Player Punch / Role-Playing Games

Pages with their own list of Player Punches

• Final Fantasy
• Tales Series

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Breath of Fire

The general conclusion to be drawn is that, while Ryu is supposed to be a different character in each Breath of Fire game, it seems that keeping his siblings alive is not one of the typical incarnation's strong points.

• Breath of Fire I
  • The game opened with Sara, the hero's sister, singlehandedly confronting Jade to stall for time so the rest of the hiding villagers aren't discovered, losing, and being led away. Later, you find her and think you've rescued her, but she betrays you and runs off with the Goddess Keys you had been collecting. Later still, you confront her in Jade's fortress, where she reveals she's been placed under Jade's Mind Control and has been slipping in and out of his control, slips back under control just after saying this, fights you, finally breaks free just after the fight, and dies. Finally, when you confront Jade, he mockingly asks what took you so long to reach him, saying he expected you to get through Sara faster than that. It was at this point that you decided that Jade must die.
  • The quest for the Time Key is also heartbreaking. You finally convince Cerl (one of the villains) to give you the key by bringing her fruit that reminds her of happier times with an old friend (Alan). Another villain appears and she holds him off while your party escapes. This takes place in a castle that reflects her mind. Just as you escape, Alan runs into the castle to save her. Then the castle (and everyone in it) disappears. If you return to the site later, you see ghosts of Cerl and Alan playing as children while hearing one of the most tear-jerking songs ever found in a game.
    • Unless you interpret the scene as being another timewarp, with Alan and Cerl being reduced to children again by the effects of the Time Key. Then it becomes far more optimistic, giving the pair a second chance at happiness.
• Breath of Fire II wasn't much better.
  • A raid on the evil church's Vatican-like headquarters claiming the lives of Rand's mother, Tiga, and Ray. Also, one of the evil church's priests in the town of Gate claims to have suddenly realized what a dreadful mistake he made regarding the sealed evil and that only the thief Patty can fix it, forcing you to go find her and bring her to Gate. At that point, he betrays you, reveals he's actually the evil church's pope in disguise, and tries to sacrifice Patty to open the gate to Hell. Patty chooses this moment to reveal that she's your long-lost sister Yua. Fortunately, Ryu and Yua's mother steps in to save her.
  • Also, at the end of the credits after beating the game, at least for the GBA remake, you see art of someone with dragon-like wings standing on the branch of a tree, watching the Township. This is most likely Yua.
  • Not to mention that when you attack the evil machine that channels prayers into the villain's demonic god, you encounter a man trapped in it, begging to be killed along with the machine. While you can avoid killing him with great difficulty, most players don't know this and simply kill him, causing him to reveal that he is of course your long-lost father in his dying breath.
    • With the bonus that killing him renders it impossible to get the good ending.
• Breath of Fire III also got in on the action.
  • As a young boy, Ryu lives with his best friends Rei and Teepo in the woods. After (unwittingly) antagonizing the resident Mafia, they're attacked by enforcers Balio and Sunder: all three children are beaten to unconsciousness, their treehouse torched, and they're separated for years. After a Time Skip, Ryu manages to find Rei, who is haunted by the experience but otherwise unharmed. Teepo, on the other hand, has become the (literal) Dragon to resident Big Bad Myria, and you're forced to kill him. In his dying breath, he says that all he ever wanted was to be with Ryu and Rei, his family.
  • Made worse by the fact that the final confrontation with Balio and Sunder has them combining into their "true form", Stallion. The resulting boss fight, consequently, is against a Shout-Out of Ultraman rather than the sneering, brutal enforcers you've grown to hate, and is much less satisfying as a result.
• Breath of Fire IV
  • The game started with the search for Princess Nina's missing older sister Elina. The heroes finally find her near the end of the game, and she's been mutated into an Eldritch Abomination (only her upper body remains intact). Elina had to ask Cray, her lover, to Mercy Kill her. And the worst part? The madman responsible, Lord Yuna, completely escapes retribution, and the ending makes it clear he plans to do it again.
  • There's Fou-lu's entire storyline with Mami...right as it looks like they're getting attached to each other (and after no less than two attempts to kill the God-Emperor by his empire, the latter of which is rather displeased at the reawakening of their King in the Mountain), Fou-lu is forced to go on the run and Mami is captured (who ALSO ends up dead thanks to Yuna — this time being used as a human warhead for the Carronade). Her literal last words to Fou-lu are that she was hoping they could live together in a normal life — that she knew it was impossible but she still hoped for it. This results in sending Fou-lu into full-blown Kill All Humans Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds mode (as opposed to being a mere Woobie).
  • And have we mentioned the manga version manages to be a Reader Punch in both of these segments in an even deeper manner than the original game?
• Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter has quite the slap in the face at the end of the game. Throughout the entirety of the game, you have a meter that slowly fills with each transformation into Ryu's dragon form as you try to guide Nina to ground level. If the meter ever fills to 100%, Ryu dies and you have to restart the game from the beginning. Near the end of the game, you're forced to bring the bar to 100% in the very last battle, which subsequently has Ryu apparently die mere steps from the surface.

Dark Souls

• As befitting the tone of the work, practically no-one in Dark Souls lasts long enough to accomplish much, succumbing to their Dark Sign and going Hollow. The punch comes in that the last words for many characters are them going out from Firelink Shrine to achieve some goal, only to show up unceremoniously as a unique enemy somewhere else, far from their goal.
  • Also, the death of Solaire. The Knight in Shining Armor, so steadfastly out of place in this bleak world, grows steadily disheartened in his quest for his own sun. Then he comes along a Sunlight Maggot and promptly goes insane, waiting in a dark and meaningless cave to attack you and be put down. Yes, this can be prevented, but only via an extreme Guide Dang It! moment.
  • Special points go to the aftermath of the Chaos Witch Queelag's boss fight. At first, she just seems to be a random Mix And Match Creature (beautiful female human whose lower half is a Giant Spider) guarding the bell you need to ring in order to proceed. It's only after you kill her that you find her lair beneath the bell tower, and encounter her sister, The Fair Lady. Like Queelag, she's also half spider, but her body is partially crushed beneath her massive clutch of bloody spider eggs. Turns out, she's Queelag's sister, left horribly ill from swallowing her servants' Blight Pus. Y'know, after having barely escaped the ruin of her homeland of Izalith, that was caused by her mother and two of her sisters mutating into an Eldritch Abomination, an event that also made her and Queelag into the Spider demons they are today. Did we mention that of her remaining four siblings one has died, one has gone insane, one has requested she be Mercy Killed, and one has become another Eldritch Abomination? Or that the Pus has made sure that none of her children survive long outside their eggs? Or that her voice actress really does sound like a terminally-ill patient who's barely clinging to life? Or that, when you're wearing the Old Witch's Ring, she mistakes you for Queelag (who, remember, you just killed) because you're the only other person who can even understand her language? OUCH.
  • The boss battle against Sif is particularly infamous. Get them down to low enough health, and they'll start limping around the arena. It gets especially heartwrenching if you go through the DLC first, in which you get to save the young Sif from the horrors of the Abyss, which allows you to summon them to aid you against Manus. If you do, Sif will get the jump on you when you enter their arena for their bossfight, but sniffs you before letting you go, recognizing you as their old friend who saved them way back. But it doesn't matter. You need the covenant of Artorias, and Sif is dutybound to protect their master's grave. Only one of you will be alive when the battle ends.
• Dark Souls II Gives us the fight with King Vendrick, the leader of Drangleic who has been made out to be the Big Bad from the first moment. As you enter the door to the crypt he's in, you find a tower knight with a giant mace... who isn't him, it's his second in command Velstadt. After you kill him, you walk into the room where the real Vendrick is to find... a giant, naked hollow ambling around mindlessly with a greatsword. This godlike being that you've been hyped up to fight since you first met the Emerald Herald, the king of this harsh land... fell to the curse of undeath like any other person who falls to despair. At this point, fighting him is completely optional, as the ring you need to progress is in his discarded armor in the corner of the room, and the only reason to do so is to claim his soul and put him out of his misery. You can make things a little better by doing the DLC and getting his blessing, which makes you immune to hollowing and gives him hope that his sacrifices to break the Vicious Cycle of the First Flame aren't in vain. And killing him becomes necessary to fight Aldia and unlock the 'leave the throne' ending.
• Dark Souls III continues the Dark Fantasy nature of the franchise, so naturally it has quite a few moments. One of the hardest punches for fans of the franchise, though, is when you get to return to Anor Londo. It was one of the most memorable parts of the first game, and seeing it again is a real wave of nostalgia.... until the truth sets in. The once-vibrant city is now a frozen husk, taken over by The Deacons of The Deep and their "god" Aldrich. And that's just the start of it: one of the places you revisit is the kindhearted Giant Blacksmith's shop... where you find him dead on the floor. And Gwyndolin, the only one of Gwyn's children who stayed in Anor Londo? You find out that he was fed to Aldrich, who is now using his body as a demented puppet. Sure, Gwyndolin was a bit of a jerk, but he didn't deserve that.
  • Another special mention goes to the Final Boss of the game, the Soul of Cinder. The first punch comes when you realize that the Soul of Cinder is you, both the Chosen Undead and the Bearer of the Curse, the playable characters from the first two games, as well as everyone who have ever put everything on the line to keep the world alive, if only for a little longer, by linking the First Flame... fat lot of good that did for the world, huh? And now they are pulling every single trick in the book out on you, every single trick that you've used yourself, and you have to put all of these poor souls out of their misery... The second punch arrives when you reach the Soul of Cinder's second form; it sets its sword on fire, lunges at you, and... Gwyn's theme begins playing... Yeah, that's right, the final enemy of Dark Souls III are the smoldering remains of Gwyn's soul that are still fighting to keep his age of fire alive...

Dragon Age

• Dragon Age: Origins delivers one early on with the deaths of Daveth and Jory, your fellow Grey Warden recruits, during the Joining. Even the PC looks stunned when Duncan kills Jory. But the shocks don't stop there, as the game turns this trope up to eleven with the death of Duncan.
  • There's at least one extra one for every origin, as well, some during, some when the PC comes back into contact with their old life. Dalish Elf origin... that'll leave a bruise.
  • When you play as the City Elf, what sets everything in motion is the arl's son taking your fiancé and your cousin, forcing you to rescue them. By the time you get there, your cousin has already been raped. These events play a part in the riots that bring your alienage to chaos and you can't come back until near the end of the game.
    • When you do get to come back, a mysterious sickness has come along and people who aren't even sick are getting quarantined, including your father. This is all a front for Loghain to sell the elves into slavery to pay for his war efforts.
  • In addition, realizing that Lothering is destroyed, especially if you took the time to talk to everyone, especially the elf family and the little boy whose parents are (apparently) dead. Also Redcliffe, if you decide to (or accidentally) leave in the middle of the first big battle there. And the werewolves origins... and the entire game. Really.
  • If you play as a female Warden romancing Alistair, everything from the Landsmeet to the endgame can be one long sequence of player punches. If you make Alistair king, he will dump you directly after the Landsmeet unless you are the human noble and already proposed to him during the Landsmeet, or you "hardened" him after he met Goldanna - in which case you can be his mistress, even though he'll have to marry someone else. (If you spare Loghain, you may get another nasty shock as Alistair dumps you and the cause you've been fighting for in favor of revenge.) Then, after you find out the truth about why only Grey Wardens can truly defeat the archdemon, you'll have to persuade him to father a baby in a blood-magic-fueled sex rite with Morrigan, whom he hates, if you want both of you to survive. If you refuse to follow Morrigan's plan, one of you will die. Even if you intend to make the sacrifice yourself, Alistair will take the decision from your hands and sacrifice himself to save you unless you leave him at the gate.
  • Male Wardens romancing Morrigan don't get it easy, either, as she flat-out states that she's going to leave after said blood-magic-fueled ritual, with the baby you made together, and never intends to see you again. She's clearly regretful about it, but nothing you say or do can convince her to stay. The Warden can chase after her, but he never finds her and never gets to see his child. At least until Witch Hunt.
  • The human noble origin is chock full of these. You're introduced to plenty of decent, likable characters, including your doting Reasonable Authority Figure dad, your loving unexpected Action Girl mom, the loyal and brave knight Ser Gilmore, your kind and pious sister-in-law Oriana, and (worst of all) your adorably enthusiastic and naive nephew Oren. And they all die. And you can't stop it. Even worse, if you choose to get to know Dairren or Iona a lot better, when the soldiers storm your room they'll be shot dead right in front of you before you can do anything. Howe is going to pay.
  • Completing Orzammar can have this effect if you decide to make Bhelen king. His first royal act is to call for the execution of Harrowmont, his father's closest friend and advisor... who just accepts it without a fuss. It's even worse if you've played through the dwarf noble origin and seen firsthand what a kind, fair, reasonable character Harrowmont truly is. The really sad part is that even if you make Harrowmont king, he still doesn't have a very good fate.
  • Going through Orzammar as a Dwarf Commoner, you re-encounter your old pal Leske, who cheerfully greets you and gives you some tips on fighting the carta. Except it turns out he's actually The Mole, who sells you out to the carta, tries to kill you, and has to be killed himself.
  • The Awakening expansion DLC has a very mean one in the form of Mhairi: she helps you all the way while freeing Vigil's Keep, stating all the time how eager she is to become a Grey Warden. You can even (unlike other temporary companions) gain approval with her. Heck, she even had her own gameplay trailer. Then she dies during her Joining.
  • And later on, leading up to the final confrontation, you're forced to choose between defending Amaranthine City (where you've done quite a bit of adventuring and trading and which you have been repeatedly told is a culturally and economically important city) and defending Vigil's Keep (where all your friends not currently in the party are hanging out). If you decide to defend Vigil's Keep, you have to watch while your soldiers burn Amaranthine to the ground. This is made worse in retrospect by Guide Dang It!: if you make exactly the right choices before that one, the consequences of this particular choice are made a lot less dire, but it's far from clear at the time what the "right" choices are supposed to be.
• Dragon Age II has the "All That Remains" quest, in which your mother is kidnapped and mutilated by a blood mage trying to reconstruct his dead wife.
  • At the end of the prologue, one of your siblings has their head bashed in by an ogre. At the end of chapter one, you lose whichever one remains (to death, to the Grey Wardens, or to the Templars/Circle, depending on your choices). That actually makes "All That Remains" all the more powerful, as Hawke loses his/her entire family.
  • Near the ending of the game, Anders blowing up the chantry can feel like a Player Punch, especially if you've befriended him and especially if you've romanced him. It's even worse if you helped him with his final companion quest, where it turns out he manipulated you into gathering the last components for his bomb and unknowingly helped him get it into the chantry. To make it worse, the game then puts it into your hands whether he lives or dies. You can either kill him, which is a pretty heartbreaking scene, regardless of how you feel about his character, tell him to leave, or keep him around knowing that the trust between you has been shattered forever. And if you romanced him? The only way you can get something resembling a happy ending is if you side with the mages at the end and agree to go on the run with him as fugitives with pretty much every Templar in Thedas out for your blood. OUCH.
  • Quite honestly, the fact is that no matter how hard you try to prevent it, the city falls into chaos and everybody (except you and your friends) ultimately goes crazy and gets killed, leading to a massive Downer Ending. This is arguably the worst Player Punch in the series to date.
• Dragon Age: Inquisition has the end of the "Here Lies the Abyss", when the absolutely enormous and extremely powerful Nightmare demon blocks the escape of the Inquisitor, a Grey Warden ally (Alistair, Loghain, or Stroud), and Hawke. The game then gives the player the choice as to which one will stay behind in the Fade, in order to distract the demon long enough to let the other two get out. If Hawke is left behind, the punch is only made worse if Varric, Hawke's best friend, is in the party. He begins by quietly asking, "Where's Hawke?", and after being told what happened to him/her, goes through a complete Heroic BSoD right in front of you.
  • Depending on the completion of a certain sidequest, you may be forced to kill Iron Bull in the Trespasser DLC. Having romanced him only serves to twist the knife deeper, because it won't help.

Elder Scrolls

• The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion: If you play through the Fighter's Guild quests, one involves helping a sweet young lady who owns a settlement near the south of Cyrodiil. Later on, you infiltrate Blackwood Company and help kill goblins at the same settlement. After this, you pass out and wake up elsewhere. When you travel back, you find that the goblins were the result of a drug-induced haze, and you actually killed the lady you helped earlier on.
  • In the quest Caught in the Hunt, a poor old man who is addicted to gambling starts borrowing money from a criminal Orc named Kurdan. When he can't pay his debts, Kurdan sends him to a fort with the assignment of finding a rare axe there. But it appears the fort is part of a hunting game on human(oid)s and the only way to escape is via a key found inside the fortress, which is filled with hunters. When you return from the fort, Kurdan kills the old man and proclaims he is free of his debt, while gloating. This is the moment where you just know Kurdan must die.
  • During the Dark Brotherhood questline, you have to kill a sweet old lady and her entire family. It doesn't get better with repeat play, either. Oh, and if you really want to be a heartless scum, you can tell one of the lady's sons that his mother "bled like a pig" before killing him. He doesn't take it well. Not AT ALL.
    • Sadly, that is the single best way to deal with him thanks to the guard that seems to live there. He attacks you in revenge for his mother, and the guard kills him for assault. You get off completely scot-free considering the guard doesn't hear the comment.
  • Also during the Dark Brotherhood questline, you'll eventually be ordered to kill everyone in the Cheydinhal Sanctuary. Everyone who was so helpful and friendly to you. Even M'raaj-Dar, who decides to stop being a jackass and be friendly to you.
    • Bonus points for twisting the knife: you don't realize M'raaj-Dar has warmed up to you until you've been given the order to kill him.
    • Another one in the Dark Brotherhood questline: Visit The Grey Mare at any time after Baenlin's death, and you will find his trusty manservant Gromm sitting in there, crying his eyes out over his employer and father figure.
    • Or we could just sum up: Stay the hell away from the Dark Brotherhood quests unless you like feeling like a rank bastard.
  • In the Shivering Isles expansion, Sheogorath runs out of time and becomes unusually serious and unhappy. Then he transforms into Jyggalag and the player must fight him later on. It is the last time the player ever sees Sheogorath.
  • About halfway through the Mages Guild questline, just in case there was any lingering doubt that he was a monster, Mannimarco torches the Bruma Mages guildhall, and almost everyone in it. No seriously, it is literally wiped off the map, and nearly every single one of its inhabitants dies horribly. The Shrinking Violet alchemist? Dead. The hilariously incompetent Pointy-Haired Boss? Dead. The laid-back, fun-loving, jovial Altmer jokester? Dead. The lovable Khajiit prankster? He survives but is deeply traumatized by the experience, and it's implied that Manny knew he was there, but let him live just to mess with his head. That is it. The Order of the Black Worm is going down HARD.
  • For some players, any time their horse is attacked. Especially if the horse is killed.
• The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim has a few:
  • Killing Paarthurnax. He doesn't fly off until you chip away 50% of his health, and seems to try to plead with you as you attack him initially. Not to mention, he's only level 10, which is much weaker than the majority of dragons. It really does feel more like murder than a fight. No wonder most players' gut reaction to being given the quest is to commit violence upon the quest-giver (who is unfortunately essential and can't be killed).
  • For Imperial-aligned players who still sympathized with the Stormcloaks' views, killing Ulfric can be a slug in the gut. The contrast in the attitudes of Tullius and Rikke can be jarring: the latter finds the whole thing tragic and offers a prayer for him, while the former casually rolls off that they'll just put his head on a pike as an example.
  • Narfi's side quest. You can either inform him about his sister's death and crush his spirit, or lie to him to give him false hope, which could potentially crush him worse down the line. What's worse, he's one of the contracts for the Dark Brotherhood. The sad part, besides killing him, obviously, is that he's a destitute beggar who lives by himself, so it is possible that the mark was made on him out of pity.
  • As with Oblivion, Skyrim's Dark Brotherhood gives a few heavy hits. Down the line, you have to kill the Emperor, which is a jarring task, but nothing heavy. Then you poison his food... but it's a fake that dies and the guy protecting him reveals that it was all a set-up with Astrid to get rid of you. Then you rush on back, after escaping, only to find that everyone (except for Nazir and Babette) is dead. To top it off, Astrid, who set up the attack on the Brotherhood is found dying and tells you that she just wanted to protect the Brotherhood (it was the condition), performs the Black Sacrament with her as the target, gives you her dagger, and asks for death.
    Astrid: Uhh... Thank you... (She says this once you deal the killing blow.)
  • A simple one for Hearthfire: There are four orphans who live on the streets in Skyrim. The DLC only allows you to adopt two of them. While those orphans who live in the orphanage are in good hands (if you kill Grelod the Kind so that her assistant Constance Michel can take over), the Hearthfire-exclusive orphans all live on the street. Unless the player adopts them, they're just out of luck.

Fallout

• Fallout 3 has one(In an already Crapsack World) with Harold the lovable ghoul from the first two games has been taken over by Bob and you have to kill him to set him free. To prove you are a heartless shell of a man you can SET HIM ON FIRE!
  • ...or you can Take a Third Option and actually use the tree-Harold combination to start purifying the Capital Wastes, and when you talk to Harold he'll actually be pretty happy that now he's useful and helping others.
  • The player must also watch his own father flood the control center of Project Purity with lethal radiation in the hopes of keeping it out of Enclave control. After watching this man spend his entire life trying to bring safe water to the people, he sacrifices himself to stop a fascist paramilitary organization from confiscating it, while his only child watches. To top it off, his last action is to look the player character in the eye and gasp, "Run. Run!"
  • Despite (or perhaps because of) being just a dog, many, many players hit quickload whenever Dogmeat is killed.
    • Hence why Broken Steel introduced the Puppies perk. And then of course there is the very popular bug that makes Dogmeat nigh on invulnerable. And the players rejoiced.
    • Many, many players also broke their quickloading keys in the Mariposa Military Base in Fallout, where trying to keep Dogmeat alive was an incredibly arduous procedure, and reloading to revive him was a common occurrence. Even more common than how many times you accidentally blew him to pieces in combat
  • Should you broker a 'peaceful truce' in the Tenpenny Towers quest, you can come back later to find that the ghouls have slaughtered all the humans and stacked their bodies in the basement. Most Tenpenny residents are unlikable anyway, but knowing that your actions led to the death of Herbert "Daring" Dashwood, the one man who actually respects ghouls and had one as a best friend is a hit.
    • Roy is entirely to blame for this. Kill him before he enters the tower (so as to not make everyone else hostile) and no harm will come to Tenpenny's human residents.
  • If you complete Trouble on the Homefront in favor of Butch, and destroy the vault, you get a string of random encounters where you find the corpses of various people from Vault 101, leading up to a brief scene of Amata being executed by Enclave soldiers. While it's possible to prevent her from dying by killing the soldiers before they attack her, she will still blame the player.
  • There's a string of them in Fallout 2. When you reach the object of your quest, the Holy Thirteen (the vault that you start from in Fallout) you are not greeted by the humans you expect, but Deathclaws. Then you realize that the Deathclaw is screaming "Don't shoot" and it's actually friendly. So you make friends with the Deathclaws, do a few quests, and they reward you with the G.E.C.K., the artifact you're questing for. So you cruise back home, expecting a hero's welcome. What you get is a wrecked village and a dead shaman. You learn your people were abducted so you set out to look for them. Eventually, you find yourself in the region of Vault 13 and decide to pop in for a visit. So you go in, and "Where did all the deathclaws go?" Accessing computer records you learn that the Enclave massacred them.
  • Fallout 4 does a lot of this in regards to 3, via Happy Ending Override:
    • Remember Owyn Lyons? That kindly old man who led the Brotherhood of Steel to say Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right! and abandon the Brotherhood's mission to help destitute wastelanders? Well, he's dead, the Brotherhood have abandoned Owyn's humanitarian ideals and what's worse, adopted Fantastic Racism to become just like the Enclave. Oh, and remember his tough, heroic daughter Sarah? She was killed in battle herself not long after Owyn's death. Given the short gap, it's even possible that Sarah was intentionally bumped off by her own men so they could get her out of the way and go back to their original mission, with a Maxson in charge. Plus, it's implied they now rule over the Capital Wasteland as neo-feudal overlords, Rivet City was cannibalized for their technology, and the peaceful Ghoul city of Underworld was probably shut down or even forcefully wiped out.
    • Downplayed, but Arthur Maxson's Character Development also counts as this. In 3, he's an Adorkable ten-year-old with a crush on Sarah Lyons and is Elder Lyon's young page. However, over the ten-year gap between 3 and 4, he saw his father figure Elder Lyons die, his crush Sarah quickly become the next Elder before also dying, and the Brotherhood suffer through numerous incompetent Elders that nearly ruined the organization before he took charge. Combining all that and him being essentially indoctrinated by the Lost Hills Elders over in California, it's quite depressing (if not that big a surprise) to see Maxson become a fanatical demagogue leading the Brotherhood on a crusade to cleanse the Wasteland.
    • Remember Lucy, the Nice Girl doctor from Little Lamplight? She grew up and married MacCready and had a kid with him... and then was horribly torn to shreds in front of her husband by Feral Ghouls.
    • If you join the Railroad, you have to infiltrate Cambridge Police Station as one of the last missions for them. One of the people you have to kill is Scribe Haylen, the only member of the group who was friendly to you before you joined and directly went against Danse's execution. And there is absolutely no way to finish the quest without killing her, as it requires you to kill all hostiles.
    • Another mission for the Railroad requires you to avoid warning Liam Benet when you destroy the Institute. He is Driven to Suicide and his suicide note calls you out for betraying him and killing his family and all the people in there who were his friends.
    • In 3, the Children of Atom were a harmless and endearingly kooky religion based in Megaton. In 4, they've expanded and grown in size so that they're all over the East Coast.. and have also become genocidal cultists straight out of a Lovecraft story that brutally kill anyone that crosses their path.
    • Most poignantly, the Lone Wanderer - the Player Character of 3 who was (potentially) a hero that saved the entire Capital Wasteland - is never mentioned by anyone, making all the hours spent in 3 seem like they never happened. Dialogue from Brotherhood soldiers, MacCready, and the Railroad agent Deacon also implies that the Capital Wasteland is still an utter Crapsack World.

Kingdom Hearts

• Kingdom Hearts:
  • Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days. Earlier in the game, the main characters talked about going to the beach on their next day off. This never happens, for a number of reasons. At the end of the game, Roxas wakes up in Digital Twilight Town, at the beginning of Kingdom Hearts II, not remembering anything. The next cut shows him running to the Usual Spot with this line: "I hope we make it to the beach this summer!" It's sad enough for those just playing Days. It's really twisting the knife for those that have already played Kingdom Hearts II, and know what happens at the end of the prologue.
  • Also, the final boss of the game; a very sweet girl turned Tragic Monster by a Trauma Conga Line. She turns into a monster, and you have to kill her. Made worse by the fact that she gets Ret Goned right afterwards, so while you're sobbing your eyes out, none of the characters know someone who should be there...isn't... It's made even worse by the fact that Roxas forgets who she is and what had just happened while she's still dying. "Am I... the one who did this to you?" To add insult to injury, while Roxas is struggling to hold on to his memory, he takes it upon himself to remind the player that he doesn't know anything about friends other than "[those whom] I eat ice cream with." And if that's not enough, as her death scene plays out, it's revealed to ultimately be her Morton's Fork: If she doesn't die, Sora can never wake up and Xemnas wins, so she tricks Roxas into killing her, to pull her Heroic Sacrifice, while giving Roxas the motivation to turn on Xemnas. That's right, you spend a game getting attached to this girl, only to kill her so that Kingdom Hearts II happens.^note Of course, this is not the end of the story, especially since it's still possible for Xion to be saved, along with Naminé, Roxas, Axel (who was saved in Dream Drop Distance), and the three Keyblade masters (and possibly even Ansem the Wise, AKA: the real Ansem).
  • Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep, not to be outdone, turns the destruction of everything its three leads care for into its villains' modus operandi. The two most painful punches, however, are the murder of a weakened Master Eraqus at Master Xehanort's hand when Terra's already an emotional wreck over simply raising his blade against the man he sees as a father and Aqua's return to the Land of Departure after its destruction, carrying a comatose Ventus and remembering her failure to keep her promise to Eraqus and bring Terra back as a Master.
    • BBS was made even worse by Mood Whiplash when the characters happily promise to always be together... and then their voices tell you, in unison, exactly what happens next.
    "That was the last night we ever spent beneath the same stars."
    • The worst part is that in the end, the villain got everything he wanted. He got some accidental amnesia (and his plan to obtain Kingdom Hearts was set back by about a decade, not that it matters when he has a body that's around 20 instead of in its 70s), but aside from that nothing the heroes did prevented him from achieving his goal.^note On the other hand, considering that this is a prequel, anyone who has played the previous games will know that, again, this is not the end of the story...
  • Goofy's apparent, uh, "death" in II. Sure, he comes back in the next scene, but the event comes out of nowhere and is taken incredibly seriously by everyone present, with Donald begging him to wake up before running into battle screaming and Mickey's quiet "They'll pay for this."^note Considering this is "Goofy" we're talking about, however, anyone even remotely familiar with Disney (or even just [western] cartoons in general) will already know that this won't stick.
  • Kingdom Hearts 3D [Dream Drop Distance]: We were all bracing for the worst when The Grid showed up, but when Sora has to fight "Rinzler?" Ouch. And when Clu proves to be an even bigger dick than he was in canon and sends Rinzler falling to apparent de-rez while Sora can only watch? Yeah.
  • Kingdom Hearts III has a number of them throughout the last world, but the last one before the credits deserves special mention. For context: moments before the final battle, Master Xehanort decided to motivate Sora to fight him by killing the unconscious Kairi. After the battle, with Xehanort finally defeated, Sora decides to travel to the Final World in order to get Kairi back; Mickey warns him that the Power of Waking isn't supposed to be used in that way, but Sora insists that he's going to make things right. During the ending montage, as everyone is happy and hanging out on the beach, we see Sora and Kairi sitting on the familiar tree, seemingly reunited... and then Sora fades out of view, leaving a crying Kairi alone on the tree. Ouch.

Mass Effect

• Mass Effect delivers the metaphorical kick in the balls when Shepard is forced to leave behind either Ashley or Kaidan to die in a massive nuclear explosion, made worse by the fact that you have to choose which one kicks the bucket. Not to mention that, depending on your gender the one you kill may be your lover! And if you spare your lover, they will wonder if that's the reason. The only way out of this is to pursue Liara as a romantic interest, that or or choose a specific line of Dialogue during a certain one of their conversations if you plan on pursuing someone from one of the next games.
  • Yet another choice during the same mission can be counted as an indirect Player Punch. Fan favorite Proud Warrior Race Guy Urdnot Wrex becomes incredibly angry and conflicted when he learns that Big Bad Saren had found a cure for the sterility plague affecting the Krogan... and that you will have to destroy it in order to defeat Saren. If your Charm or Intimidate scores aren't high enough, or you haven't completed a certain sidequest, you will either have to Shoot the Dog or Ashley will do it for you.
• Mass Effect 2 has at least three mighty player blows:
  • It begins with a player punch, specifically the destruction of the Normandy and the death of many of the named background characters, including your carefully hand-crafted Commander Shepard him/herself.
  • The deaths of any of your squadmates during the Suicide Mission. No matter who dies, you are going to feel it, either because the game goes a long way to characterize each one of them through Recruitment and Loyalty missions, or if only because you know that the only reason that squadmate died was because of your actions. You could have saved him or her, and their death is on you and you alone.
  • Be advised to put off getting that Reaper IFF until you're ready for the endgame. Sure, you can continue jetting around for as long as you like... provided you don't mind letting your ship's crew get ground up into bloody mush to fuel a fetal Reaper, one of them right before your eyes, screaming as she's melted. Even Cool Old Lady Dr. Chakwas, the only one left, gives you a What the Hell, Hero? for having let it happen. Even if you do head straight for the endgame after that scene, the only difference it makes for that scene is that the person being liquefied is a colonist from Horizon instead of Kelly.
  • Liara's reason for wanting to kill the Shadow Broker will probably make you want him/her/it/them dead as well.
  • Horizon is one hell of a Player Punch, especially if you spared your non-Liara love interest in ME1.
  • Early on in the game you are sent to recruit Archangel, a vigilante that has caused three rival mercenary factions to form a truce to kill him. You get there and find out that the crusader is none other than Garrus. Who promptly takes a rocket to the face. While this is shocking, he soon recovers but is left with huge scarring on his face. You can later find a transcript of a conversation with his sister, who is pissed because he no longer video chats with them, implying he is ashamed of what he looks like now.
  • In the Overlord DLC, we get treated to the pleasant discovery of a doctor who has wired his autistic brother to a machine in order to create a human VI. And you get to decide whether or not it stops.
• Mass Effect 3 puts both of its predecessors to shame, being more of a Player Curb-Stomp Battle. Not least because it starts out with Earth being the target of a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown by the invading Reapers so hard that the explosions can be seen from space, and it only gets worse from there. Depending on previous choices made in 1 and 2, it can be filled with these. Even if you did everything right, the list of punches it doles out guarantees at least a few cracked ribs by the end.
  • Special mention goes to the Thessia mission. First, the critical data you were sent to retrieve is snatched from right in front of you by Kai Leng. Then, as he's flying away, Shepard watches helplessly as the last of the resistance on Thessia is crushed by the Reapers. Then, you get to explain to the asari councilor that because your mission failed, her homeworld is pretty much doomed. Shepard even undergoes a brief Heroic BSoD, a Mass Effect first.
  • The Tuchanka mission earlier in the game. After being given a deal by the Salarian Dalatrass to fake the Genophage cure in exchange for salarian war assets, Wrex and Eve proceed to preemptively guilt trip you throughout the entire mission. At the end, you have to choose between shooting Mordin and gaining salarian support or letting him go, apparently losing any chance of salarian help and unleashing the krogan on the galaxy once more. As a bonus, Mordin dies anyway, and if you chose to fake the cure, you later have to shoot Wrex and get called out on it by Garrus. The only way to get Mordin to agree to keep the cure Sabotaged and have both Salarian and Krogan support is if Wrex died in the first game, making Wreav the Krogan leader, and don't save the Cure Data from the previous game, causing Eve to die. If this happins Mordin will agree to keep the cure sabotaged because Wreav is too stupid to figure out the sabotage, and is a tyrant who will just attempt another Krogan Rebellion, which he builds an army for in the ending.
    • The third option is to save Captain Kirrahe in the first game so that he can get you salarian support if you end the Genophage. That's it. Either you kill Wrex in the first game, lie to him and kill him later, or Mordin dies by your hand or saving the krogan from extinction.
  • And of course, there's Rannoch. At the end of the arc, you get the choice between allowing the geth to upgrade and blast the Migrant Fleet out of the sky, or stopping the upload and letting the quarians destroy the geth. Unless you jump through a very specific series of hoops, you're going to have to choose between one of your two teammates. And even if you do get the good ending, Legion has to disseminate its runtimes among the geth to finish upgrading them.
    • If you can't get the third option, be prepared to bawl your eyes out either way; if you choose the quarians, Legion will attack you in the desperate hopes of making you help his people, and you have to kill him. Then his race is completely obliterated for something the quarians forced them to do, and you get to listen to them be smug about it afterwards. If you choose the geth, Legion still dies, you watch the quarians be blown out of the sky because their Jerkass commander wouldn't let them retreat, and right after that, your sweet little-sis-figure/love interest Tali commits suicide, and there is absolutely nothing you can do to stop it. It does not matter if you are Paragon or Renegade. It does not matter if you romanced her. That Paragon interrupt does nothing. You will watch her jump off that cliff no matter what.
  • If you didn't recruit Legion in the second game, you're forced to fight him at the Cerberus base, brainwashed into one of their units. Worse is the fact that while this hurts the player, none of the main characters care at all.
    • Even worse, if you did recruit Legion, but he died on the Collector base, you get a Legion replacement. Who has no recollection of anything to do with you. While Legion cared for the crew and trusted them, the new Legion doesn't, which really hits home how much of an influence you had on Legion. When you side with the quarians (as there is no longer a third option) he rants that he knew he shouldn't trust organics, whereas Legion tries to reason with you before becoming desperate.
    • This is also the point you (the player) realize that there is no way to save Legion, who you will have almost certainly grown to love. He is guaranteed to die in this game, an honor that only one other party member, Thane, gets.
  • If you don't go to the Academy, it will eventually stop showing up on your map, implying that Cerberus succeeded in taking over. The real Player Punch, however, comes when you assault their base; if Jack survived the last game, you find that she was recaptured by her worst enemy, indoctrinated, and turned into a Phantom. Which you are then forced to kill. You can also find an audiofile of Cerberus torturing and Mind Raping her. Bioware really went all-out with the guilt trips.
    • Similarly, if you delay in going to disarm a bomb on Tuchanka, it detonates. A large portion of the krogan population, possibly including Eve, is killed. Shortly afterwards, the clan leader sends you an e-mail expressing rage (Wreav) or weary shock (Wrex). All because you didn't disarm a bomb despite all the warnings.
  • While many of the previous punches are good, one that was less well-received among the players was the heavy-handed inclusion of a little boy during the prologue on Earth. His death and its impact on Shepard is constantly played on, which some players viewed as attempting too hard to establish an emotional connection.

Persona

• Persona 3 has first the death of Shinjiro, then Chidori's Heroic Sacrifice to make the player hate Takaya's guts. Though Shinji was going to die anyway, and was almost killed by Ken, which can prove frustrating to the players who then have to have Ken in their party for the rest of the game.
  • Persona 3 pulls off one of the ultimate Player Punches in the last scene of the True Ending, where the Protagonist must sacrifice himself in order to save humanity. And then, he holds on anyway, carrying the essence of death within himself, just to fulfill his promise to his friends to meet them on the last day of school. Then, in an incredibly heartbreaking finale, he dies.
  • Even worse, he dies right when everyone arrives.
  • FES adds a scene where Chidori is revealed to have survived, probably so the player doesn't get bored with Heroic Sacrifices before the end. And, apparently, playing as the female protagonist in Persona 3 Portable allows you to indirectly save Shinjiro's life in which by doing so, he fell for her. Which just makes the last punch hurt that much more since she won't get to spend her life with the man who's only alive because of her love.
  • In the girl's route of Portable, even if the game is slightly different, you know what's gonna happen. Considering how cheerful the female protagonist is, and learning more about your party members through the social links, you can sense the punch, but it won't help the sting. A striking one is that if conditions were different Shinjiro and Ken could have been good friends, as they make mentions of each other in their social links, and the player would notice their similarities in ideals.
  • Then there's Akinari, the Sun Arcana S.Link. Sure, he tells you up front that "Any day now, I'm going to die", but still. The worst part is he dies having only just found a reason to be happy to be alive.
• Persona 4 Nanako, the main character's cute lovely cousin got kidnapped after the main character and his uncle tossed the Idiot Ball at each other. She dies shortly after you manage to rescue her from the TV world. If you go for the worst ending, she'll be Killed Off for Real.
  • The lead-up to that bad ending: after she flatlines, you have the man who did it in your grasp, and are given the option — and the encouragement — to kill him the same way he killed Nanako. It's understandably tempting to do so... but if you do it, then you've stopped searching for the truth and her true killer goes uncaught. And so the fog covers the entire town, the case is never solved, and your character leaves Inaba behind...
    • It's even worse than that. Before you can even determine your ending, you have to watch her death scene anyway, with her father only making it there after she's flat-lined. Forget Player Punch, that was a Player Hit-and-Run.
    • The eerie silence of your home for the rest of the game, especially the lack of Nanako's cheerful "Welcome home, Big Bro!", is a Player Punch in and of itself! This is mitigated in Golden, which has an extra month to play around with, and has Teddie come over to help the protagonist around the house for a few days after he catches a cold, and Nanko and Dojima do both end up coming home during that month.

Pokemon

• Although the Pokémon series is pretty light on plot and characterization, and so tends to avert this, the "Nuzlocke Run" (based on a series of webcomics with the same name) is specifically designed to set up Player Punches. It limits the number of Pokemon you're allowed to catch, and turns ordinary NonLethal KOs into Permadeaths. The result is that every 'mon you catch becomes a valuable member of your team, and losing one that's stuck with you for a very long time is downright heartbreaking.
• Pokémon Black and White:
  • N's back story counts for this, but even more so if you played Pokémon Black 2 and White 2 and learn the whole story about how Ghetsis found N in the woods using his special ability to communicate with Pokemon, and adopts N as his own son, pretending to give N the human family he never had, when really all he wanted to do is use the poor boy in order to use him as part of his plan to make everyone else release their Pokemon so that Ghetsis alone could use his Pokemon to conquer the world. This gets even worse if you know this and re-watch the opening to Pokémon Black and White again.
  • If you think that Ghetsis is a Jerkass in Pokémon Black and White, he takes it up to eleven in the sequel when after you defeat Drayden and get the DNA splicers, Team Plasma attacks you and uses a captured Kyurem to freeze most of Opelucid City trapping everyone inside their houses until you storm Team Plasma's frigate, free the Kyurem, and defeat Ghetsis. Yes, Ghetsis must be taken down at all cost.
• Pokémon X and Y actually does this with your rival of all things. Your rival, Calem or Serena (Depending on your gender) is friendly to you. S/he is fueled by a desire to get stronger than you, but you are always one step ahead of them. Unlike the past rivals who're either wacky or haven't learned The Power of Friendship, Calem/Serena has - yet you still consistently beat them and crush their hopes and dreams to progress. Unlike most characters with 3D models in these games, whose animations are cartoonish or exaggerated, Calem/Serena's are disappointed. Their crime for this? You didn't pick them as your Player Character.
• In Diamond, Pearl, and Platinum, you and your Friendly Rival have to try to protect the Lake Trio—three small, adorable Legendaries—from being captured by Team Galactic. You always arrive moments too late. Seeing the formerly pristine Lake Valor devastated by an explosion and your normally happy-go-lucky friend wracked with guilt for his failure are both hard enough, but when you go to rescue the Trio, you find them locked in People Jars in a Galactic lab, writhing in agony as Cyrus extracts a Macguffin from their bodies.
  • Also Lake Valor's Magikarp population. Keep in mind that the majority of them probably only have Splash, which does absolutely nothing, leaving them practically defenseless. The Magikarp's home gets destroyed by Team Galactic so that the Lake Trio can be captured, and the Magikarp are left to suffocate. What makes this worse is that it's obvious no one even cares about them. (In most cases probably not even the player.) And even if you did care, you can't help them. You can help the Lake Trio, who are considered cute, and who have a way to defend themselves, but you can't save the Magikarp, who aren't and don't.
• The endings to the first two Pokémon Mystery Dungeon games involve your character either returning to the human world (Red/Blue Rescue Team) or disappearing forever (Time/Darkness). Both of them are pretty sad, but they're made even more heart-wrenching when the game forces you to watch your partner mourn over you when you leave them. And let's not even get to Grovyle's Heroic Sacrifice...
  • Then in Pokémon Super Mystery Dungeon, there's another player punch, but for the opposite reason: you don't have to leave, your partner does! So this time it's the player character you have to watch crying over their partner during the credits. Fortunately, this can be reversed; if you complete the post-game content, you can bring your partner back, though it will take a lot of work.

Shin Megami Tensei

• Shin Megami Tensei I sets the tone for the rest of the game (and franchise) around fifteen minutes in, when the hero's mother is killed, eaten, and impersonated by a demon.
• Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne has quite a lot of these actually. Given the post-apocalyptic tone of the game, it might not be unexpected, but it is still surprisingly effective: The Mantra, although a quite brutal bunch appear at first to be some sort of Proud Warrior Race, who respect you as soon as you defeat their champions. Given the state of the rest of the world, they can be somewhat sympathetic. Then, Hikawa casually unleashes the nightmare system that wipes out most of them before including their leader who breaks down (literally) in front of you. Then, you get to the Kabukicho Prison the not that nice after all Mantra used to torture Manikins, the weak race of the game. These Manikins later gather into a small town, only to be slaughtered by the resurrected Mantra, which lets you witness just how horrible their values really were. Oh and your two human friends end up turning against you too (except if you endorse their reason, but at least one has to die by your hand).
• Shin Megami Tensei IV sure loves putting Flynn, and by extension the player, through hell.
  • During a rescue in Kiccigiorgi forest, you find your childhood friend Issachar, who picked up some Literature (read: ordinary human literature) and went mad from the revelation of how much of a Crapsaccharine World Mikado is. He turns into an Undead and you're forced to kill him. Want even more of a punch? If you happen to have the Chitchat skill on hand, you can negotiate with him for a turn-wasting chitchat, and he heartbreakingly tells you that there was so much more he wanted to talk about with you while he was still human.
  • When the party reaches the Black Samurai / Yuriko / Lilith's in Tsukiji Hongwanji, Jonathan tries to finish the quest to kill her, but Walter, after hearing of Lilith's vision of a Might Makes Right Social Darwinist society, objects to killing her, and openly argues with Jonathan, blocking his attack. This is where it's made clear that the group's unity is beginning to seriously fall apart, with Isabeau trying to stop the two from fighting because as the Neutral representative, she can't just side with either of them, because they're both her friends.
  • In Tokyo, many demons feed themselves with Red Pills, which give them energy without the need to feed on humans. However, a trip to the Reverse Hills building reveals what the Red Pills are made of: human neurotransmitters, extracted from adult humans who are tied down to beds and forcibly extracted this way.
  • In the Law and Chaos paths, you have to kill Isabeau. For those on the Law path, this is made worse by the fact that Merkabah wants her dead because she read manga. For those on the Chaos path, Lucifer just outright mocks her. Either way, during battle, she talks to you twice, and the answers that benefit you are the ones that are most hurtful to her. Finally, when you finish her, in order to keep you from technically being her murderer, she kills herself in front of you.

World of Mana

• Playing through Legend of Mana on New Game Plus to be absolutely heartbreaking (but otherwise doesn't suffer from this on any other game with that feature). Knowing what will happen to the world when everyone in-game doesn't is just ''heartbreaking''. (Then again, it didn't help that all of the major story arcs either a Downer Ending or Bittersweet Ending.)
  • The Jumi arc: An exemplary example of Player Punch in a lot of places, granted, but everybody came back, including the player character, the Jumi capital becomes an inhabited city again, and you can still take Elazul, Pearl, and Black Pearl along on your quest after the end of the arc. Doesn't sound much like a Downer Ending.
• In Trials of Mana, one of the main characters, Kevin, is a beastman (basically a werewolf) who is a misfit/outcast because he can't transform into his beast form. As such, he spends most of his time in the forest with a wolf he raised from a pup, Karl, his only friend. Within about the first minute of starting his scenario, Karl transforms into a much larger wolf and attacks Kevin, forcing him to kill his only friend. The reason for Karl's transformation? A Monster Clown named Goremand.
  • It turns about to have been a very convincing illusion meant to bring out his transformation through great anger. It was so convincing that the one behind it had to hurry to dig out the still-living Karl from the grave Kevin buried him in.
• And then there's Hawkeye and Riesz's story. Isabella/Belladonna usurps the throne of Hawkeye's kingdom, murders his best friend, frames him for the murder, threatens to kill his lover (and the sister of the murdered best friend) should Hawk tell the truth, and then proceeds to invade other kingdoms (including Laurent, resulting in the death of Riesz's father and the abduction of her brother) and revive the God-Beasts, with the intention to rule the world (sort of).
• In the original Final Fantasy Adventure, the hero has only one longtime friend - Amanda, who was in the same slave pits as the main character. Both escape separately, and he later meets up with her when she's looking to get the tears of a medusa to cure her brother's Forced Transformation. You confront the medusa together, defeat it... and cannot find any tears. And then, Amanda finds that she's been poisoned by the medusa and will become one herself. She then cries, making the cure for her brother, and begs the main character to kill her before she starts terrorizing innocents. Killing her is one of the hardest things to do emotionally.
  • Later, when climbing the tower to reach the Mana Tree, Robot Buddy Marcie does its best to be helpful and shows itself to be remarkably empathic. When the Load-Bearing Boss goes, Marcie offers to throw the hero across and then jump before the tower crumbles - but reveals after throwing him that it can't, and lied because the hero would have wasted too much time trying to save it when it was impossible. Watching Marcie go down was heartbreaking - at that point, beating the game is arguably more about fighting on in the name of all those who died for you rather than saving the world.
  • Not that it helps that after all you have been through, the only way to save the world is to have your heroine sacrifice herself to become the Mana Tree.
  • And before, within the first 10 minutes of gameplay, the hero's friend dies in front of him, and then the heroine watches as the only person she has in the world dies in front of her. It's only a teaser of what's to come. (A parenting magazine detailed how the submitter's seven-year-old son was in tears by the end of the game.)
• In Secret of Mana, when you find out that the main character's mother was the Mana Tree, and that his father was the ghost he saw after removing the sword. Oh, and lest we forget... Flammie's parents. Minor compared to the first one, but still caught you off guard.
  • And then there's the part when Thanatos forces Dyluck to kill the Girl (she got better).

Other

• Alpha Protocol's final mission in Rome. Madison has been kidnapped, and Marburg is setting up a Sadistic Choice between saving her or disarming the bombs that will kill hundreds of innocents. Choose to save Madison, and the bombs will blow and she'll berate you for putting her life over hundreds of others. But disarm the bombs, and Marburg will kill Madison right in front of you, for no reason except because.
• Avalon Code drops one of these on you midgame; your best friend betrays you, and hands the Book of Prophecy off to the main villain, whose actions with it scatter your spirit buddies, majorly trash the town AND cause the book to suck either your Delicate and Sickly childhood friend Fana or your love interest in whole. And if that wasn't enough, the townspeople, after pulling you out of a pile of rubble when it's over, BLAME YOU EXCLUSIVELY for what happened, instantly convincing themselves that you were the enemy all along. Subverted in that you can save your friend/lover later.
• In Baldur's Gate II, Big Bad Jon Irenicus establishes his evil credentials in the opening sequence by torturing and kidnapping the PC's childhood friend, fan favorite and Loveable Rogue Imoen. Originally, the developers planned on having you arrive to rescue her only to find her driven insane by the tortures inflicted on her. Fan outcry was so great that the game was altered so that she got better.
  • Khalid and Dynaheir, however, were not so lucky; both got tortured and killed by Irenicus, and their bodies mutilated (although neither were as well-characterized as Imoen). Also, there was that whole Yoshimo business in Spellhold, which worked just as well as perma-insane Imoen would have in making one hate Irenicus' guts. Especially as you have to cut out his heart to keep him from going to hell for all eternity.
  • The Harpers' killing of Harmless Villains Xzar and Montaron was their Player Punch.
  • In the original Baldur's Gate, having to fight the doppelgangers of the people of Candlekeep.
• In The Bard's Tale - modern version, the player can be nice to a little dog who then follow the Bard and be cute. A Druid will eventually send a big flying beast to snap the dog's back, killing it. Even though you can get a ghost of the dog later on, the Druids still killed your dog!
• Baten Kaitos Origins does this extremely effectively when the already Jerkass Shanath kicks it up to eleven by ripping out Gena's (the player character's mother) Wings of the Heart as part of a political rally, an action which not only can be fatal, but leaves a survivor bedridden, concussed, and emotionally numb. Sagi himself engages in a Precision F-Strike ("Go to hell, you son of a bitch!"), and suffice it to say, the player really wants Shanath to die. Later, when the player is actually given the opportunity to kill him in cold blood, you feel like a total jerk for taking it, because his five-year-old daughter walks in just in time to be scarred for life. And you know from the first game that that little girl is now an orphan who is raised by the military and grows up to be an emotionally numb, antisocial killing machine that eventually aids a genocide. All because of you. The real kicker? Even if you don't kill Shanath, he dies in front of his kid anyway.
• Bloodborne is absolutely rife with this.
  • Want to help the few survivors of the Hunt by sending them to Doctor Iosefka's clinic? The good doctor herself was replaced and experimented on by an impostor, and everyone you sent there is just fuel for her nightmarish "treatments", which will turn them into Celestial Mobs. It's completely impossible to save the real Iosefka, and she will always made a Celestial Mob.
  • Do you like Eileen the Crow, the chill huntress who reassures you at the beginning of the Hunt? Well, you better make damn sure you progress her sidequest (by aiding her against Henryk) before the Vicar Amelia fight; otherwise she goes insane and you're forced to kill her.
  • Father Gascoigne can be a summon for the Cleric Beast fight, but he will always fall to the bloodlust and become a boss fight- implicitly, after murdering his wife because he thought she was a beast.
  • Speaking of Father Gascoigne, his young daughter can be spoken to, giving you a music box that they use to help their father remember himself. If played in the fight, it will temporarily stun Gascoigne (but only twice; he immediately goes to his third phase if used after that). After you speak to that little girl, her fate is sealed. If left alone or told to go to Odeon Chapel (the true safehouse), she'll be killed by the Maneater Boar in the Aqueduct. If she's told to go to Iosefka's Clinic, she'll make it there safely... and suffer the same fate as anyone else you send. And later on, you can talk to her big sister... who will go insane and kill herself if you tell her of her little sister's fate.
  • In the Old Hunters DLC, you can talk to the boss Ludwig after his fight. He'll ask you whether the Church Hunters he founded stayed the heroes he intended them to be. If you say they were, he'll be relieved and bequeath you his sword before dying. If you tell the truth, he'll pass the Despair Event Horizon and everything he did, from forming the Church Hunters, turning into a beast and being trapped in the Hunter's Nightmare, and finally scraping his sanity back together so he could at least die as the Holy Blade instead of the Accursed, was All for Nothing as he dies Laughing Mad.
• Child of Light: Norah's betrayal. At first the game seems set out to subvert the "Evil Step-relation" trope, with Norah portrayed as Aurora's loving and protective elder sibling, especially because she's incredibly powerful for early in the game. Of course, because the game is inspired by fairy tales, she eventually shows her true colors and betrays you. It's so effectively done, that it makes the boss battle against her towards the end of the game personal — not just for Aurora, but for the player, to the point where slaying her and getting payback may be even more satisfying than defeating the final boss!
• In Contact it turns out that the companion who's betrayed Terry (the main character) is the player him/herself. Possibly serves as a subversion; Terry doesn't betray the player, he just gets fed up and attacks you out of frustration after the game's Shaggy Dog Ending. It's not a fight to the death - you tussle until he collapses exhausted, then he says Screw This, I'm Outta Here.
• Chrono Trigger had Crono's Heroic Sacrifice during his confrontation with Lavos. This is even worse if Marle's in your party at the time.
  • Late in the game if you take Robo home to the future, you can find his girlfriend Atropos XR and find out that she's been reprogrammed and tries to kill Robo forcing you into one of the most painful one-on-one boss fights in video game history.
  • Lucca's sidequest. You get to relive the turning point of her developmental years; the day her mother was crippled in a freak accident by one of Taban's machines, and she was powerless to help. Luckily, you (current Lucca) can save her if you know the passcode, but if not...
• Chrono Cross. For people who had played its predecessor, Chrono Trigger, these three words during a confrontation with FATE brought tears to more than a few eyes: "Now eliminating Prometheus."
  • To elaborate, Prometheus is better known as Robo, your Robot Buddy party member from Chrono Trigger. Now, up until that one scene in Chronopolis, Robo had not appeared in Chrono Cross at all. He was not mentioned at all. None of your party members have any way of knowing who he is. He appears out of nowhere, delivers two or three lines of dialogue, and is killed, while Chrono Cross's cast is probably wondering who this robotic voice is and why they should care. His death basically serves solely to piss off any Chrono Trigger fans who picked up the sequel, which is part of why some of those who liked the former have issues with the latter.
    • Chronopolis in general is one punch after another, with the whole purpose of brutally deconstructing the entire premise of Chrono Trigger.
  • Chrono Cross players can largely be divided into two groups: those who were shocked and/or outraged upon learning that Crono and Marle had similarly been killed in the intervening years during the Fall of Guardia, or those who insist that the Ghost Children aren't their spirits but some sort of manifested memory, and the two characters are still alive somewhere.
  • On a related note, the new endings for Chrono Trigger DS that help tie the game in with Chrono Cross have inspired similar outrage, confirming that yes, Guardia will fall to Porre, and Dalton of all people has a hand in it. Not to mention strongly implying that Guile, a bland, masked magician in Chrono Cross who was originally intended to be Magus in disguise, was really an amnesiac Magus all along, robbing his story of any resolution.
• Cyberpunk 2077:
  • In the finale, Adam Smasher will brutally kill one of your friends (which one depends on your choices) right in front of you after they damage him to make the boss fight a little easier for you. What makes it really hurt is that the death is entirely your own fault; it only happens if you choose to conduct the assault on Mikoshi by gathering up all you buddies for the final battle instead of taking Hanako Arasaka's offer of aid. In other words, your friend would've lived if you didn't selfishly drag them into your war. You Bastard!
  • The feeling of guilt is cranked up to eleven in "the Reaper" ending where V decides to kill themself in order to stop any more bloodshed. Although it seems like a Bitter Sweet Ending that Johnny is approving their decision and seems respectful about it, it quickly changes to Downer Ending when we reach the credits, where we see most of V's friends upset or angry with their action, showing how much their decision impacted them. However, considering that you controlled V all the time, it basically means that it is entirely your fault, not V's. Great job, player.
  • Any of the other endings aside from "The Reaper" also still qualify because it's revealed that V did in fact die for real at the end of Act 1 and his or her body was only revived because of the Relic to convert it for Johnny's use. So the only options are to give it over to him and leave with Alt forever, have Johnny leave/be removed and eventually die due to being an "invader" whose body no longer recognizes its original mind, or in "The Devil" ending be uploaded into Mikoshi by Arasaka. There's no completely good ending no matter what V does, but coming to terms with their own impending death seems to be the better outcome for V, their friends, and Johnny ("The Star" and "The Sun"), while giving up ("Temperance" and "The Reaper") or betraying Johnny and their friends ("The Devil") are far worse.
• In Dark Elf Historia, if you lose to the game's first major boss, you're treated to a truly horrific scene where Fraylia is brutalized by the boss and his henchmen, which starts Fraylia along the "Sinner" path. Every adverse choice you make afterwards results in her losing more of her sanity.
• Deus Ex: Human Revolution has several: Belltower's goons slaughtering innocents at Alice Garden Pods just to get to van Bruggen; their ambush in Hengsha if it leads to Faridah's death, especially if you leave the area before the VTOL explodes, which forces you to watch as they execute her in cold blood and start gloating about it and finding Faridah's corpse in the Harvesters' hideout, presumably stripped of augmentations. These three moments were rage-inducing enough to make several players give up their Pacifist Runs on the spot.
• Divinity: Original Sin II gives you one with all the party members you do not recruit. If you don't recruit them? They don't just "wait" for you... they're killed by Dallis. And you can find their spirits lamenting how they will never complete their personal quests and that you didn't recruit them. (Only Fane doesn't seem to care) Then at the end of act three, you find the party members again this time serving the games' Greater-Scope Villain who even call you out for this... and then they're killed again. This time by you. The only thing they did to deserve this fate was that you didn't recruit them.
  • Lohse in particular - death did not free her from her Demonic Possession, and she will mention how she's just one more of the demon's victims. And now that she's dead? She never will be freed - you could at least complete some other characters' quests (albeit indirectly), but even if you defeat the demon possessing Lohse, she'll never have been freed.
• The Dept. Heaven series just loves these:
  • In Riviera: The Promised Land, there's the end of Chapter 6. So Ein, who has just spent the entire chapter freaking out over having to fight Ledah, has just done so. And even though Ledah has told Ein to kill him, Ein refuses because Ledah is still his True Companions. Oh, wait, here comes Malice, STABBING LEDAH IN THE BACK. ...But Ledah is still alive, so it'll be fine! ...Not for long, as after you fight Malice, he pulls a Heroic Sacrifice to save Ein from her sneak attack. And then, in his death scene, he barely manages to explain what's going on and why he is the way he is (i.e., he has no emotions anymore) before he dies. The entire thing is an evil cycle of worry, relief, and then trauma. Worse, it's the end of the chapter, so there's no direction for your Unstoppable Rage.
    • Made far, far worse by the fact that Ledah, being rid of emotion for the entire game, actually shows some... before he dies. Sadness ensues.
  • In Yggdra Union, two battlefields after you meet Roswell and Rosary, you are forced to kill one of the two. Then, in Battlefield 33, you have to face the one you killed again, just to rub your nose in it. Both of Kylier's deaths also count—her Heroic Sacrifice is the climax of a battlefield that's basically one continuous Tear Jerker, and then there's goddamn Battlefield 46. She Came Back Wrong, she's a People Puppet, but Milanor loves her and can't believe he has to fight her. So Yggdra decides she'd better Shoot the Dog. Thing is, Yggdra is the player character, so you're stuck with doing it.
  • Fighting Nordische and Pisce after their Transformation Trauma incidents in Knights in the Nightmare. Especially Nordische, when you consider that the Wisp contains King Willimgard's soul, meaning that he has to fight his own beloved son.
    • Alighierie's death is one too. Again, doubly so when you consider the spoiler above.
    • The Your Princess Is in Another Castle! scene is also one. After defeating Melissa (or Marietta), you and your heroine run to confront Big Bad Zolgonark only to realize you have no way to defeat him yet. When Zolgonark tries to attack you, she leaps in front of you to shield you from the blow, giving you a slim chance to escape and find your body. The last you see of her until the end of the game, she's still standing steadfastly to take a blow that whites out the entire screen, her pleas for you to escape trailing off into silence. This is bad enough, but when you finally arrive to fight Zolgonark again, you only see her faint white outline, the same as the souls of the dead. Ow, that was my heart. It's hard enough to watch Maria do this, but seeing arrogant, self-concerned Meria throw pretense to the winds and do the same was just too much.
• Dragon Quest:
  • Dragon Quest V: Everything Bishop Ladja does counts. To wit: Using the hero as a human shield in order to prevent Pankraz from fighting back against his flunkies, incinerating him with a fireball after said flunkies had already beaten him to within an inch of his life, carting the hero and Harry off to a slave camp for the Religion of Evil for ten years; and then, much later on, turning the hero and his wife into statues for eight/ten years (the hero was freed eight years later, and it took two more years to find the wife). In the remakes, he doesn't die at Talon Tower like he did in the SNES version. He goes on to show up near the start of the final dungeon, where he blasts Mada — the hero's mother and the woman you've been looking for the entire game — with the same Giant Instant Death Fireball of Doom that killed Pankraz, within seconds of finally seeing her, forcing one more boss fight with him. Fortunately, this doesn't actually kill her. Unfortunately, Grandmaster Nimzo finishes the job.
  • Dragon Quest IX: Catarrhina, who dies literally moments before you manage to seal away the evil spirit causing her town to be infected with a death disease.
• Elden Ring has a good few, understandably so when considering that it was made by the same company who made the Dark Souls series.
  • Boc the Seamster is a Token Heroic Demi-Human who's a Non-Action Guy and wants to be a seamster. If you retrieve his needle and sewing kit for you, he'll be grateful and tell you that he always hated his species and wanted to become human. If you do nothing, he'll die in pursuit of the goal. If you give him a Larval Tear needed for Renalla to perform her Rebirthing ritual on him, he'll get his greatest goal... but since he isn't the player and doesn't have the Great Rune of the Unborn, the ritual is incomplete and he dies shortly afterwards. The only way to spare Boc is to find and use a specific item.
  • Giving Nepheli Loux Seluvis's potion. She drinks it without question because she trusts you... and it turns her into a soulless puppet.
  • Millicent's quest will span the length of the game world, take you through some incredibly difficult levels and boss fights, and probably make you care deeply for the Plucky Girl who wants to meet Malenia... and it will always end with Millicent's death, either because you betrayed and killed her, or because she realized that her case of Scarlet Rot would inevitably mutate her into something horrible, so she chose to remove the Unalloyed Gold Needle keeping herself alive so she could die on her own terms, with the only consolation being that this ending is essential to saving Melina, below.
  • Melina is your trademark FromSoft level-up Mysterious Waif and will be with you for most of the game, talk to you at Sites of Grace, and offer you advice and even assistance in boss fights. However, she will inevitably leave you at the Point of No Return; either she burns herself alive as a Heroic Sacrifice, or she parts ways with you because you inherited the Frenzied Flame. This happens even if you're planning on using Miquella's Needle (your reward for giving Malenia the Unalloyed Gold Needle you got from Millicent after Malenia's boss fight- yes, you need to beat the hardest boss in the game for this) to cheat the Frenzied Flame and save Melina without locking yourself into a Downer Ending, since you're completely unable to explain your plan to Melina.
  • The end of Sorceress Sellen's quest. Sure, she probably deserved it for being an amoral witch who turned people into Schools of Graven Mages, but it still hurts since you've done a lot of work to get her to that point, only for her to turn into a Graven School herself. Also, she's Affably Evil, the game's first Sorcery trainer, and genuinely respects the player as her student, to the point that when she takes over Raya Lucaria she vows that the academy will follow you once you've become Elden Lord. And one of the few ways you can recognize her after her transformation is because she still recognizes you as her apprentice.
• Enchanted Arms must have read the design document for God of War, because you're forced to kill your dog who has been turned into a Cerberus. The worst part is that afterwards, you can resurrect the dog... As a Golem. And if you want 100% game completion, you HAVE to commit this atrocious act.
• Etrian Odyssey:
  • Etrian Odyssey II: Heroes of Lagaard: The player gets punched when they find a wounded Kurogane and realize what happened to his partner Flausgul... It's particularly jarring because they appeared to be getting set up as recurring characters you could expect to meet in the labyrinth far more often than you actually do to get see them.
  • Etrian Odyssey III: The Drowned City: The storyline involving the Murotsumi Guild ends in tragedy, due to the selfishness and arrogance of its two members. And due to the game's emphasis on difficult choices, the player has to choose whether it's Agata or Hypatia that dies (if the players opts to abstain from interacting with them at all, neither character is seen anymore afterwards; considering their battered relationship, this either hints that they survive but part ways from each other, or implies that both die).
• E.V.O.: Search for Eden has a mission in the Prehistoric chapter where you rescue a baby styracosaurus and reunite it with its father, and are rewarded with some information. At the end of the chapter comes the extinction of the dinosaurs: the sad music plays and the camera pans slowly by all the dead dinosaurs as the meteors fall and finally stops on the father who died in vain trying to shield his baby with his tail.
• Lucien, Big Bad of Fable II goes out above and beyond the call of this trope. In order: first he kills your sister (your only family) in front of you, immediately afterwards he shoots and very nearly kills you, a decade later he enslaves you as a guard (with regular torture, of course) for ten years as a young adult, then he takes all of your allies after you escape, personally kills your spouse and children, and just to top it off he kills your faithful dog. All of this alongside his various other atrocities. At some points, it seems like the bastard spends his free time looking for new ways to piss you off.
  • In Fable III: "Man, this Aurora place sure is creepy. Ah, well, time to go back to my Sanctuary, which is a nice, serene, completely inviolate place that's impervious to threats of any kind and where the hell is my butler? And what's this horrible black goo dripping from the floor toward the ceiling?"
• Faraway Story:
  • Winning the hardest Optional Boss fight of Part 1 would have been satisfying except the boss is Pia's mentor, who as a Celestial automatically turns to sand the moment he fulfills his duty, which he just accomplished by training Pia well enough to protect the Faraway Continent. The result is a non-canon Bittersweet Ending as well as the implication that he might eventually die in the full release of the game.
  • Whether or not you defeat Remi she ends up getting killed by the Big Bad due to being too tired from fighting you and your allies. This is made worse when Pia desperately tries to save her from her wounds, but to no avail.
• Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War is infamous within the franchise for its very effective uses of this trope.
  • The first comes at the end of Chapter Two. If you haven't been paying attention to the hints that maybe Sigurd's aggression in Agustria is maybe not actually such a great idea, it's quite a shock to finally liberate the friend you've been working so hard to save, only to learn that he hates what you've done to his country in his name, and for very good reason! While it might be normal Fire Emblem process to use war as a catch-all solution to bad people existing, Genealogy doesn't work that way. And in the next chapter things only get even worse, as Eldigan is forced into a truly unwinnable position. Even if you manage to avoid killing him by talking to him with Lachesis, he'll still return to try and convince King Chagall to call off the attack one final time, only to be executed for treason.
  • The next inarguable example comes in Chapter Five when the much-loved characters of Quan and Ethlyn finally reappear, their eldest daughter Altena in tow. They are immediately followed by bloodthirsty wyvern riders, and given that this is a desert map, there's nowhere for them to run. The player never even gets to take control, simply being forced to watch as they and their troops are massacred.
  • And then, most famously of all, there is the end of Chapter Five. What seems like a straightforward final victory, or at worst a Disc-One Final Boss, turns into a tragedy. Arvis successfully pulls off his plan and gets Sigurd into a position where he can't fight back, and kills everyone. There is no happy ending for this cast of characters. The Bad Guy Wins. ...at least until generation two starts, one chapter later.
• Geneforge:
  • While the endings come from a mix of Karma Meter, Sanity Meter, and player choices, the first game gives you endings ranging from becoming an absolute despot of all you behold to fleeing with your tail between your legs to getting executed ignominiously. And yes, these are all possible victories, not just nonstandard game overs.
  • In Geneforge 2, your teacher Shanti is captured when she goes scouting ahead of you. Much of the middle section of the game revolves around finding her. When you finally do find her, she's been murdered, dressed in a slave's robe, and dumped in the woods. Definitely an It's Personal moment, and it makes your revenge against Stanis much more satisfying.
• Golden Sun: The Lost Age is pretty harsh when you realize that the villains of the first game were not Card Carrying Villains as you suspected, but rather Anti Villains who wanted to save their civilization from destruction. Unlike most examples, this is not an in-your-face scene, but a gradual realization on the part of the player over the course of The Lost Age, which is finally fully explored when the characters encounter the hometown of the first game's baddies as the game's end.
  • The Lost Age punches you even harder when, during the Final Dungeon (Mars Lighthouse) you have to face and defeat two Fire Dragons in a Boss Battle... who turn out to be Agatio and Karst, your Aloof Allies and part-time adversaries who were simply trying to complete Saturos and Menardi's quest (oh, and trying to murder first game's protagonist Isaac, but Karst did have understandable motives...) It gets worse when they beg you to finish their quest for them, putting their animosity to rest at last. It's Doubly worse with the rather blatant Ship Tease between Karst and TLA protagonist Felix (which has fanfic writers to this very day saving her life). Then, it's Triply worse when you flash-forward 30 years and discover that the Hero Worshipping part of the masses did make the four out as Card Carrying Villains in the textbooks and because they are already controversial public figures for their actions during the older games, the veteran heroes can't do or say anything to give their dissenters ammunition against them in an already-divided world...
  • The Lost Age's worst punch was The Wise One transforming the heroes' parents into the Final Boss and forcing the heroes to murder the parents they were trying to rescue as a Secret Test of Character. You have no soul if you didn't react when soft-spoken mama's boy Isaac dropped this line:
    "I knew what I was doing the moment I raised my sword."
  • It can be made even worse when you realise at the end of the game that everything the heroes have done in all three games was orchestrated by the series villain and that all of this doesn't mean a thing to him.
  • Golden Sun: Dark Dawn has a pretty heavy one, not only for one game but for the series in general. For the most part, the series is relatively lighthearted when it comes to death, limited only to the villains, extremely minor characters, or offscreen ones for those with slightly bigger roles. Dark Dawn sets itself up much the same way...until the Grave Eclipse is activated. Following this, it's easily possible to find corpses of innocents who had nothing to do with this lying around. Not to mention you can read their thoughts. One particularly poignant example is the Crystallux summon sidequest, which entails failing to save a little girl and burying her next to her deceased grandfather. Also done with Briggs, a returning character from the previous game, who gives a Heroic Sacrifice to ensure the party (including his only son, Eoleo) a chance to escape the ravaged city of Belinsk.
• The PS1 game The Granstream Saga gave at the end of the game the player a Sadistic Choice. The player must sacrifice one of the hero's two love interests, and there is no way to Take a Third Option.
• The Conquest Ending to Hyperdimension Neptunia mk2 is nothing but a string of these. In it, Nepgear has to power up an evil-slaying sword to vanquish Arfoire, which can only be done by killing off the other CPUs. You then have to fight each one and win, except Neptune who dies in a cutscene. After Ge-Ge has done all that and managed to kill Arfoire, it goes even farther by Arfoire gloating that now that there are no other CPUs, Gamindustri will stagnate and collapse, giving Arfoire the despair needed to resurrect and destroy whatever is left. If there's any consolation, it's that you get to keep the sword in your inventory if you start a New Game Plus.
• Combined with Tear Jerkers and Heroic Sacrifices, Infinite Space has lots of this, although a few of them can be avoided depending on the routes you take. The most notable one is Lord Roth and Nele's death, which happens if you didn't recruit Katida, turning her into an Ax-Crazy in Act 2.
• Jade Empire: In a somewhat twisted and almost literal example, Master Li kills the player character by exploiting flaws in your fighting style that he deliberately placed there himself for that very purpose.
  • A more normal example: the PC is a Spirit Monk, capable of binding a spirit to his/her will. The Spirit Monks were the carers for the Water Dragon, the goddess of life and death. If you take the Evil Closed Fist option, you can elect to bind Death's Hand. Your party members naturally object to this; you can correspondingly bind all of them. Then you can go to the Imperial City, find the Water Dragon, decide to steal all of her power by tainting her blood with human blood, kill your followers to get said human blood, then become a god.
    • It's hard to think of a game with a Karma Meter that results in such a wildly diverging ending as Jade Empire.
• There's more than one painful death in Last Scenario, but one near the end that really does it is Alison's Heroic Sacrifice to save the party from Tiamat. It's made especially frustrating by the fact that Tiamat blows both of them up, so you don't even get the satisfaction of destroying her in another boss fight.
• Knights of the Old Republic:
  • The bombardment of Taris, making nearly everything you did there completely pointless. Mission's reaction supplies the page quote.
  • It's possible to constantly mock Bastila's Holier Than Thou Jedi attitude until she starts seeing things your way, then asks you to kill your friends or lose her.
  • The Tomato Surprise was a big one for Light Side players. Double it if you played Light side female with the Carth romance. You're giving credits to beggars, restraining yourself, reuniting families, petting kittens, and being a first-rate example of being a true hero... Oh, Crap!. What did that bastard say, Carth?! And here's Malak himself - stand back! I Am Who??!
  • Taking the Dark Side Path? You might regret doing so when you're forced to slaughter over half your crew. Juhani and Jolee are hard enough, but having to kill Mission, even as the girl is insisting down to her last breath that she's still your friend? Talk about Video Game Cruelty Potential. Even nastier is if you force Zaalbar to do it! More than one player reported breaking their X-box controller by dropping it in shock.
  • In the second one, on Peragus Mining Station you can watch a holovid showing all the miners suffocating from poisonous gasses, right over the places where their bodies are now lying. Made worse by the knowledge that it was completely unnecessary.
  • G0-T0 senselessly murdering Remote, the adorable little training droid that follows Bao-Dur around and helps you out faithfully. Fortunately, it got better. Unfortunately, G0-T0 then is implied to murder it again on Malachor V if you don't activate the mass shadow generator. Also, Dark-side ending when everyone left on the Ebon Hawk falls into an abyss.
• The Legend of Dragoon has a good Player Punch with the death of Lavitz, who charges Lloyd as a Dragoon when he takes the Moon Gem from King Albert, only to get skewered by the Dragon Buster (a sword that's pretty much lethal to anything dragon-like, including Dragoons, who actually USE the power of dragons, remember), killing him off in a rather sad scene which ultimately fuels the player's resolve to defeat Lloyd.
  • It doesn't help that you've spent plenty of time getting to know Lavitz; he saves Dart's life on multiple occasions and is generally a great person and friend to Dart. You even visit his mother's house, learn how he's a momma's boy at heart, and he discusses his childhood and motivations with Dart.
• The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel: In the final chapter of Cold Steel III, no less than four playable characters pull Face-Heel Turns - Sharon, due to her returning to her position as an Enforcer, and Claire, Lechter, and Millium, due to their loyalty to Osborne. Considering you've likely gotten attached to at least some of them, their betrayals can hit particularly hard even if you were expecting it.
  • Then of course, the death tolls. In a series (Mostly in regard to Cold Steel) that has been criticized for lacking important character deaths (aside from Crow in II), Cold Steel III includes at least 5, 3 of them being Ensemble Darkhorses (Olivert, Toval and Victor), one being someone whom you've come to accept as a trustworthy ally(Angelica) and the other one of your party member since Cold Steel I (Millium). Possibly alleviated as all the deaths besides the last one are left ambiguous, and they may turn up alive in Last Saga.
  • And then of course the revelation that George was Evil All Along^note While fans are divided on whether he's really that trope or a mole, general consensus is that players seeing the scene for the first time tends to develop a deep hate for George, and Cedric's Face-Heel Turn. Especially the latter, which made some fans wish Rean had just slain him along with Duke Cayenne in Cold Steel II.
• Live A Live is practically made of Mood Whiplash, and pulls this off very successfully a few times over. About half of all the characters end up dead, but because it's an entirely different story each time, you'll care just as damn hard for each and every one of them. Then, just as you're sort of used to it, and you're identifying with all of the main characters so hard because of the long series of Player Punch moments in the first half of the game - you enter the second half, entirely unexpectedly, and you'll find out who was behind all of the deaths. And you'll cry. Because he turns out to be a Noble Hero who just kind of had a really bad day. And became Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds as a result. And you get to play every moment of it.
  • Aside from that, one of the worst moments by far is the deaths of the two disciples in the Imperial China chapter. Up until that point it's been a mostly lighthearted story about an old martial arts master nearing the end of his life passing on his art to three unlikely disciples, complete with Training Montages, sparring and teaching the occasional thug a lesson. But it all goes to hell when Shifu returns home after having done the latter in a nearby village and discovers that in his absence two of his disciples have been murdered by the Indomitable Fist, with the third just barely surviving. It comes out of nowhere and there's nothing you can do to prevent it from happening, but it's arguably even worse when you realize just why the third disciple survived... because you gave him or her more training than the others. With that knowledge, on repeat playthroughs you're literally choosing who lives and dies.
• Lost Odyssey inflicts the player with this trope approximately every ten minutes with their borderline-Narm "dream" short stories. Oh, and Kaim's daughter dying. And a city of people getting wiped out. And Seth sacrificing her happiness and immortality to save the others. Of course, after a while you sort of get used to it.
• Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals is full of these.
  • Early-game party member Tia has a very obvious crush on main character Maxim, but when Maxim finds someone else he loves, she surprisingly gets out of his way and leaves the party. This is a punch to anyone who was waiting for Tia and Maxim to get together, and Maxim's interest Selan doesn't have much characterization at this point.
  • Lovable idiot Dekar sacrifices himself so the party can get away. As he's one of the most entertaining (and overpowered) characters, and you don't get him for that long, this is unexpected and lame. Lessened since near the end of the game it reveals he survived.
  • The worst offender is the extremely sad ending of the game - Maxim and his wife Selan both die saving the world, and the end-game cutscenes show their friends waiting for them to come back to celebrate their victory, still believing they survived. The ending is especially terrible because it was playable as the prologue to Lufia & The Fortress of Doom, so the player goes in knowing that Maxim and Selan will not make it... and then the player has one final task to play through.
• Marvel Ultimate Alliance makes you choose between saving the life of Nightcrawler or Jean Grey. The ending you get from saving Nightcrawler is preferable (if he lives Jean comes back as Dark Phoenix. If he dies Professor X is assassinated by Mystique), but you can bet some fans were torn by the choice, especially since Jean is something of a Chew Toy, and it'd be nice to give her a break for once. It's ultimately subverted for those who decided to save Nightcrawler, as MUA 2 shows that Jean's case was resolved cleanly by virtue of her being a secret playable character.
• Monster Hunter:
  • Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate: A High-Rank quest to capture a Rathian ends in the Seregios chasing her away, resulting in a scripted quest failure. This has angered many players who went through a good deal of prep work for the quest only to have their efforts wasted. Sure, the Caravaneer and the Guild compensate you for your efforts, but all you get is 7000 zenny and some common Rathian parts like the Rathian Scale+; you don't get any rare Rathian drops like the Rathian Plate or Rathian Ruby, and any post-completion rewards you would've gotten from breaking her parts are nullified.
  • Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate: The happiness that would have ensued over a High-Rank hunt of a Gravios during the preparation period to upgrade the Soaratorium and confront Valstrax plummets right after the quest ends, as Valstrax itself comes at you and thus the game still keeps you in the Marshlands. Whether you manage to inflict it some damage and repel it, or get curb-stomped for not being prepared for such a sudden fight against the Elder Dragon, you'll return to the Soaratorium with everyone worried about your well-being, and the young captain of the Soaratorium suffers a Depair Event Horizon that lasts for a long period until near the end of the story. The local music also becomes much less cheery.
• Mega Man Legends 2 had one of these with a not-quite death: During a boss battle on top of an airship, the boss you're fighting shoots down the Bonnes' escape pod, annoyed that they're cheering for you.
• Mega Man X: Command Mission has one at the end of Chapter 6, when Spider sacrifices himself to get rid of Incentas and open the way for the rest of the party to escape the mines before it self-destructs. The similarity comes in the fact that, like with Aerith, you can still buy Spider's weapons even in the final stage, with the only difference being that his icon won't appear beside them. The game also won't let you sell his starting weapon. Averted, however, when it is revealed that Spider was likely not Spider at all throughout the game.
• Arguably occurs in Mega Man Star Force. Partway through the third game, in a series that only has the villains bite it - and even then, not too often - you get to watch as the main character's best friend is quite literally blown to pieces. The effect would have been improved if not for the fact it turns out to be a Disney Death.
• Mother 3 kicks the player in the crotch repeatedly in the first chapter. First, Flint's wife, Hinawa, dies, and he is notified via one of the most painful Can Not Spit It Outs ever. The chapter's boss is the mother of a Drago family that was friends with Flint's children, cybernetically modified into a killing machine. After the battle, the player is shown the broken body of Flint's son Claus lying in a canyon.
  • It's made even more cruel and unexpected by the fact the player has to name all family members at the beginning of the game, leading to expect that all of them will eventually become playable like in Earthbound. From a gameplay point of view, more than half of the characters you named are killed or broken in the span of a few minutes. On a more personal level, if you actually named them after your family members you get to see your mother and brother dead, your father gone mad with grief at being unable to save them, and yourself left a broken child by the entire tragedy.
  • And just to take it beyond this, it goes as far as Shooting The Shaggy Dog by making the final battle put Lucas, all by himself, against a completely emotionless version of Claus. You can win without ever making a single attack, but no matter what, Claus kills himself by shooting a deadly lightning attack at you, which the Franklin Badge will reflect.
    • And just when you think the last Player Punch is behind you, you pull out the last Needle...only to get some lovely shots of the world getting destroyed!!!
• In the beginning of Neverwinter Nights, PC can chat with some fellow students NPCs, and even flirt with them — with the choice to make an appointment for graduation evening or spurn their advances. They have just enough quirks to be potentially interesting. However, if player liked them, hoped for Optional Sexual Encounter, or just was curious, disappointment is imminent: all these NPCs will be slaughtered by evil scripts in a surprise attack on Neverwinter Academy.
  • The fan-made module The Bastard of Kosigan has a couple in the second chapter, at least for good players. Alex's death and the brutal murder of both of your cousins, the older one's family, and your uncle are pretty bad.
  • The first chapter of the fan-made module A Dance with Rogues feels like it is designed to throw these at you in succession, spaced just wide enough apart that you get hit by one immediately after you get over the last one. It starts with your family's death in the prologue, followed by some time for your character to adjust to her new life and start picking up the pieces, and then your good friend Caron is slaughtered by the Dhorn, followed by a few more adventures to give you a chance to get over it, and then the Dhorn find and capture the entire leadership of Master Nathan's group, starting you on the mission that forms the core of the second chapter.
  • Adam Miller's NWN Shadowlords/Dreamcatcher/Demon campaigns pull off a rather unique instance of the trope. In the first model of Dreamcatcher, your NPC partner (who has stuck with you since the beginning of the Shadowlords campaign, and who you have quite likely romanced or become very good friends with) begins to act strangely. Around this time you encounter some Doppelgangers. Enough dialogue will reveal that your partner has been replaced by a Doppelgänger, which then attacks you - and when you kill it, your partner is still missing. Cue bloody rampage until you find him/her.
• In Neverwinter Nights 2, after indirectly destroying Shandra's farm and endangering her life, she joins your party, where she becomes your squire and learns the life of a hero. Spending weeks training (okay, this was off-screen) and encouraging her, helping to save each other and her effectively being a mirror to you and your life, she gets killed because of several misunderstandings by her grandfather. Who joins you afterwards. Ouch. Luckily, he's more likable than it initially seems.
• Odin Sphere:
  • To get 100% Completion, the player needs to unlock every cutscene. This means intentionally choosing the wrong order in the Final Book and watching the Bad Ending at least three times. Myris's sobbing while the world collapses and the oceans are rising to kill her while asking why someone would choose this horrible fate hits especially hard. Fortunately, in the remake, you can cancel out once you've viewed the scenes you needed by saving and returning to the attic, so there's no need to actually watch the Bad Ending more than once.
  • Sending Mercedes to fight the beast of Darkova in the Armageddon book is guaranteed to make you feel like an asshole. Her fate in the good ending isn't much better, either.
  • Generally speaking, the unique False End cutscenes for each of the characters is a punch in one's gut. Both Darkova endings with Mercedes and Velvet make you feel even worse for them and Ingway, Cornelius's ending against King Gallon is pure Nightmare Fuel, and, depending on whether you face him with Oswald or Gwendolyn, you will either hate Onyx or somehow pity him.
• In OFF, the Batter eventually meets Hugo, the child that they occassionally see in cutscenes. Then the "purification in progress" message pops up, and the player is forced to mercilessly beat a helpless and scared toddler to death.
• Grodus from Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door ups the antipathy by deleting TEC-XX's files as the computer sends Peach's last (incomplete) message and tells her in a text scroll that he loves her.
  • And again in Super Paper Mario, with Luvbi. Granted, she wasn't killed by the bad guys (not directly anyway), nor was she the most likable character, but it was still a motivator. Of course, not as much as Tippi.
  • In terms of player punch-inducing villainy, Dimentio's revelation of just how psychotic he is by attempting to kill the defenseless Bleck, then laughing about it when his shot hits Nastasia instead.
  • Not to mention having to essentially fight Luigi as the Final Boss, after he's been brainwashed and consumed by the power of the Chaos Heart by Dimentio. He recovers, but damn, that's harsh.
  • Or the young Squirps. Sure, he's basically like an annoying little kid for the entire level, but then you get to the very end of it, and dear god, the poor little kid is all alone.
  • In Sammer's Kingdom, you have to fight your way through a tournament full of enemies, only to lose the race against time. You come back to the world to find the colorful landscape reduced to a white background and a few crumbled line drawings, and the Pure Heart is inert.
  • In Paper Mario: Color Splash you meet a Shy Guy on a train, he's not hostile, in fact, he sits down and has a friendly chat with you. He laments that he's been forced to give up his dreams upon being drafted into Bowser's army, and gripes that despite all the hard work the lower ranks do, the higher-ups don't value them. Later in the game, after defeating another nameless Shy Guy, he reveals himself as the Shy Guy on the train, and says that if he had to fight someone, that he's grateful it ended up being Mario. He then explodes into items just like all the rest. What Measure Is a Mook? at it's most heartbreaking
• Phantasy Star II had Nei, the cute little biomonster-human hybrid that the protagonist has adopted as his surrogate little sister. About halfway through the game, we encounter her prototype: the brutal Neifirst who quickly disposes of her "little sister." Cue the boss music!
  • In Phantasy Star IV, players shouldn't really get attached to anyone in the last slot in their party, because they have an average life expectancy of less than an hour for the middle part of the game. Even if they don't die, they generally leave the party almost as soon as they've joined.
  • On top of that, Alys' death was just plain undignified. She got hit with an extremely virulent attack and spent a week dying in bed with the characters visiting her regularly. The initial punch came with the infection, then was just drawn out rather than the usual 'stab-dead-wait what?'
  • The worst part is that the story arc that comes right after Alys' wound is a desperate chase after Rune, the most competent sorcerer of The 'Verse. So what happens? They find a vehicle to reach the region where he is, find the guy, bring him back to Alys, and what does he say? "Nope, that's beyond my expertise, she's going to die." Yeah. The last two dungeons, and the Hope Spot when you finally found the guy? All for nothing.
    • The second-worst part, although lessened because it's several hours of gameplay later: the disease Alys died of? It's not even unique to her. There's an entire town full of people who died of it and eventually rose from the dead as zombies, a hospital full of people who are dying of it when you get there, and there's still no cure but rooting out the evil that's spreading it. Alys died no differently from an entire town of nameless, faceless NPCs.
  • An optional one occurs if you visit the town of Mile after the Very Definitely Final Dungeon appears. Some of the NPCs there include the parents of a student at Piata Academy (whom they regularly send money to), a woman determinedly trying to sweep back the ever-encroaching sand, and a man trying to raise Sandworms (your first optional sidequest was killing his first attempt run amok). If you visit the town after the Profound Darkness opens a rift nearby, you'll find that everyone in Mile is dead. Everyone. And there is nothing you can do to help or save them. Even worse? Chaz places the power responsible as being the very same one that killed Alys. If you needed convincing that the Profound Darkness needed to be destroyed and this doesn't do it for you...
• Planescape: Torment has you, rather often, encounter traces of your previous Incarnations. One of them is the walking Moral Event Horizon moment knows as the Practical Incarnation. And should you join the society of sensates, you can experience the memories and emotions of a woman you first encountered as a spirit at the Mortuary. The private sensorium that contains that stone has two others - one is actually a trap from a past incarnation and a Room Full of Crazy, the other is the experience of being masterfully tortured by an ancient hag. And they're still better than that one.
  • There's also the Fortress of Regrets, in which the party members you've cultivated throughout the game are exterminated one by one, and all you can do is watch.
    • Made even worse because each of them is given the option to go home, and they all stay to face certain death for you.
• Radiant Historia approaches Suikoden levels of this trope, starting about fifteen minutes into the game, when Raynie and Marco die in a Hopeless Boss Fight. Then comes Chapter 2 of the Alternate History, when Rosch's entire brigade gets wiped out, the adorable Mauve Shirt Kiel dies distracting the enemy so Stocke can escape, and none of it can be changed, frustrating both Stocke and the player to no end. The game also forces you into a Fighting Your Friend situation several times, and half the bad ends involve party members and other likeable characters dying left and right. Not to mention the normal ending, where Stocke pulls a Heroic Sacrifice to hold off the end of the world for a few more years. Most of these can be changed or avoided, but it doesn't make them any less tear-jerking.
• In Shadow Hearts, Yoshiko Kawashima starts off as an antagonist but later becomes a respectable ally. You leave her in Asia in the first half of the game, only to be sucker-punched with the news of her supposed betrayal by her father and death, complete with it playing out on-screen.
  • Making it worse: her death is one of the primary motivators for the final Big Bad of Covenant.
  • Also gut-wrenching is the true ending to Shadow Hearts. In it, it's assumed that Yuri was unable to defeat the Masks that guarded the Door of Death in his soul's graveyard, and as such Alice if forced to fight alone when the Malice comes for her soul. The game then drags it out and forces you to watch as Alice slowly loses her life force, growing weaker as the party rush to the final boss fight, but refusing to lag behind or get in the way. Then, just when everyone is settling down to a happily-ever-after and Yuri is taking her home to see her mother, she dies in his arms, and despite all Yuri's promises to protect her, there's nothing he can do.
• Star Ocean: The Second Story (As well as its remake, Second Evolution) did this with the death of Ronixis at the hands of Gabriel and Lucifer. Ronixis was one of the major protagonists from the first game and was killed in a particularly tragic fashion (thinking his son was dead and his wife hated him).
  • Also the end of both discs of the Playstation version of this game. The first disc ends with the destruction of Planet Expel by the Ten Wise Men. As bad as that is the second disc is even worse considering that the Nedians can actually Set Right What Once Went Wrong in this case, but it comes at a very high price considering that it takes all of Planet's Nede's energy to restore Planet Expel and its entire population, which in turn destroys Planet Nede in an epic level Heroic Sacrifice.
    • This whole sequence makes you want to recruit Noel and Chisato even more, considering one of the last quotes of the game.
  "Good luck Rena, Dr. Noel, and Chisato as the last surviving Nedians."
• Before that, we had the original Star Ocean as well as First Departure, in which Asmodeus' destruction of a small town is immediately preceded by a scene focusing on a little girl in said village that you had the opportunity to spend time with, building snowmen.
• The Suikoden series is full of these to the point where you need a helmet, face mask, mouth guard, and a box of tissues to make it through.
  • Just in the first game:
    • We have Odessa's death while saving a child. This makes the later encounter with her Love Interest Flik even more painful when you have to tell him the bad news.
    • After that we have the destruction of the Elf Village, leaving Kirkis and very few other elves alive. Luckily his Love Interest Sylvina is one of the few that make it.
    • Then we have the Megaton Player Punch of probably the entire series during Gremio's death. Many tears of sorrow were shed during this sequence.
    • Later we have The Hero forced to fight his father General Teo, and watch him die from his injuries shortly after it ends. The final quote General Teo says before he dies is one of the saddest things ever.
      "A father's greatest joy is to see his son exceed him."
    • Afterwards, we have Ted's Heroic Sacrifice to save The Hero, along with unlocking his rune's ultimate power in the process. This gets worse when you learn Ted's back story.
      "Thank you. In 300 years, you were my best friend."
    • At one point in the game, most of the Dragon Knights' dragons become sick with a rare disease that can only be cured with special ingredients. Dr. Liukan says that one of the ingredients is a special flower that the Big Bad currently has, and doesn't mention the last ingredient. Futch the youngest dragon knight and his dragon named Black go and retrieve the flower, but are attacked after getting it. Futch manages to survive but Black isn't so lucky. The sad thing about this is the reason that Dr. Liukan was hesitant to mention the last ingredient was that it's a dragon's liver, which meant that one dragon would have to die to save the other dragons regardless of the circumstances and that they took Black's liver from his corpse to make the cure to save the other dragons. A huge Player Sucker Megaton Punch comes after this sequence when Futch recovers and learns what happened and also that by the Dragon Knight code, any knight who loses their dragon for any reason is expelled from the Dragon Knights, which leaves Futch homeless until Humphrey takes him on as his pupil, and they join your army.
    • Also in the end learning that Sanchez's betrayal and assault on Mathiu ended up killing him, considering the fact that Mathiu dies shortly after hearing about your army's victory.
    Liukan: "Rest in peace, Master Mathiu."
  • Suikoden II is not lousy with this, too, making a Player Sandbag.
    • The biggest one is Nanami's sudden death.
    • Pilika's life is just the writers repeatedly socking the player in the gut. She lost her family, become mute because of PTSD caused by Luca Blight, used as a human shield for Riou by Shu the Strategist, and then losing her adopted father Jowy to her former caretaker.
    • If you choose to run from Tinto Republic, you get Player Slapped by Shu with the fact that Ridley died.
• Summon Night: Swordcraft Story is, for the most part, a sweet, light-hearted Action RPG. You discover that one of the town's leaders is working for the Big Bad, and confront him. It turns out that he's been deluded into it by thinking that he'll be able to cure his Delicate and Sickly sister if he helps. Naturally, the good guys want to capture him and bring him home, as he's clearly not remotely evil, however misguided...but he refuses, in the middle of a wild-eyed Villainous Breakdown, and jumps off a cliff rather than admit defeat. It's deeply shocking in an otherwise-cheerful game.
• Sakura Wars: So Long, My Love rolls with the Player Punches near the end. To wit: Watching Oda Nobunaga wreck New York City after having spent every mission up to that point saving it, having player character Shinjiro nearly killed by Nobunaga, discovering that the only way to defeat Nobunaga would require your love interest to sacrifice her life...
• Required Super Robot Wars reference: in the Original Generation games, we meet the Colonel Badass Daitetsu. He's old, but experienced, a father-figure for his crew, and one of the few people that can keep up with Hard-Drinking Party Girl Excellen. Over the course of the two games he's in, he manages to survive a hopeless battle against the Aerogators in the back story and escape back to Earth, the Kurogane drilling a hole through his ship, Gaza nearly destroying the ship, taking on several Sealed Evil in a Can entities, and encouraging his XO Tetsuya to grow and become a captain as well. Three-quarters of OG 2, Lee Linjun hits his Moral Event Horizon by firing on Daitetsu's ship in a way that kills the man. The crew is devastated, and Elzam sheds his Paper-Thin Disguise for the funeral because maintaining it would be an insult to Daitetsu's honor. Tetsuya gets his revenge when he uses the Kurogane to cut through Lee's ship at the end of the game. This final moment is poignant and emotional.
  • Hey at least we may see Lee gets an even worse punishment, should he even show his face to you again.
  • There are plenty of other Player Punches in SRW, but most are spoiled by knowledge of the shows involved, and the fact that generally a fan favourite will be savable.
    • Here's one more involving the Originals: Poor Toby Watson in Super Robot Wars Z is a member of the Glory Star along with heroine Setsuko Ohara and his superior Denzel Hammer. He's separated from Setsuko after Asakim murders Denzel. For some reason, he manages to reunite with Setsuko after many hardships. And then they meet Asakim again... who proceeds to kill him in front of Setsuko. That alone cements Asakim as the monster amongst the original characters.
    • Setsuko herself. Denzel was a father to her, Asakim kills him due to an unfortunate bit of irony (Denzel switched mechs with Setsuko at that stage, and Asakim was gunning for her). Break the World sends her away from Toby and has her lose her memories. She gets better, only to have Toby get shot down and Rand want to kill her due to a misunderstanding. One retrofit later, Toby comes back, only to shoot her down this time. Surprise, surprise, it's Asakim. He proceeds to describe how her suffering is the only way that he can die, for she is something of a Barrier Maiden for parallel universes and her despair weakens the connection. While brutalizing (and possibly raping) her. Then her alternate dimension comrades try to kill her because of misinformation from the true Big Bad. Finally, it's possible to lose her route; at which point she loses her sight, smell, and hearing before dying in absolute despair. Isn't it sad, Secchin?
    • MX has among the most sadistic Player Punch ever Rahxephon has just averted the Bardiel incident from Evangelion, saving Touji. The tradeoff? This stage also has the same part where Ayato accidentally kills Asahina because she was synced with the Dolem Ayato was fighting. Think those guys at Banpresto would have a way to avert this sequence like so many other times? That we'd be saved a Tear Jerker Kill the Cutie and we'd have warm fuzzies seeing her live? Fucking hell no. What's worse, not only does Ayato still kill Asahina, this sequence is done with the player in control. That's right. You have to make Ayato do the deed. Needless to say, anyone who can't stand being forced to Kill the Cutie / The Woobie is in for a kick in the balls.
    • Super Robot Wars Alpha 2 First, The Cutie Token Mini-Moe Irui turn out to be the Big Bad. At least you got to choose either to kill her or try convincing her back. Choose the latter, and her alter ego takes over and becomes True Final Boss. When you finally defeat it, only two protagonists can save her from exploding Physical God. The worst got to be Ibis's events. As our heroine tries to rescue her, Irui knows that Ibis's Fragile Speedster mech won't make it. So she used her last strength pushing Ibis away. At least the last game made it clear that she survives.
    • In 2nd Original Generations we have Rim who like her version in D has 2 personalities as a result of the Sympathia System, however after the bomb Contagio primed was detonated, Chris (The real personality) sacrificed herself to save Joshua and Liana. What is even more devastating is the fact that she and Ventus seal the Crossgate to prevent the Ruina from infesting the world. It gets worse in Moon Dwellers as the Crossgate is completely destroyed at the end of the game which means she and Ventus can never return.
• Nearly the entirety of Undertale is a player punch, especially if you're going for the genocide route. Killing specific characters, even when you got no reason to do so, caused some players to quickly give up on their homicidal run because they just couldn't live with the fact that they killed off someone that was likable to them and everyone in the game.
  • In particular is Toriel, the kindly mother figure that stands in your way trying to protect you from the dangers of the outside world. The usual peaceful strategies that you have been practicing up to that point are ineffective against her, leaving two other hints that some to spare some monsters, they need to be weakened or given mercy even when their name isn't yellow. Players that think they need to weaken Toriel are in for quite the gut punch as she will suddenly take lethal damage well before the player can expect it. The game will then call you out on resetting and trying the battle again.
  • And those that still went through got two punches at the very end: First is the very likeable Sans turning against you in an absolute Curb-Stomp Battle while reminding you of all the horrible things you did, even giving those that change their mind last minute a Hope Spot by offering to spare them, only for him to instakill you for having murdered his beloved brother and secondly is the reveal that you were never in control... rather, you are being controlled by an Abstract Apotheosis of your own Level Grinding tendencies and completionist urges, and this Abstract Apotheosis either compliments you for helping it destroy everything, or kills you off just as cruelly as you killed everyone else.
  • When going for the Golden Ending, one can find out a lot about Asriel. When you then manage to save everyone, getting the ultimate ending, you can walk through the entire cave again only to find Asriel, explaining to you that he can't be saved and will become an emotionless flower again, left all alone in an empty cave until he dies. Let's just say, quite a few players found this a major Tear Jerker for the best ending they could get.
  • It can get worse. If playing the genocide route, the player has to sell their soul to the Fallen Child to be allowed to play again. If they do this, then all endings will be ruined. Got the Golden Ending where everyone is happy? Too bad the Fallen Child has possessed you and will either destroy the photograph of your friends or possibly kill Toriel while she sleeps. Have fun hating yourself.
  • A small punch after the Golden Ending. After the credits rolled, Flowey will appear, begging the player not to restart the game so all characters can stay happy. While it probably made a few players decide against doing the genocide route, it just punches hard that he knows that some will not turn back and will willingly destroy the happiness of all characters out of mere curiosity. Just to emphasize: this is a game that preemptively guilt-trips you for starting a new game.
  • Even outside of the No Mercy route, there's one major point where, if you've been playing the game like a normal RPG, the game turns normally generic mechanics on its head by explaining that EXP isn't experience, nor is LOVE level, they're actually measures of a growing sociopathy, a numbness to inflicting pain on others without hurting just as badly yourself, finishing the game with a high LOVE basically means you've given up on being a kind person just because it was easy.
• Vagrant Story features a cultist named Hardin who is, for all appearances, Sydney's right-hand man. There is also a boy Sydney and Hardin kidnapped, Joshua. Throughout the game, Hardin receives a good deal of character development - we find out that he once had a younger brother, who was very ill. Hardin went to prison for selling weapons on the side (after betraying his fellows in the hopes that doing so would allow him to go free), and while he was in prison, his brother died. It is heavily implied that Joshua reminds Hardin of his brother. And then, at the end, we get to watch Hardin die slowly, while Joshua speaks for the first time - "No, Hardin! Don't go!" Ouch.
• The prologue of Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume ends with a fight where you're forced to use the Plume on your best friend Ancel, who is built up as a main character and has a love interest. For reference, using the Plume turns a party member of your choosing into a walking Game-Breaker capable of single-handedly winning the current battle, plus it gives you a technique that is a Game-Breaker in itself. However, it sacrifices their soul.
• Valkyria Chronicles has Isara, Welkin's cute, sweet adopted sister, gunned down by an Imperial sniper halfway through the game.
  • Playing the DLC creates one. Its main character is Johan Oswald Eisen, a sympathetic member of The Empire you're fighting against in the main game. At the end of the final mission, he's promoted and receives a new title: Oswald the Iron. The player might recognize that name: he's one of the Enemy Aces you fight in the main storyline, whom the player probably gunned down for his equipment without a second thought.
  • Not to be outdone, the sequel has the Rebels attacking the military academy halfway through the game, slaughtering hundreds, if not thousands, of hapless students, ultimately culminating in Juliana being brutally murdered by The Brute, just as she finally becomes likable. Oh, and then the school's headmaster is Driven to Suicide.
• Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines has Heather Poe, whose life you save out of pity at the beginning of the game by turning her into your ghoul, a personal blood-addicted slave for whom your blood is like your home and your love and affection. She even drops out of college to spend her time with you and brighten up your bleak unlife. She is the closest thing you have to a friend, being truly grateful to you for saving her life and never trying to manipulate you like others do... AND THEN THOSE SABBAT DREGS KILL HER!!! This is made worse by the fact that if you had the willpower to send Heather away before the final chapters, she would have survived the story and eventually gotten over her addiction to you. You also get a Humanity reward for doing this...
  • Another Player Punch during The Sabbat Raid with blood splatters where Chunk should be. He survives, but it's still one more reason to hate the Sabbat.
• Freeware RPG The Way (RPG Maker) has a few of these. The most painful is probably when Rhue accidentally kills his girlfriend, beginning his transition from Jerk with a Heart of Gold to full-fledged Villain Protagonist.
• A non-fatal variant occurs in Inazuma Eleven 2 when Kazemaru, who has been with you through thick and thin since the very first chapter of the first game, is specifically singled out by The Genesis to be the victim of a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown and gets Put On An Ambulance as a result.
• The Witcher attempted this with White Rayna, giving her the most dramatically extended death in the game, during a cutscene. This worked to varying degrees. Fans of the novels knew her better as the genocidal Black Rayna, and even fans not familiar with that background found her to be a throwaway Replacement Scrappy while the hero's chosen love interest was out of the plot. Reviving her as a mind-controlled zombie mutant may have been a more successful attempt at doubling the punch; at least players who took advantage of her Optional Sexual Encounter could be uneasy with having to kill her themselves.
  • The fact that she was one of the most repulsive characters in the game didn't help her case either.
  • Finding the Dimeritium Medallion on the body of the Big Bad at the end was probably a more effective one.
• Not a death example, but definitely a Player Punch: In The World Ends with You, Shiki is taken as your Entry Fee for Week 2, and you spend the next two weeks trying to get her back. She comes back right as you're about to fight yet another part of the final Boss Rush... and then she gets possessed by the Big Bad.
  • Beat's Start of Darkness was also Player Punch material even earlier than that - as early as Day 4 of Shiki's week. For you hectopascals out there, that's when Rhyme gave herself to save Beat from a Noise ambush.
  • Mid-week 2, the game pulls a 3-hit combo when taboo noise start rampaging. After getting rid of the first set, you meet a lone reaper under attack. You can choose to ignore him and hear him die off-screen or you can choose to save the guy... only to have to be interrupted by another noise. After the battle, the reaper is nowhere to be found. Joshua comments that he was erased while they were distracted.
    • In the next area, you come across Sota and Nao under attack. Nao of them gets promptly erased and this time, Neku DOES decide to get rid of the noise... Unfortunately, without a partner, Sota is doomed already and only offers some words of encouragement before disappearing.
    • And then the game goes and socks you again during the third week. Watching helplessly as Konishi grabs Rhyme as Beat's entry fee and painfully crushes her back into pin form with that horrible little smirk on her face is absolutely brutal. Especially given the sound effects used in that scene; It's so sickening, it's still hard to watch, even after four or five playthroughs.
  • Hell, the scene where it's revealed that Shiki is the entry fee for the second week itself is a Player Punch, considering the fact that she won The Game and was supposed to go back to life, complete with "ascending into the heavens" imagery. By the same token, the scene in the third week, when Neku realizes that the entry fee that was taken was all the other Players, making it impossible for him to play the game, much less win, prompted a whole "you bastard" sentiment towards the Big Bad.
  • Not to mention the fact that before you fight Minamimoto, Neku finally finds out how he died - not being shot by Joshua, but being shot by Minamimoto. Seeing the happy look on his face whilst looking at the mural, and then events that follow....ouch. And because Minamimoto is That One Boss, you get to see Neku's death over, and over, and over...
    • Then at the end of the game, you find out it really was Joshua who shot you. This made a lot of people hate that white-haired sissy. Later, just when he finally stops seeming like a jerk, Joshua gets killed trying to save you.
• Xenoblade Chronicles 1:
  • The first few hours of the game focuses on developing the main characters and their lifestyles, including the relationship between Shulk and Fiora. Fiora becomes a party member early on, and she is the first character you can improve your relationship with, and come to like her as time goes on. So it becomes a devastating Player Punch when Metal Face, despite her best efforts to protect Shulk and their hometown, kills her. It's made worse in that Shulk sees it happen via a vision before it happens, which serves to extend the tension we feel, while also giving us hope he can change the events of that vision since he had done it moments earlier.
  • The eventual fate of most of Alcamoth's population can come as a huge one if you bothered doing all of the quests there. The girl whose friendship you mended? The concerned mother who asked you to do the aforementioned deed for her daughter's sake? The father whose lost children you helped locate? They all end up transformed into monstrous Telethia. Worse, their friends and family later ask you to go into the city and give them a Mercy Kill.

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