Breaking the Fourth Wall/Video Games: Difference between revisions

* ''[[The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker|The Legend of Zelda the Wind Waker]]'': One of the Tutorial notes in Sturgeons House listed is "Learn all there is to learn in lessons one through nine… And no matter what happens… Do not give up, do not complain, and do NOT stay up all night playing!"

** Also, if you manage to land 1000 strikes on Orca during a duel, he will lose count (since the highest the game can keep track of is 999), call you Master, and ask if your fingers hurt, referencing the "Hold" option for L-Targeting.

* Talking to Jack Frost or Pyro Jack in the [[Shin Megami Tensei]] games often leads them to brag about being famous characters in human video games.

* In ''[[The World Ends With You]]'''s bizarro universe, Another Day, speaking to Joshua in {{spoiler|Udagawa}} results in him practically addressing the player with remarks about why the sprites for the main female protagonist remain the same, despite the fact that {{spoiler|in the main storyline, she's in her friend's body}}.

* In ''[[Drawn to Life]]'' on the DS, one of the characters named Jowee wonders how the creator (that's you) sees everyone there. He then thinks that the creator sees them through a white box with buttons, with two windows and controls everything with a magic wand (which is all true). Mari then claims that that's the dumbest idea ever and Jowee agrees.

** This entire game, the characters speak directly to you, as their creator. You also have to touch things that will affect the game (usually on request to you, the creator).

** Also, if a character is knocked off the screen at the top, they will sometimes bounce off the camera.

* In ''[[Max Payne (series)|Max Payne]]'', one level has Max shot up with drugs. First he hallucinates that he sees a note that tells him he's in a graphic novel, a format the game uses in place of cut scenes. He exits the room only to find himself inside it again, with the note on the desk again. This time the note tells him he's in a computer game. The latter call stayed the same even when the game was ported to other systems like the Playstation 2.

** "Ever get the feeling someone's playing games with you?" "All the time."

* In ''[[Soul Series|Soul Calibur IV]],'' there's a voice that can be used for female characters in Character Creation. After winning a match, it may say, "Even with the same moves, it all depends on the user."

* ''[[Altered Beast]]'' has us believe the characters are {{spoiler|making a movie}}.

* ''[[Serious Sam]] 2'' does this quite often. First, NETRICSA mentions having "a bigger game budget", which leaves Sam confused. Despite this, he goes on to say "this game is full of bugs!" upon meeting the Zum Zum, a giant bee, and after beating it, he says "There will be no bugs in this game!"

** The entire premise of ''[[Space Quest]] IV: Roger Wilco and the Time Rippers'' revolves around breaking the fourth wall. Roger Wilco is pursued by the "Sequel Police" for perpetrating unwarranted sequels to his franchise. He uses a Time Pod to travel between various games in the series, some of which don't even exist (such as Space Quest XII). At one point you can even buy a strategy guide to Space Quest IV in the game itself, which gives you some fairly unhelpful hints on what to do (as well as advice on what to do if your computer crashes or freezes while playing, which is all equally unhelpful).

*** Newer [[Sierra]] adventure games use a variety of icons to portray the characters actions. If you click on the hand and then Roger the Narrator will berate you by saying "Hey! Keep your hands off yourself! This is a family game!"

*** ''[[Space Quest]] 6'' also has several instances of Roger and the narrator talking to each other. And at one point Stellar Santiago also appears to hear the narrator, only Roger tells her it's nothing.

* If you die a certain way in ''[[Leisure Suit Larry]]'', Larry's body gets dumped into the programmer's bit bucket and recycled for future adventure games.

* Happens quite a bit in ''[[Shadow Hearts]]: Covenant''. Early in the game, the party runs into a [[Large Ham]] masked bandit named "Grand Papillon" (who turns out to be Joachim, one of the playable characters). He boasts about how he's fighting for truth and justice and then the camera cuts to his face, then his chest, ''then his butt'', and finally Yuri standing in front of and facing the camera, holding his arms out in disgust.

** And near the end of the game, Joachim is asked by his mentor if he and the party can participate in the "Man Festival". Yuri quickly responds with, "Not in a clean, mega-hit RPG such as this!" After clearing the 50th (?) floor, the quest jumps to the final eight fights. Anastasia comments, "Didn't we just skip about 30 or so floors?"

* In ''[[Secret of Evermore]]'' the player meets a crazy old man who rants about how people have no free will and are puppets of a button pressing madman. You (the player, not the protagonist) then get to push a button to determine what horrible fate befalls him.

* The MMORPG ''[[City of Heroes]]'' includes an NPC, Fusionette, who talks about her in-game actions as if she were actually playing the game; she refers to her character's level, talks about going to the "trainer" NPC that players use to gain new abilities, and uses phrases such as "Just wait until my Build Up recharges!" to other NPCs (Build Up being a damage/accuracy boosting ability with a long recharge time). She also appears in one mission where she is not supposed to be, and tells the player, "Don't look at me like that! I had to be in this mission!"

*** There is also one of the tips that appears when logging into the game: ''Bring all your friends to Azeroth, but don't remember to spend time outside Azeroth with them too!''

*** Try clicking on a unit you select in ''Warcraft III'' multiple times after hearing the whole speech. For example, you can hear the Human Sorceress saying "Click me baby, one more time.".

** Nearly all Blizzard games use this trope in pretty much the same way. In the ''Warcraft'' games, clicking on certain unit types repeatedly results in the unit ordering the player to "[[Stop Poking Me]]!". In the ''Starcraft'' series, each unit type and character has a short dialog that is triggered by repeated clicking. Most of them stay in character, talking about themselves and their missions; while others break the fourth wall to talk to the character, usually expressing frustration at being constantly harassed by the player, or opinions about how bored the player must be to keep wasting his time like that. A few use [[Shout-Out|quotes from various other pop-culture sources]] -- for example, the Terran drop-ship pilot uses quotes from ''[[Aliens]]'', and the German-accented Terran Valkyrie pilot references the "Frau Blücher" running gag from ''[[Young Frankenstein]]''. Protoss character Artanis quotes the "Stop poking me!" line from ''[[Warcraft]]''. Although the Zerg have no dialog as such, repeatedly clicking on them results in a number of different noises not normally used during play.

*** "This isn't ''Warcraft'' in space!"

* ''[[Sonic Chronicles]]'' for the [[Nintendo DS]] took the whole wall, stabbed it and hanged it upside down with the ending cutscene. {{spoiler|After the heroes exit Nocturne and return to their own world it turns out that Eggman [[Didn't See That Coming|played the heroes for fools]] and had deliberately helped them to get to Nocturne in order to get all the necessary time to take over the entire world without the meddling of Sonic and his friends. Tails and Sonic then end up having a conversation about how they didn't expect such an ending, how impressed they were of it and how they'll have to wait for the next episode in order to see what happens next. Tails then ends up telling Sonic about the makers of the game, [[BioWare]], and ends up listing the whole cast credits at which point you can, as Sonic, tell Tails that you want to skip it}}.

** Tails would in fact break the fourth wall a few other times before when he constantly reminded you to save your game unless you tell Tails to stop reminding you.

* In ''Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders'', the main character loves to do that, and not only him.

* In ''Zeus Master Of Olympus'', you can right click people to listen to their quotes. Sometimes, a trader from a not-so-friendly city will say, "Right click me? I'll right click you! You and this city stink and I only trade with you because my leader demands me to."

** In a more regular example in the first game, [[Donald Duck]] is out of shot during a conversation so he literally ''[[Kingdom Hearts/Funny|pulls the screen away from Goofy to focus on him]]'' before he begins speaking.

* The lesser known PS1 fighting game ''Zero Divide'' has an instance of fourth wall breaking, when the announcer asks if the player is trying to break the controller if buttons are mashed repeatedly. This instance can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4ucvOVJjpI (Cut to 1:28 when the video has loaded enough).

* In Celadon Mansion in ''[[Pokémon Red and Blue]]'', you can talk to a programmer, graphical artist and script writer who worked on the game. They talk to you about your [[Game Boy]] and one even remarks "I drew you!"

** Looking at the computer the script writer is at mentions "Better not look at the ending!"

* ''[[Fallout 2]]'' has LOTS of these. Bartender of the parlor: "Are you OK? It seems consuming so much alcohol Z had some effect on you." Chosen One "I'll pop out of the conversation one second and check my max hit points." Chosen One: "Bastard! Wait till I load my last save!"

* [[Deadpool]] carries over his habit of breaking the fourth wall into ''[[Marvel vs. Capcom 3]]''. When he's knocked out, he yells out "YOU PRESSED THE WRONG BUTTON!", referring to the player controlling Deadpool. Upon winning. he'll also scold the player for sitting on the couch and being lazy while he has to do all the fighting. Finally, his Level 3 Hyper Combo has him assume a girlish pose and walk toward his opponent with a pink aura and hearts surrounding him for a few seconds. If he is attacked in this state, he'll jump up, grab his health bar, and whack his opponent in the head. He then grabs his Super Meter, winds up, and knocks his opponent sky high.

** In the sequel, ''[[Resident Evil 2]]'', there's a small alley with dogs where the same thing can happen. It can also be done while fighting G on the turntable lift.

* Stay on the menu screen too long in [[Ghost Hunter]] and a spirit would zoom up and audibly tap on the screen.

** The camera viewpoint moves across the interior of the shaman's hut as he chants to summon a juju spirit. When the camera is on his face, he opens his eyes and screams at the sight of the player looking at him.

** "''You are so strange! Your clothes. That powerstick you hold in your hand. I have ''never'' seen a juju like you before. What is this magic box you watch me on?'' [Presses his hands to the screen so you can see his fingers flatten themselves on the screen.] ''It is clearly the most important thing in your hut! You do me great honor to watch me on it....''"

** And it gets more odd; Reika metions THE PLAYERS, then TELLING THE PLAYERS TO POWER UP THEIR STRENGH at the begining of the last boss.

* In ''[[Destroy All Humans!]]'', at the opening choice options screen on the mothership, if you fail to make a decision and leave the screen idle, Pox will sometimes say a random thing to you relating to the situation (i.e., "Well, it's your electric bill. You could have thought to turn the console off. Haven't you ever heard of global warming?" or "May I remind you that the name of this game is "Destroy All Humans", not SCREW AROUND IN THE MOTHERSHIP!").

{{quote|'''Housewife:''' With just a press of the Square button, you can come and go as you please... Ah, the wonderful Square Button.}}

* This comes up a lot during the ''Sly Cooper'' franchise, with dialogue such as: "Bentley, how do I climb ladders?" "Simple Sly. Just press the circle button."