Utsuge is the Japanese portmanteau for "depressing game". As the name implies, these games' goal is to make the player cry. Most of them are of the
Visual Novel variety, in which the player is guided through an increasingly (melo)dramatic story.
Games of this type contain lots of typical
tear-jerking material, with death, mental problems, loneliness and rejection as central themes. A lot of them contain at least one
girl with a serious disease, who has to be helped by the player.
Downer Endings are very common, when the player fails to achieve this goal.
Utsuges are often populated by
Bishoujos and aimed squarely at a
Seinen audience. By far the most of them take the form of
Dating Sims, where the dramatic material is used to give the on-screen girls more depth and character. In some of those games, the drama actually becomes much more prevalent, overtaking the premise of simply trying to date girls. Most
Utsuges, being
Dating Sims, also contain
quite a bit of the erotic content that comes with the territory.
It is rare to find examples without any erotic content whatsoever, although some
H-Games have been re-released without adult material to appeal to a wider audience—usually without suffering any negative consequences for the story or playability. Still, gaming companies generally don't explicitly market their games as
Utsuge, instead emphasizing their
Dating Sim-nature to appeal to the typically male audience.
Examples:
- Kana Little Sister
- Da Capo
- Most anything by Key Visual Arts:
- Dote Up A Cat combines this with ill catgirls and a Bait and Switch opening. This Troper hasn't even played it, but...just compare the opening
to the ending.
- Narcissu
- Type Moon's games, particularly the routes leading up to a "Normal End". "True Ends" tend towards bittersweet.
- Tsukihime, the Far Side routes (Akiha/Hisui/Kokahu) in particular. Akiha's normal end will Player Punch you in the face.
- Sakura's route in Fate Stay Night (Heaven's Feel) is particularly warped, with her "Normal End" the most depressing of all the endings.
- ef: A Fairy Tale of the Two, which has been adapted into ef: A Tale Of Memories and ef: A Tale of Melodies.
- Kimi Ga Nozomu Eien. The anime version doesn't let up on the tears, either.
- A most rare non-Bishoujo, non-dating example: The Metal Gear Solid saga. 4 especially is pure emotional sadism pressed into disc shape. Damn you, Kojima. Just damn you.
- An even rarer non-Bishoujo, non-dating, Western example: Gears Of War. The second one especially twists the knife, delighting in killing all the most sympathetic and Bad Ass non-player characters in the most depressing ways possible.
- Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni and its sequel Umineko No Naku Koro Ni form an interesting variation. Their main objective is not to make the players cry, but to scare them. Despite this, the games still manage to move the player emotionally. Anyone who doesn't feel their eyes become damp at any point in the series has no soul.
- The question arcs are supposed to confuse and scare us, but the answer arcs are straight Utsuge.
- Ever17. If you don't cry at the end of Tsugumi's path, you aren't human.
- Yume Miru Kusuri has three paths - one for the socially isolated school idol, one for the druggie kid, and the last one for the poor girl who is bullied with tasers in a classroom while the teacher assumes she is constantly falling out of her chair and screaming for no particular reason.
- Private Nurse — Come for the marketing as an h-game, stay for the many, many moments of crying your damn eyes out. At least one path leads what could be considered a Bittersweet Ending if not outright Downer Ending.
