History Main / CutsceneIncompetence

* ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedIII'':
** Connor is a OneManArmy when he's under player control, leaving it to the cutscenes for him to get variously beaten up, knocked out, dazed, and/or [[spoiler:impaled]]. Granted that in this case it's probably GameplayAndStorySegregation for him to be such a badass when ''not'' in a cutscene.
** In the Battle of the Chesapeake naval mission, the Aquila, which can take out any ship of any size under the player's command, gets its cannons disabled by a broadside from a man o'war, forcing Connor to board the ship in order to defeat it.
* ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedIVBlackFlag'':
** The gameplay has returned to being countering everything for flowing enemy-to-enemy one-hit kills, meaning that Edward is weaker in pretty much every cutscene in which he fights. [[spoiler:For example, him getting parried at an inopportune time; something that would take a second to deal with in gameplay, winds up taking Edward so long to parry out of that Blackbeard gets ran through before he can give him aid.]] Also, the backstory to ''III'' states that [[spoiler:Edward eventually gets killed in a home invasion by a pair of {{Mooks}} sent by a Templar]]. This may or may not be an example of this, as many have pointed out that [[spoiler:the heavily-drinking 42-year-old Edward would hardly be the same unstoppable pirate/Assassin he was in his 20s]]. Still, all we get of that night are memories of the [[spoiler:10-year-old Haytham, which could be mistaken]].
* In every ''Hitman'' game other than ''[[VideoGame/HitmanAbsolution Absolution]]'', Agent 47 is shown to be a perfect assassin who ''never'' fails to eliminate his target or accomplish his objective. ''Absolution'' disregards this and has 47 frequently mess up in cutscenes, some examples include [[spoiler:failing the hit on Diana, failing to kill Blake Dexter the first time, getting framed for the murder of a hotel maid and becoming the victim of a citywide police manhunt]] to name a few.

* ''VideoGame/HeroesOfMightAndMagicVI'': The undead display this in the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzmhb4RqKF0 opening cutscene]]. In-game, skeletons are ranged units with javelins, and [[SpiderPeople fate-spinners]] are shapeshifters who have one form for ranged attacks and another that specialises in melee. In the cutscene, the fate-spinner takes on her ranged form and they all charge into melee against Anton's forces, getting mowed down by Anton and his men.

* [[TheSwarm The Tyranids]] encounter this in their codex for ''[[TabletopGame/Warhammer40000 Warhammer 40K]]''. While most Codices are filled with the annals of success for their respective armies (with maybe a few crushing defeats or pyrrhic victories thrown in for flavor) the Tyranids lose every single one of their battles listed in the codex, and at one point are out-adapted by the Tau, a race notorious for rigid doctrine and regimented discipline. Much blame has been laid on [[ExecutiveMeddling the writer of said codex being notoriously hateful of the Tyranids]], though the in-universe justification seems to be "if they won, you wouldn't be around to hear about it".
* A common trope in pulp novels is "hero gets captured by bad guy". The ''[[TabletopGame/HeroSystem Pulp Hero]]'' rulebook notes that players ''hate'' to have their characters be captured. Their recommendation is to talk to the players ahead of time if you really want to run a capture-and-escape, and make sure everyone is cool with the occasional GM-fiat capture.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Mass Effect|1}}'', on Feros, you encounter mind controlled colonists in the Zhu's Hope colony; you can try not to kill them (by using special narcotic gas grenades or punching them); this works quite well and many players manage to actually not kill any colonist at all - but then, the colony's leader Fai Dan appears in a cutscene, pointing a gun at Shepard and saying that he doesn't want to kill Shepard, then shooting himself in the head. However, the player would have already incapacitated him with a gas grenade at that point.
** This also interacts hilariously with the NewGamePlus feature. As the first mission begins, you start with Kaidan and RedShirt [[LeeroyJenkins Richard L. Jenkins]] as your squadmates. The latter seems like a normal party member, down to having skill points that you can allocate to abilities, but is killed by without firing a shot a couple minutes in by a basic Geth drone. In the first playthrough, he's weak enough for this to make sense. However, in a second playthrough, he, like everyone else, will be a level 50-something badass who you can give a fully maxed-out Combat Armor stat and the best armor in the game. He still dies in one shot.

* In ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIVOblivion'', you are frozen in place for a number of cutscenes, including the murder of the Emperor that happens right in front of your eyes. It's justified by the strength and swiftness of the assassins, but the fact that you are forced to stand there probably speaks to the creators' fear of you successfully intervening.

* The original 1988 NES version of ''VideoGame/NinjaGaiden'' was one of the first video games ever to feature this trope. Despite being an elite ninja, Ryu is knocked out and captured by Irene Lew in a cutscene after the first level, and only gets out of prison after she lets him out. He later gets captured by CIA agents (the second time he's captured in a span of 3 levels) and forced to work for them. Eventually he is manipulated by a HostageForMacGuffin situation in which he hands over the demon statues Jaquio to prevent him from killing Irene. [[ILied Naturally]], Jaquio takes the statues, doesn't release Irene, and dumps Ryu down a pit trap, forcing him to fight through long levels just to get back to Jaquio again
* While ''VideoGame/DevilMayCry'' titles usually play [[CutscenePowerToTheMax Cutscene Power Beyond the Max]], this can crop up if a particularly good player is at the reins. For example, part of getting one of the games' {{Bragging Rights Reward}}s involves pulling off a NoDamageRun -- and yes, it is harder to do than it looks. Immediately after a FlawlessVictory battle against the first Vergil encounter in ''VideoGame/DevilMayCry3DantesAwakening'', Dante gets beaten up as if Vergil had been holding the upper hand at along. Dante also seems to take other hits unnecessarily in cutscenes, given that the games can be completed without taking damage at all and that he has a parry-style move that briefly grants NighInvulnerability. An attempt to [[JustifiedTrope justify]] (or {{Handwave}}) this is made after the first run-in with him as a boss fight in ''VideoGame/DevilMayCry4'', where he claims that he might have underestimated Nero's abilities.
* ''Franchise/TombRaider'':
** ''VideoGame/TombRaiderII'' has Lara being knocked out by a guy with a spanner in a cutscene, despite you killing (and shrugging off the blows of) many near-identical enemies over the previous few levels.
** ''VideoGame/TombRaiderIII'' has an example that's initiated by the player; in the Nevada Desert level, they have to do a daring ramp jump over a high fence on a quad bike. Once this happens, the following cutscene shows Lara failing the jump miserably, knocking herself out and getting captured.
** ''VideoGame/TombRaiderChronicles'' has a cutscene in which Lara nearly falls off a ledge, grabs the edge of it in the nick of time, and... is somehow unable to pull herself up. This is the same Lara who can normally pull herself into a ''handstand'' while hanging off the side of a ledge. Indeed, once the cutscene ends, you can casually hop off the same ledge and do exactly that.
** ''VideoGame/TombRaider2013'' has at least two cutscenes where an armed Lara has clear shots on enemies but doesn't fire. In one, the BigBad is in the process of ''kidnapping her best friend''.

* This appears in ''both'' possible endings for ''[[VideoGame/TheForceUnleashed Star Wars: The Force Unleashed]]''. In the good ending, [[spoiler:Starkiller allows himself to be convinced by his ally Rahm Kota to spare The Emperor's life after he's beaten him in a boss battle, despite Starkiller himself initially predicting (correctly) that The Emperor was only pretending to be completely defeated; then The Emperor attacks and Starkiller [[YouShallNotPass holds him off while the others escape,]] getting killed in an explosion that somehow leaves The Emperor unharmed, and against an opponent that you just beat a minute ago]]. In the evil ending, [[spoiler:The Emperor commands Starkiller to kill a helpless Kota as a final test before becoming a Sith Lord; and, despite the fact that you've already chosen the evil ending and that Starkiller was raised by Darth Vader and has [[RedshirtArmy cut through swathes of enemies]] to get this far, many of them good guys, he rejects the opportunity to seize power and attacks the Emperor, after which he proceeds to get horribly maimed, despite, again, the Emperor's manageable difficulty as an in-game boss fight]].

* ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamSeries'':
** In ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamAsylum'', the final confrontation with ComicBook/TheJoker begins with Batman walking into what is ''obviously'' a trap, spotting a bomb, and ''just standing there like a damned moron while it explodes''. All because the story requires Batman, who is capable of disarming bombs in his sleep and knows when to get out of the area when he sees one in any case, to be disabled by a bomb at this point.
** In ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamCity'', most of Batman's problems would have been solved by giving the player control and letting them do absolutely nothing. Batman is just so stubborn on this game that every word that comes out of his mouth seems to make everything worse.
** A particularly ridiculous example occurs when Batman breaks into the steel mill, only to find [[spoiler:Harley mourning over Joker's presumably dead, wheelchair-bound body. You'd think Batman would be careful to inspect the room, this being '''THE JOKER''' and all, but instead Batman walks straight up to him, switching to Detective Vision to see that it was a dead body, and just stands there and does nothing, leading to his being rendered unconscious for the ''third'' time in the game]].

* The ''VideoGame/NightsIntoDreams'' levels begin with [=NiGHTS=] being held captive, which ''VideoGame/NiGHTSJourneyOfDreams'' accentuates by having poor [=NiGHTS=] ''constantly'' getting captured in cutscenes, a couple times forgetting they have the power to fly.
* In ''VideoGame/TomorrowNeverDies'', the player, as Bond, infiltrates Carver's base in Saigon, effortlessly defeats around twenty mooks, and then gets knocked out from behind by a stray mook during an unskippable cutscene, in order to re-create Bond's meeting with Carver in Saigon from the movie. Also causes an AdaptationInducedPlotHole; Bond's capture in the film has him being cornered by several minions, led by Carver's [[TheDragon second-in-command Stamper]], while Bond is in the middle of the South China Sea, and having nowhere to escape and is forced to surrender. In the game, there's no reason for Bond to be so weak, other than just because.

* The "level is over, time to drop all your weapons" thing was a regular feature of side-scrolling beat 'em ups from ''VideoGame/DoubleDragon'' onward. "That's the end of the level? Oh. I guess I'm not going to need ''this'' any more..."

* ''VideoGame/CaveStory'':
** In the Teleporter Room, you get {{curb|StompBattle}}stomped by a GiantMook that could have been defeatable if it wasn't an NPC.
** When Sue gets curbstomped and dragged off by Igor in the Egg Corridor, the hero just stands there and watches. Admittedly, she did say she could handle him and didn't need any help, but the hero [[WhatTheHellHero can't be that spiteful, right?]]
* In ''VideoGame/StarFoxAdventures'':
** There's a scene where Fox confronts General Scales, and is quickly brought down by a few drones even though the staff can project a nigh-impenetrable force field.
** Fox is faced with the BigBad in a cutscene and takes ten shots at him with his [[KillItWithFire fire-blasting]] staff. He misses ''all ten'' shots at ''point-blank range.'' He even fails to hit the Mook that the BigBad attempted to use as a HumanShield. This coming from an AcePilot, and if dialogue is an indication, a crack shot with personal weapons as well.
* ''VideoGame/Uncharted2AmongThieves'' has a ridiculous number of scenarios where Drake simply stands and watches as bad things happen, when the player would have already opened fire on everything in sight. The key incidents are the dig site, where he simply watches as Lazarevic rants and kills a mook rather than [[CombatPragmatist shoot him]], [[YouCantThwartStageOne ending the entire threat to the world at the beginning of the game]], and [[spoiler:at the Tree of Life in the ending, where he stands back and watches Lazarevic drink the sap, healing his wounds and making him almost invulnerable. Had the player been in control, he would have popped out of cover, fired a rocket at Lazarevic's head, and taken off as the sap begins exploding and brings down Shambahla]].
* ''VideoGame/{{Onimusha}}'' series:
** In ''VideoGame/Onimusha2SamuraisDestiny'', we have Oyu, who, when player-controlled, is more than capable of kicking all sorts of demon ass, but, in a lot of cutscenes she's in, she repeatedly gets her ass handed to her, spends a lot of her time being rescued from [[SmugSnake Tokichiro]]/enemies/traps/falling into a fiery pit/falling off the side of an airship, and falling over a lot.
** In ''VideoGame/Onimusha3DemonSiege'', Michelle Aubert is a badass most of the time. However, she gets her ass handed to her twice in cutscenes -- seriously, one would assume that she'd make more of an effort to fight back after getting [[StandardFemaleGrabArea grabbed]] by [[MadScientist Guildenstern]].

* ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog'' tends to vacillate between this and CutscenePowerToTheMax.

* In many ''Franchise/DragonBall'' games, the story mode will stubbornly refuse to deviate from the original story, leading to quite a few battles where you curbstomp the opponent only to have the following cutscene show you unconscious and at near-death because that's how it originally went. One of the games even went so far as to make you lose the mission if you defeat the opponent instead of the given "survive until time runs out" objective.
** Others avert this and reward you for going off-script with alternate scenarios or joke endings. One has Vegeta defeat Goku and go Super Saiyan over his anger that Nappa was killed, another has Cell accidentally absorb Krillin instead of 18 and turn into [[http://ultradragonball.wikia.com/wiki/Cellin this pathetic thing]], etc...

* The ''VideoGame/NiGHTSIntoDreams'' levels begin with [=NiGHTS=] being held captive, which ''VideoGame/NiGHTSJourneyOfDreams'' accentuates by having poor [=NiGHTS=] ''constantly'' getting captured in cutscenes, a couple times forgetting they have the power to fly.

*** The game often uses invisible walls to prevent the prevent the player from interfering with CPU battles, which aren't exactly scripted, but make the odds completely stacked against one side to rig a certain outcome. The usual result is friendly units getting massacred while the player units inexplicably can't do anything but watch. But on the extremely miniscule chance that the intended losers [[CutscenePowerToTheMax end up winning]], it can sometimes seriously mess up the game's scripting and make it [[UnintentionallyUnwinnable impossible to win]].

** ''VideoGame/FireEmblemGenealogyOfTheHolyWar'' has a variant of this in that many times a barrier of sorts prevents you from riding to the green team's aid, and they are slaughtered no matter how good they are... and should the game decide to avert it with CutscenePowerToTheMax, it can make the whole game UnintentionallyUnwinnable. It's "insanity" because the odds are insanely against it happening.

* ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBros'': Mario seems to switch between Cutscene Incompetence and CutscenePowerToTheMax quite a bit.

** In ''VideoGame/MetroidOtherM'', Samus is reduced to her Zero Suit by a single shot to the back from [[spoiler:Adam's]] pistol. No attack in the game, even boss attacks (much less a shot from a pistol), is capable of disabling Samus by that stage in a single shot. This is ''mildly'' justified by being a sneak attack and the {{Retcon}} of Samus's armor relying on concentration, but again, "shock" is not at all a factor in the game.

* In the "Green" ending of ''VideoGame/IWasATeenageExocolonist'', [[spoiler:the protagonist- however armed, war-hardened or morally disgusted they are- won't be given an option to do anything about Lum's EvilGloating...even when their friend does try to attack him, and is shot...and apparently just lets him continue oppressing the colony forever? Pretty weird for a character who may have fought off ''manticores'' before this.]]

** A villainous example in [[spoiler: Kai Leng's fight against Thane Krios on the Citadel. Rather than simply [[AssassinOutclassin cloak, shoot Thane down with his palm blaster, stab the Councillor, and run]] before Shepard can get down from the balcony s/he's standing on, he takes Thane in a fair fight - contrary to how you'd expect an ''assassin'' to fight, [[OutOfCharacter and his behaviour in the novels.]] Thane does it too in that fight. He's an assassin as well, known for [[StealthHiBye sudden appearances]] that usually result in [[NeckSnap snapped necks]], is a [[ColdSniper capable sniper]] and is packing powerful biotics. Yet his entrance involves a ClickHello with a pistol from roughly three feet away from Kai Leng (instead of just shooting him immediately), then choosing to engage him in a fistfight despite his opponent being a cybernetically-augmented martial artist with super strength (in that very scene Leng pulls a five meter vertical lump while wearing heavy armor), resulting in him getting stabbed. Mind you, Thane has a disease that makes physical activity very difficult]].

* The undead display this in the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzmhb4RqKF0 opening cutscene]] of ''[[VideoGame/HeroesOfMightAndMagic Might and Magic: Heroes VI]]''. In-game, skeletons are ranged units with javelins, and [[SpiderPeople fate-spinners]] are shapeshifters who have one form for ranged attacks and another that specialises in melee. In the cutscene, the fate-spinner takes on her ranged form and they all charge into melee against Anton's forces, getting mowed down by Anton and his men.
* All the various justifications of why the enemy [=CO=] in ''VideoGame/AdvanceWars'' can't be captured at the end of a battle all add up to a generous all-you-can-eat buffet of this trope. Only ''once'' is it actually justified, where they capture the MadScientist Lash and discover it's a dummy she made to cover her retreat, and all the various other times if it's even mentioned at all a character will remark how "they were too fast", "are too far away to chase", or will just shrug off capturing them like it's not worthwhile, ignoring the fact that capturing even one enemy [=CO=] and preventing their future usage by the enemy would be a crippling blow. [[spoiler:Only ''once'' do you actually capture the enemy [=CO=], and it's the end of ''Dual Strike'' where you do in fact capture Von Bolt in the final mission]].

** A couple of villainous examples in ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsII''. Demyx claims that he's not cut out for fighting and generally acts like a coward in story scenes. When Xaldin steals the [[WesternAnimation/BeautyAndTheBeast Beast's]] rose and captures Belle, Belle actually manages to stun him with an elbow to the gut and swipe the rose back from him. Surprising, then, that the boss battles against them are arguably the [[ThatOneBoss toughest in the entire game]].
*** Sora has trouble with Armored Knights in ''II'' after TheReveal right after [[TheWarSequence The 1000 Heartless War]], though this was because he knew that [[spoiler: defeating the Heartless with the Keyblade was actually helping Organization XIII, so he was reluctant to kill them]].
*** Similarly, there is a scene where Riku and Kairi are struggling against a horde of ''Shadow Heartless''. In-game, they are the weakest enemies and incredibly easy to kill, yet in this cutscene they're strategically jumping around and dodging the heroes' attacks.
*** Lampshaded in one cutscene in ''Kingdom Hearts II''. At one point, Donald and Goofy are captured by a few Strafers (which are among the weakest Heartless in the game), and Sora orders his friends to "show them who's boss". Then the "[[TheManBehindTheMonsters Heartless Commander]]" shows up and orders them to [[ElectricTorture torture]] the duo [[ForcedToWatch right in front of Sora]], causing him to surrender.

*** As the main character and player-insert, [[CanonName Corrin]] will most likely be one of the army's most powerful units. However, in a few chapters (such as ''Conquest'' 7 & 21), they nearly get their rear handed to them by some random ''[[{{Mooks}} Faceless]]''. ''Birthright'' Chapter 26 also has Xander almost [[CurbstompBattle curbstomping]] them despite the fact that both of them have gone through the Rainbow Sage's trial, meaning that while Xander got the Sage's blessing, Corrin should still be roughly equal to him, since they did too.

* In the "Green" ending of ''VideoGame/IWasATeenageExocolonist'', the protagonist- however armed, war-hardened or morally disgusted they are- won't be given an option to do anything about Lum's EvilGloating...even when their friend does try to attack him, and is shot...and apparently just lets him continue oppressing the colony forever? Pretty weird for a character who may have fought off ''manticores'' before this.

** In one level of ''Mysteries of the Sith'', the expansion pack to ''Jedi Outcast'', player-character Mara Jade fights her way through a swarm of enemies, some of whom are very well concealed (but still visible to Force Sight), then ends the level by walking casually into a warehouse full of good hiding places, where she gets ambushed, stunned, and captured by half a dozen enemies without any chance to save herself.