Gameplay and Story Segregation: Difference between revisions

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.

 

 

Forms of '''Gameplay and Story Segregation''' include:

**:If you're only allowed three out of eighteen party members, and those three are killed, you get a Game Over even though the rest are still alive.

**: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]].

* [[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.

** 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.

** 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.

** 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.

** 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...

* 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.

* 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 ''[[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.

 

=== [[Shoot'Em Up]] ===

=== 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]].}}

* 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.

 

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Video Game Tropes]]

[[Category:Consistency]]

[[Category:Index]]

[[Category:Show, Don't Tell]]

[[Category:Dissonance Tropes]]