< Narm

Narm/Video Games

...YOU DID NOT JUST SAY THAT.

"Look, Rhinos...RHINOS! Our enemies hide in METAL BOXES, the cowards! THE FOOLS! We...we should take away... their metal boxes!"

"WHAT AM I FIGHTING FOOOOOOORRRRRARG?!"
—Zero, Mega Man X 4 cutscene

Whether it's because of their perceived kiddyness, So Bad It's Good voice acting, flimsy translation, or just low production values when it came to the script, video games tend to have more badly executed drama than you can shake a joystick at.

Series with their own lists

  • Bioware
    • Mass Effect
    • Dragon Age
  • Castlevania
  • Final Fantasy
  • House of the Dead
  • Kingdom Hearts
  • The Legend of Zelda
  • Metal Gear
  • Resident Evil
  • Sonic the Hedgehog
  • Silent Hill
  • Tales Series

Others

"The miracle never happen."

    • Another possible example from Trials and Tribulations is due to a typo; Mia was presumably supposed to tell the judge "when you were a child," but she says "when you were in a child". The implications are unsettling, to say the least.
    • Anything to do with "Shelly De Killer". It's hard to take such a silly name seriously.
      • Victims Romaine Letousse and Daid Mann.
    • Phoenix's outraged 'you...you scoundrel!'
      • Well, there was a nine-year-old girl there.
    • Pretty much any time the Phoenix Wright games reference popular culture, the game treads close to Narm territory. For example, when questioning a clown about an otherwise serious case, when you point out a contradiction, he spouts the lines to the theme from Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.
      • Not quite. He very quickly spouts the lines to the theme from Fresh Prince of Bel-Air with clown-related substitutions.

"In West Clownadelphia, born and raised, on the playground is where I spend my clowin'."

      • Which circles right around into Fridge Brilliance when you realize that this jocular little fellow is nervous as shit in the deadly serious atmosphere of the courtroom, and what you're seeing is his attempt (and failure) to cope.
    • In 4-4, if you look hard enough once Gavin starts laughing, his hair goes from extremely messy to normal.
    • Parodied in Investigations Case 4, in which Calisto Yew keeps laughing at Edgeworth because he has an overly serious look on his face.
    • In the final case of Trials & Tribulations, when playing as Edgeworth, his "Hold it!" does not sound like him at all. It sounds more like a middle-aged woman.
    • From the same case, the final reveal of Iris and Dahlia's Twin Switch arguably falls into this, owing to the fact that Phoenix's usual courtroom expressions just can't do justice to complex emotions like "Wait, the sweet girl I thought I was dating wasn't a psychopath after all?"
    • The very end of Case 5 in Investigations has the defeated Big Bad, Quercus Alba say that they would have gotten away with their crimes if it weren't for "You meddling prosecutors!"
  • Devil May Cry has very inconsistent translators and thus has the unfortunate tendency to fall right into these. Fans still cherish Dante's sorrowful cry over Trish's dead body after the Mundus fight: "I should have been the one to fill your dark soul with LIIIIIGGGGHHHTTT!" The moment isn't helped by the fact that Dante's voice cracks halfway through yelling 'LIIIIIGGGGHHHTTT!'

"Wheeeeeooooooo!"

    • 3 had some truly wince-worthy moments. The cutscene before the boss fight with Lady leaps to mind.
    • 4 continues the tradition of narm with insanely corny one liners and a secret ending that looks like it came from Charlie's Angels.
      • It is worth mentioning, however, that many people are used to the overly narmy sequences in Devil May Cry, it becomes laugh-out-loud funny, particularly in the fourth installment. The cutscene in which Dante shows off Lucifer and the secret ending above leap to mind, especially when the Double Entendre (single entendre?) is that blatant...
      • "KYYRRRIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! NNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Nero is Narm incarnate above all else.
  • Drake of the 99 Dragons is a VERY bad game. Besides the awful gameplay, the cutscenes are pure weapons-grade Narm.
  • The Japanese-made video game Zero Wing opens with a dramatic scene showing a military spaceship rocked with explosions. The crew reports that bombs had been planted on the ship, and moments later the ship is hailed by the enemy commander. He informs them that all of their bases have been taken over, and laughs at their imminent demise. Left with no choice, the Captain dispatches the ship's ZIG fighters (one of which will be controlled by the player) for a last-ditch counterattack. ...Then the game was translated into Engrish.
  • Some of the English dialogue in Street Fighter IV is like this, particularly all of Akuma's overly dramatic speeches about "nothingness." They're probably just as wordy in Japanese, but at least his voice sounds cooler.
    • In the arcade version of Street Fighter II, one character punctuates his attacks by saying what sounds like "Cool Whip".
      • Also, considering some of the words are unintelligible, some things end up sounding wrong—such as "The pipes are broken!" or "Ghetto Uppercut!"
    • In Super Street Fighter II, Guile's "Sonic Boom!" sounds exactly like it did in Street Fighter II... except if the guy had inhaled a whole bunch of helium this time.
      • Don't forget the announcer being guest voiced by Big Bird.
    • One example that's clear as day but still makes you wonder what the heck they were going for is Guy's cry of defeat from Super Street Fighter IV. Rather than say something like "EYAHHHHGH!!" or "NOOOO!", his parting words are "PROFOUND SADNESS!" Being sad upon defeat is understandable but perhaps you could save your lamenting for when you regain consciousness?
    • Akuma's newest transformation, Oni, looks... Cool, but quote...

Oni: I... AM EVIL. INCARNATE!

Random YT commenter in the last one: "hands down the funniest ultra in the game"

    • Any mention of the so-called "dark hado" is infested with narm, mostly caused by how silly it actually sounds - "ha-dough", and the whole clichéd, inherent Wangst of the main-character Ryu "wrestlng with his dark side", like some sort of Emo teen.
    • Whenever Fei Long's Funny Bruce Lee Noises are typed out and written in SF Alpha III's Story Mode. Having him burst into "WA HOATAAAAAAAAAA!" and other screams is cool when you can hear him, NOT when you're reading what he tells others.
      • Likewise, Dhalsim's massive CMOA of neutralizing and destroying the Psycho Drive by himself is ruined when the script has him chant "Yogaaaaaa" all over.
  • The infamous 'WUT M I FITEING 4444444444?!?!?!' scene from Mega Man X 4.
    • Or X yelling "Time to get serious!" with the voice of an 8-year old boy when he runs low on health.
    • Mega Man X 8. Everything involving Lumine. Serious, that can't be taken seriously.
    • Hey, when your main characters are a blond kid with a humongous sword who gets mind controlled all the time and a guy with a gun on his arm, there's only one thing to do.
    • Copy X Mk. II from Mega Man Zero 3 Sp-peaks with an od-d st-tutter to indicate that he is a poor-quality copy. With the ef-fect that a merciless fascist tyrant sounds like a n-nervous child.
    • Not to mention Dr. "Wight" fwom Mega Man 8. "If we fowwow the signaw, we'll find Dr. Wiwy!"
      • "You must wecovow all the enewgy immeedily, W-..Mega Man!"
      • "We may a- be able to"
      • "The barrier privates me from going there"
    • Mega Man ZX Advent suffers from cheesy, not-really-good voice acting. But the champion of the Narmity on it would be Thetis - not only does he have a ridiculously high-pitched voice, but his defeat-speech sounds exactly like a 10 year old crying over a lost bar of chocolate. It's like Avatar: The Abridged Series' Zuko, only even more whiny.
      • And there's the translation company's decision on inserting voice acted actions in the dialogue box with the help of asterisks (that is, *laugh* , *gasp* , etc). That isn't TOO ridiculous, until...

'Prometheus: "Perhaps as you are dying... *evil laugh*"

  • The cutscene before you fight Lilith in Requiem: Avenging Angel. It's supposed to be giving you important plot information right before a boss fight, but the randomly-placed word-emphasis and the fact that you have to watch the cutscene every time you retry this hard boss fight means it jumps into Narm territory really quick.
  • And who could forget the very beginning of the classic Beat'Em Up Altered Beast? Zeus, God of Gods, commands the two nameless heroes to rise from their graves, but the voice clip that accompanies this scene is of such low quality that Zeus sounds like Elmer Fudd: "Wise fwum your gwave!"
  • The PlayStation 2 version of Shinobi features a sequence where the villain taunts you that you can't kill a former acquaintance, 'even with that tainted blade.' The main problem is that the player character, Hotsuma, has already killed the acquaintance in question with the blade in question, and he even has an enormous scar marking where his head was cut off.
  • Mediocre but entertaining Stealth Based Game Spy Fiction would have been a better piece of, well, Spy Fiction had the voice actors bothered trying. A particularly egregious example is when the lunatic terrorist Dietrich captures the positive, quirky agent Nicklaus, chains him to a crucifix-type device, and shoots him in the heart in front of his best friend. If you weren't laughing at Dietrich's painfully badly-written mocking of the survivors - "Boo hoo! Poor baby!", in a nonspecific and ridiculous Eastern European accent - you probably threw back your head and laughed as the survivor attempted to give a scream of bitter rage to the heavens and ended up making a sound vaguely like he'd finally passed a very stubborn stool.
    • This one also had the catchphrase 'Back in the hole', which was said repeatedly by the main character as a code to his best friend, Nicklaus, usually while pointing to him at the time. In one horrible Narm moment, the phrase is said by both after Nicklaus had previously said, "I'll go on ahead. You go in behind." The voice actors deserve some credit for being able to say the line without laughing.
  • The scene following Junpei's death and subsequent revival at the cost of Chidori's life in Persona 3 was meant to be moving, to be sure, but was so over-the-top and full of awkward romantic dialogue, a character that keeps her poor speaking skills throughout the event, the stiff falling over sequence and an inconsistency of the gameplay prevent anything but laughter. Not that that particular relationship was developed realistically to begin with...
    • Also the scenes that are part of the Fortune social link, wherein a teenager's eventual decision to become a doctor is apparently catalyzed by the fact that people are having massive medical crises around him all the time. He misses a train because he's trying to help not just one, but two senior citizens who spontaneously go into cardiac arrest while he's standing nearby.
      • You want Narm, try all of the Devil social link. The guy is, for lack of a better word, a prick. Then you find out that he came from poverty so you feel bad, but he ruins it by being a prick even when he's giving money to a charity.
        • He is the Devil Social Link for a reason.
      • Ah, but he's a popular prick. Popular enough to return in Persona 4, in fact.
    • Strega, for the most part, is hilarious in battle, what with Jin's battle pose being to do a dance while swinging around a suitcase/laptop around.
    • You think Persona 3 had Narm? Check out the Macekred dialogue in the first game. Basically every scene, besides Nate/Nanjo's Crowning Moment of Awesome, that was meant to be dramatic, tense or tear-jerking was ruined by some very poor translation that made everyone sound like 8-year-olds ("No your stupid (sic)", "I'll kill you slow!", and "Now I'm Super Guido!", to name a few).
    • "Your relationship is stronger now!" The wording's a bit awkward; thankfully it was changed to something along the lines of "Your relationship has grown deeper..." in Persona 4.
    • This scene in Persona 2: Eternal Punishment.
      • The scene where Tatusya says "But...it's NOT too LATE!" (emphasis his) after he fails to prevent Sumaru from floating into the sky again always does it for this troper and her sister, and we both literally burst out laughing when he said it. In fact, we've taken to quoting their battle lines at each other for no reason. And laughing. Every time. I actually think it's so bad it's kind of charming.
    • Persona 4 isn't immune, for example Chie's "crying" gesture as seen after the Shadow Yukiko fight looks like an attempt to rub something off her face (It actually DOES get used for that at one point when she is attempting to get a bug off herself). Many of the bosses get silly as well, Shadow Naoto has a mechanical left body, wings that look oddly familer and two oversized Death Ray blasters, the result is about as scary as the mental image. Shadow Kanji is a Two-Faced gaint Dual-Wielding ♂. In story these make sense given the nature of the shadow (representing her feelings at being treated like a child and confusion over sexual identity respectively, but they are STILL funny as hell.
      • This actually makes sense in Shadow Naoto's case. Not being taken seriously and being treated like a child was her main neurosis. It would only make sense that the Shadow would look like something out of a kid's show.
    • Another in P4 was Kanji punching the wall and "roaring" in the hospital after hearing of Nanako's death ruins the poignant scene on account of sounding like a bad imitator of Tarzan who's been inhaling helium.
  • The "fight" between Arthas and Illidan at the end of Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne. Really, Blizzard? Couldn't you have just used just a little of your mountains of cash to dedicate thirty seconds or so of the ending cutscene to that instead of giving us a minute of speed lines and scratchy noises?
    • I'm pretty sure I read they wanted to make it a proper cutscene but ran out of time or somesuch, so I don't think it was by choice.
  • World of Warcraft has a Narm moment every October. The bizarre music and drunken chatter of the Brewfest holiday clashes with the eerie setting of the Undercity.
    • You think Brewfest in Undercity is fail? Try the valentines day event. Pink hearts and roses in the city of the undead. It's just wrong!
    • In Zul'Drak, a zone where there's an ongoing war against the undead Scourge, you get a quest to go help at a Argent Crusade forward camp. When you report to the guy there, he says: "Everything was fine until the Scourge arracked!"
    • A classic one, while battling against C'Thun, players would hear creepy whispers from the Old God at different points. These were mostly unsettling, such as "Your friends will abandon you" or "You are already dead". Then one says "Your heart will explode", and the entire raid tends to crack up.
      • Originally, he would sometimes say "It's all fun and games until someone loses an eye." They probably removed it because it delved into this way too much.
    • Nearly every holiday event in WoW is Narm. (Christmas trees in the Exodar...jack-o-lanterns all over Thunder Bluff...what?)
      • If you think that's bad, you should check out the names they gave stuff in Hallow's End. Tricky Treats? Tummy ache? How old does Blizzard think we are, five?
      • Especially bad in Winter Veil, when some bosses wear Santa hats. Granted, said bosses drop those hats, which are used to earn achievements, but it is somewhat jarring to see them wearing them.
    • Illidan's famous line in the cinematic of the second expansion set, "YOU ARE NOT PREPARED", would be badass if he did it once, but he repeats it three times, ruining the moment. Blizzard joked about this themselves in a Christmas audio clip they did shortly after the unveiling of the cinematic, where Illidan makes a cameo but simply keeps on repeating his line ad infinitum.
    • Really, the whole of WoW is full of them. On the surface, everything has a serious tone, but a good majority of the quests and NPC's are pop culture references or some other kind of subtle joke.
    • The Wrathgate cinematic that bridges the first and second acts of Wrath of the Lich King is an action-filled scene that is very tense and emotional for fans of the lore, bridging together several different storylines and changing the game world significantly. But most fans still cringe at this overused action movie cliche:

Bolvar Fordragon: I was wondering if you'd show up!
Saurfang the Younger: I couldn't let the Alliance have all the fun today!

    • In a Narm moment related to the above, when High Overlord Saurfang comes to reclaim the body of his son, now Deathbringer Saurfang (the Younger), in the Alliance version of Icecrown Citadel, it is played out as a very touching moment of Alliance-Horde cooperation. The Narm comes in when High Overlord Saurfang picks up his son's body to carry him home in his arms. Saurfang uses a normal-sized male orc model. Deathbringer Saurfang uses a double-sized boss model with huge shoulders, which clip hilariously through the ground as his teeny-tiny father waddles over to King Varian Wrynn to thank him for his kindness. This Troper's raid spent most of the scene laughing hysterically over an open Ventrilo.
    • Which, for the alliance at least, is immediately followed by Jaina letting our a hilarious over the top crying session, and then stating how proud she was of her king, if you managed to pull it off right, JR's body might actually be near normal size, if that did ruin it, this certainly would.
    • Thorim: "What? You...? I remember you. In the mountains..." For a time it was a pretty big meme. Also, Sindragosa casting Unchained Magic: "Suffer mortals, as your pathetic magic BETRARARARAGRAHRAGHS YOU!" By far the worst voice actor in the game, her lines don't strike much fear into players' hearts.
    • If you roll a death knight, you get a different version of this quest for each race. The draenei version contains such lines as "Remember Argus. Don't let that happen to this world." However, it would be a lot more poignant if it didn't also contain the phrase "face tentacles."
    • The undead version's just as bad, undead death knights themselves are walking bags of extreme redundancy in and of itself, but the NPC doesn't hesitate to point it out to you.
    • Kael'Thas Sunstrider in Magister's Terrace

Kael: Don't look so smug! I know what you're thinking, but Tempest Keep was merely a setback. Did you honestly believe I would trust the future to some blind, half-night elf mongrel? Hahahaha... Oh no, no, no, he was merely an instrument, a stepping stone to a much larger plan! It has all led to this...and this time, you will not interfere!

      • Thanks to memetic mutation, not only is everything now "merely a set back" to Kael, but the same phrase is applied to any lore character who turns out not to be quite dead. One of the WotLK raid bosses even says it himself, in-game.
    • One excellent example would be The Devourer of Souls. The voice acting is so amazingly narmy that words cannot describe it.
    • The titles often seem quite out of place with the players' names, as you'll often see someone like "L33tk1ll3r the Twilight Vanquisher" or "H4xx0r of the Ashen Verdict". There's also quite a bit of unintended humor when someone with "the Patient" title drops out of a raid group at the first wipe, or leaves when they're still recruiting.,
    • Ladies and gentlemen. I present you Theralion.
    • This part of the Genn Greymane-focused short story, Lord of His Pack, where, having saved his wife and daughter, Genn gets trapped inside the sinking ship.

Relieved and proud of what he had just done, Genn began to pull himself through the porthole, but before he could find his way through...
 Whooooosh!

    • Is it possible for a computer game to have Special Effects Failure? If yes, then I nominate the boss battle with Anub'arak in Azjol-Nerub. It would seem he's not as good at burrowing as the rest of his people. He actually uses a ladder to pull himself back out of the ground. Cheater!
    • Speaking of special effects, did you listen carefully to the sound effects you make while casting holy spells? Those little bells twinkling? Although, to be fair, this lighthearted style when it comes to graphics and audio is characteristic of the Warcraft series as a whole.
  • And then there's the ending of Warcraft III. The archdemon lord heads towards the world tree and gets killed by wisps. Yes, the ones that you have been using to gather wood for the period of the last campaign.
    • The dendrophiliac overtones don't help things.
    • Neither is the fact the whole scene resembles the famous King Kong scene where he climbs the Empire State Building. Except, Demon!Kong is being taken down by SPARKLES.
  • Warcraft's general storyline is pretty much overflowing with this. It's basically a really cheesy comicbook trying to be taken as seriously as Lord of the Rings. And failing epicly in the attempt.
  • Milder example: the Saloon structure in Age of Empires III. While the Saloon offers the players good units, The Wild West-style harpsichord music can be somewhat distracting.
    • The campaign mode, probably due to the game being more multiplayer oriented, didn't exactly splurge on the voice acting or script, resulting in some rather horrendous dialogue:

Sahin: Why do you continue to fight, Frenk? Can you not see that your struggle is pointless?
Morgan Black: Why do ye call me Frank? Ah'm Scoatisch, y' Turkish doag!

Sahin: Bah! All you Europeans are French to me!

    • Just as half-defense of the exchange, and half-historical tidbit, Muslims, historically, commonly referred to Europeans as 'the Franks', even if they should have known better about their antagonist's nationality.
    • Same with the Chinese—it's where Star Trek got the name for the Ferengi.
    • WOLOLO.
    • Billy Holme's death in The Warchiefs campaign. First he gets shot, then he falls backwards into a mineshaft, and then the barrels of powder that fell with him explode. You know, just in case there was any doubt that getting shot and falling down a mineshaft would do him in.
  • The only way to maintain willing suspension of disbelief during Trauma Center is to assume it's an over-the-top pastiche through design. A terrifically hilarious moment for this troper was when Dr. Stiles was wandering around in the city in misery after being negligent towards a patient. When it begins to rain, he doesn't mind - 'maybe it will calm me down!'
    • And you get a Narm whenever you lose - a hopelessly melodramatic rendering of how Dr. Stiles mysteriously disappeared, unable to handle his guilt over losing a patient.
    • "DAMMIT! DON'T. YOU! DIE ON MEEEE!". Or "Let's BEGIN THE OPERATION!"
    • The scene where you have to defuse a bomb is hilariously silly.
    • "I DISAGREE."
    • "I'M A DOCTOR!"
    • The most narmy psycho-face ever coupled with "The healing touch is also good for...KILLING!" made Adel lose any menace he previously had.
  • The ending cinematic in Diablo, depending on which class you played as. When the player character drives Diablo's Soulstone into his/her forehead, the look of pain on the Warrior and Sorcerer's faces is authentic. The Rogue, by contrast, ends up looking like Barbra Streisand.
  • Baal, in the opening cinematic for Act V of Diablo II. Sure, he's got an army from hell with him, and he blows up the guard in a very evil way, but... he also gestures emphatically with every line, looks like he's wearing makeup, and seems way too happy about being carried on a fashionable throne by his minions. He may be the most intimidating drama queen ever, but he still acts like a drama queen.
  • In Ace Combat 5 the death of Chopper, aka Captain Davenport might have been more heartrending if the cries of anguish from the squadmates didn't sound so orgasmic/like they were constipated. I, despite myself, found myself laughing during that otherwise heartbreaking scene from the voice-acting.
    • In reality, people suffering great emotional pain don't necessarily sound effectively dramatic. Even if that's a sufficient Hand Wave, though, nothing justifies the terrible voice-acting or writing from the AWACS.
    • It's even more Narmy if you're familiar with Hot Shots, since the constant calling out of parts of the plane breaking down gets too close to Topper's final landing ['I've lost a wing...Oh, there goes the other one']. The dying character's name not helping matters in the slightest.
    • Also as narmy was the fact that the AWACS in 5 ("Thunderhead") and 6 ("Ghost Eye") could be found panicking and basically having a coronary as soon as Lt. Col. Ford (during the B-2 bomber attack on Sand Island Air Base) in 5 and Garuda 2, Frank "Shamrock" Lumpert (when scouting Chandelier) in 6 were shot down. In contrast, Sky Eye and Eagle Eye weren't exactly just renamed, but they were completely professional, stayed on top of things, and had the human touch.
    • Anytime the characters in 5 and Zero start talking about how bad war is. Zero especially, since its mercenaries doing it.
  • Ace Combat 6's "Go dance with the angels"? That's supposed to be an insult (Emmerian POWs interrogated by Viktor Voychek throw this at him). It's worse than merely neutered.
    • Interestingly, it IS an insult to that particular character, since he was grounded from flying by an injury. That doesn't make it any less narmy.
      • Problem is that it's used repeatedly by the Emmerians in other contexts, so instead of being a one-time zinger it seems to be the national slogan of Emmeria, and even the Estovakian ace Ilya Pasternak sinks to that level at one point.
    • "MATILDAAAAAAAAAAAAA!" If memory serves, all the extra As are even in the subtitles.
    • During the opening Melissa see the wrecks of both her duaghter's school bus and her husband's plane is done, on the same road and done in such a dual tone
  • The opening scene for Halo 2 has an Elite Commander being publicly humiliated and tortured by Brutes for his failure to protect the original Halo from "the demon", Master Chief. This would be an incredibly dramatic scene, if only two things had been cut - 1)the Elite Commander's rather pathetic roar of pain at being branded; and 2)the Grunts in their thousands lining the walls of the corridor the Elite Commander's being marched down, screaming "Heretic!" in their hilarious high-pitched voices.
    • While the Brutes are carrying the soon-to-be Arbiter to the Mausoleum:

Brute 1: "Why not throw him in with this lot? They could use the meat".
Brute 2: "What about us? My belly aches, and his flesh is seared just the way I like it".
Tartarus: "Quiet! You two whimper like grunts fresh of the teat"(another food nipple reference?).

    • In Halo 3, there's this bit in the base early on. It's hilarious because Miranda looks and sounds about 12, and it's an utterly stupid answer to a tactically relevant question:

Marine: Ma'am, squad leaders are requesting a rally point. Where should they go?
Miranda Keyes: (Dramatic Gun Cock) To war.

    • Even harder to take seriously when you realize that she resembles Angela Orsco.
    • Johnson's death in the same game was met with the Tucker/Church death conversation in an impromptu MSTing of awesome during my first playthrough with friends. Didn't help that after the second game I'd slotted him neatly into the Scrappy corner, but he 'died' like, four times before that? Not counting all the times he got 'knocked out' during gameplay.
    • The first level of Halo: Reach has a marine (well, army grunt, whatever) announce over the radio that "The Covenant is on Reach. I repeat: the Covenant is on Reach." He sounds bored out of his mind. It's no big deal, apparently.
      • What's worse is that he's one of the generic voices assigned to NPC soldiers, so we get this flat and bored voice mixed in with frantic yelling and cries of pain during gameplay.
    • Kat's death might count for some. It's horribly sad at first because it's so sudden and she was just warming to Six, but when she drops to the ground, Six grabs a magnum and empties the clip into the dropship overhead. The rest of Noble follow suit, and you can't help but think of Hot Fuzz.

Danny Butterman: Ever fired your gun in the air and yelled, 'Aaaaaaah?'

Luigi: I hope she made lotsa spaghetti!
Mario: Here's the problem: too many toasters! You know what they say: all toasters toast toast!

    • Let's be fair, though: That "lotsa spaghetti" line, and many others, weren't exactly meant to be touching in the first place.
  • Half Life: G-Man's deadpan-from-hell delivery breaks down for anyone who has played Microsoft 3D Movie Maker, where the same actor voices McZee, an insane Barney the Dinosaur-esque host.
    • The G-Man's speech patterns are also eerily similar to Torgo's from Manos: The Hands of Fate. This makes it just a little bit harder to take the G-Man seriously.
      • It's worth noting that the Narm is somewhat intentional here: G-Man's stunted speech patterns are intended to give the player the impression that his speech is being forced, as if speaking is almost "foreign" to him, to give him an otherworldly nature and add to his enigmatic persona. However, it's still pretty bad in Half-Life 1, but this idea gets across MUCH better in Half-Life 2.
    • The stupidly clichéd chat with Eli Vance in Nova Prospekt made this troper cringe.
  • Breakdown was an excellent although severely flawed game. A scientist suffers an obviously fatal fall, lands right in front of you, and then gets back up, apparently unscathed. And then she notices that the back of her head has been smashed to a pulp, and she then dies with cartoonishly exaggerated death throes.
  • As much as this troper hates to admit it (as its one of his favorite games), there's a Narm moment to be had in Dungeon Siege II: Broken World. Up until Part III, whenever you visit Arcanist Laenne to buy or sell reagents (and believe me, if you want to take advantage of those good reagent recipes, you will be visiting her a lot), she almost always starts her conversations with "We have taken in more Humans than we have room for, and they're in bad shape". It's an accurate and descriptive line the first few times you hear it, but after hearing it a few hundred times, you can't help but either groan or say "Yeah, yeah, everything happens to you". Thankfully, though, you can skip past it.
    • Taar has some awkward lines: "You must take care when talking to strangers. You never know when someone is lying." Yes, mother...
    • Most NPC lines are written in Purple Prose fit for the hammiest of hams, yet the voice actors are having none of it. It sounds like they recorded the lines in someone's apartment and didn't want to disturb the neighbors.
  • Lufia and the Fortress of Doom on SNES has a ridiculous Narm moment. One of the original heroes has managed to live for over a hundred years and meets the new heroes. He talks about how he's still in good shape and everything before giving the explanation of what happened last time. Then, he randomly has a heart attack and dies after the plot no longer needs him.
    • This scene makes much more sense after you find out who Lufia is.
    • The GBA game, Ruins of Lore, has plenty of these moments, but the one that stands out the most is the scene where the Silent Protagonist finally meets his father again after not seeing him in probably 10-something years. The father's reaction can be best summarized as "Oh. It's you."
  • Dead Rising gives us such gems as "I've covered wars, y'know." Well, Frank, so has Geraldo.
    • Pretty sure that was supposed to be satirical.
      • Or not- we're talking about the same company that makes Resident Evil. The game was actually full to the brim of Narm - reaching its height when the main character, after having killed the man responsible for the zombie outbreak, says "You know, I thought he was terrorist scum. But... In the end, all he really cared about was his sister." Trapping your sister in a mall full of flesh eating zombies is an odd way to show affection for her.
      • Post-RE 4 Capcom seems to have its tongue firmly in-cheek, so yeah, Dead Rising's narm was more than likely intentional (hell, the Wii re-release is subtitled "Chop Till You Drop", not to mention the numerous novelty items).
      • Frank did not kill the man responsible for the outbreak. Instead, he died from wounds sustained in an earlier fight with a different character.
      • The Big Bad was made of stupid. Certainly brilliant moments, but overall kind of a moron.
    • The insane manager of the supermarket that you have to fight - "THIS IS MY STOOOOOOORRREEEEE!"
      • It was more of a Large Ham moment that showed how crazy the manager was. "NOT ON MY WAAAAAATCH!"
    • "I'm...a...zombieeeee..." Yah, yah...hurry up already, I've got survivors to save.
    • And let's not forget the classic line "We need to retard the zombification process."
    • On top of all that, the main character will wear the same clothes in cutscenes as he wears during gameplay. This means that many serious, dramatic moments can be spoiled by having Frank West wearing a Hawaiian shirt. Or a Servbot mask. Or a cocktail dress.
    • In the sequel, Chuck comes across a pair of magician psychopaths and witnesses them sawing a women in half (literally) as part of a botched magic trick. Chuck's reaction is hilarious

HEY! That's not magic, she's dead!

  • The Typhon boss in Rygar: The Legendary Adventure. While the game does a good job of reviving the classic kind of hero story ("save the damsel in distress, kill the bad guy, save the world"), this boss just ruins the mood. It looks like a multi-headed dragon, but the tops of the necks...are a bunch of crying, fire-breathing babies.
    • Just about every cutscene in Rygar: The Legendary Adventure runs on high quality Narm. "Is this the hound that guards the underworld? No! It is the fang of justice! Fang of justice, fight for me!" * facepalm*
    • At one point, we rescue the love interest. Who starts singing. In an FMV. Words cannot describe...
    • How everyone pronounces "Disk Armor". You'd think it'd be "Disk-arm-or", right? Try "Dis-carmer".
  • In Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War: Soulstorm, Lord Firaveous Carron's reaction to the Blood Ravens' Rhino transports is, well, rather ridiculous. By the way, the "SINDRI!" is actually from the original campaign.
    • Particularly ridiculous when you remember that they're Chaos Marines, and have much of the same kit as the Space Marines. In particular, they have Rhinos too. So Carron's reacting with incredulous derision at "metal boxes" that he uses as well.
    • He also cries like a little girl when you beat him.
    • Not to mention Brother-Captain Boreale's hilariously bad accent. "SPESS MAHREENS! WE HAVE FAILED........THE EMPRA!"
    • Also worthy of attention are the Eldar's WailingHowling Banshees. Their lines would be Badass if they weren't so hilarious from their squeaky voices.
      • On the subject of squeaky voices, this troper can't resist a chuckle whenever a chaos cultist speaks, mostly due to them sounding like the Squeaky-voiced Teen.
    • Everything the narrator says is over-the-top. Example.
    • The Imperial Guard Commander somehow "lost" 100 Baneblades. For those not in the know, a Baneblade is an incredibly rare and valuable supertank. An Imperial Guard commander is lucky to see one in a century.
    • And there's the voice for the Cultists, who all have a high-pitched Peter Lorre accent going on while giggling maniacally.

Cultist-chan: Nho hwan eez loyal. Everywahn eez hereteec.

    • I can't believe no one has mentioned the Dark Eldar Warriors' battle crys, especially if you order them to capture an objective:

RAISE OWAR STADAAAAAAAAAARD!
For KOMORAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!
HOIST THE FLAAAAAAAAAAAAG OF...................KOMORAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!

  • Shadow of Destiny has a few. For example, Eike shouting, "You bastard!" at Hugo during Ending E. Doesn't sound bad out of context, but becomes Narmy when you consider that a) up until this point, the only swear used had been 'damn' and that only two or three times, b) the delivery of the line was ridiculously casual given the situation, and c) the script writer had apparently been channeling South Park. Honestly, though, any moment where Eike is required to exhibit any emotion besides Dull Surprise qualifies as a Narm.
    • Ending C. GODDAMN ENDING C. So, Eike erased Hugo from existence, and, even though did little to help Elizabete and Dana, he's alive and well. He realizes the wonders of life, lays down on the street to see the sky... and then two random drunk teenagers run over him with a car. The end. It's insanely random, badly executed and downright stupid. No wonder it's considered the worst ending.
  • Intentionally invoked in Portal for black humor: finding a previous test subject's scrawlings of the phrase "The cake is a lie" repeated over and over is both disturbing and hilarious.
    • Your mileage may vary, but GLaDOS' scream when being core-transferred in the sequel. Yes, it's a creepy moment, but the amount of auto-tuning makes her sound like T-Pain.
  • The Final Boss of Salamander 2, the arcade-only sequel to Life Force (cousin series to Gradius) greets you with the most intimidating threat a mile-wide three-headed alien could possibly give to a spaceship pilot: "I'm going to scare you like you've never been scared before!"
    • Gradius Gaiden, in the fourth level, has a boss consisting of two giant moai heads that taunt you: "You think you can beat me with that?? Loser!" It's the "loser" part that drives it over the top - that's a playground insult!
  • EA's game version of The Godfather did a fairly good job of conveying the mood of Don Corleone being shot - until the guy sitting next to you as you drive the Don's ambulance tells you the hospital is on Houston Street. And he pronounces it "HOUSE-ton". If you're not aware that this is the actual pronounciation of New York's Houston Street, it qualifies.
    • A better example from The Godfather (and from the same part of the game) might be Fredo leaning out the window of the ambulance firing a Tommy gun at pursuing mobsters like some kind of badass hero, whereas in the movie he is universally portrayed as incompetent, whiny and cowardly.
    • Another good example is where you kill the guy your character has been wanting to kill from the intro, which is actually a rather nicely done moment where you get to murder them yourself. Except it happens to occur in the middle of a mission where you're likely to have a bunch of heat on you, and instead of the satisfying kill you're (probably) supposed to have, you kill him in a few seconds and run like hell. (This troper hasn't seen the godfather movies, and doesn't know if this is a horrible interpretation of some other event or not)
  • When The Black Knight/Zelguis dies in Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn, he mutters "...phiran, I will wait for you in the afterlife.." although this is intended as a dying man missing a syllable in his last breath, this becomes slightly narmy if one knows that a "phiran" is a type of cloak.
    • And then of course, there's the line "Now one of those two is truly...alone..." Danananananana! You got Alondite!
    • While we're still on that subject, here's three words: Ike's memory scene. The voice acting just COMPLETELY ruined the dramatic moment. For starters, Ike should sound like a kid, not a poor man's reenaction of Marty McFly.
      • Nearly every cutscene in Radiant Dawn had absolutely horrendous voice acting. It's a toss up as to whether the memory scenes involving Zelguis and Sephiran or the wooden dialogue between Ranulf and Skrimir are more painful to listen to.
        • And an honorable mention for Tibarn.

"To WING, brothers! Keep UP with me if you CAN!!!"

        • The European dubbings got it better, though far from great. The acting was decent enough more often than not, but sometimes you had the same actor voicing two different characters IN THE SAME CUTSCENE. As example, Zelgius and Skrimir in the river battle cutscene in Spanish. WHAT THE HELL?!
      • "FOOOOOOOORM UUPPPP!! SURRROOOOOOOOUUUUUUNNNDDDD THEM AAALLLLL!!"
        • "DOOOOOON'T LET A SINGLE ONE EE-SCEEEEEEEEEP!!"
    • Pelleas: You're going to pay! You're going to - BLAAAARRGGH! Guys, Pelleas just threw up!
    • For an otherwise touching and wonderful friendship/shippingmoment, Soren's crying at the end of his and Ike's hidden conversation hit this HARD. It's incredibly hard not to laugh at the thought of Soren of all people sobbing "Uwaaaah...GWAAAAH!". It's even better if you try to make the crying sounds out loud. People do not cry like that.
  • In Fire Emblem: the Blazing Sword, right before the start of the final battle, the Big Bad removes the turban that has been covering one of his eyes. It reveals a big unblinking scarred eye. Though it looks a bit silly, the mood of the scene allows the reveal to be dramatic. And then, the eyeball jiggles up and down like a googly doll-eye once in a while he speaks...
  • In Seisen no Keifu, the Battle of Barhara loses a good part of its emotional power due to the whole scene being on Super-Deformed. Court mages casting Meteor to decimate an army? Epic and tragic. Cute little SD mages casting Meteor to decimate an equally cute little army? .... Huh?
    • Although some English translated patches have a critical misspelling that ruins the whole tragedy beforehand...

Sigurd : "Alvis! You DASTARD!"

      • Dastard is actually a legitimate word; it means a malicious coward. It's actually used several times in official Fire Emblem translations. It still counts if you've never heard of it, though.
  • From the Captain America and The Avengers arcade Beat'Em Up: Cap and his crew are prepared to fight the first boss, Whirlwind, saying they've got him cornered. Whirlwind's retort? "You will be the one escaping!" This is supposed to sound threatening, but thanks to the cheesy voice acting (it was the early '90s, you know), it sounds utterly hilarious, especially given that it sounds like both Cap and Whirlwind were voiced by the same guy.
    • Plus, telling your enemy that they're going to escape isn't exactly very threatening, being akin to yelling "I won't deal you serious injury!"
    • "I CAN'T MOVE!"
    • When a character is hit, he cries an over-dramatic "NO!"
    • "What an evil thing you've done!"
    • Mandarin's Yellow Peril voice: "See my POWAAAAH!!!!"
    • When you demand that Ultron tell you where the laser is. His response is "ASK THE POLICE!" Why? Nobody really knows.
    • On a side note, the designers of the game must have been under the impression that the Vision was a flat-chested woman or the world's most flamboyantly homosexual male robot. His default poses and moves have him with his knees turned inwards and his hands being held limply out to the side or covering his "breasts". Very, very strange.
  • Oh, c'mon. Baten Kaitos, anyone? The scene where Kalas pulls a Face Heel Turn cracks this troper up every time, despite the fact that it's supposed to be a rather dramatic moment.
    • Would the laughing point be when he said "LOOK AT MY BEAUTIFUL WINGS!"
    • There's also the ending to the giant Sidequest to gather all the missing family members before Quzman dies. When you gather all 32 family members, the elderly man gently ascends to Heaven with several fairies helping him up. What makes the scene unintentionally funny is the text box that pops up after the scene. "Quzman died peacefully" suddenly pops up while the cheerful level-up jingle plays. Kind of spoils the moment.
      • Don't forget the last signature. Same textbox, same level-up jingle, only the message reads Quzman's brother passed away, but you finished the Family Tree!
    • The stiff character models don't help at all. They move like puppets with invisible strings.
    • Everything that Xelha says. She has a ridiculously feminine voice tha manages to sound exactly like a guy doing a decent impression of a girl. That being said, her death scene still manages to be genuinely sad.
    • Pretty much any word out of Lyude's mouth has a habit of becoming hilarious. This troper loves watching the opening to the game just to hear him say "It's UNTHINKABLE! To ACT against the EMPIRE?!"
    • One problem the game faces is that the Guardian Spirit's name and gender can be chosen at the beginning of the game, which means that his/her name can't be said during voice acting sequences. However, instead of substituting another word (e.g. "your spirit"), the voices leave a gap in the dialogue, which is incredibly jarring. The second game fixes this somewhat by making the spirit's gender male, but direct addresses to his name are left empty.
    • And of course, Origins has Milly's "No! No, no, no, No! Father you are so wrong!"
    • Don't forget Kalas. "FEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"
    • Giacomo's seemingly-Badass Boast: 'You're my ticket back to the Empire! And every good ticket needs to be punched!'
    • Then there's Sagi's little gem of a line. "Go to hell, you son of a bitch! You hurt my mother!"
  • Star Fox Adventures is one long Narm, thanks in part to the corny voice acting and the fact that it takes the Rule of Cool way, way too far.
    • Perhaps the narmiest moment is the fading breaths of a Earth Walker soldier, delivered in "Dinosaur Language." It has to be seen to be believed.
      • Speaking of dinosaur language, (it's just letter-swapping and the mini-guide that comes with the game has a translator in the back), the dinosaur language word for "eye" is "ooo."
    • The cutscene that always plays when Fox gets an item in Adventures is extremely narmy. It's probably due to the fact that Fox's face literally runs through the expression spectrum, starting out with a bizarre combination of mild annoyance/mild anger, and ending up with a look of total joy, akin to someone who's just found the holy grail, cure for cancer, and eternal youth, all at the same time.
      • And we mean always. At one point, Fox is tasked with collecting three bridge cogs to get a minor bridge working again. He does the animation for every cog.
      • Krystal's (it only plays twice when you play as her) isn't quite as funny, but seeing her go from an incredibly bored looking expression to one that looks like she just won a carnival game is still fairly narmy.
    • "WHEW DAHS SAMMON DA MIGHTY WAHP STOON!?!"
      • YOOOL PAY THISS MOTCH.
    • At one point in the game, you cross a lava pit with moving platforms and flame jets. Once you get to a certain point beyond it, Tricky, who has heretofore been able to teleport, and who can be set on fire without noticing, all of a sudden has a cutscene where he cowers, and will not cross until you stop the platforms from moving (inexplicably shutting off the jets, too). This cutscene is extra bad if you do it before reaching that point, since that causes him to cower at pretty much nothing (compared to what he's been through to that point) and cross right afterward anyway.
    • Plus the inconsistent English voices, where Leon for example will go from a British accent in 64 to a slimy psycho voice in Assualt. Slippy and Peppy's voices vary from game to game a lot too, but General Pepper takes the cake for his ridiculously over-the-top voice in Adventures.Then there's lines like "I'm on my WAY." and Andross' "Only I have the brains to rule Lylat" (SF 64) and Andrew's "Think you're tough eh? In that case, it's SECRET WEAPON TIME." (SF Assualt)
    • Krystal somehow sucks all the drama out of the attack on the enemy home world in Assault with a single piece of dialogue about the mission is going as... 'plaahhrned'?
  • General Kehck's final speech in Beyond Good and Evil. "May the angels of darkness rise to glory!" It's not quite "With LIIIIIIIIIIIIGHT!", but it's still absurdly over-the-top.
    • You know what does not help that line? It's the fact that up until that point, the "Black Angels" or whatever you would like to call them were never mentioned or hinted at, and they are never mentioned or discussed afterwards. It just came completely out of nowhere. Perhaps it was supposed to be considered a Sequel Hook, and something to be expanded on in the sequel - there are a number of things about this game that definitely need to be expanded on.
  • Wii Fit has a Narm moment. Yes, a Narm in a fitness game. The step-aerobics portions, actually. Don't get me wrong, they're fun and all, but someone thought it would be a good idea to put it on a stage. In front of a packed audience.
    • Who'll even clap along to the beat when you do well.
  • Quite a lot of Konami's Silent Scope series. Prime example here, starting halfway through...
    • If you don't feel like or can't watch the video (and I can't, so I don't know if this line is there) then here's an example: Silent Scope 2 pairs you up with a 'buddy' sniper. A little way into that game, the two of you have to make an assault on a facility. Your buddy turns to you and, in the most hilariously serious voice, says "Time to play 'Metal Gear' for real!"
    • "Watch out! The enemy is going to shoot!"
    • In EX: "I'm the president! Please stop!" And the president bears an uncanny resemblance to George W. Bush.
  • Max Payne often made dramatic moments hilarious through the main character's over-the-top noir voiceovers and his facial expression, reminiscent of one someone would carry doing an unexpectedly long toilet visit. Max Payne 2 introduces "Dick Justice," a TV show that appears throughout the game mocking those same voiceovers. Max Payne 2 still has them for real, however, so the game is parodying this trope and playing it straight at the same time.
  • In Homeworld 2 fleet intelligence, who has up to this point had a deadpan delivery panics and delivers a completely out of character (and unconvincing), "Scans of the hull indicate it is immune to conventional weaponry! BRING SAJUUK TO BEAR! BRING SAJUUK TO BEAR! BRING SAJUUK TO BEAR!.
    • To be fair, they are above Hiigara, which is getting bombed by Atmosphere Deporvation Devices, the same weapon that killed off most of the Kushani/Hiigaran race about 100 years ago during the original Homeworld. You try staying unemotional in that situation.
  • .hack//GU makes a big deal about PKing up to the point where it becomes a crime equivalent to murder. Sure, there's the bit about some players who actually get sucked within the game itself, but considering that you just respawn upon death, it just makes the entire issue Serious Business. Especially when one player uses the If You Kill Him You Will Be Just Like Him argument.
    • Don't forget the classic: "IT'S HASEO!! THE PKK!!!!!". So much horror, so much terror for... an online game.
      • Some players mentioned gear stealing the target of a PK is possible, so they might have been worried he'd take their epic loots.
      • In the original, there's a poignant scene in which Balmung comes to the false conclusion that the protagonist is responsible for spreading computer viruses through the game. He demands that Kite stand and fight, and Blackrose leaps to his aid and angrily tells Balmung off. This is all hilarious when you consider that the most Balmung could do is PK Kite and make him respawn back in town.
        • And even that's out of the question, as PVP had been disabled
      • Of course, by this point the bracelet is firmly attached to Kite. Given its enigmatic nature, him dying might have caused him to go comatose.
    • Another example is Gaspard's breakdown midway through Rebirth as a result of Bordeaux's harassment. What was she doing? Stopping people from visiting the Canard guild shop. Yes, Gaspard bursts into tears and nearly quits the game because people won't shop from him anymore. To make it worse it takes Silabus out of the running for your fight with Bordeaux shortly after.
  • Mega Man 8 had this because of the voice acting.

"Bass! Why must I fight you! We are not! Enemies!

    • To make things worse, he actually pronounced Bass' name BASS....like the fish.
    • Don't forget the Elmer Fudd meets JFK voice they assigned to Doctor Light.
    • The dubbing was so bad that at one point, there was a rumor about Capcom using the Japanese VA's because they were too cheap to use English ones.
  • Although he does do a good job in some places, at times Yuri's voice actor in Shadow Hearts: Covenant turns the game into a total comedy, like when Yuri loses his powers, his delivery of "What the hell is this?" kind of wrecks the mood. The first scene in the graveyard is also a big offender, particularly since "That's me growing there!" reminds me of Dick Solomon.
    • In fairness, Covenant isn't the most serious game to begin with. Though the voice acting in the original Shadow Hearts was utterly terrible. You try listening to Generic Old Woman narrating the story of the sea demon ("A looooooong, looooooooong time ago....") without laughing.
      • Not to mention she takes about twenty minutes to narrate the monster walking towards the front door, obviously under the impression that it's creepy rather than gut bustingly hilarious. When she finally reaches the end and it turns out to be a terrific anticlimax you want to strangle the old bat.
    • And then there's THE MISTLETOOOOOOOOE!.
    • And Karen declaring her feelings for Yuri... it's probably the over-the-topness of the delivery ("YES! I LOVE HIM! MORE THAN ANYTHING!"), but also the fact that she knows him for... what, a month?
      • She'd known him over half a year by then. All the Shadow Hearts games have long interludes in the middle.
  • Command & Conquer has a grand moment of this at the end of the Nod campaign for Tiberian Sun. As Commander McNeal watches, having been beaten senseless and tortured before the scene, a nuke that Nod fired in the last mission hits the GDI space station. I'm pretty sure the actor was screaming a Big No, but it ended up sounding like the kind of yell that insensitive people would attribute to a deaf person. Then again, this is Command & Conquer, and the amount of ham in this game alone almost matched the first Red Alert game.
    • And then, Red Alert 3 came...
      • BY MY OWN FORCES!!!
    • C&C 4 has the player's wife Lily as a significant character in the cutscenes. While the actress tries hard to depict this emotional connection, she's hamstrung by the way Lily never refers to her beloved by name and the way that whatever she says or does, your only response is stoic silence.
    • In Red Alert 2, the way General Carville dies is something of a fridge narm. Sure, it hits you out of nowhere, but when you think about it, some guy wearing a beret, sunglasses, and trench coat was standing in front of a door in the freakin' PENTAGON for who knows how long waiting for his target to open it, rather than, y'know, charging through it. Not to mention the bomb seems to be rigged to explode upon the trench coat being thrown open for no apparent reason.
    • The death of Premier Romanov is also quite narmy, though knowing the game, that might be on purpose. The player is shown a video that supposedly shows General Vladimir killing Romanov. What the player sees is a short clip of Romanov propped up in his sickbed saying "No! No! General Vladimir!" in his hammy Russian accent.
  • While Deus Ex is a great game, the level of narm present throughout it is truly awe-inspiring. The accented voices are usually delivered poorly, and J.C. Denton's lack of emotion in his voice leads to some rather awkward dialog exchanges at times...
    • J.C.'s lack of emotion makes many of his lines arguably cooler. "A bomb's a bad choice for close-range combat." That, and the voice acting wasn't So Bad It's Good - just bad.
    • "Oh my god, JC, A bomb!" "A bomb!". Grade-A narm!
    • Who can forget the moment in the abandoned building near the Paris catacombs? You get dropped off by your pilot on top of a dark, foreboding structure. You make your way down through the levels, passing dilapidated and crumbling walls, only to find a woman hanging out in a pseudo-apartment verbally berating herself for letting two of her cats die (and she speaks to you in a hilariously over-the-top French accent). If you go down to the basement and kill the greasels that were bothering her cats and go back to her, she suddenly goes crazy:

Green greasy greasels!!! Oh...(later on)...HOORAH! MY KITTIES!!!

    • JC's line delivery if Sandra Renton's father dies during the confrontation with Jojo Fine at the 'Ton Hotel:

Sandra Renton: Oh my God! Daddy...
JC Denton: What a shame...I wish there was something more I could say. What a rotten way to die.

    • This video consists of various lines of the game's dialogue mixed up and spliced together.
  • In the PC game version of Harry Potter, the cutscene where Malfoy is attacked by Buckbeak. Buckbeak knocks Malfoy to the ground and he shouts "I'm dying! I'm dying, look at me! It's killed me!" Hagrid matter-of-factly says "yer not dyin'" and then Malfoy gets up and walks off, obviously totally uninjured. He is supposed to be faking his injury, but that scene makes it look like he's completing dropping the facade at the drop of a hat and that's what makes it perfectly hilarious. (Obviously, the game's makers just didn't feel like animating Hagrid carrying Malfoy.)
    • The GBA version does something similar, though because of the sprites, it's harder to tell. More Egregarious is how the game uses Buckbeak's battle sprite for his attack on Malfoy, which makes Buckbeak face away from Malfoy.
  • James Bond 007: Nightfire plays a dramatic sting of music when you find a secret in the stage. While that's fine in itself one stage has a secret in the janitor's closet. The end result is what do you mean failure isn't awesome?
    • In one level the player is repeatedly told to use the sniper rifle and provide cover for a friend. This sounds normal, but you'll notice that using the basic Walther PPK, with attached silencer, and placing the top half of an enemies head in the bottom half of the crosshair will kill anything(barring the typical creepy henchmen in a Bond story) at any range. Its so ridiculous that using any other weapon is just stupid. This particular level has many of these situations, all made hilarious by being yelled at to use the sniper rifle when you’re picking enemies off at the maximum draw distance with a bloody silenced PPK.
    • In the PC version of Nightfire, when you face Drake in the final stage... "In space, Mr. Bond, no one can hear you scream... except for MEEE!"
  • Army of Two. The game is a Stealth Parody of over the top action games and the America Saves the Day mentality. Once your mask-clad mercenaries encounter the terrorist with the gold-plated AK-47, everything goes straight past the Rule of Cool and into pure unintentional hilarity.
  • The scene from Assassin's Creed I where the Mad Scientist informs you that the Animus experiments are 'serious business' is incredibly narmy and outright hilarious.
  • In The World Ends With You, the drama of the flashback of Rhyme and Beat dying is spoiled when you realize how stupid Beat was being. He basically tried to protect Rhyme with a Diving Save... from a car.
    • Yeah, but it was a Diving Push Save. He was just too late, and they both got hit.
      • He actually "jumped in front of her," but he, as he put it, "ain't strong enough to stop a car, yo." To this troper, it fit Beat's personality; he's caring but rarely thinks about the consequences of his actions.
    • Let's not forget the utterly absurd Bonus Boss, Hanekoma's noise form. It's a palette swap of Pi-Face's noise form on the bottom screen and Iron-Maiden's noise form on the top screen and he bellows out lines like "ENJOY THE MOMEEEENT!" and "OPEN UP YOUR WOOORLD!" as he kicks you in the face. "What the Christ?" doesn't come close to describing it.
      • The really disturbing/hilarious part? Iron Maiden/Konishi's Noise form is a sexy cat girl. With boobs. Hanekoma is male, yet his Noise is identical aside from the color. Yeah.
      • Actually, that one makes perfect sense if you look at it through What Do You Mean Its Not Symbolic tinted lenses.
      • Also, Hanekoma taught Sho Minamimoto how to summon Taboo noise. As his Taboo form Leo Cantus is identical to Panthera Cantus' red lion-y half, Sho could've just copied it from him.
  • The ending of Eternal Sonata. Proof that Author Filibuster, Mind Screw, Romantic Plot Tumor and Exposition Break should never, ever, oh-dear-sweet-merciful-butterscotch-pudding-from-Neptune ever mix, even if the setting is a Dying Dream. The ending theme's surprisingly good though. Claves's ridiculously long Final Speech is also pretty cheesy.
    • Didn't help that the time she spent hanging around was used to prove how useless she was in combat.
    • In general, the characters have a weird tendency of refusing to shut the fuck up, with long blocks of exposition on villain motives being related to the player by them talking to themselves. These guys spend up to five minutes telling themselves what they want to do.
  • It's nothing anyone particularly said or anything, but the sequence following a genuine Tear Jerker moment in Lost Odyssey - the death of Kaim's daughter, moments after their reunion - is one that screamed Narm at this troper. Specifically, the priest conducting the funeral...sends you on two fetch quests, one to gather flowers that she liked, one to gather torches for the ceremony, and turned the funeral itself into a rhythm minigame. This was likely to show off how such ceremonies were performed in this fantasy world, but...that could've been accomplished in another Tear Jerker Cutscene instead of having the player press the controller's shiny colored buttons in time to light the other mourners' torches. What the eff, Japan.
  • Luigi's ending in Super Mario Galaxy. As if Mario shouting "WELCOME! WELCOME NEEEEEEEW GALAXY!" wasn't already narmy enough, Luigi's timid voice makes it sound as if someone with a gun was threatening to shoot him from behind if he doesn't say it. This troper and her sister laughed 24 hours non-stop because of this line.
    • "I'm going to stomp you to space bits!"
    • Luigi's "Yay for me, LUIGI!" from New Super Mario Bros..
    • Hey, did you know that Mario and Luigi are voiced by the same guy? What probably happened was that the guy was trying so hard not to sound like Mario that he messed it up on Luigi.
  • Super Smash Bros.. Brawl didn't include an option to switch between English and Japanese languages, so when the English version was leaked and someone posted videos running through the sound test of the characters' voice samples, the general outcry was that of anger and dissatisfaction with the seemingly-inferior English voices (although most of these people had been religiously watching videos of the Japanese version and thus had simply gotten used to the Japanese voices). The worst in many people's eyes - even beyond Meta Knight apparently being the offspring of Vader and Zorro, Falco being from Brooklyn and Wolf from Texas, and Sonic's 4Kids voice actor - was probably Ike and his wonderfully-monotone "I fight for my friends." Sadly, although context helped many of the other voice samples sound decent, Ike was not so lucky.
    • "C'MON! BRUE FARCON!"
  • This is actually constantly subverted in the Mega Man Legends series. You'd expect these games to have narm all over the place in its English voice acting, but the game is so cartoony without going off the deep end that it works. This is especially true when Data saves the day by singlehandedly stopping the annihilation of Kattelox through voice-command. That means a bunch of bureaucratic talk with lots of complicated words coming from a high-pitched cutesy voice without changing expression, and still waving his nub-like arms the entire time. Some people probably laughed 'till their sides hurt, but this troper was just as stunned as Mega Man.
    • Then there's the opening monologue that starts with the incredibly camp "On a world covered in endless water..."
    • Teisel's voice acting is so incredibly overacted all the time, that any scene with him should result in Narm. Instead, it just makes him more endearing.
    • Teisel is actually sort of a Memetic Badass for his Narm. At times, Tron and her Servbots (especially the Servbots) can be pretty narmy. Mostly it's just Teisel, though.
  • The song "GOLD RUSH" from beatmania IIDX 14 GOLD: "2 DX GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLLLLD! Make it! Make money!" And let's not get started on the rest of the lyrics, which are no less fucked up than the fan lyrics.
  • Whenever Lenneth Valkyrie shouts out (especially in a distraught mood), the portrait of her facial expression looks more like she's singing the opera. Since the game is at least partly influenced by Richard Wagner's magnum opus, that might have even been intentional.
  • In the ending cutscene of System Shock 2 after SHODAN offers a chance to join her so that We Can Rule Together, many fans consider the hero's reply of, "Naah," to be one of the cheesiest lines in the game. Of course, it doesn't help that the endgame was rushed in development.
    • Some consider it the hero's Crowning Moment of Awesome. Consider that throughout the game, he's been acting as the pawn for someone else—either Polito, SHODAN, or Delacroix (in a sense)--and executing his orders without question or complaint. "Naah" is his final act—of rebellion against SHODAN.
  • In Ultima IX: Ascension, the Avatar asks a lot of really really stupid questions. But the worst of all has got to be when he's in Trinsic and asks, "What's a Paladin?" You'd think that after Paladins having existed since Ultima IV, he'd know better. He'll ask this even if you chose the Paladin class at the beginning of the game! An audio clip of the Paladin quote, as well as additional narmy quotes from the game, can be found on this site.
    • There's another one towards the beginning of the game. After finding out the Britain has been moving all the poor people to the poisonous swamp of Pew, the Avatar, living embodiment of the eight virtues and perfectly aware of all of their tenets, can only come up with the following argument: "But...Britain is the city of compassion!" Even worse, when the mayor replies that the plan is compassionate with some severely twisted logic, the Avatar is completely stumped. Durr.....
  • The use of the term "Ending your/my game" in Super Paper Mario is a bit silly during one of the more dramatic parts of game ( when Count Bleck had lost the will to live and asks you to finish him off). Of course, Never Say "Die" isn't always in effect in the game (particularly Wracktail's line, "I shall punish you...with death!").
    • That's the strange part, the game will alternate between playing straight and averting Never Say "Die". In the first game's 7th chapter, an author is accused of being a serial killer who bases his novels on his own murders. And in the latest game, Bleck outright says that you'll die with the world you're currently in. Since Chapter 7 in this game is basically the afterlife, it's probably a joke most of the time.
      • Of course, Bleck appears before you in Sammer's Kingdom and goes into a bit of Evil Gloating about how you can't possibly save the world, afterward the Sammer Guy you defeated just before this.... Speaks entirely in all-caps Hulk Speak. If you leave the room and come back, he'll say he told the king about it, but since he was fast enough to get there and back that quickly, you have to ask why he didn't just bring the Pure Heart back with him.
    • At one point, Tippi uses the word "discombobulated" in a serious sentence.
    • The end of chapter 7 in the third game is probably one of the saddest, most heartrending scenes in the series. When you're told that you can take the final Pure Heart, if you're playing as Luigi at the moment, he responds simply with, "Okey-dokey." Worst part being that the boss leading to that cutscene isn't the hardest boss, but is a total push over with Luigi, so if you know this, you probably were playing as Luigi.
  • In Pokémon Fire Red and Leaf Green you can encounter a trainer swimming in the water who screams at you to leave her alone. After you defeat her, she admits that a water Pokémon ripped her bathing suit off and she's embarrassed. However, when she appears on the battle screen, she is of course, fully dressed.
    • If they used more then one sprite, it'd probably be different.
    • "I like shorts. They're comfy and easy to wear."
    • "I'm a cool guy! I've got a girlfriend!"
    • "I think my Rattata is in the top (fucking) percentage of Rattata!"
      • If you hack the game to see his Rattata's stats, you'll see that he's right.
    • Also in Fire Red and Leaf Green, the Pokémon Tower in Lavender Town is full of trainers and ghosts saying lines that make death sound like a joke.
    • Even worse is Palkia's appearance in Pearl version. You wouldn't believe how unimpressive a cosmic dragon can be that a) is pink and b) gargles at you.
    • Then again, the alternate choice of Dialga, while not suffering from the same aesthetic problems, sounds like a freakin' whoopee cushion was just sat on.
    • Reshiram's sprite. It looks weirded out while waving its giant arms. And it sounds like a warped out bell.
    • "I'm absolutely perfect. I AM PERFECTION!"
    • "Burn, baby, burn!" (or "It's shocking!")
  • When the Elite Beat Agents are turned into stone right before the Jumping Jack Flash stage, the mood is ruined because of how fake everybody's crying sounds. "Ah, unHAAAAAAAAAAAAW. My candy."
    • To be fair, Elite Beat Agents is pretty much pure Narm if you go in expecting anything remotely resembling seriousness. By the time the above scene happens, you'll probably be just too used to the game to even blink.
  • The Bouncer had moments all over the place. From the "No Cactaurs!" jacket Volt is wearing (yes, meant to be a Final Fantasy joke of a different stripe, but too easily mocked in other ways) to the classic "Koh Leifoh... super spy!" sequence, it's really hard to take the game seriously at all (this probably explains the final boss fight abandoning all pretense of plot).
  • In Splatterhouse 3, you have to save your wife and child, and if you fail to save 1 or more of them, you get a different BAD END depending on who you failed to save (going completely psycho if you failed to save both of them). The ending where Dave dies begins with some depressing music and narrative, but the mood is quickly foiled when you get some of the greatest words in video game history. DAVID IS ONLY MEMORY
  • The first Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Anything involving Team Meanies. The name should tell you exactly what to expect.
  • Pokémon Puzzle League, despite the genre, makes a genuine effort to make the Giovanni battle menacing, with dramatic music and lines such as "The world will be mine!" Unfortunately, one of his three possible Pokémon for the battle is Sandslash, who simply has one of the least threatening battle cries ever.
  • When you get to the final-ish stage of the X-Men arcade game, Magneto rewards you with "X-MEN! WELCOME...TO DIE!"
    • Also "The White Queen welcomes you to die!" midway through Stage 5.
    • Not to mention the Blob boss fight in that game. "NOTHING moves the Blob!" Overly amusing as you can respond to this with a special attack and knock him on his butt. This doesn't stop the voice at all.
      • YTMND made an in-site fad out of the Blob's line in their early days, just to say.
    • I KILL YOU, X-CHICKEN. HA HA HA HA.
  • Jax's ending in Mortal Kombat 4. Jarek's "OH MY GOOOOOOOOOOD!" (twice) and "This is not a brutality, this is a FATALITY!" pratically made the Narm alone.
    • Actually it sounds more like "OH MY GÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖD!".
    • No mention of Jarek's oddly muffled 'laugh'?
    • "THE BLACK DRAGON LIVE ON!!" (Dun Dunnnnn)
    • Just Jax's ending? Goodness, they're all like that! Literally all of them. Go look.
    • In the first one, is Quan wearing a bathrobe or something?
      • In further regards to Mortal Kombat, these incredibly capitalistic launch kit videos here and here are epic chapters in the series' Book of Narm. Or maybe that's just how they sold arcade games back then?
  • Gears of War 2: "A giant worm! They're sinking cities with a giant worm!"
    • Gears is full of deliberate moments of narm. Such as this little slice of dialogue:

Ben Carmine: I hear there's a shitload of grubs there, sir.
Marcus Fenix: More like TEN shitloads!

    • And let's not forget this particular bit of exchange:

Marcus Fenix: "Control, this is Delta here. We've hijacked a Brumak so that we c-"
Anya (Control): "You what?!" O_o
Marcus Fenix: "We're riding a Brumak. We're going to use it to clear the area faster."
Anya: "Uh...okay...roger that, Delta. Keep us posted. Control Out."

    • Dom killing Maria because she's no longer hot.
    • if you really fucking think he killed Maria because she wasn't hot, play the game, but turn your sound on this time, because clearly you were playing with your sound and subtitles off. The locust TORTURED HER TILL SHE WAS A BROKEN SHELL OF A PERSON.
      • Seriously? Maria was catatonic and barely sane at that point. Even if Dom kept her alive, she obviously wouldn't be the same person as before...physically AND mentally. In a way, Maria was already dead.
      • YOU STUPID SOULESS BASTARD.
      • The entire game is composed of Narm, and yet Carlos Ferro's delivery in this scene borders on the poignant. However: "DAMN STRAIGHT! I'M GONNA KILL EVERY ONE OF THESE BASTARDS!"
  • The PSX RPG Legend of Dragoon was plagued with a translation that got progressively more awful as the game went on. What was supposed to be a touching scene of reunion and forgiveness between Haschel and his former student Gehrich as the latter dies was ruined by someone yelling out "SHUT UP! TALKING MAKES YOU DIE!" right in the middle of it.
    • The extremely bad voice acting during cut scenes. Dart's VA was particularly bad. "BLACK...MONSTER!". Don't get me started on some of the Additions...
      • DOUBLE-SLASH!
      • SPINNING CANE!
      • HAR-POOON!
      • VOLCANOO!
      • Crash Daaance!
      • Flurry of Styx! (Note: Provided attack name is "Ferry of Styx.")
    • Then there's Lavitz' "HARK!" when he gets hit while defending.
    • "DIE! MORE AND MORE!" Uh, sure, Rose... whatever you say. Rose's VA was just full of Narm. "OH IT CANNOT BE!"
      • ASS-TRAL Drain...
    • Shana's Dragoon transformation. It's a fricking magical girl sequence!
  • Edd-DEE! (About 0:54.)
  • In Dynasty Warriors 3, a death cutscene that is supposed to be dramatic (Guan Yu at Fan Castle) becomes this instead because the voice actor left out the word "with" leading to: "In death, my soul will be my brethren. Farewell!"
    • A dike? Oh no!
    • Feel the power of my...maaagiiiic!
    • "Another INN-sect crrushed! Another INN-sect crrushed! Another INN-sect crrushed! Another INN-sect crrushed!" (And Sun Ce cheerfully declaring "One down, many more to go!" after wasting the enemy commander was even stupider.)
    • Given that the entire Dynasty Warriors series is set in a World of Ham, it's an ENDLESS source of Narm. I mean how do you choose between Ma Chao's gut-wrenching demands for "JJJJUUSSSTICCCEEE!", Zhang Jiao's urging the Yellow Turbans to "GooooOOOOOOOOooooo!!!" while his voice cracks like he just hit puberty, Cao Ren's grandfatherly monotone regardless of how much carnage is happening around him, Gan Ning's vaguely Jersey accent in some installments.... actually, it's probably just easier to list all the dialogue in this series that isn't Narmy.
    • On the other end of the spectrum is this cutscene from the third game, in which Zhuge Liang reacts to a failed plan in such a mild-mannered tone he makes your average high school guidance counselor sound like Lu Bu.
  • Time Hollow has Ethan's ridiculous yelling whenever he confirms a flashback. This is a bit of Narm Charm, though, as the over-the-top nature just seems to fit somehow.
    • It's also worth noting the relatively positive tone of the things he yells, even when he confirms a flashback of a friend's dead body.
    • Let's not forget Irving's line, "Now it's time for Revenge Part Deux --- Revenge: The Return!" while assuming the identity of Jack Twombly.
  • Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories had one cutscene where the entire party was surrounded by monsters, and death seemed certain. This would be a very dramatic scene if Yukimaru's Verbal Tic didn't make the whole thing sound unintentionally silly. "Oh, how cruel is fate, zam?"
  • Virtua Fighter has always tried to take itself seriously, but the new customizable costumes in VF 4 and 5 kind of prevent that. It's hard to take a cold-blooded assassin seriously when he's wearing a speedo in a damn blizzard.
    • Not to mention the new pre-fight warm up scenes in VF 5 R. Because nothing says "getting hyped for a fight" like running against a pink background with throbbing hearts, dancing around and clicking your heels, or posing like the cover of a damn playgirl magazine.
  • Franco Bash's entire existence in the Fatal Fury series is pure narm, and ham. Imagine a 7-foot tall raging alcoholic boxer screaming lines like "Now I'm cookin'! Once I get goin, I'm just a DYNAMOOOOOOO!", or stomping a guy in the face while bellowing "NOOOOOOO!" for no explained reason.
  • The Matrix: Path of Neo is a rich mine of narm, from the bad voice acting to the horrifically glitchy physics.
  • Albedo from Xenosaga creates many instances of Narm. One notable instance being his over-the-top "AHHHH, YEEEESSS.. FEED ME YOUR HOSTILITY, PIERCE ME WITH YOUR HATRED!"
    • His death scene. After the horrible, horrible things he did, Realian-angels come out of nowhere and take him to Heaven in crucifix position, all while he's more-or-less dressed like freakin' Jesus Christ.
    • "Wheat, eh?"
  • In the bloodless version of No More Heroes released in Japan and Europe, Holly Summers's death is made a whoooole lot less emotional. When she holds the activated grenade in her mouth, the resulting explosion still kills her, but instead of a bloody half-corpse you get a full corpse... but with a Looney Tunes-esque sootface. Ruins the moment a bit and makes Travis's angst less effective.
    • However, this is inverted with the final boss defeat cutscene. In the American version, Jeane being sliced up into fun sized pieces and rolling around on the ground completely ruined the drama of the scene. In comparison, the European/Japanese version, in which she is disintegrated, is still ridiculous but fits the tone of the scene more.
    • In the second game, the final boss fight is entirely this. The #1 assassin. Bright green suit. Bright pink shirt and Mimi glasses. Bald head with a pizza tattoo. 11-year-old's voice. He attacks in a flying car and frequently injures himself. Then you get to his second form, which looks like a mix of The Incredible Hulk, Batman, and the Hamburglar. And then during the third part, he turns into this [dead link] . Although some say this is intentional, to drive home the point Travis was learning late in the game, that the fights are pointless and that the assassins are real people with real lives.
    • Maybe the most ridiculous moment in the second game was when you kill Skelter Helter, his head gets cut off, flies up in the air, and lands perfectly on his body, leaving his corpse just kinda standing there for a cutscene. Then he starts talking. For nearly a minute. Then he finally pulls his head back off and dies that way.
  • In the Heroes of Might and Magic V expansion, Hammers of Fate, the second campaign ends with a climactic battle against Laszlo, a corrupt knight who is responsible for the slaughter of thousands of rebels and dwarves. While two of your heroes battle him, another hero, Freyda, is trying to rescue her father from the prison that Laszlo and the queen (really a demoness in disguise) put him into. As he dies in her arms, the god Elrath speaks directly to Freyda, giving her the power to reach out and strike down Laszlo in justice-slash-revenge. So in this dramatic moment, you'd expect a girl who just lost her father to give a raw throated scream of fury. But there must have been a voice-acting screw up, because the line is delivered like she's having an orgasm. It utterly ruined the drama of the entire scene for this troper, especially when the other characters commented on how she sounded like a banshee.
    • Vanilla Heroes of Might and Magic V serves up the narm during the in-game cutscenes, as character's dialogue is accompanied by their usual battle and magic animation. Therefore, to emphasise a point, rather than swinging their sword or raising their fist into the sky, characters all throughout the campaign of HOMMV instead cast fireballs and lightning bolts...and carry on with their conversation as if this is perfectly normal. This was later amended in the expansion packs, which granted the characters the ability to actually move their mouthes...
  • Maybe it's unsporting to beat up on Daikatana, but it's difficult to believe that Superfly's voice acting (his in particular, and especially when Hiro dies) wasn't intentionally bad.
  • The German in the Multiplayer of Call of Duty: World at War is narm-tastic.
    • "Our hounds vill tear zim to SHREDS!"
      • All of the non-American announcers are either this, or hilarious.
    • Call of Duty 2: "Geeze Louise, McCloskey! How did you get to be company gunner? Shooting chickens in a barnyard?"
  • Wild ARMs 5: "It's your ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRM!"
    • "METEOOOOOORRRRR DRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIVVVEEEE!" Yuri Lowenthal, I love you and all, but that was seriously painful.
    • Also, anytime anyone makes a grunting or shout of pain in Wild ARMs 2. Due to the game's Blind Idiot Translation, these were often rendered as "Oooouuu. Graaaaa. Owwwww." Periods included.
    • Wild ARMs 3 began with the terribly overdone line, "It Was a Dark and Stormy Night..." The cliche did not help the game start off on the right foot.
  • Thanks to SNK's trademark "Dodgy English", The King of Fighters has had a veritable effton of Narmy moments. For example:
    • The tension when Rugal regards the Fatal Fury team in '94 is screwed by him referring to their enemies as "Geese and Klauser". Rouge Angles of Satin applies here, but yeah.
    • Most winquotes are hilarious stuff, but Joe Higashi's "ALL OF YOU ARE JUST BIG!" (said to the US Sports Team) is probably the cheesiest.
    • Whenever you beat Rugal in '95 with an edited team, he goes out with an indignant tirade. This tirade is made more comical with his scream of "I'll be back... YOU JERKS!", making him sound less like an evil Blood Knight and more like a whiny schoolkid who's just had his lollipop stolen by bullies
    • The above is compounded with the subsequent spelling error: "Rugal Befeated"
      • Not even dialogue realted but the arranged version of Rugal's '95 theme has some suitably Badass church bell chimes... and then the Badass is wiped out by some guy shouting "UNDERSTAND THE CONCEPT OF LOVE!"...
      • I guess even Rugal won't deny Jet Set Radio is awesome.
    • Win a bout with Kyo (against the Ikari Warriors) in 94, and he will calmly inform you that "'MY FISTS ARE BURNING."
    • Then there's '96. Beat Goenitz with anyone else and he dies proclaiming "I am being called away to heaven...". Beat him with the Fatal Fury gang, and when Joe accuses him of running away, Goenitz actually shouts "No, I'm not, I'm dying you idiot!". Thus he goes from calm religious zealot to a guy who acted like he can't believe Joe just said that.
      • Against the Psycho Soldiers team, Goenitz delivers a calm yet powerful Humans Are the Real Monsters speech, ending with the words "You can savings & loan on that", which Athena corrects. Chin gets a Call Back after the fight, but it was still the wrong speech and wrong character for such a lame joke.
    • Beat Orochi in '97, and watch as the dramatic tension crumbles as he announces "Continue this way of living and you'll destroy yourselves?"... in the same form of question as the above "Suffer like G did?"
    • Then we have '99. Once Krizalid goes down, NESTS decide to kill him by dropping a rock on him. The dramatic tension would have been a real surprise hit...had they not had an image of Krizalid looking less shocked at his death and more smiling like a junkie who'd just hit up a shot. The face is just HILARIOUS when he pulls it off. Here, check it out and tell me that doesn't look goofy.
      • That doesn't look goofy. It looks like the last moments of a man driven hysterically insane by the realization of what's about to happen to him.
    • Then we come to 2000. "You can't resist me! I'll beat you all like a drum!" as said by Clone Zero. It doesn't help that any dramatic or scary shot of him is ruined by his utterly humourously silly Pringles moustache, hence the name "Commander Pringles".
    • Speaking of 2000, during the Art of Fighting team's ending, Takuma saves King from the Zero Cannon. He then reveals that King may be carrying Ryo's baby...while the revelation is shocking enough, the players were more bowled over by Ryo and Robert's faces of surprise, which ended up rendering them as something akin to a horrid Botox disaster.
    • We cannot forget this one! One of Clone Zero's attacks apparently aims to making him appear Badass by having him blow the opponent away by the mere ondulation of his cloak. Except that he first turns around, and instead looks as if he's... farting. Cue immature lulz from the players.
    • Finally, we cut to 2001. Igniz is a hard mofo (Perhaps the Norio Wakamoto voice helps) but if you're looking for some Narm to heal your wounds after constant use of continues on him, then be prepared to giggle as he asks in pain: "Is this the end of lovable Igniz?". Ironic considering the only emotion we had for him was seething hatred...or adoration. So maybe he IS right. He IS lovable.
      • The Yagami Team's ending has Iori going Totally Radical and telling Ramon that "a nub like you [him]" ("nub"?) can't win against him. He then calls Ramon a "noodnik". The hell is a NOODNIK?
    • Ryo and Takuma Mr. Karate's endings in SNK vs. Capcom: Chaos probably aren't meant to be taken seriously, given the tone of the usual Kyokugen storylines and how Takuma is using the name "Mr. Karate" again. But when you factor in how every line out of Yuri's mouth contains the words "oodley doodley cool"...
    • Nearly everyone in the hilariously screwed up English dub of the Maximum Impact spinoffs, especially Rock Howard, whose pre fight line in one player mode has him saying "I CAN'T CONTAIN MY BLOOD RAGE!" in a seemingly pained voice, only to then say "Look out!" in a surprisingly more calm voice.
  • Art of Fighting 2 is guilty of having an English translation that is pure narm incarnate. While the Japanese script was somewhat serious, the English translation took no prisoners in becoming near Gag Dub hilarious. Thus came hilarious moments such as:

Ryo: "You must be Duck!"
Geese: "That's GEESE, fool. Sad pun I know but... the fowl leader of Southtown."

    • Not to mention how Jack transforms the Neo Black Cats into a creative dance group.
    • Getting up to Geese in Fatal Fury Special using Terry in arcade mode leads to this threatening pre-match taunt:

Geese: Die like your father, you pin-headed son of an ice-cream maker!

Terry: Don't come round here no more, no more. Doo wah.

  • RUBY DIDN'T MEAN TO DO THAT! RUBY DIDN'T MEAN TO DO THAT AT ALL!
  • Most characters from Soul Calibur IV. Especially Nightmare and Kilik.
    • Nightmare: HAVE A TASTE... OF MY DARKNESS!!!!eleven!1!!
    • Another Nightmare example is one of his winning quotes in II: "Raarrrgghh! GO AWAY!"
      • II also gives us Sophitia's Narmtastic win line: "You're in pain. It's painful, isn't it?"
  • In Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 there's a scene where a CIA Agent who's worked undercover with some weapon smugglers is caught, and since your character is in constant radio link with him, you hear his frantic pleas while he's trying to convince them he's legit, and then afterwards his immediate screams as he's being tortured, followed by the main character Bishop instructing command to "Turn that shit off". Just the way the entire scene was presented was unintentionally hilarious, especially with how Bishop tone and response seemed to be more "I just don't care" instead of concern.
  • Ecco II: Tides Of Time for the Sega CD gives us a movie recap of the previous game. It also gives us dolphin lasers.
  • Star Ocean: The Last Hope gives us what should've been a deeply depressing scene when an alternate dimension's Earth is destroyed with billions dying, triggered accidentally by Edge. However, the voice acting, and Edge's Large Ham actions, make it more hilarious than anything. EVERYTHING EVERYTHING EVERYTHING!
  • Po Po Lo Crois for the PSP. At the end of Book III: Ice Demon, Pietro finally reunites with his mother, which had everything to be a heartwarming scene - cute music, cute design, animation... but... the voice actresses of both Pietro and his mother decided to moan and laugh at the scene. At the same time. While Pietro slowly runs towards his mother to hug her. Instead of heartwarming, the scene became highly awkward.
  • Lufia II: "You little hoochees!"
  • One of Bubble Symphony's bad endings: "Year, but will can't go back to our own world!"
  • Phantasmagoria 2 is packed with Narm, but one of the most ridiculously random moments in the entire game takes place outside the S&M nightclub, where a random trio of "gangsters" walks by line dancing.
    • The policewoman's response to seemingly everything Curtis says being "MY ASS!"
    • "I gave myself top clearance! I saw!"
  • In the N64 game Operation Winback, when you killed enemies they would flash on and off before disappearing. In one cutscene the hero encounters a dying civilian who has been shot by the terrorists. After the man, dying in the hero's arms, makes an emotional speech about wishing he could see his family again...he flashes on and off and vanishes.
    • It also doesn't help that the heroes are members of a special forces team called SCAT, and one of the villains goes by the name of Gunt.
  • Okami has horrible Narm in almost all its cutscenes. Whenever people talk, their heads look like bouncy balls being squished.
    • And, since the main character can't talk, all of her lines are delivered by a tiny glowing fairy, who apparently can't talk without bouncing up and down.
      • This is a game that involves little painter crawling around the dress of a God, getting a dragon drunk in order to kill it, and generally an incompetent populace.
    • Also, when you visit Kamiki Village 100 years ago, you get to relive the original slaying of Orochi. It's full of narm, and it's all intentional... and hilarious! Among other narmtastic things, you dress an unconscious man in women's clothing to take him to an epic battle, and that man lands on his head when he jumps into battle.
  • Arguably, Manah in Drakengard. This only happens once - this editor giggled constantly when Furiae is killed and Inuart is wailing over her corpse, Manah is twirling around... and around...and around... Arguably, this could have been intensely disturbing, however, the fact that she just kept on going ruined it.
    • Also, her 'Watcher' voice coupled with her childish mannerisms. Imagine a deep, male voice. Now imagine it going 'Lalalalala' in complete monotone. Or better yet, listen for yourself here.
  • Played for laughs in Super Robot Taisen Z with Black Charisma, the incredibly menacing looking masked villain who spends a lot of the game having ominous conversations with other villains. And then the expansion pack came out, and he was finally given a voice... and the voice changer mentioned in the original game is revealed to be a hilarious pitch-shifter, shifting his pitch from chipmunk to little girl and back constantly. The villain squad you control to fight him aren't sure what to make of it.
  • One of the most dramatic moments in Luminous Arc is ruined by Alph's wail of "Luuuuuciaaaaaaaa!"
    • One of Heath's lines is worse. He yells out, "IRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIISSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!" Now recall Mega Man X 4 for an over-the-top line to be even more hysterical.
    • And how about when Priel that resurrects Zehaal dies? It's hard to say if you should feel sorry for her or laugh hard, due to lines like "Like, no, Mr. Gooooooddd!!
  • Jane's death in Rogue Galaxy. A giant bird swoops down from the sky, threatening to attack an old man. Jane pushes the man out of harm's way, and the bird lands on top of her, smacking her head into the pavement, then suddenly flies away;. This should have been a shocking moment. However, how utterly random and abrupt it was made this troper laugh to tears.
    • Also from Rogue Galaxy: "Simon's wife and daughter looking for him" cutscenes. Some of them are "sort" of emotional - when they're looking for the papa of the family on a city, for example. However, when they start looking for him on forests, jungles, ancient ruins and so, it becomes downright hilarious (nobody questions how exactly did they get there). Worst, their scenes are sappy and overdramatic, including sad background music and the little girl crying. Every single one of them. By the time the third one is on, you're already seeing them as parodies of sad scenes.
  • DOYLE! MY ARM IS TURNING GREEN! The voice acting didn't help matters.
  • Baldur's Gate, the slave caves: "Get me out of this hellhole!" repeated ad nauseam in singsong.
  • In Knights of the Old Republic 2: in the penultimate boss fight against everyone's favourite Scottish zombie Sith, Darth Sion, you can attempt to weaken his will in the conversation portions, leading to the following:

Darth Sion: You seek to erode my will. You will not succeed.
[You have eroded Sion's will, reducing his Will saves, Constitution and Wisdom.]

    • From that same game, a dramatic flashback revealing some important plot-relevant info is wrecked by the participants' heads nodding back and forth constantly. Take a look.
    • It was in the first game and probably in the second game, but during conversation the player character is always doing the 'yes, I see' head nods and bearing a vaguely intent expression. Usually this is fine, but when the NPCs you're talking to are being insulting or making demands, it looks pretty silly.
    • On the first planet you visit in KOTOR II (Peragus), you meet the HK-50 assassin droid ( who has taken control of the station's mining droids and killed everyone aboard) who plays a recording of the chief engineer's last moments. Some find it terrifying, others find it narmy.

Engineer: Five droids, burning through the outer door. They're forcing their way into the bay. They're -- Oh no, they're through, they're -- AAAAGH! MY LEG! THEY BURNED THROUGH MY LEG! AAAAGH!

  • Snatcher, excellent as the rest of the acting was, has these in the second half:

Gillian. (after Harry Benson dies) Cunningham! No, Snatcher! I'll get you for this!

"WARNING - HUGE BATTLESHIPS CODE NO. EP30 "EMPEROR FOSSIL" CODE NO. QU10 "QUEEN FOSSIL" IS APPROACHING FAST"

    • "A HUGE BATTLESHIP MY HOME DADDY IS APPROACHING FAST"
  • There's a scene in God of War 2 where Kratos screams "ZEUUUUUUUUUUUS!" in a manner that reminded this troper of Boris Badenov cursing out Bullwinkle.
  • Super Mario Sunshine had some very narmy voice acting for Bowser. Skip to around 3:36 and listen to it in all its glory...
    • Making Bowser comedic is fine sometimes, but he should never sound like Cookie Monster.
  • "How I HAET those goody-goodys!" Massive Crowning Moment of Funny. In fact, that whole musical sequence at the beginning could be considered Narm.
    • And THEN came the remix!!
  • Many of DJMAX's English-language songs are written in English so horrible that it kills the mood of the songs if you know and listen to them. "A Lie" and "Fallen Angel" make it worse by giving you easy access to the lyrics via their background animations.
    • "Say It From Your Heart" is a mellow and awesome song. Then comes the rapping part.
  • All of Robot Alchemic Drive counts, though it's very likely this was entirely intentional on the part of its creators, as its ongoing homage to old school mecha anime.
  • Old-school dungeon crawl CRPG Stonekeep doesn't have the greatest voice acting - some would say the latter-game performances by the fairy trope are decent, though - but there's no excuse for how silly this ambush sounds.
  • Even BioShock (series), which is pretty much wall-to-wall awesome, Nightmare Fuel, and Scenery Porn, isn't immune to a few glimmers of Narm. I burst out laughing in the opening level, when your character picks up his first plasmid. To wit: he picks up a random syringe that's been lying there God knows how long, with God knows what inside of it, and decides to jam it into his wrist for giggles. It's not even given a "Would you kindly?" excuse—you just do it! The real Narm comes, though, when you've injected yourself and you're flopping around on the floor like a dying fish; all you hear is Atlas on the radio cheerfully telling you, "don't worry, it's just your genetic code being re-written" (!!) Greaaaat...
    • It gets better when shortly after, you randomly hurl yourself off the balcony and pass out.
      • As I recall, Atlus asks you to inject yourself with the plasmid if you try to open the door below.
    • BioShock (series) had an audio diary where Dr. Suchong tests the Enrage plasmid on some guy, who sounds like a monkey burning his arse on a hotplate or something.
      • That becomes less more nightmarish however, when you take into account that the Plasmid they were testing was called 'Enrage'. Factor in the facts that the test subject sounded incredibly meek; and that next to the operating table is the body of a nurse with a hacksaw jammed into her neck with such force that it's embedded in the cabinet, and well...
  • BlazBlue. GORILLA FAIT IS TOINING. REBEL ONE. Ack-SHUN!.
    • The sequel's announcer is just as narmy. CARURU CUROBA
    • Also in the sequel, we get some very QUALITY animated cutscenes courtesy of GONZO. Hazama's RAEPFACE is becoming rather meme-tastic. Fan reactions have alternated from laughter and parodies to UNSTOPPABLE RAGE. Cries of "Why, GONZO?!" are rather common amongst the community.
  • In Iji the ending scene if Dan is dead, General Tor apologizes for his death by his underlings with "I'm sorry about your partner." to a delusional Iji who is in complete denial about it. The Relative Error made this editor laugh despite the tragedy and connection to Iji at her woobiest .
    • It gets even funnier with the Scrambler on.

"Iji: Socks..."

  • In the arcade Light Gun Game Friction, enemies will sometimes explode into pieces upon being shot by the player. What makes it even more hilarious is the fact that there is no blood, which makes the enemies look like they're made out of crystals. And after a few seconds, their bodies sink into the ground (as opposed to simply vanishing, like in most gun games), as if they were being pulled into the ground by some evil corpse-manipulating magician.
  • Remember -- Chu-Chu died for your sins!
  • Play through Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. Enjoy the Prince's wonderful snarkiness and general sense of humor while appreciating the very well-told story. Now go straight from that to Warrior Within, five minutes into which the Prince shouts, "You BITCH!" I cracked the hell up and could not continue playing for several minutes (while simultaneously lamenting the Character Derailment, but heck, at least it was funny!).
    • Kaileena: "I had hoped the Dahaka would kill you. I had hoped that Shahdee would keep you from the Island. I even cursed the sword I gave you, AND YET YOU DID NOT DIE!" Noo, but your voice acting makes me want to.
    • And then the good ending, in which the Prince sails away from the island with Kaileena, then proceeds to, from what can be inferred, force himself on her until she gives in and they have sex. She tried to kill him not even an hour ago...it was a bit of a swerve, is all.
    • The third game's elevator scene, where the Prince rides up with Farah and Farah tries to make conversation. The Prince ends up talking about how he hates pomegranates. Comparisons to "I hate sand" are inevitable.
  • In Dead or Alive 4, both Ryu and Kasumi's pre-battle cutscenes with Alpha-152 are made narmful by how unfairly difficult the battle is, taking multiple tries even for an expert. In Ryu's version, he steps forward to protect Kasumi in a Stay in the Kitchen moment...then proceeds to get totally curbstomped. In Kasumi's version, he stands by noting that This Is Something She Has To Do Herself...then watches her get totally curbstomped. Either way, Ryu's a Jerkass.
    • This is a demonstration of Values Dissonance between Japan and the West. In Japan, men are expected to do the fighting and women are expected to Stay in the Kitchen. By Japanese standards, Ryu was probably expected to handle the situation. If he lost, then Kasumi would take over the fighting and it would make him look pathetic by those standards. If Kasumi lost, then he would take over the fighting and it would be considered perfectly acceptable and expected by Japanese standards. The West would simply see Ryu as a Jerkass who totally deserved to get beaten up or simply has no concept of teamwork.
  • Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Turtles in Time has is a lot of Narm (Minus the Shredder, who actually manages to make "Turtle soup, my favorite!" sound Badass), first level's got Baxter Stockman who says "Terminate the turtles!" in a strange tone, and Metalhead saying "I'm going to mangle you green slimeballs!" with a small monotonous tone, Krang takes the cake, though, he says "Prepare to die!" with a strange voice, in Turtles in Time Re-Shelled, they actually manage to make the Narm funnier, by making the characters voices their 2003 counterparts or someone else, and attempt to make it dramatic, the result is funnier than the original game, or more badass than the original.
  • StarCraft: Mengsk's line, "Don't be snide, Kerrigan. This was part of the deal, remember? I've earned this" at the end of a Brood War mission always cracks me up, due to the extra grunting emphasis on the word "earned."
    • Then there's Fenix, who gets into the act in the previous mission by spouting flowery nonsense like "Ah, to go into battle with my Protoss brethren again! Ah, but time will tell all things" and "I can still, how do you Terrans say it, "throw down with the best of them."
    • This is made worse by Fenix actually being fairly young by Protoss standards.
    • Hows this for Starcraft Narm? In the Terran campaign on the mission where you first meet the Protoss but must avoid killing the Zerg base right next to you, almost the entire tech tree has been unlocked at this point (late in the game), which includes the starport and (wait for it) the (flying) transport! And yet when we get to the mission end and the Zerg come swarming in, suddenly there is no way to evacuate Kerrigan and your forces??? WTF??
      • Indeed, even though Blizzard could've Hand Waved the fact that Kerrigan couldn't have escaped because of Zerg in orbit, they decided not to. This gave the effect where, on my second playthrough, Kerrigan and almost all of my other units were safe and sound in dropships in the corner of the map, and I was practically yelling at her to just get out of orbit. Made even worse by the fact that, with proper preparation, the scripted attack can be stopped with minimal damage to the base.
  • StarCraft II's cutscenes has everyone and their dog talking in generic action/war movie one-liners. Plus, Kerrigan was apparently given permanent high heels when remade into a Zerg.
    • This might just be me, but the "Betrayal" cinematic. First you have Kerrigan decloaking for no apparent reason (I suppose she could have run out of energy, but surely she could have at least tried to find somewhere to lay low until she could cloak again? There were no Overlords at all in that cutscene!) and, due to the fact that Blizzard's otherwise superb CGI team is incapable of rendering a female face without mannequinifying it, looking completely bored out of her skull whilst demanding evac—pristine fashion model hair and makeup completely unmussed from that whole "being in the middle of a warzone" thing. Then, when she realizes that she won't be getting any evac, the goddamn slow-mo, complete with ridiculously over-the-top One-Woman Wail (the overuse of choral sections in the rest of the cutscenes is also incredibly Narmful, but here especially). Then, during her final moments, she... pouts at the sky. Goddamn it so much, Blizzard.
      • Look again, she pouts at first, but then resigns to her fate. You actually see her giving up and partially forseeing what comes next. When the camere zooms out and you look upon Huma On!Kerrigan one last time, you catch a glimpse of anger on her face when she looks up. Yes, that's it... Kerrigan is pissed at those who stranded her. Actually sets up Infested!Kerrigan's character up pretty well, come to think of it.
    • For a particularly Narmtastic scene, check out this cutscene when you save Warfield on Char. Ye Gods. From marines attempting to retreat despite being "cut off", to Warfield saying you "saved my boys today" despite being the only survivor in his squad (although one YouTube commenter theorises that by "boys", he's referring to his balls), the repeated barrage of cheesy one-liners completely ruins the badassery.
  • In Chrono Trigger, there's a completely optional, utterly pointless, blink-and-you'll-miss-it side-quest sort of thing. Marle has had two or three bitter fights with her father, and now wants to make up. If you go to the right town, you have the option of buying some spiced jerky (apparently his favorite) for 9,900 gold. If you then take it to the king, he will look at it, pause a moment, then declare that he has high blood pressure, assume Marle was attempting to harm him, then throw her out of the castle and say he never wants to see her aga... wait, why am I laughing?

Man: Hey, bring some more soda!
Bartender: Sir, I think you've had enough sugar today.
Man: Pipe down! I'll tell you when I've had enough! Can't you see I love soda pop! Nothing like soda pop to quench your thirst!

  • Contra III: The Alien Wars features one of the heroes offering the brilliant suggestion of "Let's attack aggressively!". Apparently they already tried to attack the aliens "passively" and "moderately", but neither worked out to well.
    • Maybe said hero was trying to say that they should attack the aliens directly, as opposed to attacking subtly. Poor choice of words there.
  • Guitar Hero 5 has perhaps the ultimate narminess in the "so wrong, it's hilarious" category: Witness Kurt Cobain's digital ghost rapping with Flava Flav's voice, dancing like a Japanese school girl and covering Bon Jovi songs. YEAAAAAAHHHH BOYYYYYYYY! As well as Johnny Cash singing Rammstein.
  • Advance Wars Days of Ruin/Dark Conflict has a narmy moment when Will rescues Isabella from the Great Owl. You've just fought a desperate battle in one of the cargo spaces, the plane is dropping out of the sky, Will has just talked sense into Isabella and admitted his love, and then you're treated to a full screen shot of Isabella crying and her face is priceless.
  • Left 4 Dead is practically full of this, though probably on purpose. The way each survivor reacts to another one's death is just so over the top that it's almost Resident Evil styled.
    • To be more specific, it's the player's vulture-like reactions. "Oh god not zoey * sob* anybody but zo-PILLS HERE; GRABBIN' PEELZ"
    • The Church Guy scene is full of this. BOINK DING-DONG!
    • The AI Director usually spawns hordes in places that are out of the direct line of sight of players; however, the director doesn't take into account how large these areas actually are. Because of this, it's possible to see upwards of thirty infected charging out of a very small storage closet. Or a bathroom.
  • In Marvel Ultimate Alliance, Wolverine has a skill in which he roars and buffs himself up. However, when the roar itself sounds a BIT like a baby's cry, suddenly this troper can't help but laugh.
    • Similarly, after you drop Jean Grey, Nightcrawler tries to filter a Big No through his Captain Germany persona and ends up with a Small Nein.
  • How have we gone this far without mentioning Haze? Especially this infamous cutscene.
  • Call Of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth: "The sacrifice is getting awaaaaay!"
  • Omega Five: "STAGE 1: DA GWEISHAW FOHTRESS," and "DANGER! DANGER!" when the boss alert text on the screen is instead reading "WARNING!".
  • The Thunder Force V Final Boss warning screen:

"ALERT! The enemy is dead ahead! Area Guard Name: Unknown ALERT! ALERT! ALERT! ALERT! ALERT! ALERT! ALERT! ALERT! ALERT! ALERT! ALERT! ALERT! ALERT! ALERT! ALERT! ALERT! ALERT! ALERT! ALERT! ALERT! ALERT! ALERT! ALERT! ALERT! ALERT! ALERT! ALERT! ALERT! ALERT! ALERT! ALERT! ALERT! ALERT! ALERT! ALERT! ALERT! ALERT! ALERT! ALERT! ALERT! ALERT! ALERT! ALERT! ALERT! ALERT! ALERT! ALERT! ALERT!"

    • Thunder Force II (Sharp X68000 version), intro speech: "This is Exceliza, I want to flow now." "Roger, good luck."
  • In A Vampyre Story, if you talk to Froderick, it kicks off a flashback to an exposition-rich conversation that Mona and Froderick had sometime before the game begins. If you ask about Draxylvania (the setting for the story), Froderick will describe the place in unflattering terms, then point out that in Draxylvania's favor, they DO have Draxylvanian blood cheese, the best blood cheese in the world. Mona will respond, "I think it's the only blood cheese in the world. Sounds, uh....yummy." The line as written is clearly sarcastic, but the actress delivers it as though she's making a note to try it at her earliest possible convenience.
  • In RayCrisis, one of the bosses is called Sem-Slut. Aside from the second part of its name being a derogatory for someone who gets around, it's prefixed by "Sem-", which makes it an even less innocent name. Sadly, it was renamed to "Sem-Strut" in the US release.
  • Syphon Filter 3. "You ready, George? AAAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGHHHH!!!!!
  • F-Zero X: "Too bad. You lost your machine."
  • The prisoners in Quake II repeatedly say stuff like "Please stop", "Make it stop", "It hurts", "Kill me now", and make zombie-like groans.
    • It should also be noted that said zombie-like groans actually sound more like sheep than anything. Baa.
  • Dark Cloud 2: While Your Mileage May Vary as to the Narm-factor of cutscene lines normally, if you go out of your way to finish enough dungeon challenges and use the medals from doing so to buy the specialty clothing from the mayor? Try taking a tearjerker or epic sword fight scene seriously when your swordsman girl is wearing a Stripperific Fur Bikini with cat ears, and your wrench-wielding hero is in a clown suit.
    • "Damn damn DAMN that Griffen!"
  • You'd think ghosts are supposed to be scary, but even by the low standards of Super Mario RPG for how seriously you can take the monsters, "The Big Boo" takes the cake. This Let's Play shows how the poor guy who was doing it could not get over that grammar issue for the fact that the Boo is barely even the same size as Mallow.
  • This Let's Play of the Quest for Glory series shows a screencapture of a scene from the end of the third game, in which the hero has defeated the bad guys, but then has a summoning spell placed on him by unknown enemies which causes him to seemingly lose control of his body and flail about wildly. It is hilarious. Arguably, many things in these games could be taken as Narm, but old fans of the series will probably think them charming anyway.
  • Any time in Doom 3 when an imp or something teleports in, and goes through the normal scream animation, then gets its head blown off because you weren't impressed.
  • Jak and Daxter: The Lost Frontier. Dark Daxter. The bunny ears take the first DarkDax scene from worrying to hysterically funny.
    • Similarly, one shot of Skyheed when he finds the Eco Core somehow has even more of a resemblance to an angry rabbit than Dark Dax.
  • For the most part, nothing really stood out in Wing Commander IV, but in the conversation scene after The Dragon blows up the station and escapes by riding the shockwave of an intentionally detonated mine, Mark Hamill's delivery of the line "That was the move of a true master" fell somewhat short of the intended emotion invocation.
  • In F.E.A.R., Stokes' line: "What the FUCK is going on? FUCK!"
    • F.E.A.R. 2: Concerning the raging psychic ghost Big Bad and the player character, whom she's targeted - "You're like free pizza at an anime convention. She can smell you. And she wants to consume you."
    • The trailers for FEAR 3 - especially the lines "Mother is expecting again" and "It's not every day we get to meet...a new member of the family", accentuated by the fact that the voice over sounds like something out of a grindhouse film.
  • Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. The serious cut scenes don't work so well when C.J. is dressed up in something completely silly (or almost naked).
    • One of Mike Toreno's missions had CJ in underpants and holding a dildo. The opening cutscene was doubly narmful as government agents show up, where CJ actually says, "I'm feeling a little exposed here!"
    • Also, in all of the Grand Theft Auto games you play as at least a Villain Protagonist, if not a Complete Monster, whereas CJ comes off as a bit of a Nice Guy, despite being a gangster. It's a little jarring though, once Gameplay and Story Segregation come into play, and has CJ running over crowds of innocent people and beating hookers to death with dildos.
  • In Brave Story: A New Traveller, you are searching for a lost reptile-boy named Minos. His father Sogreth, according to his old friend Kee Keema, ran off to find him on his own in spite of a huge monster that was in the cave. When you find them, Sogreth is unconscious and Minos is standing between him and the monster.

Minos: Waaaaaah! Pop!
Kee Keema: S-Sogreth!
Boogaboo Crab: BOOGA-BOOGA-BOOGA-BOO.

"TAGGART! YOU SUICIDAL MORON!"

    • LIKE IT'S GONNA MAKE A DIFFERENCE!!!!!
    • Also General Randall's anger over Alex being referred to as "he" is not only hilariously over the top, but sounds more like Ho Yay than dehumanization.
  • The Japanese version of Tatsunoko vs Capcom features possibly the most hilarious training stage song ever. With lines like RISE LIKE A DRAGON PUNCH A WOMAN and I KEEP IT REAL SON NOT THE TYPE TO RICK ROLL YA, I'm SHORYUCAN'T touch the Narm Charm this song possesses.
  • Killing Floor's voice acting needs to be heard to be believed.
  • In Fate/stay night, Tohsaka explains the legend of King Arthur to Shirou by imitating the voice of Merlin. The players hear a Japanese girl growling like an old wizard.
  • In Digital Devil Saga, Heat will sometimes begin a battle shouting "Your ass is MIIINEE!!". The delivery is funny by itself, but the Fridge Logic behind this is also funny. Half of the demons of the franchise don't even have asses.
  • Some scary and powerful demons later on in Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne have their appearances and abilities somewhat offset by the sound effects that make them sound like livestock when they attack.
  • "Want some rye? Course ya do!"
  • Blake from Heavy Rain would like you all to know that Agent Nahman Norman Jayden is a fuckin' ASSHOLE! (Delivery aside, not like he's one to talk.)
    • JASUUUUUN...
    • Jason's death might qualify too, seeing as he kind of wanders obliviously out into the road, very slowly, and is hit by a car which also seems to be going very slowly. The fact that it follows the already-narmy "press X to Jason" segment doesn't help much.
  • It's pretty hard to take some scenes seriously in Dragon Quest V thanks to the addition of accents and some regional stereotypes. One example: After Rodrigo Briscoletti tells you to go find and see what color the jar at the shrine is, which then turns out to be red. Hearing the unfortunate news, he tells the Hero that the pot is a Sealed Evil in a Can that was sealed by his ancestors like "meat inside ravioli". Now that the seal is very weak, he says that "The pasta is about to burst open!"
  • Perfect Dark Zero seemed to be aiming for being as narmy as possible. The cheesy dialogue wouldn't have been so bad if they had at least hired competent voice actors.
  • Guild Wars has a few moments. Shiro Tagachi, in particular, has a lot of Narm moments due to speaking with a stereotypical "muhhahaha" type voice.
  • The Legend Of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon has a moment just after Ignitus does a Heroic Sacrifice to get Spyro and Cynder across a fiery chasm. Spyro goes Dark and tries to pull away from Cynder. She holds him back, saying in a deadpan tone of voice "No. Spryo, don't."
    • The voice acting in those Spyro games is terrible. Kind of depressing considering those cold, stilted voices belong to Elijah Wood and Christina Ricci.
  • Pretty much all the dialogue in Gitaroo Man, but particularly the moment before the final battle. There's so much back-and-forth bickering between U-1 and Zowie, you might as well just watch it.
  • The entirety of Plumbers Don't Wear Ties. Some of the more Narmy moments include:
    • "TAKE YOUR DAMN CLOTHES OFF!"
    • Clapping dogs.
    • An upside-down shot of the narrator in a chicken mask.
  • Porn Game Haro: Tale of the Western Country had three translators working on the English version. One did the story, which is actually quite good, despite Chucky's annoying accent. Another did some filler material, which is also pretty good. The third did the sex scenes, and oh boy. They're a mess of Purple Prose, absurd metaphors, and references to internet memes.
    • And Haro's predecessor, Way simply has a Blind Idiot Translation which renders nearly every bit of dialogue either incomprehensible or hilarious. By far the funniest bit is, when you eat to restore stamina during a particular "action" sequence, you get the line: "POWER in your body!"
  • The voice actor who plays General Keating in the Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter series (especially the second game) suffers from this in spades. Here you are, playing as the captain of an ultra-elite military unit, going above and beyond to stop terrorists from launching nuclear devices on American soil (and in a game that tries to be as realistic as possible), and you've got the 20th century version of John Wayne yelling jingoistic (and stock) catchphrases at you like "NO MAN GETS LEFT BEHIND!!!", "I wanted those bombs disarmed ten minutes ago, Mitchell! Get it done!", "Failure is not an option!" and many others. His whole "make things go faster by yelling more" schtick is completely at odds with the tone of the game, and the character comes off as exceptionally whiny, laugh-out-loud and out-of-place. Especially when he's barking ridiculous demands when you're engaged in the middle of a firefight.
  • This one probably also qualifies as gameplay and story segregation gone hideously wrong. In Battle Arena Toshinden 3, each of the "bad guys" has Sho Shinjo as the last opponent. Leon is one such bad guy. His ending, in a nutshell, says that he finally gained his victory over whoever (probably Eiji), but he cannot be truly satisfied until he's defeated...Sho Shinjo.
  • Voltage Fighter Gowcaizer has Brider, a Kamen Rider knock off, give us "I AM THE JUSTICE. NOT YOU."
  • The part in Metroid: Other M where it is explained how Ridley got out of confinement before the events of the game. The idea that one of the franchise's most lethal adversaries went from this to this is one thing. Having it sport razor-sharp teeth and the ability to kill grown men that are several times its size is downright hilarious. It's one step away from a Joke Character like Peter Puppy from the Earthworm Jim games.
    • "The word he so obviously chose, 'outsider,' pierced my heart."
    • Any time--every time—Samus refers to the infant Metroid as "the baby."
    • The absolute entirety of Samus' pointless narration was pure narm. It felt like I was watching a dramatic reading of bad Metroid fanfiction, since all the narration was Samus merely reiterating things that were glaringly obvious to anyone watching the screen. It didn't help that her actress apparently decided emoting was a bad thing, since all the narration and about 80% of the dialogue was completely free of any form of inflection whatsoever.
      • Not the voice actor, the DIRECTOR. One of Jessica Martin's complaints about the game was she was told to read the narration flat, and hold back on character scenes - she wanted to put more emotion in it, but was told not to.
  • Everything that everybody says in Soul Calibur IV. The ridiculously hammy narrator has it the worst.
  • Armed Police Batrider: The endings for the Wayne brothers would be more thought-provoking if they were written by people who actually knew English.
  • The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion has a few examples.
    • Knights of the Nine Patch. When you finally get down to the basement of the old, abandoned Priory of the Nine, listen to the main ghost as he has the other ghosts fight you.
      • "Now show him...THE FEERRRROCITY OF THE NORRTH!!"
      • "Steel yourself...and face...MEH!!!!"
    • Those can be okay, but the absolute worst example is from the main game. Despite the limited number of voice actors for non-major characters, they do a serviceable job most of the time. However imagine this in absolute monotone:

"Oh, no. You think the tolls killed them? And they were drawn in by will-o-the-wisps?"

    • Ten minutes out of the tutorial you're struck with a performance that's hammy even for a guy running from Hell itself. It contrasts with the much more level-headed reactions of the people trapped in a church surrounded by flames.
    • Also, the way NPCs talk to eachother, standing rod-straight and making constant eye contact, is either this or Uncanny Valley.
    • Skyrim has a somewhat meta-example. Dragons create their magic by shouting words like "fire" in their language. Thus, one of the loading screens describes a battle between two dragons as a "deadly verbal debate". Now imagine real-world politicians or lawyers holding a debate by yelling things like "fire" and "ice" at each other as loud as they can...
  • Dead Space, despite having excellent writing, becomes incredibly silly at times thanks to Isaac's stomping attack and its magical dismemberment powers. While it looks like he could stomp off fragile or mutilated Necromorph limbs, it's utterly hilarious to stomp on the dead bodies of Hammond or Kyne and see their limbs come off totally clean.
  • Mother 3 has an in-universe example.

The Frightbot told a story so scary you couldn't help but laugh.

  • Due to the creator not being a native English speaker, the Virus Invasion series has a few of these. Like in the following scene in Virus Invasion 6/Ledgend:

YELLOW BEAR: DO YOU KNOW THE LEDGEND OF THE ULTIMADE VIRUS?
PINK BEAR: YES I DO ... AND YOU THINK ...
LITTLE BEAR: euh , sir ... I don't know the ledgend ...
PINK BEAR: WELL LITTLE BEAR ... LET ME TELL YOU THE LEDGEND ...
PINK BEAR: The Ultimade Virus is the evil virus ... it is the father of the father of the Virus King.
PINK BEAR: But the Ultimade Virus was to powerful ant it destroyed it self ...
PINK BEAR: But to prevent that he repaired itself...
PINK BEAR: ...we heve lockd him up !!
PINK BEAR: And the key of the lock is the Main Chip !!
PINK BEAR: And if you destroy the Main Chip ...
PINK BEAR: Then will the Virus...
PINK BEAR: Well...
PINK BEAR: He will stand up from the death !!!
PINK BEAR: And the Main Chip is in the old computer...
LITTLE BEAR: Then we must stop the Virus Queen befor it's to late !!!
PINK BEAR: Okey , we are moving to the old computer !!

  • Mayor Mike Haggar is a badass retired wrestler who fight the crime in his city by himself. So for the Sega CD, you'd expect him to have the voice to match... but he sounds like this.
  • I JUST WANTED TO GO INTO SPACE!
  • Eternal Darkness is a very scary game for the most part. However, in Dr. Lindsey's chapter, the player is introduced to Guardians, a new type of Elite Mook. Chattur'gha's Guardians are big, vampiric skeletons with scorpion stingers, which is freaky on its own...but they walk by stooping over and covering their heads with their wings, resulting in a ridiculous bouncing motion. And Ulyaoth's Guardians are even worse, since they boost the above Narm by being crossed with fish.
  • In Super Robot Wars W, Zoa's cape flutters in his regular standing pose (Best seen on his stats). The fluttering has very few frames and loops in a choppy, awkward manner, making him not look threatening at all, which for a series Big Bad is rather sad. It's even funnier when you consider Boss Borot also has a cape that flutters like this, but... he's Boss freakin' Borot!
  • In Catherine, this thing pops up. It's supposed to be freaky, but I keep mentally dissecting it into Dobby the House Elf, Gollum, and Brown Minions.
  • Fallout: New Vegas, for the most part, has top-of-the-line voice acting and writing. However, Benny, voiced by Matthew Perry, is a single stain of narm. He's supposed to come across as being ridiculously smooth, but everything he says is in this dull monotone that sounds more bored than anything. He does lose his shit if you have him crucified, though.
    • In addition, some of the super mutants are pretty funny sounding, even the ones that weren't especially meant to be funny. (with the exception of Lily and Dog, both of whom are very tragic characters)
      • With the game's many bugs, non-player characters can wind up looking like bloody messes, even without being harmed. On top of that, another glitch can occur where their heads spin on their necks like ferris wheels or something.
  • Toward the end of the first Drawn to Life game, the mayor encounters the Big Bad out in the woods. The mayor is murdered. While this is pretty sad and even a little scary, it's shown by the villain simply walking toward him and the mayor falling over, sort of taking away the emotional sting.
  • If you're going to play Tri-Ace's fun role-playing game Resonance of Fate at all, please don't play it for story cutscenes like this one.
  • The original Warbears. "NO! AGENT Insert Player Name Here] IS DEAD!"
  • Zero Wing. When Katz makes his entrance and tells the heroes he is going to kill them, he does it horribly translated and voiced over.
  • The 2011 Mortal Kombat game for all its strides in the story department still delivers a heavy dose of narm, the videos are already spreading like dandelions.
    • Kintaro's more tiger-like features in Armageddon made him look more unique and still kept him fearsome looking. But his new kitten-esque appearance is so laughably bad it has to seen to be believed.
    • Scorpion does not like teddy bears.
    • I will drag you before Shao Kahn by your pointed beard, extra points for Shang not giving a ....What? or just laughing at the line.
  • F-Zero GX has a gag called "F-Zero TV" where winning contestants are "interviewed" with just one question per interview, and even then, some of the answers to the questions are CRINGEWORTHY. Viewable here.

Interviewer: Listen to that crowd! Do you have anything to say to them?
Falcon: (shouting) YYYEEAAHH!

  • The Yu-Gi-Oh! game The Duelist of the Roses is instant narm, for anyone who knows anything about Tudor history. As Yami is Henry Tudor, this means that he's married to Tea (Elizabeth of York), and his parents are Mai Valentine (Lady Margaret Beaufort) and Yugi's grandpa (Jasper Tudor). If that's not narm, then it's probably Squick...Also, the idea of Ryou Bakura playing Jack Cade, a rebel leader who's rebellion ultimately failed, is pretty funny too...especially since they've put him on the Lancastiran side of the battle, since Henry VI, the king the original Jack Cade died trying to defeat, was A LANCASTRIAN KING. Also, Jack Cade died a good forty years before Henry Tudor became king. It just reeks of Critical Research Failure, and the whole idea is hilarious as a result.

A card! A card! My kingdom for a card!

    • ... the entire concept from the very beginning is so full of Narm that it almost seems facile to point to any one part of it.
  • One particular moment in Do Don Pachi DaiFukkatsu has the announcer warning you of the incoming True Final Boss. In the Japanese dub, she sounds very distressed, and rightfully so. But the English dub's announcer sounds very bored, like she has been for the rest of the game.
  • Blue Dragon is full of them, but the worst is near the beginning, as the heroes are plummeting to their deaths and are saved by a Deus Ex Machina. What does our hero say in response to not dying? "It's because I said we won't give up!". Bleh.
  • Major Stryker has some real Narm moments, especially when the boss says something before the boss fight starts. One instance is this..."How dare you attack us!" That comes off as pretty silly, because the Kretons attack Earth For the Evulz, and this boss seriously did not expect retribution for that? Oh, here is a personal favourite..."You killed my boats, now try me!" This line is interesting, because the word "kill" is usually used for people, animals, and living things in general, and not nonliving things like boats. Were the boats alive or something?
  • The Orion Conspiracy contains some instances of this. Then again, that is to be expected, due to the So Bad It's Good voice acting in the game. Patrick Mower, the voice actor who voices the main character Devlin is supposed to be Irish. The voice actor at some points does not seem to put enough emotion in some of his lines, and he seems to put too much emotion in some other lines. The Irish accent (assuming that it is one) could be causing some of the lines to sound a little silly. Oh course, the other voice actors come off as a little silly at times.
  • Harlan Ellison's I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream was unable to escape this trope. Part of the reason is that the voice actors for Gorrister, Ellen, Nimdok, and Ted sound disinterested or bored. It could be argued that they were trying to sound like people who had been hideously tortured for over 100 years. However, the voice actors for Benny and AM definitely put Large Ham into their lines. As a result of this, a number of lines definitely become prime candidates for Narm. Here's a good one...Ted saying "Why, you used me, you bitch!" One guy who did a Let's Play of this game on YouTube basically said that the delivery of the line makes him sound like an actor out of a cheap soap opera. There's also the fact that Harlan Ellison put so much feeling into voicing AM that one review said that the name of the evil artificial intelligence ought to be renamed HAM.
  • An example comes late in the normally serious Grand Theft Auto:The Lost and Damned. After Johnny's best friend Jim gets his face burned with blowtorch by sleazy Italian gangster Ray Boccino, Johnny and Jim escape, killing Ray's teammate in the process. Ray waves his fist and yells, "AaaarrgghI'll see you later!"
    • From vanilla GTAIV, Katt William's standup. He is supposed to talk about Liberty City like it's a real place, but that winds up feeling so awkward it's cringe-inducing.
  • Night Trap. A lot of the dialogue ended up as this, but the ending definitely goes into this.
  • While Deadly Premonition is full of Narm Charm, one can't help but laugh at some aspects of the game, such as George turning into a huge, hulking monster with Super Saiyan hair.
  • As good as Batman: Arkham City is, Clayface's Game Over screens are truly a sight to behold. Though the quotes alone are snicker-worthy, his accompanying stage movements and Jiggle Physics are what really gets the crowd going. William Shatner would be proud.

"Next, I will BECOME YOU, BATMAN!"
"IT, WAS THE PERFORMANCE... OF A LIFETIME!"

"Talia, where's Ra's? If he's dead again, I need you to wake him up."

  • At the end of Cadash, after uncovering the true villain and defeating him, you character prepares to leave when the princess addresses you again with a dramatic closeup: "Thank you for the important thing!"
  • RuneScape's Quick Chat feature is a good way to get various points across in a clear and concise manner. It also clashes drastically with the chatspeak and abbreviations normally used by MMO players. You get used to it, but until then things like "My Strength level is 83." and "Go to location: Al Kharid." may make you wonder if the speaker is a robot.
    • In the "Desert Treasure" quest you must fight the keeper of the Ice Diamond, Kamil, who has cruelly encased a young troll's parents in blocks of ice. After hiking through the treacherous mountains and biting winds you suddenly feel a dark presence and then the battle begins. Oh, and if you've done the "Troll Romance" quest there's a fair chance that this song will start playing.[1]
  • First Samurai is an okay platform game from the Nineties. The music is great but the sound effects are hilariously narm-y: the overly dramatic chords heard whenever you kill any enemy, the protagonist's grunts and Japlish sentences ("OH NO MAI SWORDO!"), the use of the beginning of Händel's "Hallelujah" every time you find a food or treasure bonus, all detract greatly from the overall experience. Observe.
  • In the latest City of Heroes expansion, "Death Incarnate", several missions have scenes where an NPC is abruptly seized by a monstrous mouth erupting out of the ground. That would be nicely dramatic, except that it sticks around afterwards to chew, producing gigglefits and comparisons to Piranha Plants, Graboids, and Audrey II.
  • In Katawa Shoujo, some people thought that Hanako's explanation of how she got orphaned, scarred, and traumatised lost a good part of its seriousness due to crayon drawings being used as "backgrounds".
    • Emi has what looks like a "rape face" when she walks in on Hisao talking to her mother and angrily forces him out of the house.
    • Jigoro's Jerk Assery gets so cranked Up to Eleven that you simply cannot take him seriously. A little more subtlety, please.
  • Many enemy pilots in the X-Universe games let off very narmy death screams:

Split: "Split curse you! AAAAAAAAARRRRGGHHH!"

Teladi: "Lost profitsssssss! Aaaargh!"

  1. ↑ For those who don't want to click the link, the song is titled "Hell's Bells" (not to be confused with the AC/DC song). It sounds like a cheesy holiday party song and is unlocked when you go sledding so you can pick some flowers.
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