Not So Different/Video Games

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Examples of Not So Different in Video Games include:

Visual Novels

  • Damon Gant accuses Miles Edgeworth of this in Ace Attorney. He says that they both have the same hatred of crime, and that eventually, Edgeworth will cross the line from Dark Is Not Evil to Knight Templar. Edgeworth responds to this with a few months of soul searching, and then comes back as possibly even more a good guy than Phoenix Wright!
    • Justice For All hints at this between Phoenix and Franziska von Karma. Acro, in the third case, remarks that the two are remarkably similar, that they both see the world through the same rose-colored glasses. Phoenix vilifies her for manipulating evidence in her favor, telling witnesses not to discuss things that don't make sense with her theories. However, Phoenix willingly defends a client he knows to be guilty, even accusing an innocent woman and using the evidence against her, albeit under threat of his friend Maya being killed.
    • In Investigations 2, Franziska comes to sympathize with Yumihiko after seeing how terribly his father is treating him, and in the ending, expresses concern for him, as he will have to live up to his father just like she will have to live up to hers.
  • This pops up a lot in Fate/stay night and the prequel Fate/Zero as well. To name just a few examples;
    • Fate/Zero's Kiritsugu and Saber get along very badly despite being Master and Servant, and there is repeated emphasis on how much they're at odds because of their differences, but they are fundamentally very similar deep down; Kiritsugu is very much Saber's Shadow Archetype. Kotomine and Kirisugu subvert and then invert this; Kotomine initally thought Kiritsugu, who was an enemy master that has nothing in common with him at first glance, was the same type of person as him, but it turned out that he was his Foil in all respects.
    • Fate/stay night, taking place ten years later, has the main character Shirou and Big Bad Kotomine again, playing it perfectly straight this time, and with the character in question being Shirou's Shadow Archetype / Evil Counterpart to boot. And, as if to complete the cycle, Saber and Shirou are this too. Although they get along for most of the series, there's conflict between them early on in the series which is caused by this.
  • A few cases come up in Katawa Shoujo
    • Hisao notes that, like Hanako, he has allowed his disability to define him, preventing him from opening up to others or thinking about his future.
    • Shizune and Lilly, may be at odds over how to run the Student Council, but at heart, Lilly is almost as competitive as Shizune. This is particularly evident in the fishing scene in Shizune's route, and when after they reconcile in Lilly's route, Shizune lightheartedly challenges Lilly to do better at her new school, a challenge Lilly accepts.

Hisao: Competitive until the last. Maybe Lilly and Shizune aren't so different, after all.

Other Games, Not Yet Sorted by Genre

Pixy: You and I are opposite sides of the same coin. When we face each other, we can finally see our true selves. There may be a resemblance, but we'll never face the same direction.

  • The ending of Advance Wars: Dual Strike consists primarily of a Not So Different speech by the defeated Big Bad, complete with If You Kill Him You Will Be Just Like Him. The player is then given the choice of how to deal with the defeated and now helpless Big Bad.
    • Similarly in the Darker and Edgier Advance Wars: Days of Ruin, the defeated Admiral Greyfield tells Lin she'll be just as bad as him if she kills him, although in this case, he's just deliberately invoking the trope in a panicked and desperate (yet strangely Genre Savvy) attempt to save his own life. She admits that he's completely right, then shoots him anyway.
  • In Advance Wars 2, Mad Scientist Lash taunts Smart Girl Sonja by accusing Sonja of enjoying warfare just as much as she does.
  • In Mega Man Zero 4, Dr. Weil desperately bluffs Zero and tries to convince him that killing Weil would be stooping to his level of villainy. In an unorthodox move, Zero kills him anyway, making note at how he never considered himself a hero to begin with.
    • Though never conversed, a much sadder example involving White and Grey Morality exists with Zero and Harpuia, given how both are fighting for the same goal.
  • Done rather sadly in Mega Man 2: The Power Fighters, where Mega Man's solo ending had Dr. Wily pointing out Mega Man's senseless destruction of robots in the act of peace for humans and robots. This puts Mega Man in guilt long enough for Wily to escape by the time he is cheered up by his friends.
  • Inverted Trope in Mega Man Star Force, with Mega Man Geo-Omega (the protagonist, and a good guy) telling Harp Note that he is just like her, in an effort to get her to join forces with him. Not only does it work, but it is actually true as both of them have previously lost a parent.
  • Metal Gear has Big Boss, an antagonist whose ideology of perpetual, honorable warfare lingers on through his unkillable son, Liquid Snake. It all seems the usual completely bonkers nonsense, until you're put into his shoes at the start of the third game and get to see what he went through before he formed the Foxhound unit and started trying to create a military nation to leave soldiers free to do battle. He suffers through the same betrayals and manipulation that the series protagonist, Solid Snake, has gone through, and at the end is just as alienated and bitter. It leaves a potent, unstated message about how someone's past experiences don't control their future.
    • A clearer example is towards the end of the first Metal Gear Solid. Liquid is talking about bringing about his father's vision of a return to warfare. When Snake claims that he doesn't want that kind of a world, Liquid's response is a CMOA.

Liquid: So why are you here then? Why do you continue to follow your orders while you superiors betray you? Why did you come here?
Snake: ...
Liquid: Well... I'll tell you then. You enjoy all the killing, that's why.

    • Psycho Mantis does give a similar statement to Solid Snake. Well, sort of. He states that he saw true evil, that being Solid Snake, and initially pegs him as being just as bad as Liquid Snake, before he corrects himself and reveals that Snake was actually worse than Liquid.

Psycho Mantis: I've seen true evil. You, Snake. You're just like the Boss... no, you're worse.

    • A more direct use of this was shortly after Psycho Mantis revealed what he did to the village:

Solid Snake: Are you saying you burned your village down to bury your past?
Psycho Mantis: I see that you have suffered the same trauma. (Mantis laughs feebly.) We are truly the same, you and I... The world is a more interesting place with people like you in it... I never agreed with the Boss's revolution. His dreams of world conquest do not interest me. I just wanted an excuse to kill as many people as I could.

Mukade: Does your blood burn when you kill? Mine does.
Konoko: Stop it...
Mukade: We writhe inside as we are torn apart to make way for what we will become. Surrender to it... Let the bliss of oblivion free you all your doubts and fears!
Konoko: You're one of Muro's thugs, nothing more!
Mukade: (laughs) We shall see...
(Konoko beats the crap out of Mukade)
Konoko: (thinking) Griffin encouraged me not to look too deeply into my past. Seems like there was a lot he didn't want me to know... I could feel the ninja and I know he could feel me. Why? What am I becoming? Are we the same...? NO, I have nothing in common with him. (kills Mukade) (aloud) Nothing!

  • Sly Cooper has this exchange right before the boss fight with Panda King:

Panda King: Why should you care if I bury a few worthless villages in snow? You are a thief, just like me.
Sly: No that's only half true. I am a thief- from a long line of master thieves. While you... You're just a frustrated fireworks artist turned homicidal pyromaniac.

    • In the third game, Big Bad Dr. M uses this with Bentley because they were/are the smart guys of their group, with Dr. M stating that Sly's talks of Friendship is just an inherent Cooper lie. Near the end, Dr. M grudgingly admits that Sly's and Bentley's friendship might be real after all.
  • Pretty much the first three parts of Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn was to show that the court of Crimea was Not So Different from Daein or even Begnion, which earlier was shown as to be Not So Different than Begnion.
  • He has a mask which is never removed, he is shrouded in mystery, needs to sneak around lest he get shredded, and punishes enemies who let him get behind them. Now which Team Fortress 2 class are we talking about, the Spy or the Pyro with a Backburner?
    • The RED and BLU Teams are also Not So Different. To the point that they're both identical aside from their colors.
  • In The Suffering, Horace compares himself to the protagonist Torque in several scenes, though he often encourages him against becoming too much like him:

You had a wife, right? Didja love her? How far would you go to make sure she stayed yours? When you get mad, you feel you could kill a man, rip him apart with your bare hands. You ever feel that way? Maybe you're not like me, it's hard to say. Ya gotta fight it. Don't let this place do to you what it did to me.

  • In Grand Theft Auto IV, Niko is driven for revenge against the guy who sold out him and his friends for $1,000. When he finally confronts the guy, Darko Brevic, he is asked how much he charges to kill someone. It seems that Niko knows that Darko is right as it shows in his choices: if he pulls the trigger on the guy, he feels empty and unsettled; if he doesn't and lets Darko go, Niko still feels angry but also a little bit better at the same time, since Darko is in a very, very sorry state and will continue to live on in suffering.
    • Darko also resembles Niko very much physically. Pretty unsettling...
  • In Fallout 3, if you confront the murdering, inbred, cannibal residents of the town of Andale about their unsavory habits, their leader demands to know how many people you've killed. And throws 'judge not lest ye be judged' in your face, to boot.
    • He is a civilian with nice clothes. You are a guy with super powered armor and a personal laser minigun (no seriously). Unless you're playing an evil character, every kill you'd have made was defending yourself from someone or something that attacked you without provocation.
  • In Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver, the final battle includes Raziel confronting Kain about raising his vampire lieutenants from the corpses of prominent Sarafan (vampire hunters):

Raziel: The Sarafan were saviours, defending Nosgoth from the corruption that we represent! My eyes are open Kain... I find no nobility in the unlife you rudely forced on my unwilling corpse!
Kain: You may have uncovered your past, but you know nothing of it... You think the Sarafan were noble? altruistic? (laughs) Oh, don't be simple. Their agenda was the same as ours!

    • This is shown to be true in the ending of Soul Reaver 2, when it is shown that the Sarafan were controlled by Moebius, The Dragon of the series, and thus are bigoted and self-righteous. Raziel and his past, human self share this dialogue:

Human Raziel: "You're a righteous fiend, aren't you?"
Wraith Raziel: "Apparently, I am."

Raziel: We both know what you truly are. you're no better than the vampires you so despise. A voracious parasite, masking its hunger within shrouds of rightiousness!

  • In Warcraft 3, Mannoroth taunts Grom Hellscream, saying that they are the same. Grom responds by screaming defiance and charging forward to kill him.
    • In the World of Warcraft quest chain required to forge Shadowmourne, the Lich King includes this argument in his Break Them by Talking to you as you steal the souls of your fallen Scourge enemies. Darion Mograine, however, challenges you to kill without being consumed by its power.
    • In a Duskwood quest, when you learn that Stalvan Mistmantle killed his student and her lover when his feelings for her were not reciprocated, his brother Tobias is horrified at this and confronts the now undead Stalvan, who confirms this. Stalvan then suggests that Tobias is feeling what he did- enough rage to kill someone- and Tobias transforms into a Worgen and fights him alongside the player. After Stalvan is defeated, Tobias has a My God, What Have I Done? moment, but when you turn in the quest, he's calmed down and has concluded that it's up to him whether he truly becomes a monster.
  • In Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, Complete Monster Lazaravic calls out Nathan Drake on all the mooks he's killed, saying that it makes Drake no different than he is. In context, the scene is a huge mashup of this trope, Moral Dissonance and Selective Condemnation.
    • Lazaravic also kills one of his own men in this scene to prove a point, and considers genocide to be a good way to build character, even exclaiming that Hitler was a great man because he had the strength to do what others would not.
  • In a non-villain example, in Deus Ex, Paul Denton mentions to the player the irony of how in order to defeat the one-worlders, the resistance forces, who support sovereignty and independence for the different peoples throughout the world, have to become a global organization.
    • In the Deus Ex: Human Revolution DLC The Missing Link, Burke taunts Adam Jensen with this, bringing up how similar both of them are. If Jensen goes around killing Belltower mercs indiscriminately however, Burke's more than eager to both drive the point home and chastise him for his hypocrisy.
  • When Arakune and Hakumen meet in the Arcade mode of BlazBlue, the latter tells the former that they are quite similar down inside.
    • In Teach Me, Ms. Litchi!, Litchi notes that "[Kokonoe and Taokaka]'re more alike than they seem. There's only a thin line between genius and... Tao".
  • Lightning and Fang in Final Fantasy XIII have a 'not so different' moment, and the Datalog entry actually uses the phrase.
  • By the end of Mass Effect 2, Shepard and the Reapers are Not So Different. In the first game, Shepard and Sovereign are equally dismissive of the other. Shepard doesn't believe Sovereign is really "alive" -- it's just a machine that can be broken. Sovereign considers organic life to be an insignificant aberration in the universe. When the second game begins, Shepard is revived and rebuilt with cybernetic implants to repair his/her skeleton, skin reconstruction, and synthetic fluids to restart his/her organs and blood flow. Then in the endgame it's revealed that Reapers are also cyborgs in a way. New Reapers are created by pumping the liquefied organic material of millions into a mechanical Reaper superstructure. The new Reaper's form is based on the species used to create it. The partially grown Reaper encountered in the end is a Human Reaper, which makes it even more eerily similar to Shepard.
    • In the DLC, Lair of the Shadow Broker, the Spectre Tela Vasir, in her dying breath, will call Shepard out for condemning her for being a Shadow Broker hitman, when Shepard works for the terrorist organization Cerberus. She'll even point out that Cerberus did experiments on Sole Survivor Shepard's own squad.
    • Shepard and the Illusive Man are not so different; depending on certain decisions, Shepard is perfectly willing to let innocent people die to achieve his/her goals, and in The Arrival DLC the player has no choice but to sacrifice 300,000 innocent people to slow down the Reapers' invasion of the Milky Way. Couple this with the "Bring Down The Sky" DLC from the first game, where Balak asks "Who's the real terrorist here?" if you decide to capture him at the expense of the hostages he'd taken, makes the conclusion of Arrival a lot more depressing.
    • There's also Nassana Dantius, an amoral asari politician who's been targeted by Thane Krios for assassination. To secure her building, she hired dozens of Eclipse mercenaries and, when things got desperate, ordered the many salarian construction workers captured or killed, resulting in a massacre of unarmed workers who posed no threat. When Shepard finally makes it to Dantius' office, the asari bitterly claims that the Commander has killed countless people and is no better than her. A Paragon dialogue option from Shepard can refute this by telling Dantius that she kills people because she thinks they are beneath her, whereas Shepard kills people who give him/her no choice.
  • You'll get this at times in Iji if you kill too many enemies throughout the game.
  • In Dirge of Cerberus when Vincent impales Azul the Cerulean on his own cannon by hurling it through his torso, Azul comments that Vincent is an even more of a beast than he is.
    • Actually, Vincent was possessed by Chaos when during that cutscene, so it's somewhat averted.
  • Big Bad Eve in Parasite Eve claims that Aya, the main character, is no different from her and that over time, her powers will help her evolve and grow stronger just like her. She also mixes this up with a few We Can Rule Together speeches, but Aya isn't buying any of it.
  • Explored during the Elder Wars of Lusternia. The Elder Gods face off against the Soulless Ones, and a splinter faction of Elders decides to employ the Soulless' own tactics against them: namely, eating their fallen foes to imbibe their strength. They become addicted to the rush of power and begin devouring other Elders, too. By the time of the game itself, one of these cannibalistic Elder Gods - Morgfyre - is indistinguishable from a Soulless One himself.
  • This is one of the main points in the plot of Tales of Symphonia. The hero of the game, Lloyd Irving, is outright compared to the Big Bad Mithos more than once. Mithos' final words drive the point home too. "Farewell, my shadow, you who stand at the end of the path I chose not to follow. I wanted my own world, so I don't regret my choice. I would make the same choice all over again. I will continue to choose this path!" It really makes you think on how close Lloyd would have come to being like Mithos if Colette had actually become Martel's vessel in the end.
    • Also in the same game, Zelos and Colette, while they're both considered protagonists, are often compared to each other due them both having status as Chosen, but are considered to be quite different from each other: Colette is a cheery if clumsy girl who always tries to help other people and look on the positive side of things, while Zelos is a loudmouthed, perverted cynic who isn't afraid to be blunt. However if you really look at their situations you see that they both try to hide their pains and insecurities beneath their smiles and pretend like nothing's wrong, which in both cases lead to negative consequences.
  • The main plot of NieR loves this trope too. Particularly when you find out that The Dark Lord you've been trying to find so you can rescue Nier's daughter or sister (depending on the game version) Yonah turns out to be the "real" Nier. The character you've been playing the whole game? Just a fake made to house the real Nier's soul. And both of them have the same goal - saving their daughter/sister Yonah.
  • In Radiant Historia, Stocke realizes that he likely would have turned out like Heiss if he had not found friends to give him hope in the future.
  • Malefor starts his Break Them by Talking like this at the end of The Legend of Spyro Trilogy trilogy. Given he's the original Purple Dragon and is heavily implied to be a Fallen Hero, his argument may be valid.

Malefor: Such determination to get here. It seems we share other qualities besides our color.

  • The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim has a very subtle one when the player is talking to Paarthurnax, a dragon who has overcome his inherent nature to kill and conquer and destroy through thousands of years of meditation and self control. He points out that all dragons have an inherent desire to be essentially destructive bastards - and then comments that you, the player, being Dragonborn and thus possessing the soul of a dragon, likely have the same urges to kill and steal and destroy, just like all the dragons you've been killing along the way.
    • From the same game, there's also the songs "Age of Aggression" and "Age of Oppression", sung by bards in pro-Imperial or pro-Stormcloak holds, respectively. The song tunes are identical and both songs have parts where the lyrics are the same.
  • In Asura's Wrath, Augus claims this is true with him and Asura during the fight against him. Defied by Asura, they couldn't be more different since Asura is actually fighting for someone he loves rather than for its own sake and that is what gives him the strength to defeat Augus in the end.
  • Used as a Crowning Moment of Funny in Star Wars Bounty Hunter. When Jango Fett and his archnemesis Montross face down for the final time, Montross says "We are the same, you and I," to which Fett replies "Now you're just being mean."
  • Big Bad Natla in the Anniversary edition of Tomb Raider pulls this trope on Lara Croft during the final boss fight. She tries to mess with Lara's mind saying how Lara is obsessive and selfish like she is and that trying to save the world is just an attempt to redeem herself and that in reality, her heart is as black as Natla's. Lara doesn't fall for it and proceeds to kick her ass.
  • Both the Founders under Comstock and Fitzroy's Vox Populi in BioShock Infinite are ultimately shown to be this, despite ostensibly coming from polar opposite sides. Something that even protagonist Booker DeWitt notices.

Booker: “When it comes down to it, the only difference between Comstock and Fitzroy is how you spell the name.”

  • At the end of the Trespasser DLC for Dragon Age: Inquisition, when you confront the Man Behind the Man at last you this is one of the possible dialogue options.

Inquisitor: You're Fen'Harel. You're the Dread Wolf.
Fen'Harel: (impressed) Well done. (thoughtfully) I was Solas first. "Fen'Harel" came later, an insult I took as a badge of pride. The Dread Wolf inspired hope in my friends and fear in my enemies... not unlike "Inquisitor", I suppose.

  • Bully: Jimmy persuades Earnest that they should work together for this reason. They both share a common enemy, the jocks. Earnest actually ends up agreeing, since both of them are intelligent in their own ways, though he’s hesitant to at first since he assumes that Jimmy is just like the bullies at Bullworth, which isn’t entirely wrong.
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