Console RPG Clichés: The All The Tropes Version: Difference between revisions

# '''Beelzebombed:''' Summoning dark forces (Demons, Devils, [[Eldritch Abomination]]s, etc) never works. Despite this, the evil wizards keep trying, lured by promises of fame, wealth and power, and generally [[Evil Is Not a Toy|wind up dead instead]].

# '''Rules of Romance:''' If the game has a romantic subplot, the protagonist will end up with his [[Hair of Gold|blonde]] [[Victorious Childhood Friend|childhood friend]] (who probably is also a [[White Magician Girl]], and very meek, which is how [[Stay in the Kitchen|women apparently should be]]). If the game lets you choose between various characters, one of them will be your blonde childhood friend, but [[What the Hell, Player?|the game will tell you you're a bad person]] if you [[Unlucky Childhood Friend|don't choose her]], no matter how [[Not Blood Siblings|incestuous]] you may feel in doing so. The other options will be the [[Black Magician Girl]] and maybe a [[Lady of War]]. But [[Three Faces of Eve|there will always be three]], and very seldom a [[Gay Option]].

# '''Back to Prohibition:''' Hardened [[pirate]]s, [[City Guards|city guardsmen]], and dastardly thieves all have one thing in common: they drink nothing stronger than [[Frothy Mugs of Water|fruit juice]].

# '''Know Your Audience:''' Shy [[The Ingenue|ingenues]], [[Lady of War|independent warrior women]], and brilliant sorceresses all have one thing in common: out-of-character though it may seem, they all [[Stripperiffic|dress like hookers]].

# '''HOUSE Magazine - Villain's Edition:''' The bad guy's castle will be really [[Evil Tower of Ominousness|ominous-looking]], and located in the middle of [[Mordor|a wasteland]]. Why he chooses to live here, we'll never know.

# '''Reality Is A Shonen Series Theorem:''' The protagonist will always be a clean-shaven, brown-haired or blond lad who spends most of his time looking determinedly ahead and smiling a big stupid grin. All of his reactions will be bizarrely exaggerated.

# '''[[Tales of Symphonia|Yuan's Surprise:]]''' If it is a JRPG, At least one major character (usually a protagonist, if not the main character, but sometimes applies to villains as well) will have [[You Gotta Have Blue Hair|blue hair]].

# '''A Victory Well Stolen''': If someone offers to give you something, then usually it will have been stolen and the person who owns the object will go and get reinforcements to go and get the object back, but they only turn up when you regain the object.

# '''The Deskjob From Hell:''' Storekeepers and other members of the working society are on duty, 24 hours a day.

# '''Psychic Magic Points:''' Even if you are [[Psychic Powers|Psychic]], you'll always used [[Mana|Magic Points]], Even if it isn't [[Functional Magic]].

# '''It's A Weird, Weird, Weird, Weird World:''' Throughout your travels, you are likely to end up in a [[Toy Time|city full of toys]], [[Bonus Level of Heaven|Heaven]], [[Absurdly Spacious Sewer|inside a big sewer]], [[Womb Level|inside somebody]], [[Nostalgia Level|a town that feels nostalgic]], [[Minus World|a city that doesn't look right]], [[Locomotive Level|a train]], '''[[Space Zone|IN SPACE]],''' [[Elevator Action Sequence|an elevator]], [[It's All Upstairs From Here|a seemingly endless staircase]], [[Marathon Level|a seemingly endless battlefield]], [[Level Ate|a city made of food]] or [[Wackyland|a place where the laws of physics and gravity don't apply.]].

#'''[[Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?|"Why Don't We Just Call The Cops?"]] ([[Pokémon Red and Blue|Red]]'s Law): '''[[Police Are Useless]]. Your party of prepubescents and wanted convicts are expected to deal with any and all crime in the world, even if it completely stops you from completing your quest. May or may not extend to [[Adults Are Useless|all adults]].

#'''Inverse Law of Rewards''': The reward for succeeding at something in an RPG is inversely proportional to how trivial the task was. Defeating the vampire that was holding the village hostage might get you some gold, [[Dude, Where's My Reward?|if you're lucky]], whereas the path the [[Infinity+1 Sword]] will be a reward for tasks like racing with children and finding lost chickens.

#'''[[Rock Beats Laser|Law of Military Research]]''': A weapon will always do more damage the more primitive it is. Player characters wielding guns will be completely useless with them, and will likely fill magical support roles, while characters wielding swords, axes, hammers, clubs, or even their bare fists will always hugely outclass supposedly superior weapons, up to and including [[Final Fantasy VII|galaxy-destroying super lasers]].

#'''Law Of Conservation Of Diligence''': Although sneaking past guards requires nothing more than avoiding a few obvious spots or staying out of their line of sight, if you break these simple rules, you will ''[[Can't Get Away with Nuthin'|always]]'' be caught. It doesn't matter if you are [[Invisibility|invisible]], [[Baleful Polymorph|polymorphed into a rat]], [[Dude, Where's My Respect?|a legendary hero who has already saved the world]], or [[Dressing as the Enemy|wearing the exact same outfit as the guards themselves]] - unless it's a cutscene or an NPC specifically told you that ''this'' time those tactics would work, the guards will not only see through your disguise, but address you just as if you had taken no measures to hide yourself at all.

#'''[[Trippy Finale Syndrome|Spiraling Vortex of Terror]]''': Either the final battle, location, or next-to-last cutscene of the battle you just took place in will be in a location that is either completely destroyed, a kind of space-time vortex, or the mid-between of a portal that connects the human world with the generic-evil "other world" that the villain is drawing his/her power. Note: No matter what the location, those inside of "location x" will still be able to breathe, walk, and function normally unless specified otherwise.

#'''[[Hostage for Macguffin|The World For My Friends First Law]]''': At some point in the game, if the main character's love interest is captured by the villain, or otherwise evil character, the captor will allow for a trade for her life. The only thing he'll/she'll accept is the "four mystic gems" or "eight magical items" that you have either acquired, or are in the process of acquiring.

#'''The World For My Friends Second Law:''' Even if it means handing free reign of reality over to the villain, the hero will still do so for [[Always Save the Girl|twu wuv]].

#'''Money Is The Root Of All Devious Minor Characters''': There is a good chance, that a NPC with a mansion, and many butlers doing things for him, will be ''evil'', and will attempt to kill you after he/she has invited you inside their home to rest for the night.

# '''Emotional Stability is For Wimps ([[Final Fantasy VII|Cloud]] and [[Final Fantasy VIII|Squall]] Rule)''': The [[Dark and Troubled Past|emotional baggage a character has]] contributes directly to the badassery they possess.

# '''[[We Buy Anything|The Shopkeeper's Holding Out On Them]]''': Regardless of how destitute a town is the shopkeepers can still afford to buy your insanely valuable equipment from you for the same price as the shopkeeper in the richest city in the world.

# '''Infinity Plus One Child''': That child who wandered deep into the dungeon and got lost [[Took a Shortcut|had no problem avoiding the same monsters]] that just killed two of your friends and left you crippled with no healing items.

# '''[[The Legend of Zelda|Link's]] Law:''' Should the protagonists be able to wield a weapon other than their preferred, they will invariably have a [[Instant Expert|masterly level of skill]]. This is true even and ''especially'' if this does not make sense given the character's backstory. (e.g. street rat, farmer, businessman, etc.)

# '''The Third Rule of Red''': Fire is always associated with deep red colors, even though real flames are often orange-red, and can also be yellow, blue, or white.

# '''Maturity Is Breast Size''': In the event that one of your female party members is considered mature by virtue of being a few (like, three) years older than the hero, she will invariably have large breasts—which [[A-Cup Angst|the other female members will consistently express envy over]].

# '''The [[Disc One Nuke|Single-Disc]] [[Game Breaker]]''': A certain piece of equipment (usually body armor or an accessory) that, once acquired, makes an upcoming stretch of the game significantly easier.

# '''The Hall of Gigas''': A variant of the [[Peninsula of Power Leveling]] that displays the following:

{{quote|A significantly-heightened [[Random Encounters|encounter rate]] compared to other areas.

#'''[[Design-It-Yourself Equipment|DIY Weaponry]]''': Being more powerful isn't simply a matter of leveling up and equipping better weapons - you need to ''make'' the weapons better. Not upgrading means not being as powerful as you could be, but upgrade too much and you've wasted all your components on your first weapon, making the "better" weapons later in the game much less useful unless you're prepared to gather all those components again.

#'''Law Of [[Global Airship]] Limitation''': It's really easy to tell the first place you should go with your shiny new [[Global Airship]] - it's the one town you haven't visited.

# '''Law of Economic Efficiency''': Prices never fluctuate on the open market. A Potion of Healing will always retail for 50 gold and sell for 25, no matter how wealthy or depressed the town is.

# '''Innkeeper's law of price gravitation ''': The price of a stay for one at an inn is inversely proportional to the square of its distance to the final boss.

# '''Medina law ''': A city where the people hate you will invariably sell goods for exorbitant prices, fair trade be damned. However, even if you are the one ruler of a city you will still have to pay for everything with your money.

# '''Law of Summon Magic Utility:''' If you have a summoner/the ability to summon there is a good chance that at least one summon is good for nothing at all aside from one plot event, repeatable as needed, and you will not feel like the summon saved you, you will feel annoyed because it was necessary. If all summons for the plot actually do have usefulness in combat at any point, then at least one summon will actually be worse than a common spell.

# '''The Rule of Rightful [[Random Number God|RNG]] Paranoia:''' The Random Number Generator IS AGAINST YOU! 95% means 16%, 50% means 1%, and 1% means either 5% or 99% for you. For the enemy/negative effects 50% means 99%, 1% means 50%, and 100% means 100%.

# '''Evil Comes with Age:''' Your average band of heroes will range from 13 to 35, and even then it's very rare. Your average villain is usually several times the age of the ages of your party combined, ranging from 5 to 17 times. Even so, they always appear to be younger than the resident old-but-not-really hero.

# '''[[Squishy Wizard|Mages are Weak]]:''' No mage, in any game whatsoever, can equip any armor aside from hats and robes and can't use any weapons aside from staffs, especially white mages. As a result, they are always the first to die in any fight and couldn't kill something with physical attacks to save their lives, but they must be used due to usefulness of their spells.

# '''Women are Weak:''' Related to the above, unless a female party member is a [[Action Girl|Warrior Girl]], they are always weak compared to the male members of their party, sometimes being the...

# '''[[The Load|Mandatory Useless Party Member]]:''' In any game where party members are selectable, 100% of the time there will be at least one party member too weak to ever use, thus most of the time you will not, and 100% of the time the game will force you to use them.

# '''Warrior Girls are Bachelorettes:''' No Warrior Girl will have a romantic relationship with anyone in a game unless they are the main character, and even then the odds are slim.

# '''[[Never Found the Body|No Body = No Death]]:''' No character, hero or villain that falls off a cliff, gets caught in a [[Death Trap]], is at the center of a big explosion, etc. and does not leave a body behind is not dead, no matter how unlikely their survival.