presence usable out of combat to seduce mortals.
  • In the climax of the game, if you picked the Kuei-Jin ending, you are somehow unable to defend yourself when Ming-Xiao betrays you, even though the other endings have you tear through ten times the number of minions she uses to restrain you.
  • If the Player Character is a Nosferatu, they look like a ugly vampire and have to avoid being seen by humans in order to preserve the Masquerade. Nonetheless, they can show their monstrous face to most plot-sensitive human NPCs and item vendors without any issue beyond a bit of horrified stammering.
• The World Ends with You: In Another Day, the game takes place in a parallel world where Neku, Shiki, and Beat are not part of the Reapers' Game, do not know each other as True Companions (which is mercilessly mocked in one plotline), yet you can battle like it's any other day by scanning with your still-present Player Pin. Also, when you unlock the chapter select feature, you can partner with any character on any day, even if, in the chapter you select, the character has not met Neku yet or has vanished. The exception is New Game Plus boss battles, which you're required to win to obtain the Secret Reports — you'll be forced to play with the appropriate partner, even if you'd really, really, really prefer to use someone else. It's also averted in the 11-battle Boss Rush challenge, which swaps your partners every few battles to force you to use the partner you had at that point in the story. Built up a fusion attack but didn't use it yet? Too bad, that partner is long gone. (Or you could learn what you're up against beforehand).
• In NEO: The World Ends with You, Minamimoto agrees to work with Rindo, Fret and Nagi, but rarely shows up to help, resulting in Fret sometimes chiding Minamimoto for his absenteeism. Despite this, Minamimoto always fights alongside the Wicked Twisters and takes part in group meals while he's in the party.
  • On Week 2, Day 6, one of the Support Reapers has a task for the Wicked Twisters- have one of them wear Gatto Nero in order to pass into Dogenzaka. Shoka, who's just joined and wears the brand, remarks that it's easy, but the player will still have to equip one of the party members with a Gatto Nero thread. It's not terribly inconvenient, considering that the Gatto Nero store is in 104, but it's still noticeable
• Xenoblade Chronicles X tends to give you the freedom to run around and do sidequests whenever you want... even if the story dictates that doing so should be impossible. A good example occurs in Chapter 6: according to the story, your team is trapped by a large monster and can't escape until you defeat it... except that the game goes by Death Is a Slap on the Wrist, meaning that if it kills you, you respawn a short distance away and can resume sidequests and exploring the world at will. Despite this, when you approach the monster to kill it and resume the story, the game will act as if you've still been trapped by the monster the whole time.
• Similarly, Xenoblade Chronicles 2
  • The game pretty much always lets you travel around Alrest via the Skip Travel system, even though there are multiple points in the story where the characters are trapped on a particular Titan.
  • The Blade drawing system also seems to operate independently of the actual storyline: the plot repeatedly harps on the fact that Blades are their own people and don't just exist for the sake of being used by humans. The gameplay, on the other hand, practically requires you to draw dozens of blades, of which you'll likely only use a handful, either ignoring or dismissing the rest because they're not useful for anything except clogging up your collection.
• Xenoblade Chronicles 3:
  • Gathering Ether in gameplay is rather easy. There are many springs to gather them spread out in the game and because their use is rare for the player, they'll easily fill up the maximum amount of ether that can be carried around. Story-wise, however, ether is supposed to be rarer and the player sees many colonies struggling with their ether supplies.
  • After Mio switches bodies with M at the beginning of chapter 6, there's a scene where she talks with Sena and Eunie about whether to cut her hair back to its original length, or keep it long, giving the player the option to decide. The scene makes it out to be a permanent decision, but regardless of your choice it unlocks an option to change her hairstyle at will, with no effect on the story.
  • The Hero system allows you to recruit various characters as supporting party members who can accompany you on your travels. This includes Triton, the single non-villainous member of Moebius, a group of villains who happen to wear extremely recognizable red armor. Outside of one or two sidequests for which he's a required character, nobody will ever comment on his presence, even when they have no reason to believe he's not just as evil as the other members of Moebius.
• The first Xenoblade Chronicles, to a lesser extent. Often the party may be in a rush, such as saving Juju, and many cutscenes act as if they are immediately after each other, yet there is no timer on this and you are free to explore the open world and level grind or do sidequests as much as you want. Speaking of sidequests, you are often given missions to kill monsters, and it is treated as though killing them on the sidequest is final, even though they always respawn. While it is unknown if Shulk really has this sort of power, you can also change the time of day and instantly teleport to any landmark you have activated.
• In Xenosaga Episode III, Shion becomes the main pilot of E.S. Dinnah, but Gameplay proceeds to ignore this and has KOS-MOS the main pilot and Shion the co-pilot. Even more strangely, one cutscene in Michtam actually shows Alan co-piloting with Shion, which raises the question of where KOS-MOS even was.
• Magneto is one of the X-Men's most powerful foes, who can control all metal at whim. Yet in games like X-Men Legends, Marvel Ultimate Alliance and most other Marvel games, he can end up getting his ass kicked (as a playable character or boss) by the likes of Colossus, Crimson Dynamo, Iron Man, Lady Deathstrike, Ultron, War Machine and Wolverine, when story-wise they shouldn't be able to move, let alone fight. Likewise, in nearly every game in which he appears, you can make Juggernaut stop charging and fall over by hitting him enough. Nothing stops the Juggernaut... except a punch or two.
• Yo-kai Watch: You can catch multiple of one yo-kai despite the fact that many are individuals. For example, the Series Mascot is a cat yokai named Jibanyan. Jibanyan is not a species; he's one specific yo-kai. According to the anime there are hundreds of similar nekomata yo-kai with their own designs. Frostina is also another yo-kai that can be caught several times, however Frostina is a specific individual who died in a snowstorm and looked much the same in life.

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