Protagonists in video games having a more personal connection with the main villain's enforcer than the main villain themselves.
- This is a staple in the Ace Combat series, as the true masterminds behind the series' many conflicts rarely take to the air in person, leaving their respective Dragons to fight the playable characters in their stead.
- In Ace Combat 04: Shattered Skies, the Erusean generals and politicians who started the war are never encountered in-game and surrender off-screen in the penultimate mission. Much drama, however, surrounds the conflict between the Player Character Mobius One and his Worthy Opponent, the Erusean ace Yellow Thirteen.
- In Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War, The Conspiracy of the Grey Men, which goaded the Strangereal superpowers into a war, remains entirely off-screen and may actually get away scot-free in the end. The main recurring enemy of the Wardog Squadron throughout the game, as well as the Final Boss, is the "8492nd", a.k.a. Grabacr Belkan Aggressor Squadron.
- In Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War, you actually kill the final Big Bad (or his right- or left-hand man, depending on your Karma Meter, though it is implied that all three varying ace squadron fights including this one happened simultaneously through a Mergingthe Branches) in the penultimate mission. Then, in the final mission, you face the Big Bad's main trump card, who is none other than Pixy, your own former wingman, so the dramatic tension between you two is particularly high.
- Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation follows the template of AC04 in most things, but its Dragon, Ilya Pasternak, is killed about two-thirds into the game, and in fact, his defeat marks the turning point in his superiors' fortunes, leading them to an inevitable, but off-screen surrender.
- In Ace Combat: Assault Horizon, Andrei Markov is William Bishop's Arch-Enemy all the way (even before they meet in person, thanks to Bishop's prophetic dreams) and turns out to be The Dragon to the game's Big Bad, General Stagleishov. In a twist, Markov pulls a Klingon Promotion-slash-Dragon Ascendant on himself by killing Stagleishov and becoming the Big Bad in the final mission.
- Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown has the Sol Squadron, led by Mihaly A. Shilage, Yellow 13's instructor, flying on behalf of Erusea as test pilots in an experimental unit and Matias Torres, a super submarine captain and a survivor of one of Mobius 1's missions back in Ace Combat 4. The conflict is between Erusea and the IUN, lead by Osea, and the radicals in the Erusean government responible for the war are not the primary targets for Trigger, as he is sentenced to a penal unit after being falsely convicted of treason and after being pardoned spends the rest of the war in a special forces squadron, clashing with Mihaly once in the penal unit and twice after being pardoned, shooting him down and crippling him in the third time, while Torres meets his during the DLC missions that take place between the first and second clashes of Mihaly and Trigger. After a communications breakdown due to both sides destroying each others satellites at the same time, Erusea falls into civil war and it is during this time Mihaly is shot down. In the second to final mission, the radical remnants are defeated by a joint coalition of Erusean Conservatives, seperatists from Erusea, including the two uninjured members of Sol Squadron Wit and Seymour, and the Oseans. The final mission is fought by the coalition against two ADF 11-F super drones which either became sentient or were unable to receive the stand down orders so Trigger ended up fighting a Dragon with an Agenda as Torres goes rogue with nuclear weapons before his death, a regular Dragon whose final fight before being crippled has him promoted to Arc Villain as the leader of the seperatist air forces engaged for resources and a Dragon Ascendant in the form Hugin and Munin, the ADF 11-F drones who either became sentient or were in the middle of a Zeroth Law Rebellion.
- In Assassin's Creed III, Connor has a personal vendetta with Charles Lee for burning his village, which led to his mother's death. Lee is merely the right-hand man of the Templar Grandmaster Haytham Kenway, who is revealed to be Connor's father. While Connor ends up learning that his own allies, the Colonials, gave Lee the order to burn his village, he never lets go of his vendetta though he cuts ties with the Colonials afterwards.
- Assassin's Creed: Valhalla has Eivor become mortal enemies with Fulke after she takes their brother Sigurd hostage to keep the forces of King Aelfred from invading, but then reveals she's The Instrument of the Order of the Ancients. The Cent arc makes the hatred worse when it reveals she's been torturing him and even cut his arm off, leaving it there for Eivor as a present!
- Appears one-sided In Batman: Arkham Knight: Both the Dragon (Arkham Knight) and the Dragon's Dragon (Deathstroke) are after Batman for personal reasons, but Batman sees them as nothing more as ordinary (albeit influential) criminals. Played straight with the former once the Arkham Knight reveals himself as Jason Todd, who turns out was Not Quite Dead.
- BlazBlue: Played with in regards to Ragna the Bloodedge and Yuuki Terumi/Hazama. At first, Terumi seems like the Big Bad, but the ending to the second game puts an end to that with The Reveal that true Big Bad is Hades Izanami, the goddess of death possessing Ragna's younger sister Saya. Regardless, Terumi is the bastard who chopped off Ragna's arm and left him to die in a burning church and kidnapped Saya in the first place and therefore, at the top of Ragna's hit list for most of the series. Terumi also turns out to be the Final Boss and is responsible for the creation of Izanami, making him a Big Bad in his own right, subverting the trope.
- The same extends to Noel Vermillion, also targeted at Terumi. As it turns out, not only was Noel the inheritor of much of the original Saya's consciousness, but her "younger sister" Nu-13 reveals that Terumi explicitly made Noel just to fuse with her and become Kusanagi (the fusion would have resulted in the Black Beast, but Kusanagi was his goal); the remnants of Saya within Noel wanted none of that, which stalled the fusion long enough for Takamagahara to abort it via Take-Mikazuchi, which annihilated Ibukido in turn.
- Carl Clover's grudge with his father Relius, another Co Dragon of Izanami who took his daughter/Carl's sister Ada into his lab, installed her into the Nox Nyctores Deus Machina: Nirvana, and had Carl come in to finish the job, only to later do the same with his wife/Carl and Ada's mother. To say Carl is pissed would be an understatement. Though Relius also assisted in the creation of Izanami, making him a Big Bad as well.
- Body Harvest: The Hivemind is just another stinking alien to Adam; its servant, the Man in Black, who is a clone created from Adam's DNA, is his true enemy.
- In the Sega Saturn Mecha Game Bulk Slash, while Alois Gardona is a Non-Action Big Bad who plots a coup d'etat against Blau, the main conflict is between Cress Dawley and Reezen Ravia, who were previously Childhood Friends turned enemies after the latter decided to join Gardona's rebellion. After her death and the war's loss, Gardona commits suicide.
- Darksiders: War is going on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge against the illusive architect behind the Apocalypse that destroyed mankind and pined the blame on the Horseman. While he has no idea who it is initially, he certainly got unfinished business with Straga, the demonic general responsible for slaying War during the Apocalypse who now serves the Destroyer as his strongest minion.
- Disgaea 5: Alliance of Vengeance: While most of the party has a grudge against Demon Emperor Void Dark, Usalia instead harbors a serious hatred against his right-hand woman, Majorita, whom has a bit of a laundry list of atrocities she committed against the former's home world. In contrast, Usalia sees Void Dark as just some guy.
- This is also true with General Bloodis in regards to Killia and Zeroken. Killia does have a major beef with Void Dark too, but Bloodis has just as much past connection to Killia. Zeroken as well used to work for Void Dark, but he never met the guy. In comparison, Bloodis is someone Zeroken deeply cares about given that he is a combat master who taught both Killia and Zeroken, and saved their lives when he used to be known as Goldion.
- Disgaea 6: Defiance of Destiny plays with this as it is implied Zed knows who caused the unleashing of the God of Destruction, but chooses to save this knowledge until he has the time to deal with him directly. Zed will do anything he needs to, including dying over and over in violently painful ways, if it means defeating the God of Destruction, as defeating it will restore Bieko to her original form, and Zed will do whatever it takes to save his sister.
- In Dragon Age: Origins, this trope can occur if the player selects the Human Noble Origin story. In that case, they'll witness firsthand as Arl Rendon Howe, their father's best friend, betrays and murders their family and household to usurp their lands and station. By the end of the origin, the player's mother, father, sister-in-law and young nephew will all be dead by Howe's hands, making him a much more personal adversary to the player than his boss, Loghain, who ironically serves as personal enemy to Alistair, The Lancer of the party. A City Elf Warden also has a personal grudge with Howe, as he lead a brutal purge against your people.
- Dragon Quest V: In the DS remake, Bishop Ladja is the one directly responsible for the main character's woes, from murdering his father in front of him at age 6 to his subsequent imprisonment for several years, turning him and his wife into self-aware statues for a decade leaving their children behind, and murdering his mother just as they were reunited after twenty years.
- In Fallout 3, Colonel Autumn murders the Player Character's father and is in general responsible for much of the agony during the main storyline. He spearheads all the assaults on the player and their allies, generally speaks in a condescending and cruel manner, and otherwise makes himself very easy to hate. The Big Bad, President John Henry Eden, is nothing but a voice making grandiose pronouncements in favor of the Enclave, a supposed continuation of the American government, and is much harder to personally dislike. Then it's revealed that President Eden is an AI doing what it was programmed to do while Colonel Autumn is just an evil, cruel man. How personal the showdown with Autumn is is up to you.
- Far Cry 3: Hoyt Volker is the man in charge of The Syndicate of slavers and privateers who captured Jason Brody and his friends and family, but Jason spends most of the game contending with Vaas Montenegro, the Ax-Crazy pirate who killed his older brother and spends most of the game tormenting Jason and trying to kill him. That said, once Jason kills Vaas, Hoyt himself makes things pretty personal for Jason for the rest of the game- forcing him to torture his younger brother Riley, killing his German friend Sam, selling Riley to a Dirty Old Man in Yemen, and cutting off Jason's finger.
- A very common trope in Final Fantasy titles:
- In Final Fantasy IV, The Heavy is Golbez, who also turns out to be brother of The Hero, Cecil. Golbez, however, it is later revealed that he was brainwashed and controlled by Zemus, who is the main antagonist of the entire game proper.
- Final Fantasy VI has Kefka, one of the Emperor's Co-Dragons who's the on-screen villain who drives most of the plot and makes a personal enemy of himself with several of the protagonists, in contrast to Emperor Gestahl who doesn't even face the heroes until at least the mid-way point of the game. Subverted when Kefka reveals he has his own plans, takes out the emperor, crowns himself the new Big Bad, and is about a million times worse than Gestahl could ever be.
- In Final Fantasy VIII the Big Bad manipulating events is a sorceress who stays offscreen the entire time, except when she's possessing other mages to do her dirty work. The biggest clashes are with the hero's Rival Turned Evil Seifer, who fancies himself as playing the knight to the sorceress' lady.
- In Final Fantasy IX, the main villain, Kuja, turns out to be The Dragon of an even more powerful villain named Garland. However, Kuja is a personal nemesis for several of the protagonists, including Vivi (whose people Kuja created and then used as cannon fodder), Freya (whose country he destroyed), Garnet (whose kingdom he destroyed and mother he killed), and most importantly Zidane (who is Kuja's younger brother and personal target of most of Kuja's hatred and contempt). Later, Kuja kills Garland and takes over as the true Big Bad of the game.
- Final Fantasy X both averts this and plays it straight. The closest to a straight-out Big Bad, Seymour Guado, has a personal and mutual grudge with Yuna, whose journey the game is built around. However, the viewpoint character, Tidus, doesn't have a personal stake in that; his troubles are with his father Jecht, who's currently the incarnation of Eldritch Abomination Sin (the defeat of which is the goal of the game). This is why Jecht is the "villain" representive for FFX in Dissidia Final Fantasy instead of Seymour.
- To take it yet another step further, Jecht is corrupted and controlled by Yu Yevon, and the spirit of Yu Yevon is actually the final enemy fought in the game.
- In Final Fantasy XII, one of the major villains of the game, Judge Gabranth, turns out to be the twin brother of Basch, one of the central characters. Gabranth also killed the brother of Decoy Protagonist, Vaan, and framed Basch for killing the king of Dalmasca (who was another central character, Ashe's, father). In short, half your main party has a score to settle with him.
- The Heavensward expansion of Final Fantasy XIV ultimately sets you up to take down the corrupt Archbishop of Ishgard. The archbishop has a group of 12 bodyguards, the Heavens' Ward. A little over halfway through the pre-patches portion of the story, the leader of the Heavens' Ward (whom is, of course, the Archbishop's dragon) directly murders a close friend of the Warrior of Light, and from there the trope kicks in.
- The Fire Emblem games often do this, with the main villain either being Orcus on His Throne or only fighting in The Great Offscreen War until the final chapters of the game.
- In Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon & the Blade of Light and Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem, the two antagonists who are the most fleshed-out are Camus and Michalis. Camus, in a twist on this trope, is personal for tragic reasons: while he tries to invoke this trope to Marth by admitting he had a hand in killing Marth's father, he's also an honourable man who disapproves of what The Empire is doing, actually fought against their worst atrocities and is in love with the princess Marth is protecting (and it's mutual)... but can't abandon his country or his king. Michalis is the brother of Minerva and Maria who succumbed to the Big Bad's temptations and murdered their father for power, which forms a large part of Minerva's arc throughout both games.
- Subverted in Gaiden. King Rudolf turns out to be the hero's father, but Alm doesn't find out until his last words.
- In the second half of Genealogy of the Holy War, Seliph's main beef is with Emperor Arvis who killed his father and leads The Empire his La Résistance is fighting, while the actual Big Bad remains relatively unknown to him. In a twist to this trope, by the time Seliph actually fights him, he realizes Arvis is more troubled and complex than believed and was manipulated by the real villains. Leif meanwhile has Travant, who, like many examples here, killed his parents, and Bloom, who took over his country. (Interestingly, both are The Unfought in the interquel Thracia 776, where Leif is The Hero.)
- In Thracia 776, while Veld is the game's final boss, it's Raydrik who ends up kicking off the events of the game by kidnapping Nanna and Mareeta, is responsible for the destruction of Leonster, is openly ruling the dominant region of Munster, and tends to be the one giving orders in the field. Veld does get off one fairly pivotal antagonistic action (petrifying Eyvel), but is mostly just a representative of the Loptr Church.
- In Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance, while Ike is fighting to bring down Mad King Ashnard, his Arch-Enemy is The Black Knight, who killed his father, and any time he shows up things get very personal. Adding to this, Ike doesn't even see Ashnard himself until the final battle (though the player does in cutscenes). The Black Knight retains this role in the sequel as, due to a complicated Playing Both Sides gambit, he turns out to be The Dragon for both games' respective Big Bads. There's also Izuka for Elincia due to him corrupting her beloved uncle and being responsible for horrific war crimes all around, and Lekain for Sanaki, the leader of her corrupt senators who was responsible for all the trauma she goes through. In another twist to this trope, Sanaki and one of the actual villains, the Anti-Villain Lehran/Sephiran, are on completely good terms; in fact, they care for each other so much that in gameplay neither one will directly harm the other.
- Fire Emblem Fates:
- An Anti-Villain example is Xander, Leo, Camilla and Elise on the Birthright route. While there's certainly a personal conflict with the Big Bad King Garon, as he's the hero/heroine's abusive adoptive father (who actually kidnapped him/her as a baby), his children act as Co-Dragons in his invasion of Hoshido, and yet the hero/heroine was raised with them as siblings and they still care for them as family, making them being on opposite sides of the war all the more tragic.
- On the Conquest route, while Ryoma is the leader of the Hoshidan forces opposing the protagonist, Takumi is the one who takes their betrayal the most personally, becomes obsessed with killing them to exact revenge, and ultimately becomes the Final Boss.
- Fire Emblem: Three Houses plays with this depending on the route.
- Silver Snow: On this route, Edelgard is more clearly The Dragon with Thales as the Big Bad. The personal conflict between them and Byleth is played up here where Byleth is the sole protagonist and originally was Edelgard's friend and teacher before she revealed her true plans, and the story plays their We Used to Be Friends relationship for all its worth. This route's post-timeskip arc even begins with a cutscene of the two dueling, ending with their blades at each-other's throat.
- Azure Moon: While Thales is the game's main villain, Dimitri's biggest grudge is against his Dragon with an Agenda Edelgard. This leads to him unknowingly rolling right over Thales in his efforts to get to Edelgard, making her the Big Bad and him the Greater-Scope Villain of his route.
- Crimson Flower: Dimitri is The Dragon on this route, and is the penultimate boss before the route's Big Bad. And things are personal between him and Edelgard albeit for tragic reasons, as he's her step-brother (though she never learns that), childhood friend, and heavily implied to be her First Love. Edelgard has to hold back tears when she kills him. Meanwhile, it's inverted for the Big Bad and Byleth, who serves as The Lancer to Edelgard, as Rhea has taken Byleth's siding with Edelgard over her at the Holy Tomb as a personal betrayal to the point of Sanity Slippage. While Rhea is able to feel some sadness at the thought of actually fighting Edelgard directly before she hits rock-bottom due to her personal friendship with her ancestor, she makes it clear she's going to tear out Sothis' Crest Stone from Byleth's chest personally even before that.
- Two instances of this occur in Freedom Planet 2.
- Carol's nemesis in the plot is her older sister Corazon; the latter made a deal with Merga behind the scenes that the former is unaware of, and intentionally so on Cory's part for quite some time. Carol's ill-conceived plot to break away from the group in pursuit of Cory does not benefit the group the way she intended at all, and the two are forced to come to blows onboard the Bakunawa because Cory "just won't EXPLAIN" why she's doing what she's doing, and by the time she does, [A] Carol is angry enough to chew her out for something so selfish and [B] Merga is seconds away from doing Cory's job for her, not that this pans out.
- Neera's beef with her nemesis is much more personal and more vitriol-laden. It's Sergeant Askal, who worked with Merga behind everyone's back and aided her takeover of Shang Tu, which forced the Magister to flee for his life. From that moment on, Neera's desire to make him answer for his treachery all but consumes her innermost thoughts, to the point she loudly snaps on Lilac and nearly freezes Carol where she stands when the latter has apparently switched side to work with Serpentine. She does eventually calm down, but not before she literally puts Askal on ice.
- Horizon Zero Dawn: HADES is a threat to all life, but Aloy doesn't have any personal beef with it beyond that. HADES' dragon Helis, on the other hand, killed Aloy's father figure and has been trying to kill her ever since, so she has valid reason to hate him. Interestingly, it's inverted on the villains' side; Helis only tries to kill Aloy because HADES ordered him to (though he quickly grows to hate her because of how resilient she is), while HADES fears Aloy personally, since she's a clone of HADES' creator.
- The same pattern continues in the sequel, Horizon Forbidden West. While Aloy recognizes that Gerard Bieri, the leader of the remnants of Far Zenith, is the real threat to all life on Earth, at least before learning about Nemesis, the lion's share of her wrath is reserved for Gerard's second-in-command, the psychopathic warmonger Erik Visser, after the latter kills her friend Varl.
- While the titular team of Jitsu Squad have a common goal of taking down the main villain, Demon Lord Origami, the game's hero, uh, Hero, have a sworn enemy in Origami's dragon - Dash Kobayashi, a traitor of Hero's clan who defected to join the villains, and carried out the massacre of Hero's hometown in the backstory besides killing Hero's father.
- In Klonoa: Door to Phantomile, while Ghadius is the Big Bad and still very much an active presence who casts a shadow throughout the journey, it's his comparatively clownish lackey Joka who shows up to really cause the most trouble and accompany various bosses along the way. He sheds a lot of his clownishness and fully makes things personal when he murders Grandpa in cold blood and taunts poor Klonoa over it, an act of intimate evil neither Ghadius nor Nahatomb could claim. Fittingly, he's also a far more recurring character throughout the Klonoa series than his original boss, as-if to further cement him as Klonoa's Arch-Nemesis, though ironically his personality and Klonoa's memories of what made him this trope the first time aren't so consistent in his reappearances. Though given the nature of Klonoa's existence in Phantomile and relationship to Grandpa to begin with, perhaps that makes sense.
- In The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel II, Rean has more personal stakes in wanting to bring Crow back to the academy rather than dealing with either Duke Cayenne or Vita.
- The Legend of Zelda:
- Most of Twilight Princess is spent running after Zant, a usurper given power by the true villain, Ganondorf. Zant is Midna's nemesis, being the one who turned her into an imp and usurped the throne from her, tuning her people into evil Shadow Beasts. In addition, Link has his own personal nemesis in King Bulblin, a servant of both Zant and Ganon, whose tribe personally raided his hometown of Ordon Village and who serves as the game's most recurring (mini-)boss.
- For most of Skyward Sword, Ghirahim is the one to hinder Link's progress and started the conflict by kidnapping Link's Childhood Friend Zelda, with the main villain Demise fought only after Ghirahim's final defeat.
- Lunar Knights: The main protagonists Aaron and Lucian hold a grudge against the vampire duke Dumas, due to having killed the former's father and the latter's girlfriend (on top of trying to turn her into his bride). While he is the most powerful vampire around, Dumas himself is merely an underling to Polidori, an emissary from the Immortals and the real Big Bad of the game.
- In Master Detective Archives: Rain Code, while searching for Kanai Ward's Ultimate Secret, the Master Detectives are frequently antagonized by Yomi Hellsmile and the Amaterasu Corporation Peacekeepers, preventing them from solving the city's mysteries. Yomi is technically the right-hand for Amaterasu Corporation's CEO, being the one begrudgingly working under them, but Yomi is actually doing everything entirely of his own will. Regardless, their true worry is actually the CEO himself, Makoto Kagutsuchi, as he's the Big Bad responsible for everything that's happening to the detectives in the first place, being the one covering up the city's secrets and being the one who brought them to the city to oppose Yomi. They spend the entire game focusing on Yomi so they never realize Makoto is their true enemy.
- Taken to the Logical Extreme in Mega Man Zero 3: Dr. Weil's huge sidekick, Omega, turns out to be using Zero's old body, with the one Zero's using being a copy. Weil pretty much taunts Zero whether he has the balls to defeat "himself". The backstory also shows that Zero and Omega were the hero and the spear-header of the Elf Wars respectively and that Zero (along with X) took Omega down before he reappears in this game. It does become personal for Weil later on, however.
- In Metroid, Ridley is rarely ever the Big Bad, almost always serving as The Dragon (literally). Despite this, Samus holds the greatest grudge towards him out of any of her enemies, as their first encounter ended with him slaughtering her family and entire space colony when she was only three years old.
- In Mortal Kombat, Liu Kang is always a thorn in Shao Kahn's side, but his actual hatred is reserved for Shao Kahn's righthand man Shang Tsung. Their rivalry is far more intense and personal than anyone else Kang comes into conflict with.
- In Mother 3, the Masked Man, not King Porky, is the final battle of the game. He's Lucas's brother Claus, and Porky has brainwashed him to pull the seventh needle no matter what.
- If you've played the game before that, EarthBound, then you'll be feeling this way against Porky, next-door bully of Ness who does his best to make Ness go though hell in his journey, from using the Mani Mani Statue to brainwash people into helping him, selling out humanity to Giygas, and taunting Ness all the way.
- In Oniken, Co Dragon Hackan comes from the same home town as The Hero Zaku and was responsible for the death of Zaku's father. Big Bad Doozor is a more standard Mad Scientist who wants to conquer the world.
- Persona 4: Tohru Adachi is the essential Big Bad of the game as the murderer, and by the time the party finally confronts him, it has gotten very personal, what with Nanako having been kidnapped and nearly killed by Namatame, who it turns out was trying to save people from Adachi but was unwittingly playing right into Adachi's hands by throwing them into the TV world; and every member of the party has a major "The Reason You Suck" Speech to give to the killer when he is finally exposed. Meanwhile, the Greater-Scope Villain Izanami isn't even seen unless you manage to find the path to the True Ending, and is someone who isn't really known to the protagonists until the end when she becomes the direct Big Bad.
- In each of the Rocket Knight Adventures games, Sparkster's arch-rival and Evil Counterpart, Axel Gear, is always The Dragon to whoever the game's Big Bad is. Axel Gear also survives every battle he loses against Sparkster, whereas Sparkster always kills off the Big Bad afterwards. The manual for the first game explains the rivalry between the two Rocket Knights; Ten years before the events of the first game, Axel Gear permanently disabled Sparkster's mentor, Mifune Sanjulo, when Sparkster was made the new leader of the Rocket Knights instead of him.
- Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time: The Cooper Gang have a larger reason to hate The Evil Genius Penelope than Le Paradox; she provided Le Paradox with Bentley's time travel blueprints, and is as a selfish Yandere and Gold Digger who only viewed Bentley as a tool.
- In Sonic Adventure 2, Sonic has fought against Shadow, who served as The Dragon to Dr. Eggman (until the Last Story when it was found out that Shadow used Eggman's help to further his goals for revenge), and was the sole reason why Sonic was framed for stealing a Chaos Emerald from a bank. This is also due to the game solely focused on the heroes battling their gameplay counterparts, meaning that Tails battles against Eggman, as well as the only game (aside from the Storybook series, where Eggman does not appear) where Sonic never fights Eggman.
- Summertime Saga: Because Dimitri is continually tormenting the Main Character in lieue of his boss Raz, who never leaves the Russian warehouse, Main Character hates him that much more. When he learns that Dimitri murdered his father Frank, he brutally shatters Dimitri's jaw, possibly killing him, whereas he refuses to kill Raznikov when he has the opportunity. Instead, it's his daughter Nadya who shoots him.
- In the Time Crisis series, the VSSE has a long-standing feud with Wild Dog, who at most has served as hired muscle for the series' various Big Bads. In fact, at the end of Time Crisis 4's Crisis Mission mode, Time Crisis 1 protagonist Richard Miller, who disguises himself as Wild Dog as part of the your final test before becoming a full-fledged VSSE agent, states to you that one day, you will face Wild Dog yourself.
- Trials of Mana gives more reason to hate the Dragon of each branch's protagonists than the Big Bads.
- The Crimson Wizard was the one to infiltrate the Castle of Valsena and give a humiliating defeat to Duran, which sets off his reason for going on the journey to switch his class and become stronger. When it comes to Angela, she blames him for having manipulated her mother into wanting to sacrifice her to release the seal on the Mana Stone near Altena. Neither of them care much for fighting the Dragon Emperor, he just needs to be defeated because it would lead to the world ending.
- Belladonna seduced and manipulated Flamekhan into turning the Nevarl Thieves Guild to conquest of other nations, killed Eagle, and put a curse on Jessica, who are Hawkeye's best friend and Love Interest, respectively. Hawkeye wants to face her down to clear his name of the crime she framed him for, and avenge his friend. Riesz was the princess of the kingdom that Belladonna had the guild infiltrate, kidnapped her younger brother, and caused the death of her father.
- Goremand was the one to cause the pup Karl to attack Kevin, which ended up triggering his werewolf powers. Charlotte has it in for Goremand because he's the one that kidnapped Heath from her.
- Warcraft III: Arthas pursues the dreadlord Mal'ganis all the way to Northrend, being convinced that he is the biggest culprit, despite Mal'ganis not being directly responsible for the plague of undeath crippling Lordaeron (that was the Lich King's doing, Mal'ganis was just accelerating the process). Arthas ends up taking a cursed sword that puts him in the Lich King's thrall so he can kill Mal'ganis.
- Xenoblade Chronicles 1 is quite fond of this trope, applying it in no less than three separate occasions.
- During the Mechon invasion, the sinister, sentient robot Metal Face quickly makes things personal by killing Fiora, Shulk's Love Interest and Dunban's younger sister. While the party certainly have reasons to oppose the leader of the Mechon, Metal Face himself serves as their collective personal grudge, especially when he's revealed to be Dunban's former war buddy Mumkhar, who relished the opportunity to become a Mechon as a means to satiate his own grudges with Dunban. He also takes a personal kind of enjoyment from his actions and reminding Shulk and Dunban of their failures that Egil never does.
- After the true Big Bad reveals himself, two of his three Co-Dragons are characters with more direct, personal connections to party members. One of them is Dickson, Shulk's own adoptive father and mentor, who serves as the penultimate boss. After his defeat, his dying thoughts are spent reflecting on how strong Shulk's grown, while Shulk himself walks away struggling to hold back tears.
- One of the other Co-Dragons, Lorithia, is a High Entia minister who helps the Big Bad forcibly transform almost the entire High Entia population into monstrous Telethia, leaving only herself and the immune half-breeds unaffected. For obvious reasons she immediately becomes the personal nemesis of the party's own (half-)High Entia representative, Melia, especially when Lorithia starts keeping what's left of Melia's transformed brother around as her personal pet, going so far as to kiss him in front of her.
- Xenoblade Chronicles 2 plays with the trend in similar ways to its predecessor. Rex's primary enemies are Jin and Malos throughout the game, but at the end we find out almost all of the game's conflicts are the fault of Malos's real driver Amalthus. Where it's played with is that Malos is still the final boss of the game, and the main threat even after said driver is revealed. Jin is a more straightforward version, where he is the one who kills Rex at the start of the game and provides the majority of the beatdown that gives Rex his main motivation at around the 2/3 point of the game, but he is ultimately only working for Malos's orders.
- And just in case that wasn't straight enough, the third installment Xenoblade Chronicles 3 has almost every party member have one of the main villain's various underling Moebius as a more personal enemy. Noah has N, Mio has M for the first half, and then shares N with Noah, Lanz has J, Eunie has D, Sena has S. Taion is the only one without a direct Moebius arch-rival among their group.
