Mercy Rewarded: Difference between revisions
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Some games reward you for not killing your enemies.
Compare [[Pacifist Run]], but this is not necessarily a full no-death
Often coincides with [[Video Game Caring Potential]], for when your own troops inspire affection rather than the desire to use them as [[Redshirt Army|C-4 strapped lemmings.]]
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* [[Jo Wood]]'s ''[[Cold Zero]]'' gives you more XP for enemies KO'd rather than killed and still more for enemies left unharmed at the end of a mission.
* ''[[Materia Magica]]'' features a samurai duck who wears a full set of ebony armor - valuable stuff at low levels. But if you pass him by without killing him, you earn the Mark of Truth.
* ''[[Metal Gear Solid]] examples:
** ''[[Metal Gear Solid
** In the fight against The Sorrow you must dodge The Sorrow's attacks while wading through the ghosts of every character you have killed up to that point in the game. The fewer characters you have killed, the fewer there are to dodge and the easier the fight is.
*** ''Literally'' wading; the battle takes place knee-deep in a river of variable length.
** Nonlethally beating The End gives you his modified-to-fire-tranquilizers sniper rifle, making the rest of a [[Pacifist Run]] much easier. ([[Guide Dang It|You actually have to corner and hold him up for his special camo]]).
** When Quiet is taken prisoner in ''[[Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain]]'', the player decides whether she lives or dies; choose to show mercy and she joins your side. Is this a good thing? Well, let's put it this way, in the original version game, if you choose to spare her, she eventually dies anyway via [[Heroic Sacrifice]], and this caused ''such'' an uproar among fans that an upgrade was added including an unlockable mission that made it possible to save her.
* ''[[Splinter Cell]]'' games (at least the later ones) deduct points for every person you kill on the mission, all of them if its a civilian or ally. However this applies in missions in which you are specifically told to kill someone, and the objective is fulfilled for "knocking them out" even if you only do it nonlethally, by all rights they should be alive.
* The ''[[Police Quest|SWAT]]'' series does this, however it still rewards you for breaking police procedure if you can knock out hostile criminals instead of opening fire. A bit of a [[Justified Trope]] in that minimal loss of life is part of their goals.
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** It seems to be the designer's way of saying "Good show" to players who decide not to kill everything in sight...because as it turns out, {{spoiler|the NSF are the good guys}}. The general also reacts better if you ask for nonlethal weapons, or nonweapon equipment.
*** Except for the fact that he has no problem giving you a rocket launcher, assuming that you'll used the anti-tank weapon against the robots.
* ''[[
** Expanded on in the sequel, where showing mercy to certain characters alters the ending. Sparing them is considered good, however sparing one character {{spoiler|means they'll remain a twisted, bloated foetus creature subjected to incredible pain and insanity for the rest of his life}}. It's considered a good act.
*** It's either that or ''{{spoiler|painfully electrocuting him with thousands of volts of electricity.}}'' Also, he's begging for his life.
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** The original ''Medieval: Total War'' had a somewhat less altruistic reward for not executing captured enemy soldiers, since this allowed you to ransom them back to the original owner for a fair chunk of cash. Of course, this meant that you would have to face them on the field again at some point, so it was often a good idea to [[Video Game Cruelty Potential|put a few to the sword]] during the battle...
** It also worth noting that while good-aligned generals are useful for empire building, dreaded generals are more useful for long, outdrawn conflicts, like the crusade. And if you combine King Edward the Ridiculously Cruel, with some nasty anti-moral weapons, the enemy will be running before you know it.
* In the Bakumatsu chapter of ''[[Live a Live]]'', you are given four path options - Kill as necessary, Kill Everyone
* ''[[Super Smash Bros.]] Melee'' had the "Merciful Master" bonus awarded if you win a match without KO'ing anyone - which usually means they managed to KO themselves. And an even bigger bonus called "Switzerland" awarded for not taking any damage and not using any attacks at all.
* The first two games of the ''[[King's Quest]]'' series tends to give you more points for nonviolent solutions to problems. The later games, not so much. For instance, [[King's Quest IV|KQ4]], [[King's Quest V|KQ5]] and the remake of [[King's Quest II|KQ2]] all require you to deal violently with the antagonist.
* In some ''[[Super Robot Wars]]'' games, you can on certain occasions earn a battle mastery or (much more practically and rarely) a new unit by reducing an enemy to critical damage without destroying them. Of course, most of the time, you're rewarded for finishing off boss units, who tend to [[Metal Slime|run away at low HP]].
* Inverted in ''[[Baten Kaitos]] Origins''; killing the [[Quirky Miniboss Squad]] in the cutscenes after you defeat them gets you good equipment. However, for [[
* Used in ''[[Vectorman]]''. Go through a level without shooting once? Get a hefty point bonus. (This is doable on some levels thanks to the fact that your [[Double Jump]] can do damage at certain points.)
* The original Midway side-scrolling shooter ''[[NARC]]'' had this. You could gun down every crook you meet, but if you stayed in his space long enough, he'd be arrested, for a nice end-of-level bonus. You ''are'' a cop, so this makes sense.
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* ''[[Mercenaries]]: Playground of Destruction'' had this for the top-level bosses and minibosses, the Deck of 52. You could capture a card and drag his/her happy ass to an extraction point (hopefully the chopper doesn't get blown up on its way in) for the full bounty, or you could just level the place and snap a photo of the corpse for half. And for the sadistically antisocial, you could capture a card, load him/her in the chopper, get the full bounty..and then blow the chopper up for just the standard friendly-fire penalties.
** Taking all 52 alive gives you the "Cheater Weapons" for your [[New Game+]], a supply drop that includes a [[More Dakka|portable vulcan gun]], [[Stuff Blowing Up|rapid-fire grenade launcher]], and [[BFG|portable airstrike bazooka]].
* ''[[Mortal Kombat]]'':
** One of the most interesting examples of this is in ''[[Mortal Kombat]] 3''. A certain button combination at the "Finish Him/Her!" screen would trigger a Mercy which grants the other player a tiny bit of life to continue fighting. It also allows you to perform Animalities after you beat that shred of life out of them. That's right, for sparing your opponent's life, you gain a brand new way to brutally murder them.
** A straight example of the Trope occurs in ''[[Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero]]''. If you le Sareena live, she pulls a [[Big Damn Heroes]] at the conclusion of your battle with Quan-Chi to deliver the coup de grace.
* ''[[Fire Emblem]]: Thracia 776'' allows you to Capture enemy units. There are a few rules to it, of course, but you get their equipment and won't have to lose your own units if you're clever.
** In ''Path of Radiance'' one particular chapter rewards you with the Ashera Staff if you refrain from killing any of the priests - and there are a hella lot of them clogging the chokepoints. What to do? Shove them out of the way. Then again, [[Video Game Cruelty Potential|you wouldn't kill a helpless priest anyways, would you?]] You CAN, however, steal their staves and sell them for cash, or keep some of them.
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** You're also rewarded if you decide {{spoiler|to give van Bruggen a weapon to defend himself from Belltower despite the guy being a [[True Neutral]] mercenary whose previous employers were the people you are now fighting. He later contacts you and transfers a nice chunk of change to your bank account as thanks.}}
* ''[[Galaga]] '88'' has periodic bonus stages where sets of enemy ships flew by in preset formations without attacking. A large "perfect bonus" could be earned by hitting all the ships in the stage, but one could much more easily earn a "secret bonus" worth the same value as the perfect bonus simply by not firing at all during the stage.
* ''[[River City Girls]]'', from the ''[[Kunio-Kun]]'' series; defeat all the enemy mooks in one room except one, and the last one will often plead for mercy if you damaged enough; choose to spare them, and they join you as [[Assist Character]]s.
* From the [[Interactive Fiction|interactive episode]] of ''[[Carmen Sandiego]]'' on [[Netflix]] (where the viewer decides Carmen's actions) has two of these:
** There is one scene where Carmen and [[The Rival| Tigress]] are {{spoiler| both competing with each other to steal a a Terracotta warrior, leading to Tigress falling into a pit. If Carmen helps her, Tigress will aid Carmen when she tries to spring Ivy and Zach from the Arctic base (assuming she attempts this) enabling Carmen to reach one of the good endings. Refusing to do so, however, will cut her off from that ending.}}
** On the ''other'' hand, choosing to {{spoiler|stash the caviar and sneak out (rather than just grab it and run) will lead to Carmen having to save Mime Bomb from choking, causing Carmen to fail the mission, and cause a bad ending. Although [[Da Chief]] will [[Breaking the Fourth Wall|let you redo that choice]].}}
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Video Game Rewards]]
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