Heartbroken Badass / Video Games

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• Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War: Captain Bartlett, about fifteen years ago in his backstory, hence his alternate callsign of "Heartbreak One". His Ex still likes him enough to spring him from jail, though.
• Elc from Arc the Lad II: after what happens to his first love, it is no wonder he chooses to side with internationally wanted terrorists
• In Assassin's Creed, at some point of their life. Ezio and Altaïr lose someone close to them and state how it felt like a part of them withered away. Ezio's situation was so bad that it became a repressed memory. Altaïr has to suffer this twice. And then he lost his best friend and youngest son as well.
• Asura from Asura's Wrath, both when his wife is killed and his daughter is taken from him, and when The little girl that looked like his daughter is bombed to death with her village.
• In Azure Striker Gunvolt, Gunvolt's adoptive father, Asimov, reveals himself to be an Adept supremacist, and offers We Can Rule Together to Gunvolt and Joule. When Gunvolt refuses (for Joule's sake), Asimov shoots both of them dead. Getting shot, however, allowed Joule to gain full control of her powers, and she then uses it to merge with Gunvolt and save his life. Broken, Gunvolt deeply grieves for thinking he failed Joule^note not that she's gone completely, she's still Sharing a Body with Gunvolt, and in his rage, he chases after Asimov in revenge.
  • The ending of the second game has it just as bad as well. Joule manages to get a physical form once again, namely the ill girl Mytyl (implied to be who Joule was based on anyway). However, the resulting hybrid loses her memories as both Mytyl and Joule, and Gunvolt leaves her in his rival Copen's (Mytyl's brother) care. Weeks later, Gunvolt has a chance meeting with "Mytyl". Seeing her happy for once ever since they first met, Gunvolt decides it's best to stay out of her new life, explicitly stated in his monologue to be for the sake of her happiness. This also applies to Copen, what with the revelation that his sister is an Adept all along, the race that he has made his sworn duty to eradicate. He pretends to have died in Eden so that he does not have to bring her into his crusade.
• Johnny Vincent of Bully. For some inexplicable reason, he's head over heels for Lola, even as he disparages her.
• Yoshiki Kishinuma from Corpse Party becomes heartbroken and often suicidal in any bad end where Ayumi dies.
• Detective David Young in D4: Dark Dreams Don't Die is surprisingly nimble and can hold his own in a brawl. He also has the power to jump back in time to specific events through the use of special "mementos", and eventually hopes to find one that'll let him jump back far enough to prevent the murder of his wife.
• In Dragon Age: Origins, if the Warden romances anyone but decides to do the Heroic Sacrifice to destroy the Big Bad, it is clear in the subsequent games that the wounds of losing them are still fresh to them. To elaborate, their death sours Leliana's faith to the Maker, Morrigan feels guilty that she could have done a lot of effort to convince him to do the ritual so that he could live another day raising their son (who will exist if she is romanced and even if the offer wasn't accepted), and Zevran refuses Isabela's sexual advances (even if it is almost seven years since the Warden died).
  • In Dragon Age: Inquisition, Hawke appears to be this if s/he romanced Anders and then killed him as part of the endgame in Dragon Age II.
  • Also in Inquisition, if the Inquisitor romances Cullen and then breaks it off instead of confirming the relationship, he shows signs of being this. Likewise with an Inquisitor who romances Blackwall and Solas, given the shocking revelations that surround between the two aformentioned characters.
• Final Fantasy:
  • Kain Highwind from Final Fantasy IV; with Porom's "Cry" augment.
    • Edward from Final Fantasy IV: The After Years continues to grieve over his dead girlfriend Anna while he handles almost every threat harming his castle and people when he's at it. He just got that better.
  • Final Fantasy VII:
    • Vincent Valentine was (and still is) in love with Shinra scientist Lucrecia Crescent, who reciprocated but, due to guilt over Vincent's dad Grimoire dying because of her research, felt unworthy and instead hooked up with the heartless Hojo. Then Hojo decided to experiment on Lucrecia and their unborn child, and Vincent died trying to stop him, only to be brought back to life from Lucrecia experimenting on his body. And then Lucrecia decided to deal with her guilt and newfound immortality from Hojo's experiments by permanently sealing herself in crystalized Mako energy. And yet, Vincent still pines for her.
    • Also, Rude. His entire reason for being uncomfortable talking to people is because the girl he fell in love with was a terrorist who was only using him for information.
    • Cloud Strife spends most of Advent Children beating himself up over not being able to save Aerith.
  • Locke and Cyan from Final Fantasy VI (Fiancée killed by The Empire, wife and son poisoned by the same, respectively).
  • Lulu from Final Fantasy X (boyfriend killed by the local Eldritch Abomination).
  • Ashe from Final Fantasy XII (widowed by The Empire), in each case, the death of their loved one serves as their motivation to go after the Big Bad (Ashe comes pretty close to starting a genocide against the Empire).
• All the second generation characters in Fire Emblem: Awakening, are this, due to coming from a Bad Future where their families, and possibly everyone else, are all dead. The eldest of these, Lucina, handles it by becoming a Screw Destiny Determinator.
• Sol Badguy from the Guilty Gear games. Imagine your best friend transforms your lover (against her will) into a Humanoid Abomination who loses her memories, goes completely insane, and goes on to instigate a century of genocidal war against mankind — Japan is wiped off the map completely. Who has to put her down? You, of course, using the powers you gained from being transformed against your will as well. Five years later, you have to do the same to some pitiable clone of her who runs around like a dutiful child running errands for her "mother" and descends into an insane fit when she fails. You're at least 170 years old, Nigh-Invulnerable and have (almost) nothing to live for beyond finding that asshole "friend" of yours and beating some answers out of him.
• In Halo 4, Master Chief displays far more emotion as he and Cortana say their goodbyes than at any other point in the series. Halo 5: Guardians shows just how hard it hit him; Chief's introduction is him looking into the port in his helmet Cortana would have been plugged into, while his hands are visibly shaking.
• I Was a Teenage Exocolonist: If Flulu is saved but not Geranium, she falls into complete silence and refuses to talk to Sol unless they pass the Empathy skill check. Even if they succeed, all that the woman warrior, who fought the Earth opposition and led the Vertumna Group on the expedition to the alien planet, could do is try imitating Geranium for Sol. She and her child then grow estranged over the years in the epilogue.
• A villainous example from League of Legends in the form of Viego, the Ruined King. A king who desperately wanted to save his fallen queen, he discovered the mysterious Blessed Isles and tried to force out their secrets of eternal life in an attempt to resurrect her, and it went so catastrophically wrong that it cursed the lands into becoming the Shadow Isles, a death world for the undying tied to his everlasting anguish and rage. In a bit of on-the-nose symbolism, Viego himself was pierced through the chest by the wraith that formed out of his not-quite-resurrected wife, and the giant hole in his heart is where all the soul-trapping Black Mist originates from.
• The King of Fighters: Elisabeth Blanctorche spends most of the saga trying to stop the schemes of someone she called her brother (Ash Crimson), the only one who remained from her past... only to find out that he planed on sacrificing himself to stop an evil organization — to save *her*. Her reaction is something that most people would expect.
• Any of the love interests from Mass Effect go through this in the timeskip between ME1 and ME2 (or even during, in Liara's case) after Shepard's death (s/he gets better). Shepard and Liara dealing with this trope is a significant aspect of the Lair of the Shadow Broker DLC if that relationship exists. And Liara takes this trope to its ultimate conclusion when she obliterates the Shadow Broker with extreme prejudice at the end of the DLC...
  • It's given less attention than Liara, but one of the biggest reasons Kaidan and Ashley reacted so badly to Shepard's return was because they had been led to believe that they endured two years of heartbreak for nothing, since they were completely unaware of the Lazarus Project.
  • Poor Female Shepard — two of her three possible love interests in Mass Effect 2 will wind up dead or break up with her, the only exception being Garrus. Male Shepard has only slightly better luck, in that the deaths of all his love interests are preventable, but can easily become this as well.
• Zero from Mega Man X4. In this case, however, Iris, the girl he had feelings for, attacked him because he killed her brother The Colonel in a war and was forced to fight back in self-defense. Suffering from her injuries, she said all she wanted was to live happily with him before dying in his arms. Cue Zero's scream of grief.
  Zero: This isn't happening! There's no reason for me to go on! What...what am I FIGHTING FOOOOOOOOOOOOOR?!
  • And later he gets to break the heart of two other girls...Geez...
• Plenty of this in Metal Gear series, especially from Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty onward, with the addition of Fortune. However, the most iconic of this is Raiden, who after losing his lover (due to combination of PTSD and another guy's presence) and baby (the baby is actually alive, but hidden through marriage with "another guy", so the Patriots can't use him), always angsts outside the battlefield, but making Gekkos his bitches when on the battlefield.
• In Mortal Kombat, Princess Kitana of Edenia. After her romantic relationship with Liu Kang was ported over from the movies, Mortal Kombat 4 had Kitana outright propose to him in his ending. Liu Kang reluctantly declines as, due to his status as Champion of Mortal Kombat, his place is in Earthrealm, not in Edenia by Kitana's side. Come Deadly Alliance, Shang Tsung gets a jump on him, and with the help of Quan Chi, ultimately kills Liu Kang. A grieving Kitana subsequently joins Raiden and several other Earthrealm warriors to combat the villainous duo, presumably to enact revenge. Kitana's ending in DA has the princess mourning over her beloved as she holds a silent funeral in his honor, wishing that he had taken her up on her offer to rule as King and Queen of Edenia.
  • Canonically speaking, though, she dies too. She's then revived by the Dragon King and forced into his servitude. Ultimately, it takes the efforts of Ermac and Liu Kang's ghost (his body had been revived by a Came Back Wrong Dark Raiden to be used as his enforcer) to save her and the majority of the fighters Raiden assembled.
  • And if you were thinking that things would get better for the two in the reboot, guess again. Here, it goes in reverse. Their sexual chemistry was going smoothly until — after a long chain of events culminating in Raiden killing Motaro to save Johnny Cage, forcing Shao Kahn to empower Sindel (Kitana's mother, unwillingly serving the emperor) with Shang Tsung's soul) — Sindel kills most of Raiden's chosen warriors. Kitana is one of the few immediate survivors, but succumbs to her wounds and dies in Liu Kang's arms wishing that she and her lover could have met under different circumstances. This ultimately shakes Liu Kang's faith in his mentor Raiden, and eventually gets him killed as well when Raiden accidently fires him in self-defense when trying to stop him from facing down Shao Kahn at endgame. One would think that fate has it in for this couple.
• Flint from Mother 3 when his wife is murdered by a robotic dinosaur and his son goes missing. His single-minded quest to find the latter causes him to neglect his surviving child.
• In Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Trials and Tribulations, this is Godot's motivation. He was driven to change his name and seek revenge against Phoenix upon learning that his girlfriend, Mia Fey, was murdered while he was comatose.
• Ash Williams is a recovering Heartbroken Badass in Poker Night 2, happily engaged to a girl named Wendy. Unfortunately, he finds out she's a book needed to fend off a demonic invasion. Discouraged and embittered, he doesn't know how to turn her back into a woman or whether he wants to.
• Professor Layton and the Lost Future:
  • It's revealed that Don Paolo's descent into evil started when Layton starting dating Claire, with whom Paul (as he was then known) was infatuated. The cutscene that shows his heart being broken is not very sympathetic towards him in the slightest.
  • Layton lost the love of his life twice.
• Johnny Gat from Saints Row 2 after his girlfriend Aisha is murdered by the Ronin.
• In Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic's darker counterpart Shadow the Hedgehog lost his surrogate-sister Maria during a raid of his home on the Space Colony ARK. He spends about three games dwelling on it before deciding to let it go.
• Flik from Suikoden and II, after the death of Odessa.
• Kratos Aurion and Regal Bryant from Tales of Symphonia, both of whom have unintentionally killed their lovers. Kratos had the added layer of thinking his son was dead, until he meets up with your party.
• Yuri Lowell from Tales of Vesperia also has shades of this when faced with the possibility that he will likely have to kill Estelle for the greater good.
• The Xeno series has a lot of them: the most famous are Fei in Xenogears, watching his loved one getting killed repeatedly through the centuries did not help his mental stability, Shion, Junior and Ziggy in Xenosaga. And, of course, thanks to a couple of awesome scenes in the end of the third game, Allen, of all people, proves to be one of them.
• In Yandere Simulator, if Yandere-chan kills someone in front of someone who loves them (either a sibling or lover), they will attack Yandere-chan at the maximum possible strength, regardless of their normal strength level.

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