Broken Ace / Video Games

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• Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War: "Solo Wing" Pixy, wingman of the mercenary Cipher, comes into the game with a reputation preceding him even as Cipher builds his own, and is shown to be an extremely competent pilot in his own right. However, he also has a very jaded mindset fitting of an amoral mercenary, and it only gets worse for him as he witnesses the atrocities committed during the course of the titular Belkan War, both by Belka and the allied coalition dedicated to "liberating" Belka's (resource-rich) territories. He hits his breaking point late in the war, after witnessing Belka nuking itself in defiance, at which point he pulls a Face–Heel Turn and joins the terrorist organization "A World With No Boundaries", who are dedicated to eliminating the conflicts over borders and territories...by wiping said borders and territories off the face of the planet in a storm of nuclear fire. By the end of the game, and after a fateful duel with his former wingman Cipher, he has a change of heart and grows disillusioned with AWWNB's ideals, and instead travels Strangereal as a wandering freedom fighter, still with his jaded and cynical worldviews but now with a new, somewhat more noble purpose in his life.
• Deuteragonist Kuruto Ryuki in AI: The Somnium Files - nirvanA Initiative was a prodigy who skipped two years of college and graduated at the top of his class before joining the agency, but suffered from almost debilitating mental illness. After failing to catch the Serial Killer in the past, his mental issues worsened turning him into The Alcoholic Drowning Their Sorrows in the present.
• The King in Armello was, in the prequel novellas, a brilliant schemer, master warrior, charismatic diplomat, and skilled sorcerer; this is, in fact, how he became the first king to unite the squabbling clans of Armello under a single banner. Unfortunately, a mixture of Dirty Business and Rot magic have taken a toll on his mind — when the game starts, he's a raving, dying brute whose proclamations wreak havoc.
• The Smart Guy Gale in Baldur's Gate III was a wizarding prodigy, tutored by World's Smartest Man Elminster and The Chosen One of the goddess of magic Mystra. However, after getting hit by a Black Magic curse that leeched his powers and being abandoned by Mystra for disobeying her, he fell into a deep depression fueled by his Inferiority Superiority Complex convincing him that his talents were the only reason people liked him. By the start of the game he's more or less broken out of his funk, but he's still very insecure before receiving the Player Character's encouragement.
• BlazBlue
  • Jin Kisaragi. Handsome, smart, strong, rich, highly ranked, popular with girls despite his cold attitude, a hero for ending a long civil war, and so on. As he put it himself, he was showered with everything men would kill for. His only problem was his inability to care about all of those because his household name, the Kisaragis only exploited Jin for their own gain and hardly cared about him as an individual. Jin said he was more like a tool who did what he was told than an actual member of the family, especially since most of them actually resented him for his achievements and status. And this is after he lost his first family in a fire and most of his memories of the event. He's a major Jerkass throughout the series, but it's hard not to feel at least a ''little'' sorry for him.
  • His brother Ragna the Bloodedge qualifies, despite being the series’ punching bag. Known as the infamous Grim Reaper, Ragna’s bounty reaches into the billions, with him being able to mow down entire armies of the NOL whose military bases are equal to that of a country and hold his own against many of the cast members, especially in the later games and only losing because his enemies exploited his flaws and when he activates the Azure Grimoire, he becomes nearly unstoppable, even going toe to toe against Takehaya Susanoo, Yuki Terumi’s original more powerful form who’s more powerful than Hakumen or even Azrael. However, his life is a path of never-ending misery and pain, where almost all his allies like to mock and belittle him, anything he does either doesn’t work or banks on his very few victories for Terumi’s plans to work and the closest thing he has to resting in peace is erasing himself from existence in order to save the world he grew to care about, despite it barely giving him any favours. To say his life sucks is a major understatement.
• Richter Belmont if you accomplished the bad ending in Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles. Richter is an incredbly handsome young man, skilled within the art of vampire hunting, prodigious with the Belnades essence that flows in his veins, smart in both in combat and out, chows through giant pot roasts likes there's no tommorow, flirtatious, yet a kind, just, humble and upstanding person that saves anyone from the cruel clutches of Dracula. However, he was filled with tons of grief after killing his own fiance, Annette, after Dracula converted her into an incredibly beautiful yet brutal and tragic Lesser Vampire. After his clash with Dracula, Richter easily defeated Dracula, but the Prince of Darkness had already left a void in the young Belmont's heart. It is no wonder how easily the dark priest Shaft brainwashed Richter when he was still filled with sorrow.
• ''Chicory: A Colorful Tale': Beneath her exceptional artistic talent in wielding the Brush, Chicory is secretly an anxious wreck with imposter syndrome that inadvertently triggers the events of the game when those feelings finally get the better of her.
• Kyras in Dawn of War 2. He is the single best psyker and soldier in the entire Blood Ravens chapter and behind it all he has fallen over to chaos not out of self interest, but simply for fear of being forced to lose his men to it again.
• Devil May Cry
  • Dante is an extremely skilled devil hunter, able to mow down entire legions of the underworld like it’s a Friday night shift with nothing but a cocky smirk on his face, can use practically any weapon or tool just by getting his hands on it and his badassery is only matched by a few. Unfortunately, being born a Son of Sparda has its downsides, such as having his family separated from Mundus’ demons as payback, making it worse is that the entire underworld is out to get him due to having the blood of Sparda coursing through his veins and is shown to be deeply affected by the trauma he endured as a child in spite of his devil-may-care attitude, implying that he came to loathe his demonic side for the majority of his life. His theme song in the fifth game, "Subhuman", further implies that he’s hated by humans and demons alike. Best shown in the anime, where while Dante’s still able to mow down demons with a cool flair to them, outside of a fight he lacks the drive to do anything, and while on a mission, one of the clients hated him because of the underworld troubles he brought.
  • Vergil, like his twin bro Dante, carries the blood of Sparda within him and is one of the only few people who can hold his own and defeat the Legendary Devil Hunter. Like his brother, he took the childhood trauma of their house burning very roughly, seeking to gain power to make up for the loss. Even worse is when after Dante defeated him in Temen-ni-Gru, Mundus tortured him and turned him into his slave, physically and mentally flaying him alive. Even after he came back from the dead, he still held feelings of resentment towards his brother for being stronger and feeling like their mom favoured Dante over him, kicking off the events of the fifth game.
• Harry du Bois in Disco Elysium at first appears to be a total loser with massive substance abuse problems, but as more of his original identity before he lost his memory is revealed, it turns out he was in fact one of the greatest cops in the city, who shouldered a remarkable case load, were able to solve cases other detectives had struggled with for months in a matter of days, and had a kill count of 3 people over 17 years of service, which Kim notes with awe is an almost unheard of low number in the violent district he works in. Unlike other cops in the city, he's also known to be non-corrupt and respected for his exceptional ability by his men. However, six years ago, his ex-something left him, he had a mental breakdown and midlife crisis, bought a ghastly novelty tie, and took up an embarrassing party lifestyle, with attendant substance abuse, disco fashion and constant attempts to kill himself.
• Final Fantasy:
  • Cloud in Final Fantasy VII is the Ur-example of the Final Fantasy series; Cloud's aptitude with Super-Soldier gene-therapy and combat prowess is unmatched by any other character in the series, to the point that he leads a team to destroy an Eldritch Abomination who successfully exterminated an entire Precursor species with mastery over life and death, and WINS. But Cloud's mental state is... not there. He's antisocial, traumatized by watching his childhood hero murdering almost everyone he cared about, and he even has multiple-personality disorder from all the genetic experiments Hojo did on him. Disc 3 happens because Cloud easily fails a will save that let a comatose, frozen psychopath compel him to give away the "wake up genocidal titans" Artifact of Doom.
    • Cloud also leads a few other Broken Ace specialists; Barrett is still haunted by the deaths of his mining town, Cid ruined a billion-dollar space program and takes it out on his spouse, and then there's Vincent...
    • ...who is inarguably the best gunfighter on Gaia, but was betrayed by the love of his life for another man who did not love her, got murdered, was resurrected into the avatar of the Herald of Omega as well as several other monsters through the use of tainted Lifestream and ancient Artifact of Doom-esque Materia, and then proceeded to lock himself in a coffin for fifty years out of guilt, fear, and self-loathing. Even by FFVII standards, Vincent Valentine is a mess. The fact that Cloud wears his cape and gauntlet when he appears in Kingdom Hearts emphasizes the fact that Vincent is what Cloud will become if he does not learn how to put himself back together again.
  • Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII. Sephiroth, Genesis, and Angeal. Their issues drive the first two to villainy and the third to perform Suicide by Cop.
  • Squall in Final Fantasy VIII. He goes out of his way to come off as a stoic, professional badass who doesn't need other people, and succeeds admirably — he stands out as an exceptional soldier even among SeeDs. Much of the student population at Balamb Garden admires him for his extraordinary skills, and "gorgeous" goes without saying for a Final Fantasy protagonist. But the entire thing is just an act pretending to be a jerk to hide his massive emotional insecurities. Underneath, he's a Child Soldier with No Social Skills who avoids getting close to people because he's afraid of the pain of losing someone he cares about.
  • Auron from Final Fantasy X is revered as a legendary guardian who aided High Summoner Braska in defeating Sin. He's an unflappable badass who easily chops up dragons with a huge sword. He's the wise and snarky older mentor to the rest of the cast. All of that masks a bitter and broken man who wanted to change the world and failed. He failed to stop Braska and Jecht from sacrificing themselves to stop Sin. And when he discovered they had sacrificed themselves for false hope, he even failed to avenge them. There's also the little fact that he's Unsent. It doesn't much more "broken" than being already dead.
  • A case can be made for Lightning of Final Fantasy XIII. She's a tough-as-nails soldier in the Sanctum's Guardian Corps who wields the Blazefire Saber (itself a trophy of her acknowledged skill and strength) and was all set to be promoted to officer. But her military prowess and attitude are products of her trying to force herself to grow into a good guardian for her sister Serah after they were orphaned; "Lightning" isn't even her real name, but a call-sign she turned into a new identity. Indeed, this forced maturity does nothing to help when the events of the Purge roll around, and when we first meet her, she's already harboring guilt over not even believing Serah when her sister needed her.
    Lightning: I thought that by changing my name, I could change who I was. I was just a kid.
• Fire Emblem:
  • Fire Emblem: Awakening:
    • Cordelia. She's a beautiful redhead with outstanding fighting skills, a self-assured attitude and a kind heart, as well as very popular in Ylisse. However, we then find out that she loves a man she believes herself to be unworthy of, that she's thought of to be arrogant and spoiled when she's actually not, and that pretty much eaten on the inside by Survivor Guilt after her whole squad is massacred. Not to mention, her Kid from the Future Severa has a HUGE inferiority complex due to her mother's fame, and when Cordelia died after they had a huge fight over a misunderstanding, she's totally broken.
    • Cherche's son Gerome is pretty much good at everything, from fighting to handling his dragon mount to sewing. His Ace-like traits (strength, aloofness, seriousness) are because of his major trauma from losing everyone (including his parents) in the Bad Future; he might not have become so good at everything if it weren't for that, but he'd be far better off as a person.
    • Lucina is pretty much the only swordsman in existence who can rival her father Chrom, and is generally considered the leader of the future kids, given her bloodline. However, being saddled with her duties from an extremely young age combined with the trauma of losing pretty much all of her loved ones has basically turned her into an over-stressed, self-deprecating mess with no idea how to enjoy herself. Her sense of humor is barely existent, she has NO idea how innuendo works, and she takes even the silliest things (especially ones intended to make her relax, like Owain trying to get her to name her sword) way too seriously. Her brokenness is shown most obviously when she tries to kill the Avatar/you, because she's afraid they will become Grima and repeat her bad future all over again. She spends the entire scene on the verge of tears, begging the Avatar for their forgiveness because she knows her actions are wrong; she just can't see another way. It's made even worse if the Avatar is her mother or husband, as she still tries to go through with it, but finds herself unable to do so, even if the Avatar intentionally surrenders to her judgement. On top of all the prior points, Lucina has terrible abandonment issues, which are seen pretty clearly in her supports with a female Avatar if the player chooses not to romance Chrom. In them, she acts like a Clingy Jealous Girl, accusing the Avatar of trying to steal Chrom from his wife (and Lucina's mom), which is extremely out-of-character for her.
    • Emmeryn is a borderline case. She is considered a perfect ruler, a beacon of hope to her country, and the ultimate example of pacifism and charity. Her own brother declares that "she is peace". In reality, being saddled with her duties at the age of nine has destroyed a lot of who she is underneath her ruler's persona. While she is exceedingly kind and noble in truth, she holds almost no value for her own life and willingly walks into dangerous situations with no regard for her safety, or what should happen if she dies. The tendency culminates in her Heroic Sacrifice, throwing herself from her execution perch to save Chrom from having to weigh his country against his sister in perhaps the cruelest way possible. It nearly breaks all of the Shepherds and sends her brother on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge against Anti-Villain Mustafa just because he's in the way.
    • Walhart the Conqueror, full-stop. As a character who is a living embodiment of the Asskicking Leads to Leadership trope, Walhart is arguably the single most powerful combatant in the game. His skills make him immune to the typical weaknesses of his class (Conqueror, which is a Walhart-exclusive class that takes its cues from the already deadly Great Knight unit, and then adds more movement and balances out its weaker stats), and he has some of the highest overall stats among all characters. He’s also Famed In-Story; the unifier of Valm, a juggernaut who brought together the warring factions of the continent through a combination of raw power and natural charisma. His armies also outnumber the allied Feroxi and Ylissean armies at least 3-to-1. Unfortunately, Walhart has exceptionally narrow foresight and thus has a tendency to get blindsided by his opponents. He also is a terrible ruler, as he does not bother to consider the needs and wishes of his subordinates, only striving for victory. These tendencies are how Chrom and Robin eventually connive a way to beat him. Even then, Walhart’s desire for victory is so great that he revives from death due to the Risen magic and keeps charging forward even without a clear goal in mind, becoming a slave to his own desire for victory at any cost. Frederick probably puts it best when comparing Walhart and Chrom.
      Frederick: “The doubtless man's path is straight, but not always true. A juggernaut does not pause to correct trajectory. It merely presses on. But by stopping, doubting, and occasionally doubling back, you keep a truer course. I could not serve a conqueror, milord. And I pray you not think prudence a flaw.”
  • Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade:
    • Harken is a handsome, skilled, loyal, popular knight and about to marry the local Lady of War, Isadora. He is then utterly broken by the deaths of his lord in liege and his companions at the hands of the Black Fang, and becomes a Death Seeker Blood Knight who has to be talked out from pretty much throwing himself into battle to just die and dull the pain, and is also plagued by the guilt of having almost forgotten the girl he loved in between all the angst. He gets better, thank God. His supports with Marcus reveal that before he was subjected to all of that trauma, poor Harken already had serious self-worth issues coming from how his former lord of liege used and abused him and then threw him out of his household. What happened with the Black Fang was the corollary to a breaking process that lasted several years.
    • Prince Zephiel of Bern is a highly intelligent, kind and thoughtful prince, who is adored by his subjects and anticipated to become a great king. However, he is caught in the fallout of conflict between his parents, mistreated by his resentful father Desmond (who attempts to get him killed at one point), and forcibly torn away from his beloved half-sister Guinevere. These events have taken their toll on his mentality by the time he’s grown in Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade, he's become a cynical, cold-hearted misanthrope who believes that humans are terrible and need to be supplanted by the dragons.
  • In Fire Emblem: Three Houses, Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd, one of the four main protagonists, is hailed by others pre-timeskip as a dependable and responsible model of moral and chivalrous behavior, a highly skilled lancer and swordsman, and a kind and thoughtful prince. Underneath he’s got some deep-set psychological trauma affecting him, including Survivor Guilt, as a result of the Tragedy of Duscur, in which the young prince witnessed the bloody deaths of several of his loved ones, as well as the unhinged bloodthirst that deeply disturbs one of his childhood friends and the unsightly fondness for combat he does his best to conceal from others. Post-timeskip, his trauma breaks him, and turns him into a violent, cynical Sociopathic Hero who needs his friend and former teacher Byleth to pull him back to the light on his own route. In the other routes, his violent and vengeful side leads him to an Undignified Death, and while he's more put-together on the Black Eagles route he dies fighting for an insane archbishop who views him as disposable and goes out either cursing Edelgard to hell or lamenting that he couldn't save or avenge any of his loved ones.
  • Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes: Claude von Riegan. In Three Houses, Claude was simply The Ace: he's extremely intelligent and resourceful, head-turningly handsome, a master archer, a proficient swordsman (in cutscenes), a genius-level tactician and brilliant manipulator that allows him to score victories against the much-larger forces of the Empire and Almyra, and possesses a magnetic charisma that allows him to charm basically anything and anyone he meets, from animals to young women. But in Three Hopes, the pressure puts him under immense stress, and being forced to kill his brother in this alternate timeline causes him to resort to more underhanded and ruthless tactics, like sacrificing Randolph and his knights to minimise Leicester's casualties.
• God of War:
  • Kratos is shown to be one of the world's greatest general and warrior, with many victory over his belt and he is also the only person in the world to conquer the trials of Pandora's Box and even defeat a god. But he is also the most troubled, having lost pretty much everyone partly by his own actions with everyone fearing him due to his atrocious acts as the Ghost of Sparta and all the troubles he faced ultimately devolve him into a bloodthirsty warrior who only knows revenge, caring nothing for the bystanders who get in his way. He's cooled on revenge in the Norse era, but it's clear he still has a hard time interacting with people he doesn't hate.
  • Faye from God of War (PS4) seems like your ideal woman if we go by how others describe her. She is a kind, beautiful, smart and strong woman whom everyone looked up to; Kratos describes her as being a caring woman who somehow managed to see the good from someone like the Ghost of Sparta. Atreus loves his mother more than his father to the point that at one point he angrily says Kratos should've died instead of her... though not to Kratos's face, and he does immediately take it back, and when we see her in flashbacks in the sequel, we can see that he isn't exaggerating; he trusted her enough that she could playfully tease him about his past (usually something that gets a curt shut-down if not an axe to the face), and she firmly believed You Are Better Than You Think You Are. She's also a Jotunn warrior who was once basically Kratos's axe-wielding Distaff Counterpart; there's a reason she understood him so well. While she'd chilled out considerably by the time she met Kratos, she was also forced to choose between her species and her new family since the Jotnar prophecy showed Kratos dying. While the end of the PlayStation 4 game floats the possibility she was just using Kratos to father Loki (the name she wanted for Atreus) and begin the apocalypse, Ragnarok confirms that she decided to go against the Jotnar and tried to avert their prophecy in favor of the one she saw, in which Kratos gets Redemption Earns Life.
• Lancelot of Guenevere is seen as a flawless knight and is nearly universally beloved, but he's privately become depressed about the world and his place in it, even before he falls in love with the wife of his liege.
• Hatsune Miku: Colorful Stage! has Mafuyu Asahina, a bright girl with good grades and a kind personality. However, this is all just a facade. The real Mafuyu is depressed and an Empty Shell who has forgotten who she really is and much of the Nightcord at 25:00 story revolves around preventing her from disappearing.
• Just about everyone from Inazuma Eleven who is The Ace is revealed to be this all along.
  • Gouenji immediately catches Endou's attention, who recognizes him as The Legendary Striker. When he transfers from Kidokawa to Raimon, the school the protagonist goes to, Endou wants him to join his soccer club that really needed new members at that time. Despite his amazing skills, he initially refuses Endou's offer for reason he keeps for himself. Unfortunately, Gouenji also catches the attention of the Opposing Sports Team Teikoku, who really tortured the current members during their "friendly match" until Gouenji stepped in and scored the first goal, after which Teikoku forfeited the match due to him being the only reason why they had it in the first place. Despite that, he still didn't really join the club until Endou found out the reason why: he blames himself for his sister's accident, who has been in a coma for a year after being the victim of a car accident in the same day Kidokawa's match against Teikoku would have taken place. But after Endou tells him that his sister would have wanted him to play soccer the most, he regains his passion for the game and joins the club permanently as the team's ace striker.
    • And that's not everything. In the third arc, it's revealed he has problems with his Fantasy-Forbidding Father, who wants him to quit playing meaningless soccer and become a doctor that can save life, an issue they have been argued about ever since his mom died. So, he was a broken ace even before transferring to Raimon after his sister's accident.
  • Kidou is the captain of the aforementioned Teikoku, which has been the strongest team in Japan and the champion for 40 years and he continues the team's win streak after he takes the lead and until Raimon defeated them (not counting the aforementioned match he forfeited). He has been a Child Prodigy at football ever since he was 6 and is currently a Teen Genius who is also good at academics, comes from a rich family and is a good strategist. He's also an adopted "Well Done, Son" Guy who made a deal with his foster father to win 3 consecutive national tournaments to live together with his sister, who was adopted by another family, and is even in the danger of leaving his current family if he loses in a district match. Fortunately, his father realizes that what he has done is wrong.
• Kingdom Hearts:
  • Riku to an extent, at least in the first game. Better than Sora and the other island kids at pretty much everything; older, stronger, cooler, more attractive, and (most importantly) seemingly "closer" to Kairi, whom he and Sora — quite awkwardly for them — both have feelings for. Riku, as a result, takes position as the leader of the group. While Sora is jealous of these aspects about Riku, it turns out later in the game that Riku is the one with a massive inferiority complex to Sora, becoming very jealous when Sora finds new friends in Donald and Goofy and Sora turns out to be The Chosen One for the Keyblade; and last but not least, it gets even worse when it turns out that Riku feels as though Kairi likes Sora more despite the fact that he (Riku) has "done more for her". The villains, naturally, exploit Riku's issues with Sora soon enough and draws him into the Darkness and have the two fighting against each other.
    • Eventually, Riku goes through extensive Character Development in Chain of Memories when he confronts his insecurities head on. Later games mostly abandon his Ace traits altogether, however; the plot no longer concentrates on that aspect of Riku as Sora finally takes over the leadership role permanently.
    • And THAT gets turned on its head in Dream Drop Distance though in a positive way. Sora and Riku end up taking the Mark of Mastery Exam in order to deal with issues in the Worlds in the Realm of Sleep. While Riku still harbors some feelings of self-doubt (which lead to Sora agreeing to take the exam in the first place), things play out interestingly enough. Throughout the game, it's Sora who ends up going through Mind Rape via the New Organization XIII. Riku, due to said Character Development and past experiences, actually got his body immune to any Darkness-based issues caused by Xehanort. In the end, after all hell breaks loose, it's Riku who ends up being named Keyblade Master over Sora. Good thing Sora is an all-around Nice Guy and is genuinely happy for Riku, so no jealousy issues crop up again.
  • Aqua could be mistaken for a self-insert character just from her description: she's a young Keyblade Master that graduated ahead of her two best friends, graceful in the middle of battle and gorgeous enough that she doesn't even need make up or fancy dress to attract male attention, not to mention a skilled sorceress. Unfortunately, her first assignment as a master involves spying on one of her friends for their teacher and she quickly finds that her new rank is pushing both Terra and Ventus away from her; also, as smart as Aqua is, Master Xehanort is playing a much more complicated game than she is ready to handle (to be fair, everyone has been blindsided by Xehanort at some point). By the end of her debut game she's lost everyone that mattered to her and is trapped in the Realm of Darkness, where even her strong will is beginning to waver. In a bit of irony, her best hope lies with Sora who is the same boy that she rejected as an apprentice so as to prevent him from coming into conflict with Riku over the Keyblade, which is of course exactly what happens ten years later. By the time of III, Aqua has grown tired of having so much burden on her shoulders and, though still an assertive Onee-sama, is no longer pushy when it comes to solving problems.
• Kyo Kusanagi's cousin and Big Brother Mentor, Souji, in The King of Fighters: KYO. He was supposed to be the true successor to the Kusanagi family instead of Kyo or Saisyu, and Kyo respects him to the point of calling him "Souji-san" (which considering Kyo's very rough and informal speech patterns, is very meaningful)...but he pushed himself so insanely hard that he ended up giving into his dark side and had to relay the leadership on his uncle and cousin, or he'd be consumed by his own darkness.
• BioWare pulled this one out in spades for Knights of the Old Republic — most of the crew of both games, including the Player Character, are this trope.
  • Carth Onasi: Ace Pilot, decorated war veteran, and can be a genuine Nice Guy...but his mentor's betrayal, destruction of his homeworld, and loss of his family have left him with raging trust issues.
  • Bastila Shan: Whooooo Boy. Talented and beautiful young woman, star Padawan of the Jedi Order, mastered a rare Force ability that makes her essential to the war effort (and the only thing stopping Malak from steamrolling the galaxy), and is given most of the credit for taking down Darth Revan... but is wound up so tightly from all the pressure that she's become dogmatic, thoroughly lacks a sense of humor, and is terrified of anything that might go against the Order's dogma.
  • Juhani: Survived an attempted genocide by the Mandalorians, Fantastic Racism, crawled her way out of one of the worst slums in the galaxy and fought hard to be accepted into the Jedi, even though she was older than most trainees. Probably the best lightsaber fighter in the galaxy besides the Player Character, and holds herself to extremely high standards. Too bad she's wound up tighter than Bastila, and is a psychological mess from all the pressure she puts on herself and the unresolved childhood issues that Jedi training has done absolutely nothing to help and everything to try and repress.
  • Canderous Ordo: One of Mandalore's generals, commander and veteran of battles all over the galaxy for forty years. Lost it all at Malachor Five, was cracking heads for a petty crime boss, and after unraveling his Proud Warrior Race Guy persona and laundry list of battles fought? He admits he's Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life. Even when he finds one? His gruff pride and steady persona are used as target practice when Kreia delivers a Breaking Speech about how he's really little more than Revan's "loyal beast."
  • Jolee Bindo: Lived in the dangerous woods of Kashyyyk, and puts on a face that's a cross of "Grumpy Old Man," and "Old Master." Fought in Exar Kun's War, was a smuggler and adventurer even when he was with the Order, and never stopped with the thrill-seeking...but was really self-exiling himself over his perceived failures as a Jedi, including his failure in training his wife, who turned to the Dark Side.
  • The Jedi Exile in the second game? A highly charismatic Magnetic Hero, one of Revan's top generals in the Mandalorian Wars and the "Hero" of Malachor V. A grossly dysfunctional mess who can't even talk about their previous battles and so traumatised by ordering the destruction of Malachor V, that it severed their entire connection to the Force.
    • And then revealed to have become a Humanoid Abomination, who's Magnetic Hero qualities are the result of unknowingly creating Force-bonds which sway people to their point of view, as well as having regained the Force by pulling it out of the Force-Sensitive people around them and people they've slain in battle.
  • Atton? Ace Pilot, excellent smuggler, rarely loses at Pazaak, decorated vet of the Mandalorian Wars, utter Determinator when he fights...former Sith Assassin that used to get off on torturing Jedi until one showed him he was Force Sensitive and persuaded him to run away.
  • Bao-Dur? Gadgeteer Genius whose talents with shield technology surpasses even the Echani (who invented them). Built his own mechanical arm after losing his in battle...and made the weapon of mass destruction that won the battle at Malachor V.
  • Handmaiden? Daughter of an Echani general turned Senator, one of six elite guards to a Jedi Master, excellent fighter, impeccable protocol and manners...Is hated by her half-sisters just for existing (she was the product of daddy's affair with a Jedi), has such little self-esteem she doesn't feel worthy of a name, and reading her thoughts produces an endless loop of how she must learn to fight harder.
  • Mical: Officer and a Gentleman, Gentleman and a Scholar, spy that ostensibly works for the Republic, but might be working just for Cede or Carth, he is doing some "light" reading in a monster-infested ruins of a Jedi archive, and greets you in a formal (if a bit archaic) manner. "Broken" because being a Republic officer was merely a fallback after he spent his childhood and youth training for the Jedi, but the Wars left no one left to train him, leaving him to pick through ashes for what was left of his dream.
  • None of them hold a candle to Revan, in terms of Ace-ness and Broken-ness. A near perfect blend of charisma and power...which made his fall to the Dark Side all the more disastrous. There's a reason he's known as one of the galaxy's greatest heroes and as one of its worst villains.
• Hibiki from Lux-Pain is this. He's considered one of the top students of Kisaragi High school that got accepted on board to study to America, beats the Insufferable Genius Shinji at math and computers and is deemed very attractive by his peers. However, that's only on the surface reputation. To begin with his trauma, his parents died in a car accident when he was very young and it left him relatively unstable, he was taken care of by the Kisaragi nurse Honoka who later adopted him. However, he was labeled as a strange boy shortly after being released from the hospital after the accident and was isolated from his peers. Then his best friend, who later because his crush, Ryo befriended him and he was fine...until those feelings got in the way and he got jealous of Ryo's co-worker Ai. This promotes him to leave to America, but then he comes back a year later, thinking that his feelings are gone. They didn't go away...and he goes crazy because of his powers that were caused by his psychological pain. Whether or not he survives depends on if the player gets the normal ending or the good ending. Regardless, he lead a pretty bad life and the player can decide how it can change.
• Deugan from MARDEK. In Chapter 3, he actually becomes the next Grand Adventurer as "Lone Wolf", just like he always wanted to, and is already almost as famous and popular as his childhood hero Social Fox was. But due to his incredibly poor self esteem, he still doesn't think this is enough, and also seems to think he doesn't deserve anything good that happens to him.
• Miranda from Mass Effect 2. Beautiful, intelligent, confident, skilled, a decent fighter, and "absolutely perfect" in every aspect. And then it is revealed why she is perfect: "daddy issues" does not begin to cover it. She was genetically engineered to be absolutely perfect and capable of accomplishing anything. She can't even think that some of her talent came from unintended side-effects, because her father lethally disowned every child that didn't meet his standards to the exact level. This causes her to view anything she accomplishes to be a result of her father's money and planning, and believes that only her mistakes are truly hers. This means that when everything goes right she has no sense of accomplishment, and when everything goes wrong or she is surpassed somehow (such as through most of the plot of the game) she feels like a complete failure, because she was given everything she needed and still managed to screw it up. Thankfully, Shepard can fix that if he/she so chooses.
  • Depending on how s/he's played, Shepard can be a pretty good example. During character creation, Shepard can be given a Dark and Troubled Past that would leave anyone with some serious psychological traumas; by the end of Mass Effect 3 it's possible to lose a lot of crew members and friends (and be forced to kill a few of them), commit genocide (including destroying an entire inhabited solar system to slow down the Reapers, which is not optional) and see some of the most seriously messed up sights the galaxy has to offer. Shepard may be the baddest warrior to ever live, but it's no picnic to be her/him.
  • Garrus Vakarian is basically Shepard's understudy and becomes a Memetic Badass between the first and second games by fighting evil mercenary groups on Omega. A deadly shot, a skilled hand-to-hand combatant, and a talented leader...who spends about half the second game obsessed with revenge against the traitor who got his squad wiped out, blaming himself for trusting said traitor, and depending on Shepard to be his rock, the person he can rely on to never betray him. In his romance with a female Shepard, he eventually admits that he's seen so much of what he's been involved with fall apart messily that he desperately wants that romance to be the one thing that goes right. He mostly grows out of it by the third game, and even switches roles so that he is the one keeping Shepard standing when everything goes to hell, even if not romanced.
  • Kasumi Goto is the galaxy's best master thief, a sophisticated, quick-witted, technologically-adept cat burglar who is equally at home robbing a casino and strolling around a party, but is so obsessed with her dead boyfriend that if you let her keep the graybox at the end of her loyalty mission, she begins to withdraw into those memories rather than move on with her life. Unlike many options, you don't get a chance to help her truly overcome it; Shepard's recommendations to that effect are treated to a flip dismissal, and even when you send her to help on the Crucible (assuming she was loyal; if not, she'll die/disappear), that seeming functionality is just a patch and the underlying issues are still there. Then, in the Extended Cut, you'll get a shot of her hooked up to the graybox if you pick the Destroy or Control endings, implying that she's pretty much descended into addiction; even Synthesis only keeps her functional by recreating Keiji from those memories.
• Alec Ryder is the father of the Player Character in Mass Effect: Andromeda and seems like a real Cool Old Guy: he's a former N7 operative like Shepard and a brilliant artificial intelligence researcher to boot, all set to the deep voice of Clancy Brown. However, his relationship with his twin children is non-existent, presumably because being an elite special forces and a genius scientist doesn't leave a lot of time for family bonding. He was Happily Married to his wife, though her own scientific research caused her to contract a terminal disease and his ground-breaking work with artificial intelligences got him blacklisted by the human military and cut short the careers of his children as well, leaving them in a position so bad that traveling to another galaxy seemed like the best deal in town.
  • Nakmor Drak is the krogan that most krogan would want to be: he's fought for over 1,000 years and could seriously be considered the most lethal thing in two galaxies that walks on two legs. However, he is old and worries that he's a relic of a time that the current generation of krogan should leave behind, plus he's partly cybernetic from way too many close calls and almost lost the will to live when his implants were initially rejected.
  • Akksul is the leader of the Heleus Cluster's resident anti-alien movement and was a brilliant student if a bit full of himself according to Jaal, but otherwise an exemplary angaran youth... then the kett captured him and he spent a year in one of their work camps. Now he's so hellbent on driving out or killing any aliens in the Heleus Cluster that he's willing to destroy his people's most sacred site to turn them against the Andromeda Initiative, the angarans' only allies against the kett.
• Zero from Mega Man X is cool, collected, and revered Maverick Hunter. He's also an Anti Anti Christ with a lot of baggage, most notably over him releasing The Virus that caused the events of the series and him murdering his girlfriend. In Mega Man Zero, he becomes Legendary in the Sequel, but he's also an amnesiac Hero with Bad Publicity whose body is used in the slaughter of 75% of all life on Earth.
• Metal Gear:
  • Solid Snake becomes a legendary hero and prevents global war, but is haunted by the things he's done and seen and often downplays his achievements.
    Solid Snake: There are no heroes in war. The only heroes I know are either dead or in prison. One or the other. I'm just a man who's good at what he does: killing.
  • There's also Raiden, who didn't start as an ace, but did become one over time. By the time of his spin-off series he's adored by his allies, respected by his enemies, possibly the most powerful warrior in the world and capable of picking a fight with an actual army head-on and winning. He's also incapable of staying away from the battlefield despite how much he wants to have a peaceful life and is forced to admit that no matter how he dresses it up, he fights to feed the bloodlust he holds within.
  • Big Boss. He started out as a decorated soldier and war hero. Then he was ordered to kill someone he revered for reasons that turned out to be ones he couldn't respect, turning him against his superiors and leading to disillusionment with civilian society. From there, he spends four games Slowly Slipping Into Evil.
  • Pretty much every member of FOXHOUND except Vulcan Raven is a world-class talent at their role in missions, and a barely functional bundle of issues that should probably have been kept far away from any kind of firearm or combat theatre. Liquid Snake is a giant bundle of issues related to his clone-father; Sniper Wolf balances deadly accurate sniping with a bucketload of trauma, a death wish and a diazepam addiction; Decoy Octopus is so focused on being a Master of Disguise that he had most of his distinguishing features surgically removed and needs deprogramming whenever he finishes a mission; and Psycho Mantis is a psychic powerhouse whose abilities have brought him nothing but misery since the day he was born, and left him with nothing but the impulse to share that misery.
• Samus Aran of Metroid. Beautiful, one of the greatest fighters in the galaxy, a legend in her own lifetime. Also one big bundle of neuroses, dependency issues, and survivor's guilt held together almost entirely by thoughts of vengeance most of the time.
• Liu Kang from Mortal Kombat is this. He may be the Mortal Kombat Champion of Earthrealm and a protege of Raiden, but starts to becomes this as the series goes on, especially in the new timeline. Getting murdered by Shang Tsung causes his vengeful zombie to kill many of his own allies, an act he still feels responsible for in the original timeline. It gets From Bad to Worse in MK9, when he loses many of his friends and allies over the course of the game, loses his love interest (Kitana) and best friend (Kung Lao), and loses faith in his mentor Raiden. In MKX, after becoming a revenant, he still views his former mentor with great contempt (AND explicitly tells that to Raiden in his face), and willingly ascends to become the new ruler of the Netherrealm alongside Kitana at the end of MKX.
  • Raiden from Mortal Kombat starts to become more of this in the rebooted timeline. He may be the protector god of Earthrealm and mentor to Liu Kang, but beneath that shell is a broken man who is distraught losing many of his champions, has to deal with multiple invasions and carries a big Guilt Complex for accidentally killing Liu Kang. He never recovers from this in MKX, and this culminates in his Face–Heel Turn after purifying the Jinsei (Earthrealm's life force) at the end of MKX.
  • Mortal Kombat 11 has things come full circle when their summoned past selves realize Kronika has been exploiting this out of them as an Eternal Recurrence throughout multiple timelines. This is so that by pitting them against each other, they wouldn't be able to combine their powers to stop her. After she kidnaps Liu Kang and has his Emperor future self take his soul, Raiden manages to trasfer his powers into it, resulting in Emperor Liu Kang being Ret-Gone and Fire God Liu Kang taking his place.
• NieR: Automata: In the 12th millennium, combat androids wage proxy wars for their respective Human and Alien factions^note the aliens are obsessed with the resurgence of magic that happened to concentrate on an Insignificant Little Blue Planet, the surviving humans haven't taken losing their only world very well. On the surface, both species excel in future-warfare and emulate human emotions very fluently. But general lack of contact from the sentient organics who force them to fight these wars has left them nutty at best and mentally unstable at worst. Androids experiment on stuff to get high on, try to manipulate their significant others in relationships, and host underground coliseums to try and kill each other — all so they can find something, anything, to do. Machines perform all kinds of human-based rituals from Theme Parks to Robot Sex to Death Cults to Suicide Shakespeare. In particular, the S-class Android series is equipped with the latest technology to make them all-rounded elite elite agents on the field, but have crippling mental trauma. Since they're programmed to be inquisitive and armed with military-grade hacking gear, they keep learning classified secrets ^note such as population of unique human consciousnesses in the solar system: One. Population of organic humans in the solar system: ZERO. and are assigned a partner who kills them every time they learn too much, resetting a portion of their memories when they respawn but not the part where their partner spontaneously murders them with enough firepower to count as artillery. 9S in particular has developed extreme cognitive dissonance and ignores overwhelming research pointing towards machine empathy. This also damages the executioner's mental health, as Androids have been programmed to associate combat (and executions) with romance.
• Persona:
  • Shinjiro Aragaki of Persona 3 may qualify. When he rejoins SEES, he likely has the single greatest damage output of the group and is implied to have been the best fighter before he left in the first place. Thing is, he's being eaten away at from the inside by guilt from having accidentally killed Ken's mother two years prior.
  • Persona 5:
    • Kamoshida is a handsome, fit, universally loved and respected ex-Olympic athlete. However, he's grown bitter and resentful of feeling like he must live up to everyone's expectations of him while still enjoying the benefits his fame gives him, and has begun abusing his students for stress relief. By the time the player deals with him, he's long since crossed the Moral Event Horizon, leaving no room for sympathy in anyone's eyes, no matter how broken he is.
    • Student council president Makoto is intelligent, good looking, has perfect grades, and is all but assured to get into the best college. Beneath it all she questions what purpose she has beyond earning high marks and following every order she's given, as she feels like none of what she's doing is what she actually wants to do.
    • Goro Akechi admits to having been an unwanted child who became a ace detective celebrity to feel wanted by someone. His newfound fame feels hollow to him considering how his adoring fans are clueless as to how much he had to crawl through to get to where he is today. And then you find out that he orchestrated all the crimes he "solved" to become famous, and committed so much more on top of that. Though he knows how far he's fallen, Akechi refuses to admit that all the harm he caused in the name of his justice could have easily been avoided.
• Cyrus from Pokémon Diamond and Pearl games. He's highly intelligent, charismatic, eloquent, and reasonably attractive, all things considered. As a villain, he's a Magnificent Bastard whom just about everyone in his organization adores (and so do his Pokemon, if his Crobat is any indication)...but the only reason why he acts like that is because he was driven insane from trying to live up to the impossible standards his parents set for him.
  • In the anime episodes he appears in, it's even more so, since he adopts the appearance of a successful businessman while plotting with Team Galactic.
• Prayer of the Faithless: Mia is a skilled swordfighter with a versatile moveset, but her reluctance to fight holds her back, to the point where she automatically gains the Panic ailment when unsheathing her blade. Her refusal to kill also causes her to forfeit the Proving ceremony. Though she later helps the party kill a trio of rogue Manna when doing so is necessary to save Luke.
• In Ratchet & Clank, Captain Qwark. He was previously a heroic and upstanding hero in his youth, if naive and dim-witted, but his modern persona is cowardly and selfish. As revealed in the third game, this is because a narrow escape from the clutches of Dr. Nefarious caused him to realize that he could have genuinely died. While the exact reasoning behind this is selfish (he was more concerned about depriving the galaxy of himself), in later games he makes honest attempts to do the right thing again.
• Leon S. Kennedy in Resident Evil is a One-Man Army, regularly surviving encounters with zombies and monsters that had killed entire squads of highly trained agents. By Resident Evil 4, he has become a member of the Secret Service, tasked with protecting the President's family. But as the years went on, Leon has been fighting the war against B.O.W.s for so long that he questions if it is even worth it. After losing one squad under his command in Vendetta, he began to drink to cope with his grief and growing frustrations that he has spent almost half his life fighting bio-terrorism with no end in sight.
• Shadow the Hedgehog from the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise is one of the most powerful beings around, with Super-Speed that rivals the titular main character as well as possessing many, destructive abilities. He is The Ageless as well as immune to any and all biological diseases as his creator made him to be the Ultimate Life Form. The circumstances surrounding Shadow's creation led to the deaths of his surrogate family as well as the loss of his home. Even after pulling a Heel–Face Turn, Shadow is very understandably not a very social person and remains emotionally closed off from only his very few companions, and even then.
• Elzam von Branstein from Super Robot Wars: Original Generation. He's an Ace Pilot, a Supreme Chef, a Father to His Men... and he was forced to kill his wife in a Sadistic Choice several years ago, losing the respect of his younger brother in the process. He spends most of the game as a Stealth Mentor, trying to find new heroes to take his place. When his brother finally forgives him, he goes back to being The Ace under the guise of Ratsel Feinschmecker.
• Lots of characters in the Tales Series. Nobody in the franchise gets away with just being The Ace. You've got to get broken somehow. A few examples:
  • Zelos in Tales of Symphonia is probably the straightest example. He's the Chosen of Tethe'alla, an academic prodigy, a peerless womanizer, and on top of that, his combat skills are nothing to sneeze at. But he's so broken that he's basically a Death Seeker. Investigate his backstory a little, and you find out being the Chosen has torn his life apart. His parents hated each other but were forced to marry in order to produce him. His mother died Taking the Bullet for him, even though she loathed him and believed he should never have been born. His half-sister, his only remaining family, has been confined to an abbey and acts like she hates him. He has no friends, just his "hunnies", who only hang out with him because he's the Chosen. He's fully aware of this. Oh, and the only reason he did so well in school was because the girls all took notes for him.
  • Guy and Jade both nearly fit this archetype in Tales of the Abyss. They are both extremely talented fighters. Guy is set up to be a quintessential hero, reminiscent of the protagonists of previous games — his optimistic attitude, as well as his fighting style, are very similar to Lloyd's — while Jade has the reputation and intelligence of an ace. Both of them, however, are more broken than they initially seem:
    • Jade, for starters, is a sociopath, whose disregard for human life and Pride pushed him to invent fomicry. After realizing the many, many horrors that his technology brought to the world, he feels so guilty that he wishes he could go back in time to kill himself as a newborn. If you think hard enough about fomicry, especially how the Big Bad plans to use it, Jade's ace tendencies basically caused every problem in the game.
    • Guy pretends to be confident and optimistic, and his Dynamic Entry in the first few hours of the game is so cool that when he says "enter the amazing Guy!" you're more inclined to applaud than disagree. While he's also charming enough to be a womanizer of Zelos's caliber, his gynophobia means that he's more likely to lead girls on. There's also the fact that Duke Fabre slaughtered his entire family and left him buried under a pile of corpses for several days when he was five years old. His initial goal was to kill Luke in front of his father for revenge, and thanks to the curse slot, it's confirmed that this desire is still present throughout the game despite his Undying Loyalty. Guy is much creepier than that winking face would lead you to believe.
• Kaori Yae of Tokimeki Memorial 2: she's pretty, has the overall best academic grades among the whole cast, is even better at sports than sporty heroine Hikari, and has such a natural talent at rhythmic games such as DanceDanceRevolution she can play them flawlessly even on her first try; yet, due to a traumatic event in her past, she has zero social skills, as she can't trust anyone anymore, and people in return can't trust her. Her Ace skills even out if the Main Protagonist manages to help her get out of her Heroic BSoD, as she'll enter again the Volley-Ball Club and fully involves herself in, meaning her grades take a toll and become only average; and while she becomes more cheerful and open to others, she still has difficulties making friends.
  • The main guys of the Tokimeki Memorial Girl's Side games lean towards being Broken Aces as well. They're always smart, athletic, good-looking, and admired by their classmates, but Kei Hazuki in GS1 is deeply apathetic about most things and finds it hard to relate to others; he's often tired to the point of falling asleep in class because of his modeling jobs, which he does not because he's particularly interested in it but because he has difficulty saying no. Teru Saeki in GS2 is a worse case: he pushes himself hard to live up to other people's expectations to the point that his entire speech pattern changes depending on who he's talking to, and like Kei, he's often tired from the combined burdens of keeping up his grades, working his part-time job, and pacifying his league of fangirls.
• Sans from Undertale pretty much embodies this trope; he's quick with a joke, easygoing, charismatic, and is a whiz in quantum physics. However, the knowledge that the world he lives in is a Ground Hog Day Loop that he is powerless to change has reduced him to a Brilliant, but Lazy Anti-Nihilist who's only real source of hope left is his brother, Papyrus, who is just as subject to the Player's actions as he is.
• Prince Arthas from Warcraft seems at first to be a friendly guy; respected by his men and admired by the common people. This quality makes it hard for him be taken seriously as a leader. When the undead infestation worsens, he commits atrocities to save his people and to show everyone that he can handle a crisis. He instead drives those who he thought cared about him, like Uther and Jaina, away. He finally falls to the Lich King's manipulations, who preys upon his need for validation by treating him as The Chosen One.
• B.J Blazkowicz gets hit with this trope hard in Wolfenstein: The New Order and it's sequels/prequels. Well-built, incredibly capable, a Hope Bringer to La Résistance, The Dreaded to The Nazis... He's also completely exhausted of fighting both physically and mentally, is utterly wrought with guilt over the events of 1946, and is a massive chronic sufferer of Trauma Conga Line... Yeah, saying he has it rough is an understatement.
  • He gets even harder in Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus; still capable, still a Hope Bringer to the La Résistance and the Nazis' most dreaded enemies...but his battle with Deathshead at the end of The New Order left him paraplegic and living on borrowed time due to the imminent failure of his kidneys, which threatens to take him before he gets a chance to see his children born. Heaped on top of all this is watching another close friend getting murdered in front of him, and returning to the United States...only to witness firsthand how his beloved "Land of the Free" has been completely brutalized and subjugated by the Nazi occupation. If you thought B.J. was at a low point in The New Order, he's truly hit bedrock by The New Colossus.
• Depending on how you build your stats, it's perfectly possible to play Ayano as one in Yandere Simulator. She can be a popular girl who gets good grades, is strong enough to fight trained martial artists, is dedicated to a school club, and can easily seduce both male and female classmates. However, in the game's backstory she felt nothing until she fell in love with her beloved Senpai. At which point, she became a Stalker with a Crush. You can choose a variety of methods to eliminate girls who also share an interest in your Senpai, ranging from simply pairing them up with someone else, to manipulation, to flat out murder, but Ayano will always be messed up. Word of God also states that the reason why she has so much capability is because she's so determined to make sure Senpai is hers that she can accomplish anything she puts her mind to in pursuit of that goal.

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