For a dating sim video game with outwardly silly premise about going through portal and hanging out with anthropomorphic dragons (and its working title — "Dragon Dating Simulator" — certainly doesn't help), the story in Angels with Scaly Wings is surprisingly complex and surprisingly tragic. So you better have a box of tissues ready when you play it.
- For starters, the main plot thread in the game revolves around the fact that both humanity and dragonkind are endangered. The former already went through worldwide societal and civilizational collapse due to powerful solar flare and its last surviving city (the protagonist's home) is about to run out of resources soon, rendering human race either regressed to Stone Age or outright extinct. The latter is going to suffer the same fate as the dinosaurs if nothing is done about the incoming asteroid. So you spend most of the game trying to Save Both Worlds... and inevitably failing. In nearly every possible ending, no matter how hard you try, you are able to save only one of two civilizations, while the other one is doomed (not to mention scenarios where both of them are wiped out). Either the protagonist's friends and relatives in their hometown or dragons they met and befriended on the other side of the portal — they all die. And until you unlock the "true" ending, there is nothing you can do to prevent it.
- The protagonist's reaction to Anna's murder. Bryce doesn't even have to say it was Anna, despite his warnings the protagonist walks by him and finds her corpse. They note she's not even entirely covered, her tail and hand exposed, and laments she wasn't even given dignity in death.
- Remy's story arc. Oh, dear gods, the Remy's story arc. At first glance, he appears to be perfectly happy and cheerful fellow, but it soon turns out how miserable his life is, between serving as a personal Butt-Monkey of his Mean Boss, being a general laughing stock due to his clumsiness and insecurity, and inability to move on from personal tragedy that completely ruined his plans for happy life with someone he loved.
- The moment since everything went downhill for Remy was the death of his girlfriend Amelia, whom he already planned to marry and live together with. She was a part of a science team competing over government funds for their research, while Remy was a part of a committee which evaluated all the projects. They have met and fallen in love before the whole thing, but in order to avoid accusations of favouritism, they decided not to meet each other for a few months. In that time, Amelia fell ill, but refused to take a sick leave because her project was behind schedule already. So she kept working overtime as her condition deteriorated. One night, in the winter, she left the lab in order to refill her medicine supply, but — overworked, exhausted by sickness and furtherly weakened by the side effects of her drugs — she collapsed on the street. When she was found the next morning, her body was already covered by blanket of fresh snow. She was dead.
- Remy confides the story of his life to you during the third date. You can tell how much weight he is taking off his heart, especially when he can no longer hold back tears and starts crying. At that moment, you just want to hug the poor guy and tell him that everything is going to be okay.
- For extra heartbreak, after Remy tells his story, try talking about it with Adine, who used to be Amelia's friend. She reveals that at the time of her death, Amelia was pregnant with her and Remy's child.
- A subtle one, but during your first date with Remy, you can find a trash can full of tissues. The protagonist just assumes that Remy's sick and working through it...and then you read his notebook and while you can't read his handwriting...the first two letters are 'A...m'...
- Not tragic enough? Then you should know that if you decide to date Remy only to be mean towards him (or just not supportive enough), you will have to face the grave consequences of your actions. Namely, when you visit his home later while doing some busywork for police investigation, you find... Remy's lifeless body, hanging from the ceiling. Apparently, he could not take it anymore and decided to put an end to his misery.
- Let that sink in for a moment. Remy was in deep depression and had already lost the joy of life when you met him. But when you appeared in his life, he considered you a friend and hoped that you can help him change things for the better. That is why he confided to you and sought your support. But when you failed him, he apparently saw no more reasons to live. He is dead now, and it is your fault.
- Worse yet? During the third date, Remy's dialog imply he was already contemplating suicide and came to you in a desperate hope you could give him a reason not to go through with it.
Remy: Some days, I just don't want to do it anymore. I don't know how much longer I can.- Still not heartwrenching enough? The key to unlocking Remy's "good" ending is suggesting him to adopt a child, since he wanted to start a family with Amelia so badly. He decides to adopt a young, recently orphaned dragoness named Vara and it turns out to actually give his life a new purpose and make him happy again. Vara herself grows attached to her adoptive father and all in all, things are looking up. So now everything should be fine and dandy again, right? Wrong. In a huge Gut Punch during the finale, Vara wanders near the portal while following Remy, gets in Reza's way and is shot dead by him. On Remy's own eyes. The sight of him, crying over her bloodied and lifeless body is just hard to take. And this is supposed to be the "good" ending...
- His bad ending is even worse: he never bonds with Vara, but due to everything that happens, Remy is left the Last of His Kind, the only surviving dragon trapped in the human world.
- Vara's story itself is heart-wrenching: her father was murdered by Reza, leaving her and her mother alone. They end up living in a cave, her mother very sick and Vara trying to care for her...only for her mother to die and Vara to continue trying to help her, unknowing or unwilling to admit her mother is dead. Bryce says during his route, if you didn't save Vara, that she eventually died too. The prequel comic makes it worse, as it shows her family was happy, taking good care of her, and trying to have a loving life in the town, only for the parents to both die horribly and their daughter to be orphaned.
- Anna's story is downright tragic as well. She is suffering from terminal illness (a cancer, to be exact), she knows her days are numbered, and is taking desperate means trying to prevent her own impending death. So desperate, in fact, that she decides to use controversial research methods to devise a cure. Those methods required official permission, which was ultimately not granted, making all her research illegal. In spite of that, she still secretly continues them when the game takes place. After all, it's her life we're talking about. Naturally, this is eventually discovered by the police, and when Anna visits you later, she is visibly on a verge of crying, now afraid that she is not only going to slowly die of disease, but she will be rotting in prison while at it. As much of a Jerkass Anna is, she certainly does not deserve such cruel fate that befell her.
- The reason why Anna is such a Jerkass in the first place? Being a Child Prodigy and doing scientific work at young age already, she was apparently never shown genuine kindness by other people, who treated her less like person, and more like some wonderful machine just doing the job its programmed to do with no feelings of its own. She is certainly bitter about the fact that she's expected to be nice and kind when she never got such treatment from others (until she met the protagonist, at least)... and now she is not only just left to die, but also punished for trying to save herself.
- Anna saving the protagonist's life in "bad" ending by shielding them with her own body when Reza fires at them. Granted, this is partially because she knew she is going to die anyway... but at least, she wanted to die doing something worthwhile, like saving the one person she grew to care about. The one person who had shown her kindness and expected nothing in return.
- How she meets her end "good" ending of her story arc is arguably even worse. She survives the encounter with Reza, she stops him and helps to save the world (the world of dragons, at least) and she is even cleared of all charges... but she still cannot continue her research, and since the contact with human world is lost, she is consumed by cancer anyway. The last time you see her, she lies dying on hospital bed and ruefully looks at you, able to find comfort only in the fact that at the very least, she is not alone. Seriously, what is "good" about this ending, exactly?
- For anyone who happens to know someone who had passed away from terminal illness — be it relative or close friend — the last sight of Anna described above may strike particularly familiar territory...
- Angels With Broken Hearts actually shows the moment Anna got the bad news: Anna paces in her room, knocks a trophy off a shelf, then explodes in rage at the letter, cussing at it, flipping it off, and then stomps on the letter over and over...before falling to the ground and just staring at it despondently, making it clear that she was using anger to avoid breaking down. Even worse? This happened during Miles' rampage while she was dating him and Maverick.
- In the game, Anna says she and Maverick grew apart. Angels With Broken Hearts reveals that was a lie: she broke up with him because the only real outcome she could see of remaining with him was him having to watch her die.
- While not as bad as some of the others, in Adine's route she's injured and still wants to be part of the stunt competition regardless because she sees it as something she has to do if she's going to ever make it anywhere. If she's allowed to perform...she dies. If the player wishes to avert this, they have to tell her she can't perform in her state, including reminding her of some harsh truths and how her death wouldn't just effect her, but the ones she loves. Adine is furious and clearly hurt...but once she calms down willingly relents and somberly admits the protagonist was right. The only way to save Adine is to say something that hurts her, even if it's what she needs to hear. It's even worse in her Bad Ending, as the asteroid isn't stopped and thus she'll never have another chance and knows it.
- The prequel comic makes it even worse: Adine forced herself to pursue degrees she hated trying to appease her parents, and when she refused to be their 'ideal daughter' anymore and told them her dream to be a stunt flyer, they laughed at her and kicked her out, completely cutting her off. Her anger when the protagonist tells her that suddenly has a completely different meaning.
- Her Bad Ending has a kicker: Reza has killed Maverick and wounded Adine (who's on the ground with tears of pain in her eyes) and the protagonist is forced to let him go to save them...and if you listen to the number of bullets fired (something that the game is extremely consistant on), Reza was out of loaded ammo, meaning the protagonist fell for a bluff. It's the most crushing defeat the player is dealt in any of the endings, and the fact it could've still been a victory makes it all the sader.
- Maverick was forced to kill his own brother to save Bryce after Miles turned into a feral monster due to a degenerative disorder. Even worse is Anna states it was treatable, but he'd been given the wrong medication, meaning it was entirely preventable.
- Angels With Broken Hearts makes it worse by showing Anna was in an open relationship with Miles and Maverick at the same time, and Miles got along well with them both. Even worse is his fate being foreshadowed by his scenes, reminding the audience no matter what his relationship with the two is, he's doomed to become a monster who his brother will have to put down.
- And then it reveals that Maverick's last interactions with Miles before it happened was being angry with Miles over him and Anna using some drugs to make sex better that made them both sick. While Miles messed up, Maverick's last interaction with his brother was being angry with him.
