Irony / Video Games

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• 1942 casts the player as an American pilot in the Battle of Midway. The game was developed by Capcom in Japan, the country that lost the Battle of Midway.
• Afterimage: In the past, the Holy Grounds needed the constructed aqueduct system from The Columns to have a substantial supply of water and support the inhabitants. After the Razing, the Holy Grounds have been submerged in the lake of the Teardrop, yet no inhabitant dwells within those submerged parts anymore. Echo 10 outright calls and lampshades such incident as an irony.
• Age of Empires II: The Wonder building for the Goth civilization is the Mausoleum of Theodoric the Great. As Theodoric was the greatest of the Gothic kings, the choice of Wonder takes on a melancholic reminder that the Goth civilization fractured and declined and now doesn't exist anymore.
• Animal Crossing: New Horizons: There is a character named Wisp who is afraid of ghosts... despite being a ghost himself.
• Assassin's Creed:
  • Assassin's Creed: Sibrand, one of the last targets, was gripped with paranoia bordering on madness after most of the rest of the Templar brotherhood was assassinated. He wanders around, accusing everyone of conspiracy and believing assassins to be all around him. While chewing out some guards for whispering to each other, he whirls around and loudly proclaims that there's probably an assassin nearby at that moment; further evidence of his insane paranoia, except that Altaïr happens to be sitting on a bench listening to them.
  • Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood: In the prologue, an engineer mentions to Ezio that the future of warfare is firing a cannon from your hands. Ezio's been using one, far more advanced than the one the engineer's boasting about, for over a decade at that point.
  • Assassin's Creed: Valhalla: By dispersing anomalies that show "Ragnarok" as it really happened (to a race of Advanced Ancient Humans) rather than through the trappings of Norse mythology, Loki, known for constantly telling lies, is the only one to show the truth of the event.
• Baldur's Gate has a meta example. The popularity of the series caused Bhaal, the long-dead God of Murder, to gain a lot of name recognition. This eventually caused him to be resurrected in the 5th edition of Forgotten Realms canon, an irony given that the overarching plot of the games is about preventing this from coming about and killing off his legacy once and for all.
• Bendy and the Ink Machine: Henry can find a recording of Susie Campbell's where she mentions that the music director, Sammy Lawrence thinks that the character Susie plays, Alice Angel, will become popular - perhaps even more popular than the studio's star, Bendy. However, the next chapter shows that Alice was never popular for her merchandise to sell, or even for the guy who made her dolls to know her name.
• BioShock Infinite:
  • One level has a voice recording by a black janitor in a high-security restricted area built by the city's government. Naturally, he's given no information because he's a janitor and black, but he also knows more than he's expected to about what's hidden in the restricted area because while his low status means they won't give him information, it also means they don't really care if he overhears anything either.
  • This games predecessor, BioShock was a critically acclaimed game, but there was one moment in the game that was heavily criticized; a level with an escort mission, where the player had to protect a little girl with absolutely no concept of self-preservation throughout a dangerous environment. In BioShock 2 the escort concept was distributed over several points in the game rather than all at once and criticized for it as well. BioShock Infinite, easily the most popular of the trilogy, was a success because of its excellent storyline - the story was about a man escorting a girl throughout a dangerous environment. Though it probably helps that Elizabeth has no health bar and you don't need to constantly act as her meatshield.
  • Infinite is full of choices. Who to hit with a baseball, to argue with a ticket dealer, or draw weapons, but the most famous decision without a doubt is "The bird or the cage?" This choice appears in a lot of fan-art, on t-shirts, and there are dozens of arguments and polls online about which one is better. The bird, because the bird is free like Elizabeth now is, while the cage represents imprisonment? The cage, because the cage is empty? In the end, it doesn't matter. The point of this choice was to show the player... that choices are meaningless. Out of all choices in the game (which all had minor effects and none of which affected the plot) this one had the least effect of all, a minor difference in Elizabeth's appearance, which you wouldn't notice if you weren't looking for it. The choice which is most heavily debated is a choice designed to show that your choices have no real effect.
  • Infinite is a very cynical game, and it spends a large portion of time taking the ax to the idea of Christian forgiveness and baptism. One of the major plot elements is how Father Comstock is trying to paint Elizabeth as a Messianic Archetype while she would actually be his Dark Messiah. The ironic part is that the game can actually be viewed as idealistic from a Christian perspective, as Booker and Elizabeth's Heroic Sacrifices have messianic undertones - they're people sacrificing themselves in ways that cure the world of a terrible sin and give people a second chance to redeem themselves while also safeguarding their eventual salvation.
• In fiction and in real life, cicadas are known for being very noisy insects. Two of the most prominent cicada characters in Bug Fables, however, are quite un-noisy. Huscada the traveling caravan salesman is a meek Henpecked Husband to his hot-headed wife Cricketly, while Seb is a prim and proper butler who always defers to the wild whims of his mistress Madeleine.
• The very title of Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance. "Dissonance" means a lack of harmony.
• A nice example in Chrono Trigger. There are three "gurus" named Belthasar (The guru of Reason), Melchior (The Guru of Life) and Gaspar (The Guru of time). After being attacked by Lavos it's revealed that The Guru of Reason went insane, the Guru of Life developed weapons, and the Guru of Time reached an area where Time didn't exist.
• In Saint Germain's route in Code:Realize, the armored assailant who is revealed to be Queen Guinevere, who was Star-Crossed Lovers with Lancelot is one of the main antagonists trying to tear away Cardia and Saint Germain. The assailant sadly lampshades this.
• Command & Conquer: Generals: Zero Hour
  General Townes: If you build a Particle Cannon and I destroy it with a particle beam... is that irony?
• In Control, Jesse's hometown is called Ordinary. It's also the site of one of the most infamous supernatural events in the history of the Federal Bureau of Control, and one that's so classified that even the assistant to the Bureau's head researcher doesn't know what precisely happened there.
• Cyberpunk 2077: An aged "Samurai"-fan takes V to task for being too young and inexperienced to be a "real fan" of Samurai and Johnny Silverhand. Meanwhile, the copy of Johnny Silverhand's consciousness that resides in V's head is screaming about how the "fan" has abandoned everything Johnny stood for and become as much a part of the pro-corporate status quo as the corporations Johnny spent his life fighting and has managed to memorize all the "Samurai" lyrics without understanding any of them.
• In Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc:
  • Had Sayaka succeeded in killing Leon and framing Makoto, she still ultimately would have ended up killing Makoto as well due to the nature of the class trials. It was not her intention to kill Makoto but she was the only one who did not live long enough to hear the consequences of "graduating".
  • In her first free time event with Makoto, Celeste reveals that as a side effect of being the Ultimate Gambler, she also has exceptional high luck. So, she would love to test her luck against Makoto, the Ultimate Lucky Student, in a future gamble. This is essentially what happens in the third trial and Celeste loses.
  • Celeste adds the additional "don't leave your room during nighttime" rule to prevent any murders. Despite this, all the murders, with the exception of Mukuro (killed by her sister for "breaking" the rules) and Sakura (committed suicide), occurred at night.
  • In case three, the murderer takes great steps in forming an air-tight alibi, but because of the sheer number of coincidences surrounding them that occurred due to their plan, Celeste is left as the only possible suspect and their plot to make themselves appear innocent proves to be their own undoing.
• Dead Rising 2 has an activist organization that promotes the protection of zombies, called C.U.R.E. After the outbreak occurs, the protagonist can use C.U.R.E. picket signs to beat zombies to death.
  • Another bit of C.U.R.E-related irony. One of the psychopaths is a former C.U.R.E member who wants to spread the infection to stop the exploitation of the undead, believing Chuck to be a visionary radical like him, since everyone thinks he's a C.U.R.E sympathizer who released the zombies in an act of terrorism. It turns out that the faction that is really behind the bombing is actually exploiting the zombies and the outbreak for their own greedy ends.
• In Deus Ex: Human Revolution, "father" of augmentation technology Hugh Darrow, suffers from a rare genetic condition that forces his body to reject any mechanical augmentation.
• Divinity: Original Sin II: In a sidequest, if you tell some children that their dead friend is at peace in the Hall of Echoes, they brush it off and say that you don't have to make stuff up to make them feel better. This is shortly after you personally visited the Hall through an Extradimensional Emergency Exit.
• In Dragon Quest III, you buy the zombiesbane from a ghost merchant who doesn't realize he's passed on (but only in the Famicom/NES version).
• Dyztopia: Post-Human RPG: Eliza is Zetacorp's press secretary who is largely responsible for their Villain with Good Publicity status. Later, she defects from the corporation despite how this will cause her to share in Akira's Hero with Bad Publicity status.
• In EarthBound (1994), Jeff is the smartest member of the Chosen Four but also the only PSI-lacking one.
• The Elder Scrolls
  • The Dunmeri Great House Hlaalu gets hit with this. From the time that Morrowind joined The Empire as a Voluntary Vassal, House Hlaalu created strong ties to the Empire, making them the strongest and wealthiest of the Great Houses. In Morrowind, both the King of Morrowind and the Duke of Vvardenfell hail from House Hlaalu. However, in the years that followed, Morrowind was hit hard by the Oblivion Crisis, Red Year, and Argonian invasion. The crumbling Empire pulled out of Morrowind as a lost cause, leaving Hlaalu without their powerful ally. By the time of Skyrim's Dragonborn DLC, Hlaalu is now the weakest House, for exactly the same reason that once made them the strongest.
  • Gaiden Shinji was a legendary hero of the Redguard people. He was also a Master Swordsman and leader of the Order of Diagna. His famous credo states that "the best techniques are passed on by the survivors". Ironically, he was not actually one of the "survivors", though he fell in battle not for his techniques failing, but due to treachery.
  • Topal the Pilot was an Aldmeri Bold Explorer and poet, and was the first to discover and explore Tamriel during the Merethic Era, encountering primitive versions of the Khajiit and Argonians, as well as a now extinct race of bird people. His story was compiled into an epic known as Father of the Niben, but most of it was lost over the centuries. Tamriel's Topal Bay and Cyrodiil's Niben River system bare his name and the name of his ship, but ironically, he only explored them by mistake. After exiting Black Marsh, while trying to get back home to Firsthold, he mistook the "jutting peninsula" of Elsweyr as the mainland sailed north into the Bay and River. Had he known that was a peninsula and sailed around it, he would have gotten home much sooner and never would have explored central Cyrodiil, his most famous accomplishment.
  • The one and only school of magic in Skyrim that even the most magic-averse Nord warrior respects—Restoration—happens to be the one discipline that everybody of note in the College of Winterhold treats with various degrees of contempt. No wonder the College's attempts at improving their image don't get off the ground, given how insanely useful healing magic is for people that live in a world as harsh and deadly as Skyrim.
  • General Tullius is exasperated at Jarl Balgruuf's initial neutrality in the civil war, and chalks up his refusal to pick a side (preferably the Empire's side) to typical Nord stubbornenss. Yet once the issue is forced, it becomes clear that Balgruuf is perfectly alright with throwing in with the Imperials, and the person most strongly advocating the "wait and see" approach is Balgruuf's milquetoast Imperial stewart Proventus.
• ENDER LILIES: Quietus of the Knights:
  • Silvia and Siegrid were close as children but became distant once Silvia was chosen as the White Priestess's Guardian instead of Siegrid. Silvia did this precisely because she could not bear to see Siegrid in danger.
  • The King of Land's End was determined to not let his royal dynasty end after his son was stolen away. If he had realized his son Julius was alive and was his Knight Captain, he wouldn't have been as extreme in his search for immortality. That same mad desire for immortality is what resulted in Julius killing him.
    • Despite being obsessed with immortality, the King is one of the few major characters who did not become an immortal Blighted revenant after his death.
• Fallout:
  • In Fallout 2, the captain's journal entries onboard the Chinese People's Liberation Army Navy submarine mention that during the Great War, the only place in San Fransisco that was still habitable and not bathed in nuclear fire was Chinatown, which had been turned into an internment camp. The irony did not go unnoticed.
  • Fallout 3: The Brotherhood of Steel in the Capital Wasteland are split into two different factions - the main branch led by Elder Lyons (who prioritize protecting the natives over finding Pre-War tech), and a splinter faction led by Protector Casdin (who just try to recover Pre-War tech and leave the locals alone). The irony is that this splinter cell (who proudly call themselves "the Brotherhood Outcasts") actually act the most like how the Brotherhood of Steel did in the original Fallout (which is the whole reason they left to form their own faction in the first place, as they didn't like how soft the main Brotherhood was becoming and wanted to keep operating as they previously had).
  • Fallout: New Vegas: You meet a former Vault Dweller named Chris who left his Vault because he believed he was turning into a ghoul when he was really just going bald. It takes a fairly high Speech skill (or Black Widow) to convince him of the truth, and even a group of actual ghouls couldn't do it to the point that they just gave up and let him hang out with them. Eventually, you might disover Vault 34, where Chris is originally from, and explore it... and discover that the entire population has been turned into feral ghouls due to a reactor meltdown. The cherry on top? Chris was the Vault's reactor technician. His departure not only meant that he was the only one from his Vault not turned into a ghoul, but was very likely the entire reason anyone from his Vault was turned into a ghoul at all.^note A group of Vault 34 Dwellers had previously left the Vault to form the Boomers tribe, so Chris technically isn't the only one who's not a ghoul, but they left so long ago that only the tribal elders have ever been inside the Vault.
  • Fallout 4:
    • The songs played on the Commonwealth Minutemen's Radio Freedom station and Settlement Recruitment Beacons are the same (more or less) that were played on President John Henry Eden's Enclave Radio. Music originally used by a Nazi-esque Big Bad faction descended from the corrupt Pre-War American government is now being employed by a Knight in Shining Armor-esque Big Good faction descended from ordinary civilian Wastelanders.
    • A fairly common and reasonable complaint often given about 4 is the cut-down dialogue system, which makes it difficult to roleplay and restricts player options. Even Bethesda have admitted to not being fans of the system, and regret its implementation. The ironic part? Despite the cut-down dialogue system, Fallout 4 still has more lines of dialogue than both Fallout 3 and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim combined.
• The main character in Far Cry 2 kills a large number of characters over the course of the game. Not among those: The Jackal, who the player originally set out to kill.
• Far Cry 3:
  • Vaas tries to set Jason on fire at one point, only to discover that his lighter is out of fuel. So, he sticks the spent lighter in Jason's pocket instead. Later, Vaas tries to kill Jason again by shooting him. The bullet is stopped by the lighter.
  • Vaas likes to tell Jason that "The definition of insanity is repeating the same actions and expecting a different outcome." He's apparently under the impression that Jason didn't get it the first time he told him, so he repeatedly tells him this expecting him to finally get it.
  • Vaas also tries to kill Jason over, and over, and over... and he never manages to make it stick. He also never comments on it, which, in light of his statement about the nature of insanity, he probably should...
• One part of F. E. A. R. has a room with a massive pool of blood in it. On the wall above the puddle, a sign says, "Please help us keep this room clean."
• Final Fantasy:
  • Though it is untrue, a commonly believed urban legend is that the Final Fantasy series was named because Square had almost run out of money and decided to make their final game a fantasy RPG, hence "Final Fantasy". "Final" Fantasy is now one of the longest-running video game series ever. In particular, the double-dose of irony from Final Fantasy X-2 was probably dense enough to make a dent in space-time.
  • Exdeath from Final Fantasy V is a tree that lives in a castle made out of people.
  • A rare instance of Tragic Irony can be found in Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII. Because it's a prequel to the original Final Fantasy VII, we know exactly how it ends, which makes the final few hours unmitigated tear-jerkers.
  • From Final Fantasy IX there are two cases with the plot to kidnap the princess. First of all, Tantalus go to kidnap her when she was planning to run away with them anyway (they didn't know this). Second of all, the plan involved Zidane and Blank stealing the knights' armour and when they run into the princess in the midst of her trying to escape, she panics and runs off which starts off a big fiasco that leads to them all being discovered. The irony is that if they hadn't gone to so much trouble to create a perfect plan and just snuck in normally, Garnet would have recognised them and gone with them anyway.
  • In Final Fantasy X:
    • The summoners journey to Zanarkand in order summon the Final Aeon which destroys Sin. The fact that it is called the Final Aeon is quite ironic in that though it is the last Aeon the summoner will ever gain, the Final Aeon summoned will become the next Sin and thus continuing the cycle, meaning that there will be more Aeons called because this Final Aeon has become the next Sin.
    • Tidus. First example: Tidus doesn't want Yuna to die killing Sin. He ends up fading away while killing Sin. Second example: Yuna will die if she fights Sin and no one tells Tidus about this. Later on Tidus gets to know that he will fade away if Sin dies and doesn't tell anyone.
    • The use of machina is forbidden by the teachings of Yevon due to the fact that Sin often targets areas with high levels of technological advancement. Part of the reason the main characters are able to defeat Sin for good at the end of the game is that the airship guns it down.
  • Final Fantasy XII: At the start of the game, Gabranth impersonates Basch before killing King Raminas, after which Basch is imprisoned and declared dead to the world. At the end of the game, Basch takes over the deceased Gabranth's identity to secretly become an Archadian Judge. This means that Gabranth's identity theft indirectly leads his own identity to be stolen. Also, the world believes that Gabranth is still alive even though he is dead, because he is impersonated by someone they believe have died.
  • In Final Fantasy XIV, The Primal Shinryu is created by Ilberd, an Ala Mhigan, in order to wreck havoc on the Garlean Empire for their atrocities. Instead, it's found by Zenos, a Garlean viceroy ruling over Ala Mhigo, who seeks to use Shinryu to destroy his enemies once and for all.
• Fire Emblem:
  • In Fire Emblem: Awakening the Avatar is meant to become the vessel of the Big Bad and bring about the end of the world. Instead (depending on the choice you make) the Avatar ends up killing the main villain for good while Chrom can only put him to sleep for a thousand years. To further add on the delicious irony, the Big Bad accidentally blanking the memory of the Avatar at the start of the game made them become closer to Chrom and his crew, allowing them to fight off his influence.
  • Normally when a mask is involved in a big reveal, it's being taken off. But when Volke in Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance reveals himself to be an assassin hired by Ike's father to be his Secret-Keeper until he judges Ike to be ready to know the truth, he puts a mask on.
  • In Fire Emblem Fates, Takumi is among the Hoshidans who are most distrustful of Corrin, with Saizo being one of the few who openly doubts Corrin's loyalty. In Birthright, Takumi turns out to be the traitor, albeit due to brainwashing by the enemy.
  • Fire Emblem: Three Houses:
    • Edelgard's attachment to Byleth began when they saved her at the beginning of the story from some bandits. Said bandits were unknowingly hired by Edelgard herself as a part of a plan to assassinate both Dimitri and Claude.
    • In the Black Eagles route, Edelgard bemoans the fact her enemies refuse to surrender and often fight to the death, not understanding why they wouldn't go the more peaceful route of surrendering. In the other two routes, Edelgard dies after stubbornly refusing to surrender when offered the chance.
    • On the Golden Deer route, Edelgard declares that Claude has no right to change Fódlan due to him having insufficient knowledge of the suffering of the people. Yet, Edelgard herself has a very ignorant and biased view of Fódlan's history. In fact, the Black Eagles route leaves out most of the information regarding Fódlan's true history while the Golden Deer route is the one that does the opposite.
    • Late into Part I, Dimitri threatens to rip Edelgard's head off after she is exposed as the Flame Emperor. After their final confrontation on the Crimson Flower route, she is implied to have chopped his head off (obscured by a Gory Discretion Shot) after defeating him.
    • In Azure Moon, Dimitri eventually realizes how much harm he is causing in his pursuit of revenge for the death of his father, stepmother and friend in the Tragedy of Duscur, and devotes himself to instead fighting to protect his people. Two chapters after this realization, he unwittingly kills the leader of Those Who Slither in the Dark, who had helped mastermind the Tragedy of Duscur. Ironically, after giving up on his quest for revenge, he actually succeeds in getting revenge.
    • In ages past, Seiros was assisted in her battle against Nemesis by powerful warriors known as the Four Saints. The distant blood-descendants of three of those four saints (or all four in Three Hopes) all hail from the Adrestian Empire, whose leader seeks to destroy the Church of Seiros and overthrow its leadership. The two factions who wind up allying with the church against the Empire during the war are partially comprised of descendants of heroes known as the Ten Elites, who were Seiros' enemies.
• In Fran Bow one of the many disturbing sights which can be seen only when Fran takes her special red pills is the skeleton of an exterminator who was eaten by ants.
• Gabriel Knight: in "Sins of the Fathers", the Schattenjäger are empowered to fight evil by St. George, whereas the evil voodoo cult draw their power from Ogoun Badagris. However, most modern voodoo worshippers consider St. George and Ogoun Badagris to be one and the same.
• Genshin Impact:
  • When the group returns the Lyre in a mangled state, Barbara breaks down and bemoans that not even the god Barbatos would forgive her for allowing damage to come to his lyre. She does not realize that Barbatos is actually Venti who is present in the group and that more or less, Barbatos was the one who got the lyre destroyed in the first place.
  • Mondstadt is well known for its wines and ciders. Venti loves alcohol but due to his youthful appearance, vendors refuse to sell alcohol to him. The vendors would have been shocked to realize that they have been denying their own god his favourite pastime.
  • Barbatos is the God of Freedom, which means the very act of commanding his followers as a god would be an act that would be counter to his portfolio.
  • Rex Lapis/Morax, who is also known as the god of wealth, the creator of Mora and whose name that Teyvat's currency is named after, is perpetually cashless.
  • Zhongli is referred to others as being a rigid traditionalist but he is actually pretty accepting of the new, expressing approval of Keqing's more radical views. In comparison, people who are traditionalist end up in his disapproval.
  • Part of Keqing's disapproval towards Rex Lapis is that a god who descends only once a year can't be all-knowing or know the Liyue people too well. She does not realize that just how much Rex Lapis walks among the people.
  • Raiden Shogun, the so-called God of Eternity, has had a shorter reign compared to fellow Archeons Barbatos and Morax. The creative team also pointed out how "eternity" contrasts Raiden's abilities. Lightning is instant and comes in a flash.
  • The Shogun's goal is to implement "eternity" in Inazuma to keep it forever in a state of tranquility and peace. But her actions and Vision Hunt Decrees have the opposite effect, resulting in civil strife across Inazuma.
• Gloomwood: One of the locations you can visit is a tavern named the Slaughtered Goat. Said tavern has been barricaded by the huntsman to keep a Goatman trapped inside it, and for good reason since there are several huntsman corpses throughout the building. The irony sets in when you realize that a Goatman did all of the slaughtering within the Slaughtered Goat.
• Grand Theft Auto:
  • In Grand Theft Auto III, a caller on Chatterbox complains about people using phones and reveals that she's organized a group called Citizens Raging Against Phones to get phones banned from Liberty City. However, her planned communication method of carrier pigeons fails to organize the meetings ^note  because another caller is eating them and she has to use a phone to call Chatterbox to spread the word. Lazlow is quick to point out the irony.
  • Donald Love's mission strand in Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories involves Toni undertaking a series of tasks to help him win the mayoral election. But when the results are counted, it's revealed that Love lost the election because of Toni's involvement with him.
  • In Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, K-DST D.J. Tommy "The Nightmare" Smith occasionally makes cracks at other station Radio X. Radio X's playlist includes "Welcome To The Jungle" by Guns N' Roses. Tommy is voiced by Guns N' Roses lead singer Axl Rose.
  • San Andreas has a radio station called WCTR which is short for "West Coast Talk Radio". Because of the "West Coast" in the name, the station has the call letters of an east coast radio station. (A west coast station would start with K.)
  • The first game of the 3D era, Grand Theft Auto III is also the last of that era to take place (released and set in 2001). The last game of the 3D era, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories is the first to take place (released in 2006 and set in 1984).
  • At the end of Grand Theft Auto IV, Roman suggests you pick the Deal ending, while Kate suggests you pick the Revenge ending. Both characters advocate the ending that results in them dying at Roman's wedding.
  • Two different updates to Grand Theft Auto V added the Virgo and Virgo Classic cars to the game. The irony is that the Virgo is based on an older model than the Virgo Classic. ^note This is because the Virgo is a newly designed model while the Virgo Classic is based on the design of the Virgo from Vice City and Grand Theft Auto IV.
  • Despute being the most unhinged of V's protagonists, Trevor is the only one among them to have a college degree.
  • Several games have a mission where the protagonist has to protect or otherwise save the life of another character, only for a later mission to require killing that same character. Ricardo Diaz and Lance Vance from Vice City, Big Smoke and Ryder from San Andreas, Jimmy Pegorino from IV for example.
• The Gran Turismo games always feature a series of races called the Sunday Cup. These are the starter races geared towards low performance cars. In most of the games, one of these low performance races takes place on the High Speed Ring.
• Guilty Gear:
  • Ky Kiske lost his family and his supposed-to-be worry-free teenage years in a brutal war with the Gears. Not only is his best friend and rival a Gear, but he ends up getting married to another one and having a child with her. Also, he was the leader of the Holy Knights, yet he named his son "Sin".
  • In the Story mode of Xrd, there's a scene where Frederick and Aria are discussing what animal they want to be. Aria, rather predictably, wants to be a bird. Frederick says he'd prefer to be a roach — even if you're reviled by nearly all of humanity, you're almost impossible to kill, and have no concern for natural predators or socio-political bullshit. He's unknowingly, and very accurately, describing his future life as Sol Badguy, the Prototype Gear.
• Henry Stickmin Series: Choosing Charlie, the excitable yet inept helicopter pilot, when given the choice usually ends up with a humorous game over screen. The one time you have to choose Charlie, in "Completing the Mission", ends in a somber Heroic Sacrifice moment for the pilot and leads to one of the saddest endings of the series.
• Hollow Knight: Gailen, one of the spirit bosses, comments on how the world is not kind to the weak, as shown by "this poor fool" lying dead before he and the Knight. He never seems to realize that he's referring to his own dead body.
• Hometown Story:
  • Shinji is frequently seen going to the temple on cloudy days in hope of meeting a god, but not when it's rainy. If you speak to him on a rainy day, he'll have a line of dialogue in which he assumes that gods don't like rain. Guess what is one of the requirements for the player to be able to talk to the Harvest God outside of cutscenes.
  • Carl initially refuses to let Ember the dragon move into town due to being in a Tragic Bigot situation towards monsters. His old friend the sentient scarecrow is actually a transformed monster.
• In Homeworld the destruction of Kharak, is an attempt of the emperor's advisors at saving the Taiidan Empire, as the act should quell civil unrest by proving that the emperor can find and punish his enemies everywhere (the ancestors of the Kushan, the inhabitants of Kharak, had been allowed to leave and go into exile on condition they renounced to hyperspace technology. Since then they forgot their history, including the treaty, and lost all their advanced technology, and re-developed hyperspace technology right before the genocide) and kill the last remnants of their ancient and still feared enemy. The consequence of the act: the overthrow of the Taiidan Empire at the hands of the rebellion sparked by the genocide and the last surviving Kushan, who decided the genocide was a good reason to overthrow the Empire and got the means by reverse-engineering Taiidan technology and capturing Taiidan ships.
• Horizon Zero Dawn: Most of the cultures of the world are hunter gatherers, hunting the machines and scrapping them for anything they might need. The Oseram are the most technologically advanced tribe, with both the ability to turn machine parts into extremely effective weapons and their own smelting and forging. The irony is that their brand new, hammered armor looks extremely primitive compared to the computer-designed machine parts everyone else is wearing. The Oseram have technology of the early Steel Age on their own merits, while everyone else is basically wearing animal pelts that look like they're from the Computer Age.
• Noire in Hyperdimension Neptunia U: Action Unleashed is stated multiple times to be the strongest CPU out of the four of them. In terms of gameplay, she's tied for the worst character, with her transformed state still being outclassed by everyone else, which includes all the CPU Candidates and a human.
• In the video game adaption of I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream, Ellen has a horrible fear of the colour yellow - simply looking too closely at a yellow Egyptian statue proves too much for her. So when she needs to have her face in front of the statue while stealing a gemstone off of it, what does she do? She blindfolds herself - with a piece of yellow cloth.
• Iji features the Massacre, the single strongest weapon in the entire game. How do you get it? It's handed to you at the end of a Pacifist Run, right before the Final Boss.
• In Injustice: Gods Among Us, Injustice!Superman is very quick to blame others for his increasingly brutal and violent actions, especially on Injustice!Batman, and refuses to admit any wrongdoing on his end. However, the one thing he will claim responsibility for was him killing Lois and their unborn child but that was not his fault.
• Kingdom Hearts:
  • In the grand scheme of things, Sora becoming a Keyblade wielder (let alone one of the strongest to ever exist) is a case of this, as he never went through his own Inheritance Ceremony, and, as Birth by Sleep reveals, was specifically not chosen to become a Keyblade wielder by Aqua due to Terra having already passed on the power to Riku. For some extra irony, the ending of Kingdom Hearts III has him actually going through his own Inheritance Ceremony courtesy of Master Xehanort of all characters.
  • In a retroactive case of this, Chain of Memories has Marluxia setting up a plan involving manipulating Sora's memories. Later installments in the series would establish Marluxia as an amnesiac.
  • In Kingdom Hearts II, Xaldin warns Luxord that "if the cards aren't in [his] favour", he'll end up sharing the same fate as Demyx. Xaldin ends up as the next member of Organization XIII to die.
  • In 358/2 Days Axel spends most of the game's second half conflicted over the idea that Roxas or Xion must die so that the other can survive. By the end, he comes to the decision that losing either of them is unacceptable, only for him to lose them both soon after anyway.
  • Birth by Sleep:
    • Eraqus is an absolutist who believes heavily in Black-and-White Morality, so it comes off as quite ironic that he ends up making the open-minded decision to invite Xehanort to Terra and Aqua's Mark of Mastery exam despite their past falling out. Even more ironic, had Eraqus done as someone of his character would do and not trust Xehanort, things wouldn't have derailed as terribly as they did.
    • As revealed in the Xehanort Reports, Master Xehanort's goal is to correct the imbalance of light and dark. The actions he takes to achieve said goal turn him into the source of all that imbalance.
  • Axel had spent the previous games constantly telling people to get his name memorized. This seems to have worked out too well, as by Dream Drop Distance, after being recompleted back into Lea, he discovers that, no matter how hard he protests, everyone continues to call him Axel. By the end of the game, he's simply given up on trying and now just lets people call him whatever they want.
  • Marluxia is given the title "The Graceful Assassin" as a member of Organization XIII. In χ, his human self, Lauriam, has a story arc based around him trying to figure out the whereabouts of his little sister Strelitzia, unaware that she's been murdered.
  • Kingdom Hearts III:
    • Throughout the series, Riku wore clothes with largely bright colors such as yellow, all while having an arc about him struggling with dealing with his inner darkness. By this game, he's completed his arc and overcome his inner darkness, so what's the main colors of his outfit throughout the game? Black.
    • Rex mistakes Sora for Yozora from Verum Rex. As the commercial that had just played prior to their first meeting shows, as well as what Sora notes later, Yozora actually looks far more similar to Riku, but Rex wouldn't know this due to him having never met Riku.
    • The Wreck-It Ralph Link has Ralph build turrets as part of his attacks.
    • Throughout 358/2 Days, Saïx would belittle Xion as not being a true member of Organization XIII due to her status as a Replica. In this game, not only is Xion chosen as a member of the 13 Seekers of Darkness over half of the other members of the original Organization, but she also uses her Replica status to be able to copy Saïx's abilities and use them in battle.
    • Throughout 358/2 Days, Saïx is the one who most vehemently insists on Xion's status as a mere puppet or "it". In this game, not only do the two get paired up together to fight, but the ending heavily implies that, after Saïx gets recompleted back into Isa, the two end up becoming friends.
    • After his defeat, Young Xehanort boasts to Sora that he's already to late to stop him, and that even if he's been defeated, he'll just go back to the past, live out his life, and eventually succeed by becoming the Xehanort of the present. Master Xehanort proceeded to be defeated by Sora only a short while after this.
    • After him and his incarnations have been a source of trouble for Sora throughout the Dark Seeker Saga, Master Xehanort's last act towards Sora to to bequeath him the χ-blade and congratulate him on being able to beat him.
    • Throughout the series, Master Xehanort is noted for his extreme foresight and planning skills something that even Yen Sid fears about him. The Stinger for the game reveals that Xigbar, Xehanort's longest-lasting minion, had been masterminding everything behind Xehanort's back, with Xehanort none the wiser.
• In order to get the non-violent, Light Side resolution to the Sand People crisis in Knights of the Old Republic, you require a Blood Knight assassin droid whose alignment is firmly on the Dark Side to aid in peaceful negotiations.
• One Mandalorian in Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords becomes a Death Seeker if you beat him in a sparing match. Convinced there are no battles to fight and that he will never redeem himself. Not only is the Mandalorian camp attacked later in the story. Mandalore personally leads his clan (which would've included him) in the assault on the Sith flagship. If only the poor guy had waited just a little bit longer...
• League of Legends: Blade Of The Ruined King is considered at best a situational item purchase for Viego, despite the fact that lorewise he is the Ruined King in question. He even holds a weapon resembling it in his gameplay model and artwork.
• A common example in first-person shooters: The M79 grenade launcher, in real life, was too heavy to carry alongside a rifle, leading to the development of the underbarrel M203. And yet Left 4 Dead 2 is possibly the only video game in existence to feature the weapon that doesn't let you carry it alongside a rifle or two (any of which may also have the M203 attached to them for added irony).
• The Legend of Zelda:
  • Zelda is the bearer of the Triforce of Wisdom, yet most of her actions in Ocarina of Time have disastrous consequences throughout all three timelines.
  • In Majora's Mask:
    • Viscen's soldiers wish to have everyone flee to safety while Mutoh's carpenters demand to stay and continue the carnival. On the final day, most of the carpenters have chickened out and fled while the soldiers are still at their posts due to not having been given the order to evacuate.
    • Wearing the Mask of Truth to talk to the Gossip Stones in the moon can tell you what characters possess what masks to gain from them. However, one Gossip Stone doesn't seem to mind telling you who has the Mask of Truth... while you're wearing it to talk to the stone in the first place.
  • The Wind Waker:
    • The game has a meta example with the awakening of the sages who empower the Master Sword. Medli, a Rito girl whose race and tribe have a fixation towards sky (and they indeed can fly), is chosen to be the sage of the Earth Temple. Makar, a plant born from the earth thanks to the Great Deku Tree, is chosen to be the sage of the Wind Temple. It looks at first that their corresponding elements are deliberately mixed up, but the assignations make sense. Birds are fond of rocky, earthly places to put their nest safe from predators, and plants are the reason why air (and, by extension, wind) exists for living creatures to breathe.
    • Ganondorf's original reason for wanting to rule Hyrule was because it was far more habitable than the desert he grew up in. When he finally takes control of it, the gods render it completely uninhabitable by burying it beneath the ocean.
  • In Twilight Princess, after all the fragments of the Fused Shadow are retrieved, Link is turned into a wolf for a fourth time after Zant forcefully inserts into him a Shadow Crystal. Zant's intention is to render Link powerless forever, but once the latter finds the Master Sword, the ability of switching forms between human and Wolf anytime thanks to the now-comprised power of the crystal ends up making Link even more powerful. Midna lampshades this right before the battle against Zant.
  • In Skyward Sword:
    • The Ancient Robot race was the most advanced and sophisticated in the surface world, and yet it was the first to extinguish after the lush grassland and sea of Lanayru Province turned into a huge wasteland (which happened after the Thunder Dragon Lanayru died from a grave disease). From the perspective of the series as a whole, it's even more ironic since Lanayru Province eventually becomes the homeland of the Zoras, the rich source of water that fills the rivers and lakes of Hyrule, and overall a land that homages Nayru, the Goddess of Wisdom.
    • Link has to seek out the Sacred Flames of the three goddesses in order to turn the Goddess Sword into the Master Sword. The flame that grants it the power to repel evil is from Din, the goddess directly associated with Ganondorf.
  • In most of the 3D games, Link can swim on the surface of water indefinitely. The only exceptions are the ones from The Wind Waker (who grew up on an island in the middle of the ocean) and Breath of the Wild (who spent a good chunk of his childhood among the Zoras and very nearly became their prince consort).
  • Cadence of Hyrule has a Running Gag where the player has to wake up sleeping characters by recreating iconic Zelda tunes with a "Simon Says" Mini-Game, all of which have are thematically appropriate for the location they're played in. So what song is used to wake up the king in Hyrule Castle? Zelda's Lullaby.
• Life Is Strange:
  • In Episode 1, Chloe carelessly parks her truck across two disabled parking spaces. In Episode 3, she wants to steal money from the school's disability fund. At the end of Episode 3, Max uses her Time Master powers to prevent the death of Chloe's father, thinking it would resolve Chloe's emotional issues; because Chloe's father lives, he buys Chloe a car for her 16th birthday and she crashes the car not long after, becoming a quadriplegic. She's also reliant on the school's undersized disability fund.
  • In the main timeline, Chloe is a disruptive, pot-smoking high school dropout with blue hair and tattoos all over her arm. In the alternate timeline, she's a well-behaved, straight-A science geek and very girly.
  • Chloe's use of the word "hella" as her Character Catchphrase. The alternate timeline version of her hates the word, and admonishes Max for using it.
  • The main timeline's Chloe is a casual drug user who sometimes uses "medicating" as an euphemism for getting high, and her stepfather disapproves of her habit. Alternate timeline Chloe is dependent on medically-prescribed regular doses of morphine to fight off the pain of her injuries, and her father has gone deeply into debt to provide this along with her other medical expenses.
  • Max has been spending so much time and effort to save Chloe from both death and her feelings of abandonment. Alternate Chloe's final request is to have Max euthanize her, and she'll call Max out for abandoning her if she can't go through with it. Whether or not Max honours Chloe's last request also Foreshadows the final choice of the game, as Max must choose between letting Chloe be murdered by Nathan to restore the timeline or letting the storm wreck Arcadia Bay.
• In Lost Horizon Fenton falls through a crevasse while trying to get close enough to read the sign warning about it.
• Wendy from Maniac Mansion is a journalist who makes much use out of language and can help bypass the Purple Tentacle by rewriting the Meteor's manuscript into something readable and getting him a publishing contract. She's also the only member of the group who doesn't say anything after Dave's speech.
• In Mass Effect 3:
  • Javik empathically learns English from gleaning Shepard's mind, unaware that due to their exposure to a Prothean beacon, Shepard is one of the few people alive who already understands the Prothean language.
  • One option for Shepard's Multiple-Choice Past, "Sole Survivor", has Shepard as the only one to survive a thresher maw attack on Akuze. Mass Effect 3 confirms the attack was engineered by the human supremacist organization Cerberus, which Shepard worked for during Mass Effect 2.
• Master Detective Archives: Rain Code:
  • At the end of Chapter 4, while the detectives are discussing the oddities of the mass kidnapping case revealed to them as the the true identity of the "Great Global Mystery" by Number One, the same culprit behind that case ends up kidnapping the detectives too.
  • Number One is known for hiding his face from the public to protect himself. It's revealed by the end that not only is the protagonist (Yuma Kokohead) the true Number One, who's been showing his face around the Nocturnal Detective Agency and Kanai Ward's public this whole time, but the Big Bad himself, Makoto Kagutsuchi, is technically the true Number One too, albeit only a clone, and he's showing his face way more than the protagonist by being the CEO, the top-ranking member, of the widely popular MegaCorp Amaterasu Corporation, drawing practically the entire world's focus on him.
  • Yakou claims in the prologue that Kanai Ward is "out of the UG's reach" due to the isolation. The UG helped enforce its isolation in the first place due to the Big Bad blackmailing them regarding their homunculus research.
  • Even though Yuma and Makoto are the same person, Number One of the WDO, and yet are each other's enemies, their actions mirror one another, despite Makoto still being an Evil Counterpart of Yuma.
    • Like Makoto, Yuma is a Well-Intentioned Extremist. Similarly to how Makoto mass kidnapped criminals and built a Weather-Control Machine to keep the defective homunculi safe while hiding the fact they aren't human from the world, Yuma erased his memories, signed a pact with a death god, and hired a Body Double to trick detectives into believing it was the real Number One.
    • Both are strategic planners. While Makoto lured detectives over to Kanai Ward so they would oppose Yomi enough for Makoto to be able to expose him, Yuma erased his memories so he could get help from others, and used a death god to mask his Coalescence. He also hired a Body Double to pretend to be him while he could be present during his investigation of Kanai Ward at the same time.
  • Yuma, at first, believes himself to only be a trainee detective, therefore being lower in status and not even officially having a detective role in the first place, and constantly bemoans his inadequacy and irresponsibility due to a lack of confidence. His former, and true, self turns out to be the exact opposite, actually being the top Master Detective of the WDO, Number One, famous for solving cases on his own and regarded as having the greatest mind on the planet.
  • Number One of the WDO, who insisted on doing everything by himself with no help, ended up with a Forte that is utterly useless without someone else's help. Even if the rule about consent was made up (given that Makoto doesn't seem to need it), help from an unwilling person is still help, so he probably didn't want that either.
  • Throughout the story, everyone in the NDA assumes that Number One of the WDO hasn't shown up to solve Kanai Ward's Ultimate Secret and wish he would due to his reputation of solving cases on his own, thinking them to be the old man posited all the way back at the WDO. It turns out we are actually Number One, playing as him under the false identity of "Yuma Kokohead".
  • Exaggerated Trope in regards to Chapter 1. The reason why Halara had to use their Postcognition to solve the Nail Man case was due to Seth cleaning up the crime scenes because he was receiving large amounts of money from the priest, who was the actual Nail Man creating the cases that Halara used their Postcognition to solve, but Halara only accepts using their Postcognition to solve the cases that were covered up due to that reason because they were promised large amounts of money to see the crime scenes in the state they were in before Seth had to cover up the Nail Man's crimes, or in other words, the priest's crimes, because he wanted to protect his source of income.
  • The one detective Shinigami jokingly labels a “demon/devil” due to Halara’s wrath and greed ends up being the most compassionate team member when Chief Yakou is fatally wounded in Amaterasu’s research lab following Dr. Huesca’s murder.
  • Halara, while they may occasionally recognize his efforts as the Yuma Kokohead he plays as, acts in a way that gives the impression that they think Yuma is an inferior to them, with immense levels of pride, as a Master Detective and as a detective in general, while still being aware of the "trainee" role he decides to attain for his Memory Gambit. It turns out that Halara is actually the inferior to the Yuma they believes themselves to be superior to, as in reality, "Yuma Kokohead" is Number One, the top Master Detective of the WDO who can solve any case by himself, and without limiting himself through an extra payment quota like Halara.
  • Halara, the detective whose Forensic Forte requires use of their eyes (Postcognition), frequently has their face, of which has said eyes, hidden from the audience by camera angles.
  • Despite being a huge mystery fan, Shinigami is profoundly terrible at solving them herself. For further irony, it's revealed in Chapter 5 that Shinigami was never interested in solving mysteries up until Yuma's pact with her.
  • The whole purpose of a detective is to solve mysteries, a statement made within the narrative many times, but Yakou not only leads a group of detectives who aim to solve mysteries, he ends up creating one of his own with his murder in Chapter 4.
  • Due to his vampire-like appearance and constant declarations of wanting to die, both Yuma and Shinigami suspect Vivia to be some sort of immortal being. Turns out he's actually one of the very few mortals in a city full of immortals.
• In MediEvil, you play as Sir Daniel Fortesque, a knight who ended up in charge of a kingdom's army because he told stories about amazing acts of heroism he never performed, and then was killed ignominously via an arrow through the eye in the opening minutes of his first real battle. A century later Daniel arises again as a skeletal warrior with no jaw, leaving him The Unintelligible, but he uses this second lease of life to put down his archnemesis and prove his heroism for real.
• Mega Man:
  • Zero from the Mega Man X and Zero series was created by the character who started the entire Robot War, yet Zero is ultimately the one who ended the war, finally bringing peace to humans and Reploids.
  • Mega Man 11 reveals that Dr. Wily initially wanted to create heroes out of robots, before he was consumed with jealousy and hatred towards Light and became the megalomaniacal Mad Scientist that everyone knows him as. Even though Zero was created as just another tool to further his petty grudge with Light, he ultimately became exactly the kind of hero Wily originally wanted to create.
• Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty:
  • Solidus Snake tells the president that "Pawns can never become players." It turns out he was attempting to become a player himself by destroying the Patriots, but he was their Unwitting Pawn the entire time.
  • Metal Gear Ray was created for the purpose of destroying Metal Gears. After it's stolen, it's mass produced for the purpose of protecting Arsenal Gear, possibly the biggest Metal Gear ever.
• Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater has several, though one of the most ironic scenes is Snake's interrogation by Volgin. Volgin assumes Snake is a secret agent sent to steal the Philosophers' Legacy, a stash of hidden, untraceable money worth untold millions. In fact, not only is Snake not there to steal the stash, this is the first time he actually even learns about it properly... meanwhile, the other people in the room (Eva, Ocelot, and The Boss) are actually all Double Agents of some type, faking loyalty to Volgin in order to steal the Legacy for themselves, all working independently. Meanwhile, Volgin suspects nothing from them. It's ironic in that not only is Volgin's trust hilariously misplaced, he ends up telling Snake more about the operation than was he expected to know, somehow performing the inverse of an interrogation.
• In Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, Johnny repeatedly comes across as incompetent due to having stomach issues in the middle of combat and not being coordinated with the other members of Rat Patrol 01. It's later revealed this is because he was not injected with nanomachines like his teammates. But when Liquid uses technology that exploits the nanomachines, Johnny is the only one who's immune to the attack allowing him to save the day.
• Metroid Fusion is often considered the black sheep of its series, primarily because Sequence Breaking is nearly impossible to do to the degree you can in the other games - and yet it's the one game in the series where you can actually complete it with just one item collected. For comparison, Zero Mission requires at least nine items (ten on Hard mode).^note It helps that in Fusion, items acquired through absorbing a Core-X or downloaded from a data room don't count towards completion, so save for energy tanks you aren't really skipping any real upgrades This also happens with Metroid: Other M, which has received even more flak than Fusion for lack of Sequence Breaking, yet its hard mode removes powerups entirely.^note You still have story items reauthorized during cutscenes, but they don't count towards in-game percentage.
• Monster Sanctuary has an extinct monster called the Shockhopper, based on the rockhopper penguin, which is still alive. The only way to get one is by giving a Dodo egg to an NPC, a bird that's extinct in real life.
• In Mortal Kombat II, one of Jax's Fatalities has him rip his opponent's arms off. In Mortal Kombat 9, during the events of MKII, he gets his own arms ripped off by Ermac.
• Myrkul's death in Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer: killed by the power that's keeping him alive.
• My Child Lebensborn eventually reveals that in the years following the end of World War II, Norway worked very hard to get Lebensborn children born to unwed Nowergian mothers who had been sent to German back to Norway. In the game's present day, those very same children are being ostracized, some people being quite vocal about not wanting them in the country at all. In the case of the child adopted by the Player Character, their guardians in Germany were their paternal grandparents who were perfectly ready to raise the child with love.
• The New Order Last Days Of Europe: Ordenstaat Burgundy is a breakaway Nazi nation-state run by a miserly, ugly, penny-pinching, self-loathing, hateful and purity-obsessed Heinrich Himmler. The ruling Germans are the minority in a country where the native French and Belgians are manipulated and enslaved to be used as Cannon Fodder and torture toys. Said elite pilfers their monetary wealth and also forcibly destroys their traditional culture and values and unites them all together in an artificial, frugal and subservient "one culture" (with possible enforced veganism - oatmeal and apples being a luxury breakfast for a soldier says a lot) that benefits the ruling elite. Their ultimate goal? To subvert, corrupt and manipulate the world powers into genocidal war so they can take over, their race ruling supreme over the vacant world left behind. For all their anti-Semitic rhetoric, Burgundy is an uncanny mirror of the neo-Nazi "New World Order" and "Zionist Occupied Government" conspiracies.
• Oxygen Not Included always starts you in a cavern with, not only oxygen, but "oxylite" (solidified oxygen that slowly sublimates into gas) bricks. In fact, if you leave the oxylite alone, you can leave life-support to the end of your colony's setup.
• In PAYDAY 2, you play as a professional criminal. As part of a crossover, characters can wear the masks worn by the Fans from Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number. The Fans deliberately sought out and killed only criminals, to give themselves a (flimsy) moral justification.
• Piofiore: Fated Memories:
  • Yang mockingly referred to Lili as a cat. Later on, it's revealed that Yang's real name is "Mao", which can be pronounced as a sound that a cat makes.
  • As part of the Malicious Slander against the Mafia, Dante is falsely reported as going to many brothels and having strange taste in women. Dante has only ever loved one woman, who many people would see to be quite a catch.
• Pokémon:
  • There are several Pokemon that float yet don't have the ability Levitate. Of all of the Pokemon (excluding sea-based Pokemon), a couple of them are vulnerable to Ground type moves. These include Mega Charizard X (Charizard trades its Flying type for Dragon), Geodude, Magnemite, Magneton, Magnezone, Beldum, Metang, Mega Metagross (Metagross itself is grounded), Klink, Klang, Klinklang, Lampent, Chandelure, Carbink, Klefki, Honedge, Doublade, and Aegislash. It's also possible for Koffing, Weezing (and its Galarian equivalent), Bronzor, and Bronzong to have its alternative ability or its hidden ability instead of Levitate - giving them weaknesses to Ground instead.
  • Entei is at least partially inspired by the guardian lions of China which have been held for millennia as symbols of success, protection, and inner peace. In Pokémon Super Mystery Dungeon he's a Knight of Cerebus who shows up right when the protagonists’ rescue of Latios and Latias ended in disaster, and then threatened to kill them.
  • Up until Gen V, the Bug type was a borderline joke type, despite the franchise coming about through Satoshi Tajiri's memories of collecting bugs.
  • Golbat can only evolve into Crobat when it reaches maximum happiness, but Crobat's face is contorted into a permanent frown.
  • In Pokémon Sun and Moon, there's two legendary Pokemon called Solgaleo and Lunala. Despite the fact that the sun is often being associated with the Fire-type given how it's a giant ball of flaming plasma, Solgaleo is weak to Fire-type moves while Lunala is extremely weak to both Dark-type and Ghost-type moves even though the moon having some associations with darkness. However, it's worth noting that they are stated to be emissaries (agents) of the sun and moon and not personifications like previous legendaries.
  • Similarly, Greninja is a frog that's weak to bugs due to being Dark-type.
  • Team Aqua in Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire wants to right the wrongs humanity committed against Pokemon out of greed and yet, they dress up as and have a theme after pirates, a group known for their greed and destructive nature.
  • Pecharunt is both modeled and named after a pecha berry, a recurring item in the series the cures poison. Despite this, its entire concept (in both gameplay and lore) is about spreading its poison to others.
  • Despite its name and the fact that it has wings, Flygon is not actually Flying-type, and is instead Ground-type, which could be considered its direct opposite.
• In Persona 3 Portable, Shinjiro Aragaki is reluctant to start a romance with the female protagonist because he knows he is almost guaranteed to die of his illness, be murdered by Ken in revenge for the death of Ken's mother, or straight-up die in battle against the Shadows. If you actually go through with the romance, he outlives her, and she can outright die in his arms.
• In Persona 5 Royal, during a chat with the protagonist and Akechi, Kasumi stated that she doesn't support the Phantom Thieves because she thinks that people should solve their own problems instead of relying on others. It turns out that isn't Kasumi at all but her inferior sister Sumire, whom Kasumi tried to help her by preventing her from committing suicide by thowing herself into oncoming traffic — and sacrificed herself in the process. Sumire is also the one who actively requested Takuto to transform her into a near-perfect impersonation of Kasumi just to cope with her survivor's guilt, effectively entrusting him completely for her own problems. As for Kasumi herself, she still isn't any better since she took so much care towards Sumire to the point that it fueled her inferiority complex, suicidal depression and mental instability to the point that it induced the incident above that resulted in her very own demise.
• Doug Rattmann from Portal is schizophrenic. This has resulted in him being Properly Paranoid about the GLaDOS project. As every other scientist was ignorant of the danger GLaDOS possessed, he was the Only Sane Man because he was clinically insane.
• In the backstory of Rainbow Six: Vegas, Gabriel Nowak, one of your teammates for one mission per game, is essentially the team fuckup, most notably getting a hostage negotiator killed in the prologue mission in Vegas 2. In-game, however, he doesn't hold a candle to the mind-numbing stupidity of Mike and Jung that you have to deal with for the rest of the game.
• Red Dead Redemption has plenty of irony:
  • The most prominent one is Edgar Ross's and Jack Marstons fate. By killing John Marston, he believes to be doing a good job and cleaning the West of dangerous outlaws. However, this results in Jack becoming an outlaw who eventually kills Ross.
  • Reyes is revealed to be eventually successful in his revolution against the Mexican dictator - only to become a tyrant himself.
  • The Stranger, in some cases, notes the irony in Marston's actions by stating that Marston values marriage even though he's a cold blooded killer.
  • The people of the supposedly "civilised" town of Blackwater (namely the G-Men and Professor MacDougal) talk about frontier folk like they're mentally retarded savages. Of course, spend any amount of time with the MacFarlanes or Nastas and you'll learn just how weightless and downright hypocritical these views are.
• Red Dead Redemption 2:
  • By rejecting Milton's proposal to give Dutch up to protect his gang, Arthur unwittingly hastened its fall due to Dutch Moving the Goalposts to get more money at all costs.
  • The major robberies in this game turn out to be duds due to various reasons, but the only major successful heist? Micah's proposed train heist. Even for further irony, he is The Mole.
• Resident Evil has two people serving as the Big Bad; Albert Wesker causes most of the events in the series and William Birkin causes the outbreak in Resident Evil 2. Both antagonists deal with viruses and BOWs, which caused much loss of life all over the world. Birkin had a daughter, Sherry, while Wesker would later bear a son, Jake. Sherry and Jake in Resident Evil 6 go on to save the world from a viral outbreak, being the complete opposite of their fathers that nearly caused the end of the world.
• Ridge Racer 7 has a body kit company called Dig Dug (named after the early Namco game) which can be sponsored with a livery on the Danver Hijack Complete. The irony is that Dig Dug is the only body kit that is not available on the normal Hijack.
• Shin Megami Tensei:
  • Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne allows its protagonist, an Ordinary High-School Student who was transformed into a demon, to hire Dante, a powerful demon slayer. He puts it best: "It's the joke of the century, don't ya think?"
  • Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse reveals that Merkabah and Lucifer are actually halves of IV and Apocalypse's incarnation of Satan, who turns out to be a far more pleasant, benevolent and neutral-leaning force than either of his two halves, the respective leaders of their very extreme Law and Chaos ideologies.
• Sonic the Hedgehog:
  • Word of God stated that Dr. Eggman was based on Teddy Roosevelt (and was going to be the hero originally). Want to know how it's ironic? Dr. Eggman essentially is a threat to Environmentalism, and Roosevelt was actually one of the people who pioneered environmentalism (he was one of the reason why America even has Nature Reserves, for one thing).
  • The 1996 E3 promo for Sonic X-treme showcases a Mario lookalike being surprised about how Sonic is faster than him, and about how much better his game is, to the point where it says "Mario Who" after the footage was shown. Thing is, anyone who knows about the troubled development of X-Treme would know about the game never being finished. Super Mario 64, meanwhile, came out and became one of the most influential games of the era.
  • In Sonic Adventure 2, you find a device that lets Knuckles breathe underwater. Where is it? So far underwater that Knuckles almost drowns getting to it.
  • Sonic Superstars sees the return of Sonic Team alumnus Naoto Ohshima, who designed Sonic originally, to the series. This comes after a falling out he had with fellow Sonic Team veteran Yuji Naka over the failure of Balan Wonderworld, and Naka's subsequent fall from grace following a failed attempt to Un-person Ohshima, followed by an arrest and conviction for insider trading.
• In Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, as you advance down the tech tree, Sister Miriam Godwinson (the leader of the Christian fundamentalist faction, the Lord's Believers) will begin to sound rather rational and cautious towards some of the more questionable late-game technologies, while Zakharov (the leader of the scientifically-inclined University) begins referring to new discoveries with an almost religious overtone. And the biggest irony of all is: the UNS Unity colonists were, as the name suggests, supposed to form a brand new unified society on another world free from past ethnic and religious divides; however the UN failed to account for the ideological divides of the colonists, so when they made planetfall, they immediately split into the nation-states they were supposed to have abandoned.
• Soulcalibur 3 introduces Zasalamel to the series. His story is that he carries a curse that causes him to be reincarnated upon death, and he wants the curse lifted so he can finally die permanently. His weapon is a scythe which is commonly associated with the Grim Reaper.
• The plot of Spec Ops: The Line kicks off because protagonist Martin Walker wants to stop another American soldier from coming home in a body bag. By the end of the game, every American soldier in the city will go home in a body bag thanks to his actions. That soldier he wanted to save so much at the start? Probably among the faceless goons he guns down without a thought.
• The Freedom Ending of The Stanley Parable (and the first one the player is likely to find,) involves Stanley realizing that he's been enslaved by a mind control device, shutting it off and fleeing his workplace to find freedom. This ending can only be achieved by doing exactly what the Narrator tells you to do, thus enslaving yourself to the narrative, while exercising your own freedom to do whatever you want causes the entire story to fall apart and the Narrator to get angry at you.
• In Stardew Valley, we have Krobus, a Shadow Person who is Weakened by the Light. He worships a deity known as Yoba, and stays silent on Fridays out of respect for said deity. Yoba, however, is described as a being of endless golden light. Krobus worships the very thing that is harmful to him.
• Super Kiwi 64: The kiwi originally wanted to embark on an adventure around the world. Due to a sea storm, it and the old pirate parrot accompanying him end up being stranded in a remote island. Now the kiwi has to embark on an adventure... so it and its buddy can return home.
• Super Mario Bros.:
  • In Super Mario Bros. 2, one of the major bosses is Fryguy, a living flame entity. It is fought at the end of World 4, a Slippy-Slidey Ice World.
  • In Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker the titular character (and Toadette) are weighed down by heavy equipment, including a headlamp and backpack, meaning they can't jump on enemies, making even a Goomba a threat. However, one of the few enemies that Captain Toad and Toadette can easily defeat without additional items are Boos, who are normally very difficult to defeat in standard Mario games. It's all thanks to their headlamps.
  • In 2013, The Year of Luigi was started as a year-long celebration by Nintendo in dedication to Luigi, the meek and cowardly underdog who constantly lives in the shadow of Mario, his older brother and the #1 character of Nintendo and video gaming history. Sadly, 2013 also turned out to be one of the WORST years for Nintendo in terms of fiscal performance, which also means that several of the games that were dedicated to Luigi didn't sell as well as Nintendo hoped. Also, in November 28th on that same year, the actor who played Luigi in The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!, Danny Wells, passed away.
• In Super Robot Wars, there's an item known as the "Tem Ray's Circuit", based off of the piece of junk Tem Ray tried to hoist onto his son Amuro near the end of the original Gundam anime. In the games, it's one of the weakest, causing all stats to drop in exchange for a repair cost of 10 Credits. In Super Robot Wars 30, it ends up being one of the best items, second to only the usual powerhouse, the Haro. In game, if you downloaded the first DLC and gained the Hi-Nu Gundam, Amuro learns that the mobile suit uses some of Tem's work and expresses the irony of how he dismissed the initial piece of junk, only for it to come back to help him.
• Super Smash Bros.:
  • In the Subspace Emissary, Sonic, the fastest thing alive, is very late to the final battle against Tabuu. He is also low-tier in Brawl tournaments, one of the reasons being that he has slow attack setups.
  • Super Smash Bros. Brawl can apply here in of itself. Why? The game was designed by Masahiro Sakurai to specifically NOT be competitive, yet the number of official money tournaments featuring it actually exceeded those of Halo in 2010.
  • Ryu of Street Fighter fame, poster boy of the traditional Fighting Game genre, joined the fray for Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U. In Street Fighter (and other traditional fighting crossovers he's been in) he is one of the simplest characters to use, with basic but reliable special moves with the simplest inputs. In Smash however, the abilities he carries over from his home series (classic input special moves, high Combo capability, and Lag Cancel among other things) combined with Smash's unique Platform Fighter mechanics make him one of the most execution-heavy characters and one of the most unusual Mechanically Unusual Fighters in the series. This is also true of Terry Bogard from Fatal Fury, who is similarly one of the simplest characters to use there but is a Mechanically Unusual Fighter in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.
  • All three of the Pokémon used by Pokémon Trainer are ironic when compared to their home series. Squirtle is the fastest of the three despite having the lowest base speed, Charizard is the slowest despite having the highest base speed, and Ivysaur is best at Anti-Air despite being weak against flying types.
  • Lucina's alternate costumes all give her different hair colors to match the various female characters from Awakening. This is reminiscent of how the child characters in that game had hair colors determined by their non-fixed parent; however, only one of Lucina's hair colors is based on a woman that Chrom could marry (Sumia), and Lucina was actually the only child to have a fixed hair color herself.
  • Back in Wii U, Viridi said it wouldn't make sense for Chrom to be a playable fighter because he'd be a Moveset Clone of Ike, with Palutena mentioning he doesn't have an Aether recovery like he does. In Ultimate, the Aether recovery is the only thing he copied from Ike, and he retains his own version of Aether as a Final Smash on top of that. Also, while Chrom is a clone (specifically an Echo Fighter), he isn't one to Ike but to Roy, who was conceived as a clone of Marth in Melee.
  • What was chosen to be Snake's victory theme? Why, Metal Gear Solid's game over theme, of course!
• Tales Series
  • Tales of the Abyss has two examples in The Hero and the Big Bad; first the hero starts as a Spoiled Brat Jerkass but after the Wham Episode quickly becomes the nicest of the playable characters (the rest remain, to some degree or another, jerks). Meanwhile, the Big Bad's plan ultimately is to "save" the world by destroying and replacing it all in defiance of the Score. His actions result in the protagonist and team realizing he's got a point about the Score being crap and thus they manage to successfully free their world from it; a conclusion they wouldn't have come to if they weren't forced to prevent the Big Bad's plans.
  • In Tales of Berseria, it's revealed late in the game that Laphicet volunteered to be sacrificed by Artorius to revive Innominat because he was terminally ill anyway and he wanted to create a world his sister could be happy in. Because this was kept secret from Velvet, and because of how Artorius treated her afterwards, the aftermath of this act went completely against the intent of it.
• Team Fortress 2:
  • The Heavy, who has a PhD in Russian Literature and is technically a "doctor", is reliant on the healing capability of The Medic, who lost his medical license some time ago.
  • The Medic can use a bust of Hippocrates - named in-game the Solemn Vow - to bludgeon people to death. "First Do No Harm", indeed.
  • The "Conscientous Objector" is a handheld wooden sign with the peace symbol drawn on it. You use this in the game to hit people and try to kill them.
• Touhou Project:
  • The series has this in the form of Reisen Udongein Inaba, who is a "Master of Lunacy". The irony? She's probably the most rational character in the series.
  • Youmu Konpaku is terrified of ghost stories despite being half-ghost as well as the servant of Cute Ghost Girl Yuyuko Saigyouji.
  • Reimu Hakurei, the series' main protagonist. is a Miko, yet her powers and way of thinking are far more like a Taoist Hermit- and she acts more like a Taoist than the ACTUAL Taoist hermits (for added irony, one of said Taoist hermits even has Shinto-based powers), and her trademark weapons are Yin-Yang orbs, typically a Taoist symbol.
• In Until Dawn, there is a certain level of Irony on those who were directly involved with the Deadly Prank in the prologue but did not get their comeuppance by Josh, who did not get a chance to prank them.
  • Emily was one of two who orchestrated the prank. She was literally left dangling between life and death, same as Hannah and Beth were.
  • Jess also helped orchestrate the prank. Because of the prank, she would become bitter rivals with once former friend Emily. She would also undress herself in front of Mike, same as Hannah, and was in a state of being underdressed before being attacked by a wendigo.
  • Mike was the one to lead Hannah on to lure her into the prank. Similar to Josh, he would essentially lose someone he cared about and go through a grieving process.
  • Matt was the one to film the prank. He would later watch his girlfriend fall before his eyes, similar to how Hannah watched Beth fall to her death.
• The intro movie of the World of Warcraft add-on Wrath of the Lich King has a voice over of the words Arthas' father left for his son for the event of his own death, reminding him of the responsibilities of a just ruler and that he has complete confidence in Arthas becoming a great king. In Warcraft 3, Arthas murdered his own father, slaughtered the entire population of his country (he originally did it to prevent what he saw as a greater crisis), and turned the land into a blighted, monster-infested wasteland. He later became the Lich King, the greatest and most terrible tyrant of the world, but still a king. In Cataclysm, the Scarlet Crusade, a group of xenophobic undead hunters (undead being in their viewpoint as "everything that isn't a Scarlet") were all killed and reincarnated as scourge when their leader, the demon Balnazzar, decided to stop hiding as their former leader and just make them his slaves.
• B.J. Blazkowicz, the player character in the Wolfenstein series, looks like the typical Nazi depiction of an Aryan... except for the fact that he's Polish on his father's side and Jewish on his mother's.
• Wolfenstein: The New Order: All the crazy super-technology that the Nazis used to defeat the Allies and conquer the world? None of it is theirs. They were developed from stolen technology from an ancient techno-religious sect of Jewish scientists. It actually goes further than that if you consider that one of the fundamental beliefs of Nazi racist philosophy was that the Aryan race was endowed with creativity, the ability and will to help culture and technology progress. Other races could, at best, hope to enjoy the fruits of the Aryan's intellectual accomplishments, and the very lowest on the racial hierarchy - the Jews - are no more than cultural parasites who do so while lessening them. Meanwhile, in the game, the Nazis owe almost all of their technological superiority to advancements made by Jews, for a high, moral purpose, which they themselves stole and while lessening it immeasurably, turning their noble technology into tools of death and oppression.
• Wynncraft: A few late-game quests concern the player travelling into the Silent Expanse as part of an expedition team to investigate the region. In actuality, the whole point of the expedition was to reach the Eldritch Outlook, which can only be opened with a Human Sacrifice, which the player was designated as the moment they joined the team. This doesn't happen, as half the expedition team get killed within the first minute of setting foot in the mines leading to the region and the remaining third member becomes the sacrifice in the player's place after deeming them more fit to enter the place. In short, the designated sacrifice became the Sole Survivor of the expedition team.
• Yes, Your Grace: The main plot itself falls victim to this. Thirteen years ago, King Eryk promised his oldest daughter in marriage to a bandit named Beyran in a bid to keep Beyran from killing him and his wife. At the beginning of the game proper, Eryk finds out Beyran is coming with an army. He responds by marrying the daughter he promised Beyran to the Prince of a country whose army matches Beyran's in numbers. By the end of the game, Eryk's son-in-law has abused and ultimately killed his oldest daughter. Beyran turns out to have cleaned up his act and become the leader of a large group of refugees fleeing a civil war that was mistaken for an army. Oh, and Beyran is now a father himself, and he thinks his daughter and Eryk's second daughter make a nice couple.

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