Line #26 AdultsAreUseless/VideoGames


1	[[AdultsAreUseless Useless adults]] in video games.
2	----
3	* ''VideoGame/AnotherCode'':
4	** Justified in the first game ''Two Memories'', where Ashley is literally the only one capable of helping D [[ChildrenAreInnocent precisely because she's a child]].
5	** ZigZagged in the second game, ''Journey into Lost Memories''. Ashley is the only person willing to help Matt learn what happened to his father, but it ultimately turns out that most of the information uncovered over the course of narrative is information that [[spoiler:Greg Davis]] already knew, but feared sharing out of concern over Matt's trauma-induced amnesia. In ''[[VideoGameRemake Recollection]]'', after they are assured that Matt can handle the truth, they freely explain everything that the duo couldn't piece together before [[spoiler:taking Matt to see his father]]. Likewise, much of Ashley's half of the story is [[LockedOutOfTheLoop her playing catch-up]] with what most of the adults already know, after which she and the scientists start working together.
6	* [[BrattyHalfPint Carl Clover]] of ''VideoGame/BlazBlue'' firmly believes that all adults are stupid, selfish, and usually outright evil. [[FreudianExcuse He has a very good reason for thinking like this]], though. He has since loosened up after deciding there are at least two decent adults in Bang and Litchi (the jury's still out on Amane). However, [[spoiler:with Amane being DemotedToExtra to focus on his mysticism and Litchi temporarily (albeit [[ForcedIntoEvil reluctantly]]) joins Carl's father Relius in pursuit of her own goals, Carl winds up tolerating his father and even adopting some of Relius' more ruthless ideals, [[TheUnfettered all in the service of restoring his sister]].]]
7	* ''VideoGame/{{Bully}}''. Surprisingly one of the most accurate portrayals of this trope. It's set in a school, one that's plagued by bullying. Even if the student body consists of [[ThrivingGhostTown about 70 people]], the adults and the four prefects seem to just stand there going, "Duuuuuuuuh" while Gary manipulates all the cliques into fighting with each other. Even if the prefects (and adults) ''do'' chase Jimmy and can be seen occasionally busting a student, it's obvious the prefects are power-hungry jerks who're oblivious to most of the stuff that goes on in the school, and so are the adults. (i.e., the nerds are able to construct ''potato gun turrets'' in the astronomy club building without alerting adults and it's implied they have no supervision, the jocks throw ''explosive-laden footballs'' at a student, the gym gets ''lit on fire'' and nobody calls the police unless you fail and nobody even ''mentions'' it afterward.) It's safe to say even if the game has a realistic portrayal of how useless adults can be in a school setting; you can probably rest easily given that if this happened in real life, people WOULD call the police and the school would be closed in a year. (Mr. Burton ''especially'' would be fired for ''encouraging'' the bullying and [[spoiler:the implications that he ''sexually harassed Zoe''. Which he is anyway]].)
8	** It's shown that Dr. Crabblesnitch actually ''can'' be a ReasonableAuthorityFigure, too. He just didn't ''know'' what was going on until it was too late. This leads to a couple of the (realistic) interpretations where the adults aren't necessarily useless, they just seem that way because they're unaware. Chances are, Dr. Crabblesnitch would have stepped in sooner or later; but [[GameplayAndStorySegregation you can beat up as many prefects as you want, even his own secretary, and merely get detention]].
9	* ''[[VideoGame/{{TCT RPG}} The Colour Tuesday]]'' has the adults of the world at the mercy of being turned into puppets by the Others. Children aren't affected. Combines with CompetenceZone.
10	* Defied in ''VideoGame/Conception2ChildrenOfTheSevenStars''. Despite a divinely-enforced CompetenceZone meaning only teenagers can actually fight, it's made clear everyone knows that leaving them to actually coordinate the war effort would be an unmitigated disaster. Senior military ranks, positions of authority, mission coordinators and the R&D team are all comprised of highly-educated adults.
11	* ''VideoGame/DigimonSurvive'': Averted with the Professor, who is the only adult around. He is always willing to sacrifice himself to protect the teenagers, even though they are strangers to him. The teens are all grateful for his presence and appreciate his kindness. When he is seemingly killed, the teens are all devastated by the loss and they're left without adult supervision in this strange world. [[spoiler:It later turns out that he has survived and he later avoids the CompetenceZone because of his old monster Partner from his childhood.]]
12	* Most of the adults in ''VideoGame/EarthBound1994'' are incompetent. The police force of Onett fights Ness [[DisproportionateRetribution for trespassing]] and loses, not to mention how they were unable to stop a teenage gang from wreaking havoc before that. Some of the people interested in the Happy Happy cultists are too busy painting cows and buildings blue to care for their children back in Twoson. Paula's father is too worried and scared about her disappearence to try to look for her while her mother doesn't seem to be worried in the slightest, you have to free Threed from the zombie invasion because none of the adults there know what to do, The Runaway Five are continually tricked into crippling debt everywhere they go. Porky's dad in Fourside is seen riding off of his son's success, and later in the game, he's lost everything.
13	* ''VideoGame/EscapeFromStMarys'': Adults mostly seem indifferent to your characters' pleas for help on after encountering increasingly bizarre phenomena.
14	* ''VideoGame/GrowingUp'': In Sam's route in high school, you can report him to the Coach, but he won't bother with helping you because he's too busy with his sports team while Sam will call you out for snitching on him.
15	* Two teenagers in a parking lot are entirely capable of starting a school on their own in ''VideoGame/HighSchoolStory''. It just builds from there. When Hope is bullied on her school's website, the principal demands that she show proof of the bullying before he will do anything. This despite the fact that ''it's the school's website'' and he should be more than capable of accessing the public pages where other students were posting about her. There's also the fact that it went on publicly for ''months'' and absolutely no teachers or moderators took notice. [[spoiler:He does finally call the police after she brings him the evidence, going from "does nothing at all" to "gung-ho borderline-overreacting" in record time.]]
16	* In ''VideoGame/IWasATeenageExocolonist'', Antecedent doesn't try to intervene her daughter Anemone's DestructiveRomance with Vace because Anemone told her off for her smothering of her when she joined the military, so Anne decided to hold back. Instead, it's up to Sol to break up Anemone and Vace's toxic relationship.
17	* ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsBirthBySleep'' has you play as two adults (Terra and Aqua). Of course, [[DoomedByCanon they fail dramatically at stopping Master Xehanort]], forcing the KidHero Sora to finish the job over a decade later [[spoiler:and even rescue them both in ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsIII''.]]
18	* ''VideoGame/LifeIsStrange'' is all over the place with this trope.
19	** Principal Wells is almost guaranteed not to believe Max in any situation. If you tell him about Nathan Prescott having a gun in the bathroom, Wells will cite Nathan's family and status as an honor-roll student as reasons why this is unlikely. The worst he does is call him to the office. The action also backfires on Max, as he'll then contact her parents and accuse her of "telling tall tales". If you try to report David Madsen before class in Episode 2, Wells always finds an excuse to not trust what Max says no matter what choices the player has made. The only time he's remotely helpful is in the aftermath of [[spoiler: Kate's suicide]]. Depending on your previous choices, he can be convinced to [[spoiler: suspend Nathan on suspicion of drugging Kate and recording the salacious video of her, suspend Madsen for antagonizing Kate (but only if you have proof), or lightly punish Mr. Jefferson for [[BlamingTheVictim blaming]] Kate]]. Chloe picks up on this, deriding him as a drunk more concerned with the school's bottom line. In Nathan's case, Wells is being pressured by his rich father, [[spoiler: to the point that Nathan's records are outright falsified]].
20	** The local security guard, David Madsen, is outright antagonistic to Max and Kate, though he's at least shown intervening in the fight between Nathan and Warren after Chloe takes off with Max. He can be seen grilling Nathan in Episode 2. He does seem to mean well, it's just that he has trouble separating his prior military from civilian life. [[spoiler: He ultimately turns out to be a subversion: David is actually the only authority figure investigating Rachel's disappearance and he's the key to defeating the villain. And his earlier pressuring of Kate? He knows she was sexually assaulted by a member of the Vortex Club and was trying to help but he was too heavy-handed.]]
21	** Mr. Jefferson is a nice guy in Episode 1, but when confronted with cruel gossip about a student in Episode 2, he resorts to victim-blaming. [[spoiler: He also turns out to be the BigBad all along and murders Chloe upon his reveal. It's likely he willfully invoked this trope to manipulate Kate and clean up a possible loose end.]]
22	** Ms. Grant is also shown to be nice, but the extent of her help so far is a petition to stop Madsen from putting up security cameras. If Max signs the petition, it will pass.
23	** Could also be said of the police who have stopped investigating Rachel's disappearance. [[spoiler: However, once Max exposes the BigBad they immediately arrest him.]]
24	*** And in the scenario where [[spoiler: Max lets Chloe die, they immediately come down on Jefferson after Nathan confesses to his involvement in his crimes. They also go after Nathan's father for his involvement]].
25	* ''VideoGame/LostJudgment'': Jin Kuwana believed that school bullying was harmless, and didn't intervene when Mitsuru Kusumoto was being viciously tormented by his classmates. By the time he realized how serious it was, it was far too late, as Mitsuru had jumped off the school roof and ended up in a coma. Now, Kuwana is seriously overcompensating to make up for this mistake... by ''murdering'' every single bully who has ever driven a classmate to suicide.
26	* ''VideoGame/MegamanBattleNetwork'': All of the adults are either just standing around, willing to netbattle instead of try to fix things, or nothing. The only competent adults are either involved with the WWW (even Baryl & Colonel), Mr. Higsby (for different reasons), or Lan's dad.
27	** Chaud lampshades this when he mentions that the official netbattlers are all off in la-la-land.
28	** The spiritual sequel series ''VideoGame/MegamanStarForce'' also uses this, but since there are only a handful of people around the world capable of wave changing, including the villains, all of whom have roughly the same amount of experience, there is no logical reason why a kid can't be the most naturally gifted member of that group.
29	* ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'':
30	** Even setting aside the fact that it usually falls to [[KidHero an 11-15 year old to save the world from destruction]] at the hands of the antagonists, the complete and utter incompetence at Pokémon battling displayed by most adults in this series is astonishing. Adults are so useless in ''Pokémon'', in fact, that when the series introduced one who is conspicuously ''[[AvertedTrope not]]'' -- Leon, the champion in ''VideoGame/PokemonSwordAndShield'' -- he became a BaseBreakingCharacter for it.
31	** PlayedForDrama in ''VideoGame/PokemonScarletAndViolet''. [[spoiler:The former teachers and staff at the AcademyOfAdventure did nothing about the bullying Team Star's leaders went through, and when they banded together to fight back against their bullies, the deputy of then-Director Harrington deleted all records of the bullying happening, which likely contributed to Team Star [[HeroWithBadPublicity getting a negative reputation]] after their former bullies started transferring to different schools. As a result, Harrington fired the deputy and resigned alongside the entire teaching staff; the current teachers have all been teaching for only a year and a half when the player arrives. By contrast, Clavell does his best to avert this trope, [[NonGivingUpSchoolGuy going undercover to figure out why Team Star acts the way they do so that he can help them]].]]
32	* ''VideoGame/{{Psychonauts}}'': Pretty much every adult at Whispering Rock will be of little direct help once the serious trouble starts. Agents Nein and Vodelo get sent away on some unrelated mission, Coach Oleander [[spoiler:is a villain]], and Agent Cruller can't leave his HQ [[spoiler:because his mind is too fractured and keeps devolving into the custodial staff roles he has all over the camp if he tries to leave]]. Although Cruller does play a decent MissionControl, providing useful tactics and advice. After freeing Fred Bonaparte (who's actually an orderly) from his psychological issues, Raz assumes he'll help get rid of Crispin (who's actually an inmate) and avoiding the need for a disguise. Fred decides to take a ''nap'' instead. (After you've gotten past Crispin, Fred will show up and chase him away. At least this means you'll be able to use the elevator again without a disguise.)
33	* There are a whole two adults in the Rose Garden Orphanage in ''VideoGame/RuleOfRose'', and the one with actual authority is a problem, not a helper, with his implied sexual abuse of the teenaged residents, and while the cleaning lady is more observant, it doesn't matter since the PoliceAreUseless and won't listen to her, and she gets murdered for her troubles.
34	* ''Franchise/ShinMegamiTensei'' generally downplays this; while the protagonist and their closest friends tend to be teenagers, several games also include adults as party members and allies.
35	** The ''Franchise/{{Persona}}'' games are probably the straightest examples, and even they add a few wrinkles:
36	*** Actually subverted in ''VideoGame/Persona2''. A third of the playable cast of ''Innocent Sin'' ([[IntrepidReporter Maya]] & [[CoolBigSis Yukino]]) are adults, & are some of the party's stronger members (Yukino however was playable in [[VideoGame/Persona1 the first game]]). ''Eternal Punishment'' however takes it a step further. [[TagalongKid The only playable character who can be considered a child]] is ''Innocent Sin'''s main protagonist, [[IneffectualLoner Tatsuya Suou]].
37	*** While the people doing the fighting in ''VideoGame/Persona3'' are all teenagers, the game also features adults who are in on the masquerade to some extent; they do their best to help you outside of the Dark Hour, but can't do anything directly. Also, one of the first tier {{Big Bad}}s is an adult. A relatively mundane example involves Fuuka's homeroom teacher, who looks the other way when she gets bullied, and actively covers up her disappearing for ten days, all to protect his reputation. Justified for general adults due to how the Dark Hour itself functions where they will either be in a coffin which keeps them unaware of the events, or will be killed by Shadows promptly if they are not in a secure location. Additionally, for the ones that can experience it, they lack powers and the ability to produce a Persona is so rare that SEES originally only had three members and it had a high cost to get even that many.
38	*** Justified in ''VideoGame/Persona4'' where the conflict occurs in a dimension that the police have no access to; the only adults who know about TV World are [[spoiler:the antagonists]]. This trope applies because they simply had no way to know what's really going on; the police close the case when someone falsely admits to all of the murders, and even late in the game when you are straightforward about your "extracurricular activities", your uncle, Ryotaro Dojima doesn't believe you. When you receive a threatening letter, Naoto advises against telling Dojima about it, saying that doing so would result in you being put under surveillance, thus preventing you from actually working to save the victims.
39	*** This is a major theme in ''VideoGame/Persona5''. Most of the adults you deal with are this trope at best, and at worst they are outright evil bastards who routinely abuse their power to get away with everything from sexual harassment to outright murder. It ultimately comes down to your teenage protagonists to set everything right. [[spoiler:At the end of the game, one of the adults, Sae Niijima (whose aid is necessary to avoid the worst ending), acknowledges this trope and vows to defy it; it's noted that although you got the bad guys to confess their sins, it's her job as a public prosecutor to ensure they actually end up behind bars.]] However, several of the Confidants who help the heroes in their endeavors are working adults who are quite capable at what they do, only really faltering in their social link arcs due to themselves being victims of unfair treatment by other adults. On at least one occasion, an adult trying to look out for you is unintentionally useless due to lack of awareness because [[spoiler: the teacher she is pressuring is working a second job to pay off people blackmailing her, and due to the complex social circumstances, her feelings of guilt, and the fact that her blackmailers can use her second job against her to get her fired from her teacher job, she feels trapped and unable to tell her the truth. Her attempts to protect the students act as a hindrance to truly helping this Confidant that can only be helped in secret to avoid social and societal consequences that are undeserved.]]
40	*** Averted in the spinoff ''VideoGame/Persona5Strikers'' with the playable inclusion of Zenkichi Hasegawa, a police inspector who actually ends up joining the cause of the Phantom Thieves. As a cop, he also ends up averting the PoliceAreUseless trope typically present in the series.
41	** The series also has several games which outright invert this:
42	*** ''VideoGame/DigitalDevilSaga'': With only two exceptions, the cast are exceptionally skilled doctors (Heat), scientists (Serph and Gale), and nurses (Argilla).
43	*** In ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiStrangeJourney'', the playable character and his crew are all highly-trained military personnel.
44	* ''[[Creator/ZapDramatic Sir Basil Pike Public School]]'', a game about bullying, has the uselessness of adults as one of its central themes. There's no situation in the entire game where actually going to an adult for help will get you anything but a headache. At best, he'll tell you that it was a good idea, but he doesn't have time to listen to your crap right now and you should solve your own problems, at worst, he'll babble a warped version of the JudgmentOfSolomon that has no answer.
45	* Strongly featured in the ''VideoGame/TouchDetective'' series. The most competent ones often turn out to be psychopaths.
46	* The ''VideoGame/TrailsSeries'' subverts this trope as much as possible while still keeping its younger viewpoint characters relevant. There are several competent, more experienced adults that can and do show up the younger characters, every step of the way in skill and practice. Which is exactly why they stay out of situations their Bracers/police/soldiers in training can work with on their own. A student can't truly learn to rely on their skills if they had to depend on their mentors to get by. However, when they decide not to hold back, they frequently reach StoryBreakerPower levels of competence. This is also one of the reasons why the overall villains of the series, [[AncientConspiracy Ouroboros]] easily get what they want as almost all their members are competent adults. They also aren't afraid to weaponize adults' vulnerability and trust toward children, as the Black Fang and the Angel of Slaughter demonstrate with chilling effectiveness.
47	** By ''Cold Steel IV'', [[VideoGame/TheLegendOfHeroesTrailsInTheSky the]] [[VideoGame/TheLegendOfHeroesTrailsFromZeroAndTrailsToAzure three]] [[VideoGame/TheLegendOfHeroesTrailsOfColdSteel protagonists]] of the various arcs are all adults and are very competent compared to their younger years with the three leads being [[ExperiencedProtagonist experienced protagonists]].
48	** ''Sky the 3rd'' and ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfHeroesTrailsIntoReverie Reverie]]'' are notable in that they feature protagonists ([[BreakoutCharacter Kevin and <C>]], respectively) who are experienced adults right from their introduction, the latter actually boasting the title of "oldest protagonist in ''Trails''.
49	** ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfHeroesTrailsThroughDaybreak Daybreak]]'' noticeably has most of its playable characters be in their twenties or older, including protagonist Van. Only 4 are still in their teens, one of whom (Aaron) only barely qualifies due to being 19.
50	* Zig-zagged in ''VideoGame/TwistedWonderland''. In the main story, Yuu and the other students are the ones running around the school solving the conflicts of each arc, despite the fact that [[spoiler:[[TheCorruption Overblot]]]] is an incredibly rare and grave condition that could lead to the deaths of the students and destruction of the school should the rampaging victim go undealt with. Even after [[spoiler:multiple Overblot cases within the school year]], Crowley still seems content to let the students handle each problem and goes as far as threatening them with dorm budget cuts or retention if they refuse, and the other teachers hardly show up at all. Averted in the case of [[HeldBackInSchool Leona]] who after his chapter has reluctantly helped deal with the problems, though other adult students like [[OlderThanTheyLook Malleus and Lilia]] have yet to be seen doing anything useful in the main story.
51	** Crowley's uselessness is lampshaded by the dorm heads at the beginning of the ''Fairy Gala'' event, with them pointing out that, as headmaster, he should be the one trying to fix the weather issues that are plaguing the college instead of foisting the responsibility off on them. This also happens on other occasions with pretty much the same results.
52	** Crewel attempts to be of use in the ''Scary Monsters'' event by preparing to use magic on the misbehaving visitors before he is stopped and scolded by Trein, who believes that a magic user initiating an attack on normal humans would damage the schools reputation, ''especially'' since he's a teacher. While he disagrees, Crewel relents and Crowley once again uselessly leaves the students to deal with the situation.
53	* ''VideoGame/YandereSimulator'' [[ZigZaggingTrope zig-zags]] this. If a teacher is called to a murder scene by a student, but Ayano has successfully cleaned up after herself and disposed of all the evidence, she will assume it was a prank, scold the student and leave. Similarly, [[PoliceAreUseless the police]] won't conduct further investigation if multiple calls come from the school in a short space of time [[spoiler: thanks to the Headmaster bribing them to stay away from the school after his and the school's reputation was nearly ruined by an unsolved murder that took place in 1989, which Ayano's mother Ryoba was responsible for]]. Otherwise, the police can quickly pick up on any evidence Ayano leaves lying around and arrest her. Similarly, if a teacher ends up any pools of blood, bloody weapons, dismembered limbs, or especially dead bodies, she will call the police and guard the suspicious element, and if the teachers know that you committed a murder, then [[BadassTeacher they WILL]] [[GameOver apprehend you]].
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Context AdultsAreUseless / VideoGames