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This trope occurs whenever there is inconsistency in how things work or behave between the gameplay and storyline sections of the game, the latter of which consists of [[cutscene]]s and dialogue. While this trope is generally forgivable due to technological limitations, [[Egregious]] instances can result in the shattering of the player's [[Willing Suspension of Disbelief]]. Typically, it's done to try and make a more interesting game, since simply hitting [[One Hit KO]] all the time like in that cutscene would be utterly boring, while having a person who actually ''can't'' open doors like in that last cutscene would make the game [[Fake Difficulty|needlessly frustrating]]. Accordingly, it's sometimes excused by [[Acceptable Breaks From Reality]], but by ''no'' stretch does that justification cover all of the flat-out weird mismatches [[They Just Didn't Care|perpetrated]] by game makers over the years.
Since large-scale [[cutscene]]s and extensive dialogue have only really been present in games since the
▲'''Forms of '''Gameplay and Story Segregation''' include:'''
* [[Arbitrary Headcount Limit]] <br />Arbitrary requirement that stops you from having too many characters in a party or unit.
** [[Lazy Backup]]
**
**:Worse yet, in some games losing one specific key playable character ends the game, [[We Cannot Go on Without You]] style, no matter how many other characters are still alive. For instance, checkmate ends the game the moment the king is dead in [[chess]].
* [[Artificial Stupidity]] <br />A character may canonically be a superintelligent master strategists, but make terrible decisions during gameplay due to [[Idiot Programming|poor programming]].
* [[Canon Shadow]] <br />A character or item that seems to be in the party, but other than giving stats, doesn't affect the plot at all.
* [[Commonplace Rare]] <br />When a seemingly common item takes an excessive amount of effort to acquire.
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* [[Fight Like a Card Player]]<br />The story has almost nothing to do with cards, but a lot of the gameplay revolves around them.
* [[Follow the Plotted Line]] <br />You somehow always end up where the plot says you should be, no matter how little sense it makes that you should be there.
* [[I Fought the Law and the Law Won]] <br />The game can deploy a seemingly endless number of law enforcement officers to deliver [[Video Game Cruelty Punishment]] even if the narrative insists that they're too understaffed and overstretched to deal with the criminal or enemy army problem.
* [[Improbable Power Discrepancy]] <br />Enemies in RPGs are given statistics based on how powerful you are expected to be at that point, not how strong that enemy would be based on common sense.
* [[Irrelevant Sidequest]] <br />In RPGs, people have an alarming tendency to entrust powerful items to random strangers for doing the most mundane of things, and regardless of whether the stranger has any meaningful level of skill at the random thing in question.
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* [[Plot Coupon That Does Something]] <br />A form of aversion of this trope, where a story important item also influences the gameplay.
* [[Plotline Death]] <br />All cutscene deaths are final; your "revive" spells and items won't work here. Nor will you be revived if you have [[Video Game Lives|extra lives left]].
* [[
* [[Selective Condemnation]] <br />The slaughter of a single NPC is a tragedy; the slaughter of [[What Measure Is a Mook?|one thousand]] [[Mooks]] is a [[A Million Is a Statistic|statistic]].
* [[Separate but Identical]] <br />In strategy games, some sub-factions are said to be different in composition, outlook etc., but ultimately only differ [[Palette Swap|in their color palette]].
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=== [[Adventure Game]] ===
* In ''[[
=== [[Beat'Em Up]] ===
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** It's worth noting that while they're fairly weak from ''SFII'' onwards, in the first game, the special moves were ''very'' powerful, with a successful hit knocking a third of an opponent's health off. Each hit was also rated from one to three stars, and this acted as a damage multiplier; it was entirely possible to one-shot someone with ridiculous lucky.
** Akuma's Shun Goku Satsu attack only seems to kill opponents in the story.
* Modern [[World Wrestling Entertainment|WWE]] games with career modes fall victim to this. Your status as a [[face]] or [[heel]] is solely dependent on the choices you make during storyline [[cutscene]]s, meaning your actual behavior in the ring is entirely irrelevant. For example, you may play your matches dirty, doing things such as using weapons, removing turnbuckle pads, delivering low bows, and taking advantage of the [[Easily-Distracted Referee]], but as long as you make the corresponding decisions during [[cutscene]]s, the game will act as if you're a straight-up [[face]]. Some games will penalize you by taking away momentum (the stuff that lets you perform special moves) for using tactics that don't match your alignment. However, you can still ''do'' them at any time, and the storyline will never acknowledge it.
** This may actually reflect a lot of developments from the Attitude Era and subsequent years, and the popularity of superstars such as Eddie Guerrero, who would "Lie, Cheat, and Steal" but still be a fan-favorite because he was amazing in the ring and could convince the crowd to eat out of the palm of his hand.
** Another, more pernicious thing WWE career modes like to do is every now and then have you beat an opponent, and then have them get back up and pin your wrestler in the following cutscene, or some such thing. It should be a normal part of kayfabe, except that you're then stuck with a ''real'' loss that goes on your wrestler's statistics record, even though you put in the effort of winning the friggin' match. Grr.
* In ''[[
** Also, no matter how hard you lay the [[Curb Stomp Battle|curbstomping]] on Hazama/Terumi in Arcade Mode, he is still just warming up.
* In ''[[Mortal Kombat]] vs [[DC Universe]]'' after a game of [[Let's You and Him Fight]] Superman and Raiden finally put aside their differences, realize there's a greater enemy to face, and turn, together, to fight Dark Khan in unison. You then proceed to fight him alone, your ally having mysteriously vanished without a word of explanation.
* In the cutscene before the final battle of ''[[Dissidia Final Fantasy]]'', all ten of the heroes line up in front of Chaos to fight him. You then proceed into a three-round, one-on-one battle. Somewhat mitigated in the sequel/prequel, when you enter the battle with four more party members that can take your initial character's place if/when they die, plus one [[Assist Character]], who is chosen at random from the remaining five heroes.
* ''[[Kinnikuman: Muscle Fight]]''
** Jesse Maivia has a cutin where Kinnikuman explains Jesse Maivia's weakness to his foe. This even occurs when Kinnikuman isn't his opponent.
** Stecasse King has a variation of his Jigoku Symphony that doesn't harm his foe because the classical music station is interrupted by the Gyudon Ondo. There's a part where Kinnikuman laughs at Stecasse King and Buffaloman. This still happens even if Kinnikuman isn't Stecasse King's foe.
** If Atlantis KOs his foe with the Atlantis Driver, there's a cutscene where he proudly displays Robin Mask's helmet. This plays even if Robin Mask isn't Atlantis's foe. He can also use the Devil Choujin Blood Bind technique even though it's supposed to only affect Kinnikuman at that point in story. Also he can use it against Stecasse King, Black Hole, Mr. Khamen, and The Mountain even though they're the Choujin who show up as part of the technique.
** During the first round, Kinnikuman Great can kick his foe hard during one of his supers. This causes his foe to drop a mysterious chest. If Kinnikuman Great catches it, he recovers a super meter. This is supposed to a reference to Kinnikuman Great attempting to recover Friendship Power from Ashuraman. This can still happen even if Ashuraman isn't Kinnikuman Great's foe.
** Ashuraman can use the Hell Canvas technique even if his foe is supposed to be among the Choujin sealed in the canvas.
* All fighting games fall under this trope to some degree. Due to balancing games, no character (except maybe a [[SNK Boss]]) is as powerful or weak as the storyline says he/she should be. Take [[Street Fighter]], for example. Dhalsim and Oro are very powerful according to the storyline. However, that power doesn't translate into gameplay unless a person REALLY knows how to control them.
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* You'd think ''[[Retro Game Challenge]]'' averts this, because the story IS gameplay. However, the in-game games have some in-game cheats that don't work in free play mode, even though it's supposedly the same game both times. Most likely this is because in the story mode, you unlock new games by beating their challenges, and the makers didn't want players to miss out on the later games if they can't beat the challenges; but in free-play, you're just challenging your best performance, so cheats would make the scores inaccurate.
=== [[Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game|MMORPG]]s ===
* This trope is pretty much universal and constantly active in [[Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game|MMORPG]]s - typically in the "infinite-lives bosses", the "what do you mean, resurrect spell?", ''and'' the "we desperately need level 1 fighters even though we have level 70 shopkeepers" varieties.
* ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' is rife with this trope, but one of the more nonsensical examples is in the Caverns of Time dungeons, where PCs are sent back in time by the Bronze Dragonflight to various famous incidents in past ''[[Warcraft]]'' titles. In many cases, most of the current playable races could not have been present for various reasons (Horde characters in particular, but also Night Elves and Draenei). So in those dungeons, those characters get hit with a illusion buff that disguises them as a Human for the duration of the dungeon. You would think this would make it an inversion of the trope, except that it also applies to Blood Elves—who all would have been Alliance High Elves in those days, and so could have been present for all these events. Turning them Human is just odd, when a simple eye color change would suffice. It's especially nonsensical in the Culling of Stratholme instance, where you see a variety of Warcraft 3 units represented at the front gate of the city, one of which is a ''High Elf Priest''. It turns specially weird when you take into account that classes aren't disguised in any way, so you can have Warlocks and Death Knights helping Thrall escape from Durnholde, shapeshifted Druids running about, and Humans casting Shaman spells. But no High Elves.
** The game is full of big examples of Gameplay and Story Segregation, but one of the biggest is illness death. In the game, four playable classes can remove curses and/or cure poisons and cast resurrection spells that will restore to life any player character they are cast on. But in the storyline of both tie-ins in other media and in the stories of the game's own quests, curing each type of disease or poison requires multiple unique components, death is feared like in [[Real Life]], and resurrection (not counting [[Came Back Wrong]]) is almost unheard of. For example, there's one quest in Northrend where you find a poor poisoned goblin and have to run around killing giant spiders until one of them barfs up a poison sac. Never mind that at least three classes can easily cure poisons, as well as anyone with high enough first aid has the ability to make antivenom out of those self-same spiders, or (by the game mechanics) if he died, four classes could easily resurrect him, and any engineer would have the ability to at least try.
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** For those who don't play, when your character is 5 or more levels higher than an enemy, its name turns grey and you don't get any experience for kiling it.
*** There is another layer of humor to this statement - Rikti summoned during the invasion events always con even-level to whoever is fighting them, regardless of level. Positron's statement is that he's +5, minimum, to even-level enemies.
* In ''[[Gaia Online|zOMG!]]'', your appearance is purely cosmetic. No matter which race you choose to make your avatar (And there are ''a lot''), you'll still be treated as a normal human. The most blatant instance of this is if you choose to make yourself a vampire. Gaia Vampires [[Our Vampires Are Different|are weakened by sunlight]] (though not killed), do require blood (though mostly drink a soy based substitute), and are weak against most of the traditional vampire weaknesses.
** If you carry actual weapons on your avatar, none of them can be used. This is [[Justified|explained]] in the prologue "manga" to the game; regular weapons just plain ''don't work'' on the Animated. You have to use the rings and their powers to fight them. In the "manga" a powerful and popular knight tried to kill an Animated with "My '''''ANCIENT KATANA!'''''"... and got torn to pieces because it failed to harm it; and yet there's a Ring that creates a katana, which ''does'' work.
** Here's some [[Fridge Logic]]: It's called "Ancient" For a reason, you know...
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* In ''[[Dawn of War]] 2'' one of the areas (an industrial district) is protected by huge and seemingly impenetrable gates that ward off relentless hordes of both Orks and Tyranids. Yet, in the expansion ''Chaos Rising'' there is the option to destroy them and can be done with a single satchel charge. Huh.
** The entire mission is one huge example of this. [[Take Your Time|There is no time limit despite the apparent urgency]], it can be failed (all squads incapacitated) multiple times with no consequences, and while the wall is pretty huge not only are there two highly visible ''holes'' in it near the edges of the map, but Tyranid Carnifexes (of which there are plenty) are specifically designed to easily ram down such fortifications.
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCifhDGY1K8 Kerrigan is NOT the Queen of Blades.] Late in ''[[
* According to the backstory of ''[[Defense of the Ancients]]'', some of the heroes should be nearly invincible, and most of them should all already have tons (in some cases, literally eons) of battle experience. Yet they all start at level 1 with almost no spells available.
=== [[Role
* In ''[[The Elder Scrolls]]'' the Umbra Sword is described as an evil [[Empathic Weapon]] that slowly corrupts and drives mad the person who wields it. The player can use it for the entire game after earning it and suffer no ill effects.
** In ''Skyrim'', a big deal is made about how Khajit and Argonians are ''strictly'' forbidden from so much as setting foot in a Hold's capitol city. If the player is of either race, they can freely enter and exit even ''Windhelm'' without any trouble aside from the occasional rude comment.
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* ''[[Anachronox]]'' has the main character in trouble with a local mob boss who he owes a large amount of money to. However, being an RPG you can make huge amounts of money from fighting monsters. Alternately, the next locale you visit has trading robots which you can use to make a fortune with. Problem is, you cannot use this money to pay back the mob boss - the option simply doesn't exist and the debt comes back to bite you later on.
* Used very painfully in ''[[Baten Kaitos]]'', where almost all the characters have wings and are shown to be fully capable of flight over reasonably short distances [depending on their wing shape] in cutscenes. There are still a lot of [[Insurmountable Waist-Height Fence]] and [[Broken Bridge]] puzzles, at heights and distances that cutscenes and battle animations (and ladders in ''Origins'') show that the characters are perfectly capable of flying over. The series does have some good moments of [[Gameplay and Story Integration]], but not enough to balance out the wings problem.
* Magneto is one of the [[X-Men]]'s most powerful foes, who can control all metal at whim. Yet in games like ''[[X
** Likewise, in nearly every game in which he appears, you can make Juggernaut stop charging and fall over by hitting him enough. Nothing stops the Juggernaut... except a punch or two.
* At one point in the RPG ''Gorky [[17/Odium|Odium]]'', {{spoiler|your [[The Medic|team medic]] gets attacked and poisoned by an invisible monster, cannot be cured, and dies at the end of the battle (and states that the grotesquely deformed bodies you found earlier are, too, victims of this poison).}} Near the end of the game, you battle a group of these monsters, but their poison can be cured away and only does minor damage like any other monster's poison.
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=== [[Tabletop Games]] ===
* In the ''[[Dungeons
** Played with by ''[[The Order of the Stick|Order of the Stick]]'' in a trial: the prosecution argues that the arresting officer didn't lose her powers, so the defendants must be guilty (though in this particular case, this is specious reasoning, as it would only mean the paladin acted in good faith).
** Capcom's ''[[Dungeons
** The rules book ''Elder Evils'' states that the elder evils are so powerful that even the gods would think twice before standing against them, but a comparison of the statistics of some of the elder evils in that book to the gods' statistics in ''Dieties and Demigods'' shows that the gods could [[Curb Stomp Battle|easily crush]] the elder evils. Likewise, the ''[[Epic Level Handbook]]'''s claim that even the gods can't stand up to a certain monster described in that book seems questionable when the statistics are compared.
** Character example from DnD: Elminster. In the novels, this guy is one of the most powerful wizards in the world, had an affair with the ''goddess of magic'' (and is one of her Chosen), and is functionally immortal. However, his character stats as presented in the [[Forgotten Realms]] campaign setting... well, let's just say anyone who has a passing familiarity with Dungeons and Dragons can make a better epic-level wizard.
*** Technically, in the lore Elminster and others like him are somewhere between "character" and "fixture of the world". Like Cthulhu. Thus it's same old problem with characters that belong in mythology.
* [[Super Soldier|The Space Marines]] of ''[[Warhammer 40000]]'' are always depicted as being near unstoppable and above and beyond every other factions foot soldiers (and sometimes their larger forces) in every single way. In-game, they die rather easily and there are many other basic troops that surpass them in power. Lampshaded by Games Workshop themselves with the "Movie Marines" list, where every marine is effectively a monstrous creature, and every Bolter (their standard firearm) is turned into a tank-shredding assault cannon.▼
*** Even as mortal magic-users go, it's an eternal struggle to make tabletop rules suck less at reflecting certain features of the setting.
▲* [[Super Soldier|The Space Marines]] of ''[[Warhammer
** Not just the Space Marines, every faction has something like this. Daemons have Greater Daemons, which can often be overwhelmed by a few basic troop Hormagaunts, a basic Guard troop squad can kill a Carnifex with a little luck, and the Necron C'Tan (a [[Physical God]]) can fall to a couple shots from a Dark Eldar on a jetbike.
* The Saga Edition of the ''[[Star Wars]]'' RPG has far fewer guns on ships than has been previously established. However, this was made as a concession to the fact that if they did, rolling for each individual ship gun/battery would translate into hundreds of rolls, especially with bigger ships like the Super Star Destroyers. Besides, game mechanics are already of dubious canon.
* In the ''[[Pathfinder]]'' adventure path ''[[Iron Gods]]'' one critical source of information needed to progress the plot past the second book is a set of journals by the lieutenant of the second book's boss. This is sensible, except she has a mere 6 intelligence (1-2 is animal, 6 is drooling ogre, 10 is normal human) and the journals have extensive detailed information.
=== [[Third-Person Shooter]] ===
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* In the [[Dead Space: Downfall|animated prequel]] to ''[[Dead Space (video game)|Dead Space]]'', the zombies cannot go near the [[Artifact of Doom]] that was dug up. But when it comes to be your turn to escort the thing, all manner of baddies can come right up to the thing with no issue. And by extension, you.
** The Valour. Sure, Pulse Rifles are weak against Necromorphs, and maybe the soldiers needed a while to grab their guns, but seriously. [[Conservation of Ninjitsu|One slasher]] - the weakest type of Necromorph - manages to kill and infect an entire ship stocked to the brim with trained soldiers wielding Pulse Rifles and wearing advanced body armour that is as good or better than Isaac's Level 5 suit. Let me repeat that. One Slasher. An entire freaking SHIP. (In fairness, some of the marine corpses clearly were killed by the crashing of the ship and not a necromorph, plus, according to one of the logs you can find on the ship, most of the marines actually survived until after the valour crashed into the Ishimura and were killed in a running battle against a horde of necromorphs that were attracted to the ship by the crash.)
* One of the most bizarre examples ever has to be the [[
=== [[Turn-Based Strategy]] ===
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* In ''[[Fire Emblem Tellius]]: Radiant Dawn'', it turns out that two characters acted the way they did because they were bound by magical contracts that would kill everyone in their respective countries if they disobeyed. The only way to render such a contract null and void is for the physical contract to be destroyed and one of the signers to be killed by a third party. In the endgame, the player gets to kill the man who forced the other characters to sign the contracts; however, it is entirely possible to have him killed by one of the signees which should render the contracts unvoidable, but if this happens, it plays out the same as if he was killed by anyone else.
** Two characters out of a massive cast of seventy three, mind you.
* In ''[[
=== [[Turn Based Tactics]] ===
* ''[[X-COM]]: Enemy Unknown/UFO Defense'' intro has Mutons appear as drop troops, apparently [[Screaming Warrior|like shouting]] when they attack and generally make a great "Space Orc" impression with those fangs and green suits, then leave by somehow being "beamed up" [[Star Trek]] style. They were led by a bossy Muton in red uniform. In the game? All action is contained in the map, there's no retreat except for X-Com troopers if they'll make it back to the transport. Mutons don't scream other than when dying. "Mr. Angry Red Suit", as ufopaedia.org calls him, does not appear - there are only Muton Soldier, Navigator and Engineer, but no Leaders or Commanders, because Mutons serve the Ethereals.
** Naturally, modders had to [https://web.archive.org/web/20160324031952/http://www.openxcom.com/mod/muton-commander go and try to fix it], adding the Muton Commander - at least for OpenXcom.
=== [[Wide Open Sandbox]] ===
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*** ''[[Grand Theft Auto Vice City|Vice City]]'' at least implies that the police force and legal system are so corrupt that your [[Mafia]] ties and crooked lawyer companion get you off. Other games tend not to have a similar excuse.
*** In ''GTA 2'', when you got arrested, you respawned riding in the back of a cop car, and you had to jump out and run away from the cops.
** In ''[[Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas|San Andreas]]'', the player can willingly murder hundreds of cops (and get away without even being killed/arrested), yet all cutscenes still portray the player character as innocent. In fact, as the plot goes on CJ is shown in a more and more positive light and seems to be trying to "get away from" all of the illegal activity in order to start a good, honest life...And as soon as these cutscenes finish, the player can get back to [[Video Game Cruelty Potential|throwing hand grenades off a highway overpass to see how far cars can drive before they explode]].
*** And even though you can constantly murder police officers in cold blood and get away with it, much of the conflict of the story centers around a couple crooked cops threatening to frame CJ for the murder of a single police officer that he didn't commit. What about the dozens of cops he DID murder?
*** Hell, what about the guy who worked at the pizza place? There's at least a dozen witnesses if you decide to kill him and take his shotgun.
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* ''[[Brütal Legend|Brutal Legend]]''. Everything gets an in-universe explanation, from why Eddie is an expert with a battle axe despite never touching one before, why he is able to fly around the battlefield issuing orders, why he is able to build a functioning car from parts dug up out of the ground, to why said car has a radio in it.
* ''[[Iji]]'' almost entirely averts this. Nearly ''everything'' the player does, from how many enemies they kill to which logbooks are read, has at least some influence on how the story unfolds, how dialogues proceed, and even how characters react to Iji's presence. Indeed, the ending of one subplot (which can only be followed by reading a series of seemingly unrelated logbooks) relies entirely on how the player treats a single specific enemy they have no way of knowing is at all significant at that point in the game.
=== [[Fighting Game]] ===
* To show how how accurate ''[[Kinnikuman: Muscle Fight]]'' is to the original [[Kinnikuman]] [[Manga]], the developer Matayan included the following one-hit kills.
** Prince Kamehame has the 3-count pinfall backdrop. If done correctly, it can KO an opponent instantly. Prince Kamehame even has a special intro with Kinnikuman that lets Prince Kamehame earn an instant victory over Kinnikuman.
** If the Fu-Rin-Ka-Zan is done on Jesse Maivia, it kills him instantly because the Fu-Rin-Ka-Zan was the move that originally finished him off.
** If Kinnikuman or Puripuriman does the fart attack in Black Hole's portable dimension, they break out and fall on top of Black Hole, KOing him instantly.
** If Kinnikuman Super Phoenix performs the Muscle Revenger on Kinnikuman Big Body, Kinnikuman Big Body is instantly killed because the Kinnikuman Big Body was the first victim of the Muscle Revenger.
=== [[First-Person Shooter]] ===
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* In ''[[Team Fortress 2]]'', the respawn system is canon (according to ''[[Poker Night At the Inventory]]'', Heavy recalls it as a series of nightmares). Also, each character's personality, weapons, tactics, and movement style are all closely related, and the relationships between characters in canon are related to how they interact in-game: gameplay nemeses [[Friendly Sniper|Sniper]] and [[French Jerk|Spy]] are bitter rivals (and [[Foe Yay]] targets) out-of-play, and popular in-game team-up Heavy and Medic are confirmed [[Heterosexual Life Partners]] and a [[Ship Tease|hinted]] [[Ho Yay|couple.]]
=== [[Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game|MMORPG]]s ===
* ''[[EVE Online]]'''s completely player driven nature averts and/or outright deconstructs many of the things mentioned in the MMORPG examples above.
** Almost every MMO mechanic is superbly addressed and explained via some very elaborate and convincing-sounding tech lore. How can you constantly die? [https://web.archive.org/web/20150407220037/http://www.eveonline.com/background/cloning/ Clones.] How are you singularly operating a ship with effectively no crew? [https://web.archive.org/web/20090228231245/http://www.eveonline.com/background/eggers/ Capsules.] The backstory has become so in depth that it has sparked what you could describe as 'lore within the lore;' cloning has caused discussions about transferals of consciousness, and the fact that capsuleers can indefinitely clone has in-game, as well as outside consideration about the fact that since they have clones, can do anything, and cause large amounts of destruction, that capsuleers are effectively [[Mind Screw|immortal, sociopathic, all-powerful demigods.]]
*** To put it shortly, it's pretty much the most effective, in depth, and descriptive [[Hand Wave]] ever.
* ''[[Mabinogi]]''. Player characters, aka ''Milletians'', are presented as spirits from outside the game world, who are temporarily incarnated within it. Because they are not normally part of the world, they do not "die", but simply lose the body they were using, which can be restored by a particular [[NPC]]. [[NPC]]s are aware of your status, and will casually mention it from time to time. This is actually made a significant story point for Elf and Giant characters.
** In the semi-prequel ''Vindictus'', The fact that the Giant Polar Bear is such a popular target is referenced in a quest, where it is suddenly attacking more areas than before and you are the prime suspect because you bother, I.E. use it to grind, so much, and are thus demanded to either calm it down or prove that you weren't the one that caused it to get even more angry. {{spoiler|you weren't the one who made it mad.}}
* [[
=== [[Platform Game]] ===
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* ''[[Loco Roco]]'' often attempts to integrate cutscenes to be as close to gameplay as possible. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofHQtLFxFRE& In this cutscene,] even the 2D world is [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]].
=== [[Role
* The amateur game ''Sensible Erection RPG'' features quite a bit of [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshading]] and parody of the cliches of Japanese [[RPG]]s. Before the final confrontation, a party member that had been killed in a cutscene returns as if nothing had happened, and his companion declares, "I used a 1up on him. What's the big deal?" To which the boss responds, "See? I told you, [we live in a] videogame."
* Crushingly averted in ''[[Final Fantasy V]]'', where the party members attempt to use the strongest healing items and spells at their disposal on a character who has been [[Killed Off for Real]] to no avail. Fighting at 0 HP rendered him [[Deader Than Dead]].
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* In ''[[The Elder Scrolls]] III: [[Morrowind]]'', Dagoth Ur's rising power doubles as [[Anti-Grinding]], with stronger ash creatures and blighted fauna appearing more and more as you keep leveling up.
** And likewise, at the start of ''[[The Elder Scrolls]] V: [[Skyrim]]'', you can't understand dragons...but later on, they start speaking to you in English. This is actually because as the Dovahkiin, you start learning words of the Draconic language.
* A rather funny, though subtle aversion occurs in ''[[Persona 4]]''. [[The Woobie|Yosuke]] is incredibly unlucky, with him getting kicked in [[Groin Attack|the nads]] within minutes of the game starting for breaking his friend's CD. He ends up falling off of, and crashing whilst on, his bike
** Chie and Yukiko's friendship might seem like the craziest friendship ever... but of you decide to include both of them on your team (which is inevitable in Kanji's bathhouse), you'll find they work surprisingly well together.
* The Hero of ''[[Dragon Quest V]]'' is handled similarly to Yosuke of ''Persona 4''.
* Setting aside the scene where it cleaves a cliff face in two, never to display that kind of power again, there are two battles in ''[[Chrono Trigger]]'' where the Masamune displays power that it was said to have in cutscenes and dialogue. In the battle against Magus, the sword, which was said to be one of the few weapons that would allow them to defeat Magus, bypasses Magus's [[Barrier Shift Boss|Barrier Shift]] trick ''and'' drops his magic defense stat. Later on, the team uses a red knife to drain Lavos' power out of the Mammon Machine. The red knife then turns into the Masamune. If you use the Masamune on the Mammon Machine when you fight it later, the sword bypasses its defense boost trick ''and'' heals Frog, by way of draining the energy from it, just like it did before.
* ''[[No More Heroes]]'' as a whole is an interesting example: even though Travis imagines his life as an assassin to be awesome and glamorous, nearly every portion of gameplay outside of the ranked battles shows just how much of a loser he is. Some examples: Santa Destroy is a frustratingly boring place with nearly nothing to do; Travis has to drive everywhere himself; he barely bothers people he runs over on his motorcycle and goes flying if it even so much as touches any solid object; he has to do repetitive, boring and irrelevant jobs in order to earn money; he saves the game on the ''toilet''; he rummages through dumpsters for collectables (including clothes!); and at the end of the day he ends up right back at the same stinking motel he's always lived at.
** In the second game, during one of the boss fights you find out {{spoiler|he still owns the mansion the first boss from the first game lived in. He keeps his ''giant robot'' in it. No explanation is given as to why he still lives in ''the same crappy motel''.}}
* ''[[Wild
** Similarly, Lani in ''[[Final Fantasy IX]]'' will exclusively attack Garnet, whom she's targeting in order to get her pendant on a mission for Queen Brahne.
* In ''[[.hack GU]]'', it is told in-universe that the class that Haseo takes, the Adept Rogue (or Multi-Weapon in original Japanese) levels the slowest and is generally all-around master of none, despite being potentially flexible like hax. If you play normally, without crazy grinding, by the beginning of the third game, there's a very good chance that all of your party members have gained access to the final skills of their job, and you haven't. Not only that gaining proficiency for each weapon is slower than ordinary classes, Haseo has three (later four) weapons, so this definitely increases the time required gaining skills.
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* In the ''[[Touhou]]'' fangame ''[[Touhou Mother]]'', Yuuka is described as hating high speeds. During a cutscene, you have to fly very fast to reach a certain location, and during the trip, Yuuka is described to have taken "mortal damage." Sure enough, if you check your stats after the cutscene ends, Yuuka will have just 1 HP remaining.
* ''[[Black Sigil]]'' actually lets you use white magic to heal all the fallen soldiers during a siege. It costs you MP, of course, but saving them all gets you a reward.
* ''[[Ryu ga Gotoku|Yakuza: Like a Dragon]]'' has an aversion between instalments. {{spoiler|Previous protagonist Kiryu [[Wouldn't Hit a Girl]]. His boss fight in this game respects that; when Ichiban and co fight him, he will avoid deliberately attacking female party members.}}
=== [[Shoot'Em Up]] ===
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=== [[Turn-Based Strategy]] ===
* Micaiah in ''[[Fire Emblem]] 10'' (Radiant Dawn) has "Sacrifice", which is a miraculous healing ability in the storyline, and can also be used in-game, though in-game it doesn't have any abilities beyond a simple heal staff, and as the name implies it hurts to use it. It's seen as a miracle because she can heal without being a member of the clergy.
** In essence, it ''does'' have power potentially superior to that of a staff, since {{spoiler|she manages to save [[Optional Party Member|Leh]][[The Chessmaster|ran]] [[Guide Dang It|(If you managed to get him)]], who was literally an instant away from dying.}}; Whereas staves appear to function primarily on healing flesh wounds, [[Healing Hands|Sacrifice]] uses [[Cast
** In game, Sacrifice also allows Micaiah to heal status effects. Whether or not she can do this for a character at full HP, though... She's never been shown using Sacrifice in this manner in the story, however.
*** She can. In-game Sacrifice can heal status ailments regardless of the fact that the target may not need to recover HP. It's a free Recover staff!
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=== Other games ===
* In ''Demonophobia'', a game with [[The Many Deaths of You|a lot of]] [[Gorn|interesting ways]] [[Trial and Error Gameplay|to die]], {{spoiler|you don't 'die and respawn' in the usual way; instead, the protagonist is revived some time later, with no memories of her deaths. This becomes important at the end of the game, where these memories are [[Despair Event Horizon|returned to her]].}}
* Part of being a good GM for almost any [[
* In most ''[[Grand Theft Auto]]'' games, enemies that are said to be wearing armor just have their health super high so you need to put in a ton of bullets in them (this is usually on boss characters). In ''[[Grand Theft Auto Sand Andreas]]'', {{spoiler|Big Smoke}} is shown to be wearing body armor in the cut scene before the fight (yet the armor never physically appears on CJ's model if he has armor on). Like with real life body armor, the boss' torso is protected so shooting it does less damage, but shooting him in the head or anywhere else that is not protected will damage him a lot faster.
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* Bug in ''[[Bug!]]!'' has a pair of [[Justified Trope|tiny, vestigial wings]], so he is [[Wings Do Nothing|unable to fly in-game]]. Until you land on the [[Level Goal|Bug Stop]]- in which he says a cheesy annoying quote, then ''flies away'' offscreen. Then again, the game is part of a movie he's acting out, so it makes some sort of sense.
=== [[Role
* ''[[Kingdom Hearts II]]'' gets bonus points for having the aversion and the straight example occur simultaneously. When Sora enters a Drive Form in battle and then a cut scene comes up after the fight, Sora will still be in the Drive Form.(Assuming the Form Gauge didn't run out while he was fighting.) That's the aversion. However, it's also played straight because the characters that you supposedly merged with in order to enter the Drive Form are still visible during the cut scene.
** It's actually played straight in gameplay when you have to fuse with Donald/Goofy to use Drive, which didn't happen the first time Sora tried it (in a cutscene).
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{{reflist}}
[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]
[[Category:Video Game Tropes]]
[[Category:Consistency]]
[[Category:Index]]
[[Category:Show, Don't Tell]]
[[Category:Dissonance Tropes]]
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