Video Game Cruelty Punishment: Difference between revisions

[[File:rsz_vg_cats_chicks_9005.jpg|link=VG Cats|frame|Attack the [[The Legend of Zelda (video game)|Cucco]] at your own peril.]]

The most common subtropes are probably [[I Fought the Law and The Law Won]] and [[Shoplift and Die]], in which your comeuppance comes in the form of overpowered [[NPC|NPCs]] intent on either [[Cardboard Prison|locking you up]] or [[No-Holds-Barred Beatdown|beating you down]].

** In the battle mode of ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures|The Legend of Zelda Four Swords Adventures]]'', this is actually a sneaky tactic -- Attack a Cucco inside a building enough times and a swarm of them will appear and attack your pals, since they do not attack anyone inside buildings, you're safe!

** There's an interesting variation on this in ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess|Twilight Princess]]'', where you temporarily control the Cucco you've been attacking.<br /><br />There's also a bird selling red potion and lantern oil in the forest just before the forest temple in ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess|The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess]]''. You pay by dropping rupees into a box, but nothing stops you from just walking out without paying a single rupee. However, doing so causes the bird to violently attack you any time you try to go shopping again. Doesn't seem that bad, until you're in desperate need of that red potion or lamp oil...[[Subverted Trope|Subverted,]] however, in that you can put in just one rupee and the only negative reaction you'll get is the bird telling you not to be so cheap; you can get away with this as many times as you like.

** Also, stealing from the store in ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening|The Legend of Zelda Links Awakening]]'' causes all the [[NPC|NPCs]] to refer to you as THIEF for the rest of the game. Plus the [[Shoplift and Die|shopkeeper zaps you to death]] if you're dumb enough to go back into the store.

* In the NES game ''[[Nightshade]]'', you are a [[Superhero]]. You gain reputation for defeating [[Mook|mooks]], and the more reputation you have, the more people will help you. Very high reputation yields such rewards as a healing booth (which you ''[[Nintendo Hard|will]]'' need). Attacking someone defenseless, however, causes your reputation to take a nose dive.

* In ''[[Armored Core|Armored Core for Answer]]'', [[Video Game Cruelty Potential|you're allowed to take a]] [[Moral Event Horizon|mission where you]] [[Complete Monster|kill 100,000,000 people]]. If you complete that mission, you're rewarded with the mission "[[Scrappy Level|Occupation of Arteria Carpals]]", a mission where you have to defeat 4 [[A Mech by Any Other Name|NEXTs]] -- a ''single'' NEXT qualifies as [[That One Boss]], so this is definitely a punishment. (Although, if you use lots of [[Wave Motion Gun|Kojima]] [[Game Breaker|Weaponry]], it's [[Karma Houdini|relatively easy to win]].)

* In the first ''[[Soul Reaver]]'' game (which is the second ''[[Legacy of Kain]]'' game), civilians and vampire hunters will fall on their knees and worship you -- even let you feed on them -- unless you start killing them, in which case the civilians will run away and the vampire hunters will attack you. They're not especially dangerous, but they can be inconvenient.

* In ''[[Tomb Raider]] II'', attacking the Tibetan warrior monks in the Barkhang Monastery will result in ''every single monk in the entire level'' going for Lara's blood - and it can be easily done if the player is simply trying to help the monks out in their fights against [[Big Bad|Bartoli's]] [[Mook|mooks]] and accidentally target a monk instead of a gunman. They aren't hard to kill, but since there's so many of them it can be easy to become overpowered.

** Throughout all of the Halo games, killing enough marines will get them to turn against you and kill you. The exception is the plot-important ones with [[Gameplay Ally Immortality]], as you can't kill them -- but they will still turn against you if you kill enough marines, and it's still impossible to kill them.

* In ''[[Call of Duty]] World At War'''s DS version, meleeing an ally will result in him returning the favor -- killing you in one hit.

** More than that, using Planet Busters (or just excessively damaging the environment in general) is a bad idea - when you hit the planet, [[Genius Loci|the Planet ]]''[[Genius Loci|hits back]]'', sending a nearly overwhelming swarm of its worst [[Horde of Alien Locusts|mind worms]] to chew through your bases' defenses. [[In Soviet Russia, Trope Mocks You|In Alpha Centauri, you don't destroy planet. Planet destroys YOU!]]

*** Though such systems often backfire horrendously -- people who happen to have a lot of allies can do whatever they want to other players and call their "friends" in to support them if it goes badly.

* ''[[Guild Wars]]'' used to have a reference to the "Cucco Revenge Squad" described above -- normally, killing animals is fine, but there was one particular moa bird which, if killed, would cause a horde of other moa birds to appear out of nowhere and attack you.

* There's a truly bizarre variant in ''[[Mega Man Zero]] 2''. The Crystal Cave area is full of Reploids under enemy control; you're supposed to save them, but if you kill them instead, you ''get a 1-up''! (Maybe the life you took has been [[Death Note|added to your own]]?) On the other hand, this is hell on your rank for the mission, and they won't become helpful [[NPC|NPCs]] at the Resistance Base like other Reploids you've saved.

* Ubiquitous in ''[[Ultima IV]]'', a RPG and possibly the video game with the most ethical depth yet (released in 1985 - sigh.) The series is between [[Big Bad|Big Bads]], and the point of the game is to develop the main character into a beacon of virtue for the people. Breaking into people's houses and taking their stuff actively distances the player from completing the game. Interestingly this goes beyond simple cruelty to also boasting of one's accomplishments (breaking Humility), not being the last to flee a battle (breaking Valor), etc.

* ''[[The World Ends With You]]'' plays this straight and also inverts this: at one point in the game, while you can refuse to save [[NPC|NPCs]] from "Taboo Noise", you get a minor reward for saving them. However, after you beat the game, you can replay that chapter and refuse to save anyone to find that chapter's secret item. You still have to fight one set, however (the set attacking {{spoiler|Sota}}) - refusing to get involved causes Neku to ''start'' saying that he wants to move on, but then mentally slap himself and attack the Noise.

** It also [[Lampshade|lampshades]] this with the item's hint: "Just for you, jerkface!"

* In Spiderweb Software's ''[[Geneforge]]'' series of games, not only your actions, but your attitude can affect gameplay. Taking the wrong attitude in conversations with NPC can substantially affect the way that certain [[NPC|NPCs]] and factions respond to you later in the game; changing some from favorable to neutral, to outright aggressively hostile. Getting caught attempting to steal anything from an NPC (items you aren't permitted to take are labeled as "not yours") can result in being immediately attacked; and destroy your reputation with various NPC and factions. In some cases, this can earn you an immediate [[Nonstandard Game Over]] if you anger a plot-critical NPC.

** Additionally, in this one and the sequel, getting caught pickpocketing, killing [[NPC|NPCs]], or summoning something that kills [[NPC|NPCs]] activates a toned-down version of Everything Trying to Kill You.

** Luckily, most NPCs don't aggro with one hit -- you usually have to strike them multiple times before they [[Turns Red|get pissed off]].

** Beyond that, certain acts are so nasty that the games have special rules built to ensure violators are punished, especially in the ''[[Old World of Darkness]]''; committing them results in ''instant'' loss of [[Karma Meter]]. The major one in both settings is diablerie, a vampire eating another vampire's soul to steal his power. In the ''[[New World of Darkness]]'' gameline ''[[Promethean: The Created]]'', committing lacuna (stealing another Promethean's vitriol, a form of [[Character Level|Experience Points]] gained by completing milestones -- or in other words, sabotaging another Promethean's Pilgrimage for petty gain) is another instant-punishment act.

** The ''[[Old World of Darkness]]'' game ''[[Changeling: The Dreaming]]'' had Banality and Bedlam for players to worry about. Too much Banality - which, if you weren't careful, could be ''very'' easy to pick up and was kind of difficult to shed - and the Changeling would forget who they were, at least until they got an infusion of glamor (assuming it was early-stage Banality; late stages might leave the Changeling so drained of glamor that they wouldn't ever remember anything about magic or who they really were). Bedlam, on the other hand, was caused by spending too much time ''away'' from normal, mundane things and was actually more dangerous since it caused the person to become disconnected from reality of any sort. First-stage Bedlam could easily be self-medicated by wandering off to go steep in low levels of Banality for a while, but second and third-stage Bedlam were actively dangerous since they were ''much'' more difficult to treat and cure (third-stage Bedlam was, in fact, impossible to cure) and the delusions could lead to the character doing anything from trying to hug a dangerous monster, or attacking their allies, to -- using an example from the Nocker Kithbook - experimenting with Banality and then unleashing your experiments on a whole city of Changelings. The whole thing was designed to emphasise how Changelings were really stuck between the two worlds - too magical to live in the human world, too human to live in the Dreaming.

** The [[Game Master]] might also implement other measures to keep psycho [[PC|PCs]] in check, such as changing their [[Character Alignment]] to suit their actual [[Stupid Evil]] style of play, or sending the local authorities after them. This is also one of the reasons why no sane DM would award experience points for killing civilian or "friendly" targets.

* Similarly, there are a couple of points in ''[[Tsukihime]]'' where you're actually offered the choice of letting Shiki give in to his [[Dark Side]] and rape one of the girls. This will get you [[Bad End|Bad Ended]] shortly thereafter, though [[Broken Bridge|not always for a directly related reason]].