Strictly Formula / Video Games

• Ace Combat, from the second game on (at least outside Japan). The protagonist's nation is under attack by another nation, almost always reaching Back from the Brink, then after a series of skirmishes one or more enemy ace squadrons appear. The good guys usually take back their capital or some other important city by half-time. At least one superweapon will be deployed and destroyed. A twist will reveal that the apparent enemy is just a Disc-One Final Boss. An Airstrike Impossible mission will occur. The enemy ace squadron(s) will be shot down. Another superweapon will appear and be destroyed, along with the true enemies. The Player Character will go from annonymous airman to the best pilot in hisotry. Peace is achieved once more. The first game is missing the enemy aces and the major twist, as well as deviating in a few other ways. But exceptions include:
  • In Ace Combat 04: Shattered Skies, Erusea just simply acts out of dickery with no outside influence. In Ace Combat X: Skies of Deception, the war itself was just a ploy for loads of money by the other country's leader, and no enemy squadron acts as Gryphus 1's counterpart, save for the almost-throwaway Alect squadron.
  • Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War doesn't deviate from the formula, but it plays with it a bit by having your squadron unwittingly work for the villains until the major twist. The true enemy is a cabal run by both countries' former mutual enemy, which has infiltrated them and manipulates the pro-war extremists on both sides to prolong the war and cause suffering out of a desire for revenge.
  • Ace Combat 5 also plays with the formulaic mission progression - as in 04, the first twelve or so missions of the game involve pushing the enemy out of your country, followed by invasion of their country. By the 18th mission (which was the last level of 04), you're pushing deep into enemy territory... but it doesn't feel as climactic as the previous game's 18th mission. Then you get surprised with mission 18+, and it turns out you've still got a third of the game to go.
• In Akiba's Trip: Undead and Undressed, three of the game's four (five in the Director's Cut) routes follow the exact same story beats and have identical boss fights, including the Final Boss, with the only difference being which partner accompanies the main character into battles and gets special images.
• BioWare's RPGs from Neverwinter Nights onward have had mostly identical structures: a semi-Tutorial Level, an event that sets up initial quest, the initial quest succeeds at high cost, the status quo is shaken up and leads to a new, more open area with more sidequests, the Player Character attains full status in whatever Heroes "R" Us s/he'd enlisted in (Jedi, Spirit Monk, Spectre, Grey Warden) and receives a larger task to gather four clues/allies. Each part of The Quest occurs in a separate zone and in multiple stages that can be solved in different ways, with numerous Side Quests in each area. Progress in each area, however, will be completely useless towards completing the others, except in terms of equipment and party members recruited there to aid you in combat. A fifth area will open up after three of them are complete, and you may or may not be forced to complete it immediately. Once all five are done, the plot will continue in a linear fashion to the final area, generally without sidequests, and culminate in a cinematic conclusion. Deviations from the formula include:
  • Jade Empire was varied in that the middle section where you gather clues/allies was more linear, with content all in one area instead of split up.
  • Mass Effect 2 replaced the Four MacGuffins with Ten/Twelve Squadmates, which made sections shorter but more diverse. This was very well received.
  • Dragon Age II intentionally averted the formula, instead opting for a Dashed Plot Line with more of a TV season structure. This (among other things) was... not very well received.
• Doom:
  • The series is always some variation of "a UAC base is overrun by demons during the middle of a teleportation experiment, and the Doomguy must kill them all". The series is really ambiguous as to whether or not a given Continuity Reboot (Doom RPG series, Final Doom, the first two novels, etc.) is taking place concurrently or on its own timeline, with the exception of Doom³ which is most certainly its own timeline.
  • Most 32-map long Game Mods for Doom II ape the original game's level progression: the first third of the levels is set in a futuristic high-tech base; the second third is set in cities, castles and other "Earth" locations; the final third is set in Hell. Also, map 7, just like the original, typically involves killing Mancubuses and Arachnotrons, and the final level typically involves a boss fight against something that launches monster-spawning cubes and which requires precisely-aimed rockets fired down a shaft of some sort to damage it. The only real deviation from the formula is that the secret levels are actually connected to whatever bare-bones Excuse Plot the mod has, rather than the completely random Wolfenstein 3-D interlude from the original game.
  • Monster closets in these mods also follow the same general formula, in that 9 times out of 10 they are filled with as many Revenants as possible and open as soon as you grab either a key or a helpful item, which will likely happen every five minutes. Apparently the only way to make a level harder is to spawn a million Revenants in it.
  • The 2016 Continuity Reboot actively invokes this trope as part of the plot, by claiming that all of the Doomguy's exploits are part of a Cycle of Revenge/You Can't Fight Fate situation where his spirit is inextricably bound to fighting demons, and that his constant forays to Hell and back are part of a cosmic balancing act to counteract the forces of the underworld. The reboot itself also throws copious amounts of Lampshade Hanging at the plot itself, with Doomguy being subtly characterized as someone who's fed up with the constant machinations of the surviving people around him and the demons regarding him as The Dreaded in-universe for his actions against them (with it being implied that this has happened many, many times before).
• The Elder Scrolls series: Start with an epic title theme, then let the player customize the Featureless Protagonist, whose only backstory is being a convict^note Daggerfall provides the sole exception, with the protagonist is a friend and agent of the Emperor, but survives a shipwreck on the way to the titular city, making it something of a distinction without difference. At the end of the Tutorial Level, the prisoner is released into the Wide-Open Sandbox with a quest to Save the World and/or to prevent The Empire from crumbling. No matter how grand the task, Take Your Time is the policy (unless the mission comes with a specific time limit, and this only rarely happens) and every Weird Trade Union in the sandbox provides a Sidequest Sidestory at least as long as the main quest. At the end of the latter, the ex-convict receives a fancy title and conspicuously disappears from the series. Put a snappy one-word subtitle referencing the primary location of the game on it and you are done.
• In all Etrian Odyssey games except the fourth and sixth, you're the guide of a new team of explorers determined to delve into the secrets, wonders and dangers of the Yggdrasil Labyrinth. Whether you're climbing it upward or going downward varies, but in all cases you're exploring six strata, with the first five being mandatory to finish the adventure and the sixth being a formidable Bonus Dungeon only for the bravest (or craziest) team. The fourth game shakes it up by having the team travel across the world towards the fabled tree, venturing through four overworld lands (each with its own stratum) in the process. The sixth game does the same thing, except the explorers are going around the tree before getting in.
• The Fallout series follows a similar set of story beats: the hero - usually but not always a Vault Dweller - must leave their home which, through external circumstances, they cannot return to. They must travel through the Wasteland, recruiting companions along the way, to find what they're looking for: either something that will save their home or a lost family member, or both. They can help struggling towns, join themed factions, and complete a number of side quests. Along the way, a larger threat presents itself, and by the time the hero finds what they're looking for, it in some way has been rendered invalid by the larger conflict. Ultimately, the hero takes charge of whatever faction they choose and decide the conflict once and for all. Of all the games, only Fallout: New Vegas strays from this, and even they keep the main beats (searching for an artifact, side quests, goofy side factions, larger conflict) but changes up the details.
• Final Fantasy has a few plot templates that it tends to revisit. You can make a workable Final Fantasy plot outline out of mixing and matching them:
  • Four warriors rise up to bring light to the Crystals that keep the forces of nature working (I, III, IV, V, IX, The 4 Warriors of Light);
  • A band of unlikely heroes must come together and fight against The Empire, only the Empire ends up being a minor threat compared to the godlike force of nature that has it in its thrall (II, VI, VII, VIII, XII, XIII. X is an inversion, where the godlike force is the first opponent but it turns out The Empire is the true enemy.);
  • Halfway through the game the world gets destroyed or damaged, putting us in a changed world map. You Can't Thwart Stage One and so the rest of the game will be spent killing the Big Bad before he/she finishes what he/she is trying to do (V, VI, VIII. VII touched on this mildly);
  • An Omnicidal Maniac villain. In FF using the crystals it will represent the element of Void between Light and Darkness. In others it will either be a god, or be attempting to become a god. Likely to have white hair.
  • There are three women in the party - a noble, strong-hearted princess-type, a streetwise, clever flirt, and a precocious childish girl (II, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XII). This can be played with:
    • IV doesn't quite fit. Rosa is one of the clearest examples of the princess-type in Final Fantasy, but Rydia is encountered first as a precocious child, and later as an sexy adult... but she keeps her more childish, innocent personality. Porom, who is only encountered as a child, acts confident and mature, and is, if anything, more grown-up than Cecil.
    • VII fits the three roles, but has princess-type be the streetwise, clever flirt, while the noble, strong-hearted girl is a girl-next-door type who works as a bartender and fistfights.
    • XIII has a sexy girl and a childish girl but the third girl blends the princess archetype with the role of the Bishounen boy hero expanded on below.
    • XV has the three roles, but gives them to three male characters (mean, sexy Gladio; childish and innocent Prompto; and Noctis, who like his predecessor in XIII with whom he is meant to contrast, combines the strong-hearted prince(ss) role with the boy hero part.)
  • The hero is a pretty swordsman who is probably more thoughtful and introspective than the typical RPG protagonist (even FF's biggest Idiot Hero, Bartz from V, has a sad backstory that stops him in his tracks at times). If it's a PS1 game he will also be a bit humorously adolescent as a personality quirk, and if Tetsuya Nomura designed him he will probably be a Perpetual Frowner with a Defrosting Ice King arc (Tidus of X is the one exception);
  • The setting is a mixture of historical stuff and sci-fi-influenced Magic from Technology, if not pure modern-day-but-with-Magitek;
  • Eidolons/Summons/Espers may offer support to the heroes on their journey or manipulate events behind the scenes;
  • A man named Cid will appear and help the party get access to an airship;
  • While facing the final boss, who will probably be a God of Evil and/or Faux Symbolism angelic image, the heroes' friends all over the world and in the afterlife will pray for the heroes, sending them the strength to deal with it (most early ones).
• Fire Emblem plots can basically be described as follows: The Good Prince's country is invaded by The Empire. You Killed My Father! The prince goes on a quest to gather allies and reclaim his throne, coming into conflict with a Tin Tyrant and an Evil Sorcerer. He eventually gets his hands on the Infinity +1 Sword and skewers the Disc-One Final Boss, at which point the Eldritch Abomination Greater-Scope Villain will rear its ugly head. The prince kills that and lives Happily Ever After, the end. While there have been variations on the formula over the years, the only true exceptions are Fire Emblem: Thracia 776 (a midquel where you control an underdog who spends half of the story just running from the empire) and Fire Emblem Fates: Conquest and Fire Emblem: Three Houses' Crimson Flower route (where you are actually on the empire's side).
• Many Kirby platform games (among them Kirby's Adventure, Kirby's Return to Dream Land, and Kirby Triple Deluxe) follow a distinct formula.
  • Popstar, or occasionally a series of other planets, is endangered or inconvenienced in some way and Kirby heads off to stop it. The first world is always a grassland world, and island and snow worlds are also commonly seen. Levels are usually connected via a Hub Level. The Big Bad and/or Final Boss almost inevitably turns out to be way creepier and more threatening than the game would suggest, often being some eldritch entity. Beating the game will also typically unlock a Boss Rush mode.
  • Games from Return to Dreamland onward have their own subformula. There are typically six or seven worlds to go through, and world names are alliterative and spell out a plot-relevant acronym (V-I-B-G-Y-O-R, C-R-O-W-N-E-D, F-L-O-W-E-R, etc). The last world will end in a battle against The Dragon, followed immediately by the Big Bad introducing themself and the plot thickening as a lore dump ensues. After defeating what appears to be the final boss, it turns out that there is an even greater threat to deal with. The player, sometimes after an Unexpected Shmup Level, then goes to the Post-Final Level and faces the real final boss, which ends with a Coup de Grâce Cutscene with quicktime events, and the day is saved and everyone goes home. An extra mode unlocks allowing you to play the game again but as another character or something similar. Also, the optional Boss Rush unlocks, and after beating the normal version, one with extra difficulty will unlock which holds the True Final Boss at the end, a souped-up version of the regular final boss who, instead of the Coup de Grâce Cutscene, will have an extra, unique phase to them.
• The Legend of Zelda:
  • Each dungeon in the series is typically preceded by being forced to perform some task in the Overworld in order to open the door or access the dungeon. The dungeons themselves follow the pattern of "Enter dungeon, defeat the miniboss to get new item (or possibly just finding the item in the dungeon and using it to beat the miniboss), use new item to defeat boss, use new item to open/get to next dungeon, lather, rinse, repeat".
  • From A Link to the Past onwards, almost all console games (as well as Phantom Hourglass and A Link Between Worlds which are handhelds) start with a quest for three plot coupons, followed by a storyline twist that (depending on the game) might lead to exploring 3, 5 or 7 additional dungeons before meeting the Big Bad. Before or after the plot twist, the Master Sword may be collected. The NES and handheld games, as well as Majora's Mask and Breath of the Wild, showcase instead a quest for an even number of Plot Coupons (4-8) that is carried over through the entire adventure. Subversions happen at times, though, as in the case of The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks having an extra dungeon after the main four, or The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap having one more as well due to a case of Your Princess Is in Another Castle! in one of the earlier dungeons.
  • Aonuma and Miyamoto went out of their way to change up the Zelda formula for The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword. Not only is the rest of the overworld dungeon-like, most of the dungeons themselves sport the format of a more compact space, but a higher density in puzzles, enemies and obstacles. This is best appreciated with the first three dungeons, whose goal of completion isn't even on the Plot Coupons (you do collect some in the first two, but finding Zelda is the main focus). Also, half the boss fights take place outside the conventional dungeons - this includes the airborne battle against a Bilocyte-controlled Levias, the finale against Ghirahim, the Final Boss and all three battles with the Imprisoned. Also, the first fight with Ghirahim breaks formula even further—you actually can't use the dungeon's item (the Beetle) to even inflict damage on this guy, let alone defeat him. Straight-up swordplay time!
  • The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds, while being quite old-school otherwise, breaks the formula regarding dungeon items, as you rent them from a shop instead of finding them in the dungeons themselves. This means there are fewer Broken Bridges and linearity than in previous installments.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild takes the modern Zelda formula and smashes it with full force against the wall. Whatever sticks is tossed into a blender with the very first game's nonlinear, open-world formula and some Survival Sandbox elements such as Breakable Weapons and Item Crafting (cooking food in this case). The result is an Elder Scrolls-esque open world where you can tackle the quests and dungeons in any order you want, just like in the first game. No more finding special items and gadgets, those are given to you from the get-go after a few tutorials. And the Master Sword is no longer a Sword of Plot Advancement, just a good (and unbreakable) sword. It's also optional; in fact, you can skip it, the quests and the dungeons and just dash straight to the Final Boss right after the tutorials, in your underwear armed with a few sticks.
• To an extent Wily escapes and comes back with another plan to take over the world once more in the Mega Man (Classic) series. Any new villain is either really Wily in disguise, or is being manipulated by him. Wily is always the villain, and there's always 8 Robot Masters (except in the first game, where Wily only stole six of the eight robots).
• The Mega Man X series to an extent. New reploids are introduced and they turn out to be evil or just backstab people. Usually Sigma is involved. In fact, it's a plot twist in the last game when he really wasn't secretly behind it.
• Metal Gear:
  • The series is extremely repetitive, starting from Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, which originated the default plot template of the series and introduced the basic obstacles the protagonist has to face - a Quirky Miniboss Squad with weird powers who give out their backstory before dying, a run up a staircase chased by enemies, a boss fight with four soldiers in an enclosed space, meeting a female soldier in disguise, a fight with a Cyber Ninja who used to be the hero's friend, using a shape memory alloy key, a female character getting tragically shot by a sexy adversary on a long pinch point between two tower buildings, mysterious radio calls about avoiding Claymore mines which eventually turn out to be from a disguised enemy, the hero having to dive off a building, a fight with a Hind D, etcetera.
  • Metal Gear Solid added in a few extra points such as a lead villain who is an Evil Counterpart hellbent on getting revenge on the hero, and sequences involving breaking panels with a Nikita missile to rescue a hostage. As Metal Gear Solid and Metal Gear: Ghost Babel are just as much remakes of Metal Gear 2 as they are sequels, they both play the plot structure very straight.
  • Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty also repeated most of this (with a few Expy swaps here and there, such as a Harrier jet instead of a Hind D), and found a way to work it into the storyline by establishing that the entire story of the game was a purposeful retread in order to convert the main character into a copy of Solid Snake, by forcing him to relive his greatest adventure.
  • Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops also borrows a lot from this plot structure, adding a Ninja and an evil 'brother' for Big Boss, but switches it up a little by having Big Boss go through the formula grinder instead of Snake or Raiden, showing how his reactions are fairly different.
  • Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater and Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots have different plots, although the latter incorporates a lot of mostly superficial Internal Homage.
  • Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker and Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain also had different plots, though still with similar elements, while Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes had a condensed version of the same formulaic plot.
• Metroid:
  • Samus Aran lands on a planet or space station on a mission from the Galactic Federation. Sometimes you might get an explanation for that game's Bag of Spilling, but in any case, Samus must make her way through the various areas and locales presented to the player by using the power-ups she gains by defeating bosses. At some point, generally at the end of the game, you fight a Load-Bearing Boss; if it is at the end of the game, you get Samus barely escaping an Earth-Shattering Kaboom. Cue credits and our heroine gracing the player with her face if they beat the game fast enough (or a Sequel Hook if you're playing the Prime games).
  • Each game in the Metroid Prime Trilogy follows a sub-formula on its own. You explore three main areas that each have a Plot Coupon guarded by a Marathon Boss. After you collect these, you must now explore all three areas again in a Fetch Quest for 9-12 items related to the access to the final stage, where the Final Boss awaits. Metroid Prime: Hunters, being a Gaiden Game, skips the first bit and has the fetch quest as the primary objective in the game from the get-go.
• The cutscenes in Mutant Rampage: Bodyslam — save for the intro and ending — have the same basic dialogue structure, almost as if it was written in a madlib program. The recycled animation doesn't help much.
• Pokémon:
  • The mainline entries:
    • You're a kid who gets a Fire/Water/Grass starter and a Pokédex from the local professor, then leaves their small town to go on a journey to collect eight Gym badges, defeat the region's Elite Four and Champion, and cement themselves as one of the strongest trainers around. Oh, and in the middle of all this, you encounter an evil team and find yourself as the only one capable of stopping their plans, which tend to involve you having to fight a legendary Pokémon or two.
    • There is some flexibility with how the "evil team" plot affects your Pokémon League challenge. Most entries have you foil their plans or make their leader see reason by the eighth Gym, but others mix-it up a bit. For example, Black and White and Sword and Shield have the villain's plot preempt or interrupt the fight against the Champion, with the former even having the credits roll once you beat them, leaving the Champion fight as part of the post-game. There are also occasionally post-game storylines that serve as epilogues for the events of the main story, such as the Sevii Islands in FireRed and LeafGreen or Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire's "Delta Episode."
    • Sun and Moon introduced another twist to the formula that returned in later games, having the villain team actually be secondary threats in favor of a Hidden Villain.
    • The Gen VII Alola games (Sun and Moon and Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon) depart from the Gym system and instead implements the Trial system, which involves performing various tasks and challenges, followed by a fight with a powerful "Totem Pokémon" at the end.
    • Sword and Shield foregoes the Elite Four in favor of the Champion Cup: a single-elimination knockout tournament against your rivals and previous Gym Leaders.
    • Another recurring part of the formula are rival characters who are meant to be the most personal opponents you fight, who also use the starter Pokemon you do not select. Initially they started off as jerks, but Ruby and Sapphire threw Friendly Rivals into the mix as the most common rivals throughout the franchise.
    • The professor is also often introduced (although not in the earliest games of the series) from the first moment you start the game, often addressing the player and introducing them to the world of Pokemon, while the player decides their gender, name, and appearance, before actual gameplay then begins. Sword and Shield broke the trend by having Rose (a chairman and the true antagonist) be the one to introduce the world of Pokemon instead.
  • Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: You start out the game as a human that has been turned into a Pokémon. Soon after, you meet a partner Pokémon who wants to form an exploration team with you. The first half of the game is just the two of you going on adventures, while in the second half, there is an apocalyptic event that needs to be stopped by the team. There's always one Pokémon that seems to be nice, but turns out to be evil. The apocalypse is eventually stopped after taking down a version mascot legendary (as well as an Eldritch Abomination in the last two games). However, it ends in a tearjerking scene where the player character (and in the last game, the partner) must disappear from the world, although they're always brought back.
  • Oddly enough, Pokémon Legends: Arceus (a mainline entry in the series) completely abandoned the formula of those games in favor of following the Pokémon Mystery Dungeon spin-off formula. The only major difference from the PMD formula after making the appropriate human/Pokémon substitutions is that you don't return back to your original time period at the end of the game.
• Professor Layton's formula is as follows: Layton gets a letter telling him to go to a certain town, town has secret of some sort, Evil Tower of Ominousness is present, Layton unmasks disguised villain, town secret is revealed (it's always completely insane), Layton does something really fucking badass, Big Bad is thwarted (usually this villain is sympathetic in some way), player is left crying for one reason or another, then one last puzzle. Not always in this order, so the degree to which it's strictly formula varies. There are three minigames, you unlock extra content for these minigames by solving specific puzzles, beating these minigames 100% unlocks a trio of bonus puzzles each. The formula is shaken in the sixth and seventh main games, though in different ways: Azran Legacy has Layton and his friends visit multiple locations instead of one while working on their overarching case, while Mystery Journey has it the other way around as the new protagonist (Layton's daughter) works on multiple cases in London instead of one.
• Saints Row and Saints Row 2 had a very specific formula for their respective main storylines. In the opening scene, the Featureless Protagonist finds himself in the Vice City of Stilwater, which is controlled by three large gangs and a thoroughly corrupt police force. The fourth gang, the 3rd Street Saints, starts off with no turf to their name, but this quickly changes when Playa/Boss (re)joins them. Playa meets three Saints lieutenants, each of whom is ordered to investigate one of the rival gangs. Each gang is Color-Coded for Your Convenience, represents a particular ethnicity (black, Hispanic, Asian, Caucasian), and controls a particular Black Market niche (any combination of drugs, small arms, gambling, prostitution, pornography, car theft, and street racing). Playa can tackle them in any order, one mission at a time, with each gang's story arc having roughly the same Narrative Beats: 1) Playa draws attention to the Saints by taking and/or destroying rival merchandise, facilities, vehicles, and key personnel; 2) the rivals retaliate by either assaulting his home turf, the Saints Row (in the first game), or by kidnapping and/or killing the Saints' lieutenant assigned to them (second game); 3) Playa retaliates in kind, killing the responsible rival lieutenant or even their leader; 4) which prompts another retaliation against his lieutenants or turf; 5) Playa mobilizes the Saints to break the spine of the rivals' business; 6) the rivals pull all stops and take desperate measures that invariably fail, losing most of their power base; 7) Playa delivers one final humiliation, either by taking over the rivals' business completely or by eradicating their remaining fighting force; 8) which finally allows him to go after the rivals' leader or last surviving lieutenant, ending them for good. Once all three rival gangs are destroyed, another short mission sequence against a fifth faction, which has only been pulling the strings until now, rounds off the game's story with either the Saints' defeat (first game) or utter domination (sequel).
• Ken Levine's three Shock games (System Shock 2, BioShock and BioShock Infinite) all follow the same general narrative structure (as described by Ben Croshaw: "An oblivious man with a significant history arrives in a large residential environment in an unconventional location and must piece together a backstory involving a discovery that corrupted the people."). System Shock 2 and BioShock even use the same mid-game twist (in which Mission Control is revealed to be the game's actual villain). They are likewise very similar in terms of gameplay: all three games are first-person shooters with prominent RPG Elements, affording the player a creative and deep blend of gunplay and sci-fi superpowers. Infinite recognizes the similarities in the game's final chapters: There's always a man, there's always a city, there's always a lighthouse.
• The Sonic the Hedgehog series almost always sticks to two basic plots;
  • The original games almost always used the basic "Mad scientist is making trouble, go stop him!" plot, with very few exceptions or different villains, and even the handful of new villains in spinoff like Tails Adventure tended to be one note bad guys who would vanish after their debut.
  • From Sonic Adventure and on, the main series tried to shake things up by shifting from the previous basic plot to introducing grand-scale conflicts inflicted by a new, monstrous villain or occasional Anti-Villain, usually unwittingly released by the main villain, who is often usurped in threat by it, complete with a climatic showdown with it in an eleventh hour superpowerful form — but unfortunately, this (especially the latter) ended up becoming an overused series formula as well.
  • Currently, the series has fallen back on the more straightforward formula of the original games, while sandwiching in some new minor villains along the way.
• The Strider series consists of "The Resistance makes Strider Hiryu parachute into villain-occupied Russian city to chop up futuristic stormtroopers, the Kuniang sisters, a flying bounty hunter, and usually a robotic dragon before he finally takes on Grandmaster Meio". The only direct sequel even brought Meio Back from the Dead just to keep the formula, though it otherwise shook things up with a rogue Strider and levels outside of Russia.
• Super Mario Bros.:
  • Bowser kidnaps the princess, go save her. Eight worlds. Starts with a grass world, then usually a desert world and a water themed world. Various other stock location themes in the middle, such as ice, sky, and mountains. Ends in a volcanic world, fight through Bowser's Castle, defeat Bowser, save princess. And in each world, expect to find a fortress guarded by a Mini-Boss, as well as a Castle housing the local Boss at the end. This formula becomes more noticeable in the New Super Mario Bros. subseries, as the only old-school game to faithfully follow it is Super Mario Bros. 3.^note Neither Super Mario Bros. nor The Lost Levels have any explicitly-themed worlds, nor bosses or minibosses other than Bowser and his copies; Super Mario Bros. 2 was the first to have most of the usual themed worlds as well as its own recurring miniboss, but its story and antagonist are different; Super Mario World has it the other way around by having the familiar story and villain, but the settings and themed worlds are different; lastly, both Super Mario Land games are different in nearly every regard, even between each other.
  • 3D Super Mario Bros. 120 collectible items (Stars or Shine Sprites). Every so often this unlocks a new world, you fight Bowser three times including the final battle, some form of coin collecting mission is involved somewhere and you can always reach the final battle with around half the stars/shine sprites you need for 100% completion, although it gives you a shorter ending. This pattern is changed with Super Mario 3D Land and Super Mario 3D World, in which the collectible items (Star Medals and Green Stars, respectively) are only secondary, and the worlds are structured in the style of the 2D games. Super Mario Odyssey sticks closer to the usual 3D formula, but the number of plot coupons (Power Moons) is much higher (880 without counting the purchasable Moons from shops) and Bowser is only fought twice.
  • With the Mario series' rigid story structure being so set in stone, the RPG spinoffs have gone out of their way to hang lampshades on it in the style of "The princess got kidnapped? That's the third time this week!", usually putting some kind of spin on it.
  • The fan game/ROM hack formula; take the same formula for the 2D games listed above, then add 'after Bowser is defeated, there's a plot twist as this [new villain from some other franchise] takes over, go stop him in his own dimension'. Every single VIP Mario game follows this. Brutal Mario mostly does. An SMWC Production does. A Super Mario Thing does (except with Bowser replaced with King Charles). It's very likely the bonus world will be some surrealistic crazy fourth wall breakng area with lots of gimmicks too.
• The Tales Series, while usually putting a new spin on them each time, has a lot of identifiable recurring elements:
  • The story always starts as an apparent Cliché Storm, until about halfway through, a Wham Episode happens and everything begins to go in a completely unexpected direction, often with the story deconstructing the clichés it was playing straight before.
  • The story will have something to do with conflict or discrimination between different races.
  • The party will always be a Gender-Equal Ensemble. Most party members will be in their teens or twenties, except for one who is much older, being at least in their thirties. There will also often be one party member who is a child and/or a Team Pet.
  • One party member will always turn out to be The Mole, but they will have a sympathetic reason for their actions and will join the fight against the Big Bad for real after they're found out.
  • Speaking of the Big Bad, they will always be a Knight Templar who is using extreme measures to try to achieve a mostly noble goal. Often, they will be trying to fix the aforementioned conflict or discrimination issues but going about it the wrong way. The party will sympathize with their goals but not their means, and will usually make a final attempt to convince them to change their ways before the final battle.
  • The Elemental Summon Spirits can be expected to make an appearance in some form.
  • There will often be a Duel Boss that's very important to the story. Usually, it will happen near the end of the game and be between the hero and one of their allies.
• Telltale Games became fairly notorious for this in their post-The Walking Dead years, and internal documents released after the company folded show that it was company policy in a vain effort to recapture the magic (and success) of The Walking Dead — a darkly-toned episodic adventure game based on an existing license that largely ditches traditional inventory puzzles in favor of a focus on choices (that don’t matter) and Quick Time Events, characters occasionally remembering prior decisions, and a big climactic ending where the main character has to make a major choice.
• Touhou has a similar plot for each game: some Big Bad (who is never really evil) causes some incident that gets the protagonists' attention, protagonists go out and beat up unrelated bosses for a few stages (usually two), until finally encountering someone related to the incident at hand (typically a minion of the Big Bad, but not always), which sets them on the track towards resolving the incident. The Big Bad's Battle Butler is fought on Stage 5, the Big Bad herself on Stage 6, then everyone has a tea party. In the Extra Stage, the protagonists wind up fighting someone who had absolutely no relevance to the events of the main game, but is usually related to the Big Bad (family, friend or sometimes enemy). This boss is typically presented as more powerful than the Big Bad herself. Some subversions do occur occasionally: In Unidentified Fantastic Object, for example, the first boss is immediately relevant to the story (though the second is not). In Double Dealing Character, meanwhile, the Big Bad is beaten first, in stage 5, while her Unwitting Pawn is the Final Boss.

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