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Video Games/Fridge/Other Video Games


A reminder of the rules of Fridge Brilliance:

This is a personal moment for the viewer, so every example is signed by the contributor. If you start off with "This Troper", really, you have no excuse. We're going to hit you on the head.

This revelation can come from anywhere, even from this very page.

Also, this page is of a generally positive nature, and a Fridge Brilliance does not have to be Word Of God. In fact, it usually isn't, and the viewer might be putting more thought into it than the creator ever did. This is not a place for personal commentary on another's remark or arguing without adding a Fridge Brilliance comment of your own.

Company of heroes

  • I was playing this one day, running around the map with my engineers to flame units out of buildings with their flamethrowers, then I had an epiphany. All engineers get suppressed 50% faster when upgraded with flamethrowers. Upgrading to flamethrowers puts HUGE, FLAMMABLE, TANKS on the back of the engineer. So I guess I understand why the guy panics faster when being shot at. -Egbert


Mirror's Edge

  • Mirror's Edge. The first one is simple and pretty obvious; the game features a parkour expert who constantly leaps off buildings to almost certain death. Her name? Faith. Leap of Faith, geddit? The second and more insidious reason was that Electronic Arts, up until that point was known for rehashing sports games every year. They took a leap of faith by marketing a >$10 million new IP as a AAA game. Unfortunately, that didn't work out quite as well as they hoped.


Monkey Island

  • A tiny example from when I was replaying the second chapter of Tales of Monkey Island. During the sword fight with Morgan, there’s a dialogue option to try insult sword fighting on her ("Every enemy I’ve met, I’ve annihilated!") which she immediately counters ("With your breath, I’m sure they all suffocated!"). Clever, but I wondered why they used an insult from Curse, when insult sword fighting is more iconic of Secret. It finally hit me: it’s because they were fighting at sea, and Curse established that you have to use rhyming insults when fighting at sea. Well done, Telltale. -- User:Objectioning


Monster Hunter

  • Monster Hunter Tri had a bit of one regarding Moga Woods/Deserted Island. Same layout, same resources, different names. Why? Then I read the spoiler on the main page under "Chaotic Good" and it hit me - the Guild was already aware of Ceadeus' presence near Moga Village and had issued the condemnation order in advance, but the bureaucratic maze between Guild headquarters and Moga Village kept the news from reaching the islanders! You were called in to handle the Lagiacrus report, which was also delayed for the same reason. Ah, the joys of bureaucracy...


Myst

  • It took me a while to realize that the password that opens up the exit to the Mechanical Age in Myst is actually a representation of everything you had to do to make it there. The C is for the two C's you had to align to get the elevator working, then there's the icon representing the elevator buttons you had to figure out to access the rotation controls, then the third icon is three spikes and a circle, representing the three surrounding islands, two of which have round platforms that show you parts of the password while one has the round platform you put the password into. The last icon is a semicircle which I saw as representing the fact that you have to go back to the entrance where the semicircular gear is.


Nicktoons Unite

  • Along with a whole lot of other Invader Zim fans, it irked me that in Nicktoons: Globs of Doom, Zim joins with the heroes by lying while Dib is stuck with the Legion of Doom, even after he rambles about the fact that he's not a villain (No one bothers to listen to him). Then I remembered that Zim saw himself as the only one worthy of conquering that little blue planet and that Dib is a Butt Monkey (both of these facts are not pointed out in-game; you'd have to be a Zim fan to know those) and now, that part of the plot seems much more clever. --User:Pikawil


Nintendo Wars

  • The CO Koal in Advance Wars: Dual Strike is very young looking, but seems more mature than the other various Kid COs in the game (Andy, Colin, Jake, and Lash), excepting Sonja, who also acts mature. Even Max, the Dumb Muscle of the Orange Star COs, picks up on it, calling Koal a "small man". Then you remember that Kindle and Von Bolt drained the energy from Omega Land to keep themselves from aging. It seems very likely that this is why Koal looks like a child.


No More Heroes

  • In No More Heroes this starts the moment you SEE the title of the game. At first, I was wondering: "Hey, why did they call this game No More Heroes?" And then, I watched the prerelease gameplay trailer, and you know what? The game was actually going to be named "Heroes". But, the trademark was already registered on the TV series 'Heroes'. So, which name this game was given? That's right, No More Heroes. Brilliant!
  • At first I wasn't big on Henry in No More Heroes... and then I saw the credits. Henry's voice actor is Quinton Flynn. Quinton "Raiden" Flynn. Either it's a beautiful coincidence or Suda 51 knew exactly what he was doing, because giving the most divisive character in the game the voice actor of the most divisive character in gaming history is perfect. Completing the game also made me less way of the announced sequel - at the end, Travis asks how they'll settle the game, and Henry drops it on his shoulders, much to his dismay. How do you wrap things up with thirty seconds to go? Another game, of course! Beautiful, even if it did turn Sylvia's last line into a lie - and what the hell, she's a con artist anyway. - User:Man Called True
    • Suda51 and Hideo Kojima are supposedly pretty good friends and call each other Hide-chan and Go-chan. So the setup for that casting decision was there, at least.
    • Well, immediately after she says it, we're shown a great big To Be Continued sign in the style of the first Back to The Future... - Luc
    • Speaking of the sequel, the Environmental Symbolism starts to kick in. There's a rough system at work here: Lonely at the Top bosses ( Death Metal, Speed Buster, Alice, Jasper) are fought in either abandoned urban areas or among their own riches, particularly unsympathetic to Ax Crazy foes ( Destroyman, Bad Girl, Millian Gunman) in abandoned warehouses, and sympathetic foes ( Dr Peace, Jeane, Captain Vladimir) in wide open areas. Not every boss works this way but it's a trend.
  • Why did they get rid of the sandbox Santa Destroy in the second game? Was it because it was considered a weak point of the original? Or was it because since Bishop is dead, there's no one to bring your bike to you which would make things difficult? (Naw, it's the first one, but the second is logical.)


Okami

  • Okami has the final boss Yami, who doesn't seem to look remotely evil, and his forms seem to just be an addition to his power, until one realizes his forms are the evils humanity has performed, Destruction, Burning, Gambling, Energy being used for evil purposes, and the hand of which does this evil, some people either interpret Yami's True form, a fish, as being an ironic evil, or things start out innocently enough, but then everything goes bad. So Yami's not so much a sign that Science Is Bad, but those who would use it for evil purposes. --Etheru
    • The line about the fish-thing (seal fetus?) inside Yami can be taken further: the fish represents a person (or possibly nature in general) being surrounded by the negative aspects of humanity and thus being twisted into something evil. It's basically innocence being corrupted by the evils of humanity. Why else wuld it be a small thing almost always surrounded by Yami's different forms? And Amaterasu having to attack the fish-thing to lower Yami's HP represents destroying the corruption.
    • Alternitivly, Yami can be seen as what happens when science goes too far. Without going into very detailed biology, at some point in the human embryo's development, the fetus looks roughly like a fish. So Yami could very well have been created with good intentions, however eventually it became corrupted. A bit of a streach, but that's how this troper sees it.

Portal

  • At the end of Portal, GLaDOS sings: "I'm not even angry..." Of course she isn't - you destroyed her "anger" core, so she's incapable of being angry.
    • For a while, this troper wondered why they named it "Aperture Laboratories". Then he found the definition of "aperture", which is a hole through with light travels, such as an aperture lens in a camera. Then he remembered the Aperture Science motto: "There's a hole in the sky through which things can fly". Not to mention that a portal is basically an aperture. Brilliant!
      • "A hole in the sky through which things can fly"? Where have I heard that before...oh. Oh. OH!!! The end of the game! "Flying through a hole in the sky" is exactly what happens to Chell and GLaDOS! Valve, you're brilliant!
      • An Aperture is to light what a Valve is to water.
      • Or rather...an aperture is to light what a Valve is to Steam!
      • GLaDOS actually helped save the world from utter hopelesseness. The Combine's only weakness against the humans was that while they could teleport to and from dimensions, they couldn't travel within one dimension. Now imagine if GLaDOS had never taken control of Aperture Laboratories, cut off all outside contact, and allowed the Combine to view research for the single most perfect interdimensional teleportation device ever...
  • In Portal 2, a recording from Cave Johnson informs you of one of his financial follies in buying millions of dollars in moon dust. He goes on to say that it seemed crazy at the time, but the liquid goo it makes is a good bonding surface for portals. It seems like an odd tidbit, until the final stage where you shoot a portal to the moon and it connects!
  • Computer Aided Enrichment Center = CAEC. The CAEC is a lie. The cake is a lie.
    • If CAEC = cake, then "You will be baked, and then there will be cake." takes on a different meaning - it's not a darkly humorous miswording, but a clear explanation - after you are baked (thrown into the incinerator), all that will remain is the CAEC.
  • Fan work, but whatever. "Wheatley's Song" has the phrase "My mind is the infinite space from here to the moon." At first glance, this seems to solidifes Wheatley's "intelligence." Perhaps the song is sung after the game's end, when he's actually a great distance from Earth's moon? - Baronofbarons
  • Consider the Space Core's Dummied Out line "Too much space. Wanna go to Earth. Getting bored of space." Ignoring the grammatical error (one does not get bored "of" something, one gets bored "with" it), it seems like the Space Core might not be a Space core at all, but rather an Aspiration Core! Space was something that the locked-in GLaDOS would never see, so that was what the core fixated on. Once it reaches that goal, it reaches out for a new one-- the earth, which, sadly, neither it nor Wheatley are likely to see again. - Prodigal Daughter

Psychonauts

  • One thing that pleased me about the "Black Velvetopia" section of Psychonauts was how all the different elements, each one bizarre on its own, added together -- the paint, the cards, the luchadors, the toreador, the high school paraphernalia -- to tell Edgar's story, piece by cryptic piece. Except there was one thing bugging me, even after completing the chapter: what's with the talking dogs? They didn't seem to have anything to do with anything. Then days later, once I'd finished dealing with Loboto, Pokeylope et al at the top of the tower, I was treated to a cutscene that showed Edgar finishing his masterpiece...dogs playing poker. Of course. - User:Whogus The Whatsler
    • Something that struck me when playing Psychonauts was the lack of Censors in the minds of the Lungfish and Boyd, something that we were told existed in every mind (the censors, not the others). It took me a little while to realize that this was not only intentional, but a very clever decision as the first had had their mind crushed under the dominion of Oleander and thus would have had all their censors repressed and/or destroyed and the second, thanks to his overly suspicious mind, always incorporated different aspects of the world into his conspiracy. In effect, there is no difference between "good" and "bad", so there are no censors, presumably destroyed when he finally cracked. - Kaiser6012
    • It's also noteworthy that many psychologists believe people with schizophrenia lack the ability to 'censor' their own mind and have trouble controlling their thoughts. Boyd's lack of censors is this idea made literal.
  • Lake Oblongata... Hey, wait a second! -Paxjax123
    • For non-psychics: The medulla oblongata is a part of the brain.
  • Spoilers about in this one, so beware: I used to wonder why did Coach Oleander go nuts, when he was one of the most trusted Psychonauts in the U.S.? They put him in charge of children, for crying out loud, and the government usually doesn't put children in the charge of someone they suspect might go crazy around all that psytanium. One argument is that it was prolonged exposure, but I never bought that argument, after all, the camp is obviously frequented by other psychonauts. Sasha and Milla are probably there on a fraily regular basis as well. Then I realized, Sasha and Milla both learned to keep their minds under strict and careful control. Milla because of her nightmares brought on by her orphanage burning down and all of the kids dying, and Sasha because of the incident with reading his father's mind when he was young. Oleander, on the other hand, apparently never gained that sort of control, and in fact obviously had a chip on his shoulder for being rejected from every branch of the army for being too short. He may have repressed that chip fairly well, being both locked up and buried under cobwebs, but it was still there. So the psytanium never affected Sasha or Milla because they're mental defenses were too strong, but Coach had cracks that the psytanium would eventually work around to drive him mad. Tim Schafer, you... are... a genius! -Cpt Sqweky


Punch Out

  • When I heard about the supposed Downer Ending in Punch-Out!! Wii's "Mac's Last Stand", I didn't quite get it at first. Three defeats, and Mac simply retires. Then I saw the cutscene leading up to it, and then the ending scene. Then it clicked into my head. It was Mac's conscious decision. He's already become the world champion, and defended his title. He's already made his dream a reality. But he can't hold on to that title forever. Further along the line, there may be scandals, and perhaps a losing streak that will force him to retire anyway, going out with a whimper. So, he takes a third option - go out with a bang. And he makes his decision damn clear to Doc, who reluctantly goes along with it.

Doc Louis: Alright, kid. Let's go out on top. It's time to take your place in history.

    • And he does. Damn straight. -- User:Cronosonic
    • It's also a Homage to Little Mac's inspiration, the titular character of Ashita no Joe, who goes out in a similar way.
  • Glass Joe receives a protective headgear from the WVBA as soon as he reaches the 100 losses milestone. If you do manage to lose 100 times to the cpu, they will actually reward you the same headgear, helping you withstand against even Mr. Sandman's punches! - Meower


Resident Evil

  • In Resident Evil Code Veronica, Alexia Ashford's boss themes are all complemented by soprano vocals, which, understandably had no lyrics in the original Dreamcast release, as all the music was produced with sampled MIDIs. However, in the Darkside Chronicles, which remixes the song, replacing MIDI samples with a real soprano, the song still has no lyrics. This is actually a reference to Alexia herself: the vocals are seemingly human, beautiful, and refined, but on further inspection are inhuman, speaking but not really saying anything - Alexia's human shell covering the monster within.
    • I came to a realization that the franchise is not just a horror game series, it's progressed similarly to horror movies that have turned into action flicks, think about it, the first game was like a B-Movie, it had a sequel that introduced darker elements and a coherent story, later had more emphasis on action, as well as remaking the first game to introduce more continuity to be consistent with the sequels, it's like how Evil Dead progressed, in a way.
  • The original Resident Evil. Forest of the BRAVO team has been pecked to death by crows. If you're playing as Jill he has a grenade launcher lying next to his corpse. This makes perfect sense (and not just because the crows in this game are vicious, overpowered bastards): have you ever tried to hit a crow with a grenade launcher? Assuming Forest even bothered to try shooting them, he would have just missed time and time again. Of course, if you're playing as Chris he has a clip of handgun ammo next to him instead, but let's just ignore that little incongruity...
    • On reflection, it's actually just as interesting from Chris's perspective as it was from Jill's. Forest has a clip full of handgun ammo - but no handgun. He was trying to attack these fast, agile enemies with his fists or his weak knife. Even if he managed to hit each crow repeatedly, it wouldn't have done him any good...
  • It always bugged me how inefficient the First Aid spray is. Even the smallest cut or graze requires just as much as a huge gaping wound. Then I remembered how Umbrella originally started life as a legitimate Pharmaceutical company and it hit me - the First Aid spray is the greatest instance of commercialism in the Resident Evil universe and responsible for nearly everything bad that has ever happened. Umbrella had the secret to producing an aerosol capable of regenerating almost any injury, but deliberately designed it so it was both horribly inefficient and horribly expensive; explaining why there are so few cans outside of government and Umbrella facilities - they're the only ones that can buy such an expensive but revolutionary product in bulk. This made them obscenely rich and capable of affording their seemingly endless supply of research facilities and equipment. After Umbrella went bankrupt, the formula to the First Aid spray was bought out by a rival company who kept the inefficiencies but lowered the price enough to give the product mass-market appeal. By Resident Evil 4, the still limited supplies required the Merchant to put on a cap of one spray per customer. By Resident Evil 5 however, the First Aid Spray is cheap and mass-produced on the scale that allows Chris to buy as much of the stuff as he could possibly need.


RPG Maker

  • In the translation of RPG Maker 2000, instead of the sample adventures it came with, the translator made his own sample adventure, with him starring as the main character. His graphic is the Male Thief. He basically stole RPG Maker 2000 by illegally distributing it. Might be an unintentional case here.


Scott Pilgrim

  • In the Scott Pilgrim game, one of Todd Ingram's attacks is to stand at one side of the screen, use his vegan powers (Don't ask) to turn his arm into a mass of vegetation, and slam you with it as giant vegetables rain down upon the battle field. If you examine his arm during this attack, you can see some weird animal-like bits between all the flora. This isn't just some strange little detail. "You are what you eat", they say. The attack reveals his betrayal to veganism and why the vegan police come for him right after the attack.
  • In the Scott VS Nega-Scott Boss Battle, Scott successfully defeats Nega-Scott. Since Nega-Scott represents Scott's mistakes and losing to Nega-Scott is a metaphor for learning from those mistakes, that means that Scott never learned his lesson. His ending of the game has him not ending up with Ramona, and he has three girls at once, proving that he never learned his lesson.
  • When fighting Gigadeon Graves in his subspace, his One-Winged Angel form has the bodies of the 6 other evil-exes merged into one giant pile underneath his torso. All of them have angry faces, except for Roxanne, who looks as if she's in a state of pleasure, which is strange considering she's a lesbian. Things make sense though when you remember that Gideon has an extremely large ego, and that these aren't really the other evil-exes. His ego is so huge that he believes that in his presence even those who would have no reason to be attracted to him would fall all over themselves just to be with him, (but not the guys because he doesn't swing that way.)
    • It could also be a reference to how they were when defeated.. Lucas looks scared, like he was before he eventually died skateboarding. Patel looks shocked, aswell, when he died he was shocked that Scott could defeat him. The twins and Todd just look angry, and Roxy looks, well... yes.


Scribblenauts

  • I just realized why the MacGuffin from Scribblenauts is called "Starite". Star + Write (what you do all the time in this game).
    • I at one point wonder why Maxwell's Evil Twin, nicknamed Lexwam by TV Tropes and maybe another website, always steals from other people, but then I came to a conclusion, he was created by Maxwell, but Lexwam doesn't have a Notebook, therefore, he steals stuff because, well, he can't create anything, so he takes whatever's been created so that he can feel the pleasure of having something his Good Twin does!
    • The sequel's title. You know how the main draw is adjectives that enhance objects? Why else would it be called Super Scribblenauts?
  • The "Rickroll" item is a man that dances around a bit before disappearing in a puff of smoke. I wasn't really sure why, but then it hit me: they might be referencing the fact that it's generally seen as an "old" meme, it's not as effective as it once was as most Genre Savvy internet users expects it by now, and that many people would just like to see it go away.


The Simpsons

  • It took me a while to realize why The Simpsons Hit & Run has that name. Then, while sitting around doing something completely unrelated to The Simpsons, I realized the reason. It's a Grand Theft Auto clone, so they named it after a different vehicular crime.

Skies Of Arcadia


Shadow of the Colossus

  • One of the first things I noticed while playing Shadow of the Colossus was how clumsy the Wander's animation is--he runs like he's going to fall over, and his sword swings are ungainly and poorly balanced. I beat the first few Colossi before i realized--he was basically a child. He didn't understand what he was doing to the colossi. The actual story of the game became a lot more potent after that. -Shellocity]
    • Wander is described as being a young man, and certainly looks and acts like someone at least in his late teens. This troper simply took these details as pointing to the fact that he was a fairly average guy. While an excellent horseman and archer, his sword skills are nearly nonexistent. His stamina also helps to point toward his nomadic nature, hence his name.
  • Here's a subtle one, that I didn't notice until I started a second play-through (to do the challenge stages). Every time Wander defeats a colossus and gets inundated with the dark... um, whatever it is, he wakes up in the Temple. What I've noticed is that each time he does this, he changes a little. His skin gets more pale, his hair darkens, and he starts to get rather gaunt. By the end of the game, he literally looks like death warmed over -- given what happens, that's probably pretty close to literal. -User:Lone Paladin
  • This is one that a friend actually helped me stumble upon. I was playing the game when he remarked "This game is lonely. Like, there are no towns or anything." It hit me then; the gamespace is supposed to be a representation of Wander's loneliness. It also amused me to think about how I/Wander did not have notice this loneliness because of the goals before us but an outside observer could see it clear as day. Incidently, in my mind the gamespace is a better representation of Hell than the fire and brimestone representation as we have yet to find a torture quite as effective as complete isolation. -overthinkin' it


Silent Hill

  • I liked Silent Hill 2 from the start, but I did feel mildly squicked by what I saw as an undercurrent of misogyny running through it; the monsters generally taking the form of mutated women (or disembodied bits of them), the Pyramid head rape scenes, a lot of Maria's scenes... Then somewhere towards the end, everything clicked into place. There was indeed a streak of misogyny and issues-with-women running through the game, but the issues were the protagonist's, not the designers'. James was forced to kill creatures resembling young women over and over again because Silent Hill was playing on his darkest memories and fears; Maria behaved like a cliched male fantasy because, essentially, she was one. - Calla
    • At first, I disliked Travis in Origins because I thought he had absolutely no reason to be in Silent Hill in the first place. Then I realized that he was "picked" by Alessa because he too had been nearly killed by his mother. - User:Odile
    • Really, the Silent Hill series takes this trope to dizzying heights. Do you know why it has a reputation for high Replay Value, and why spoilers are (generally) so closely guarded? You will after completing a story and playing it over again. It's a challenge not to recognize some subtle piece of Foreshadowing or grotesque symbolism you didn't catch before. - Javer
  • The first Silent Hill: the corpse hooked up to IVs in the school bathroom where you get the shotgun, the corpse hanging off the wall in the corridor to the boat cabin, and the similar corpses practically everywhere throughout the game are the same person. It's Burnt Alessa, watching over you as you progress through the world she has created, and the fact that the bathroom corpse has a clue written next to it and a weapon suggests that she is trying to help you, almost certainly to liberate herself from enslavement as the crippled incubator for Dahlia's God
    • Except that it's not a clue written next to the corpse, it's a completely useless reference to a horror book.
  • In Silent Hill 3, shortly after the shopping mall switches over to the "otherworld", Heather comes across a ladies washroom. When Heather goes to leave the room, the door to one of the stalls opens and the player finds the inside of the stall covered in blood. This seems in line with most of the game's other meaningless scares, such as the bleeding mannequin in the office building or the infamous "mirror room". All was well and good with this troper until reading that the game's overall thematic theme was teenage fears. One particular teenage fear being, shall we say, underrepresented in most media.


Smart Bomb

  • I used to hate the auto-bomb mechanic found in some shmups, believing that they were artificial extra lives. However, I've recently taken up training myself not to rely on bombspamming, and this is where Fridge Brilliance kicks in: since auto-bomb automatically fires a bomb if I get hit (rather than losing a life), it takes my mind off of panic-bombing, allowing me to focus on a very important aspect of shooters, especially of the Bullet Hell variety: dodging bullets. It's a skill that tends to be stunted if you compulsively manual-bomb when there is a chance of dying idiotically.


Soul Edge/Soul Blade/Soulcalibur

  • I didn't realize Soulcalibur was a portmanteau of "soul" and "excalibur" until just a couple of months ago. The sudden realization occurred while I was walking home from school, and the face I made was probably the most accurate representation of this thing ever. -User:Crazed Ninja
    • "Soul Calibur", literally, means "spirit blade". "Soul Edge", literally, means "spirit blade". Well, that certainly explains the home title of the original Soul Edge as "Soul Blade", but why do these two swords, clearly completely at odds with each other, have the same name? ...Is a question that was perfectly viable when Soulcalibur II, or III, were the most recent. Then IV comes along and proves some people of being right with their Fridge Brilliance - Soul Calibur has perfectly good reason to have the same name as its nemesis. Not only is it made from a shard of Soul Edge, thereby technically BEING the same sword, but as Seigfried's ending shows, Light Is Not Good - Soul Calibur has the same desires as Soul Edge, it's just made specifically to destroy Soul Edge, so it does so, while at the same time fulfilling its own goals. It's better than Soul Edge by virtue of it being the smarter one, but not by much.
  • In a way, Soul Calibur is the exact opposite of Soul Edge, right? In the earlier games, that seemed to imply since Soul Edge was Exclusively Evil Soul Calibur was automatically good. However, Soul Calibur doesn't represent good, it represents Order. And you have to admit, a world encased entirely in crystal is pretty orderly...


Star Control

  • The Ur-Quan and The Words. It always seemed nonsensical to me that The Words ("Hold! What you are doing to us is wrong. Why do you do this thing?") would affect the Ur-Quan so strongly, when a similar phrase ("Why do you wish to enslave us?") doesn't do anything. Then it hit me: the Ur-Quan (both Kohr-Ah and Kzer-Za) know, deep down, that what they are doing is unjust and unreasonable. The Words are a direct challenge to their ideals, and force them to confront this fact. The Words make them feel guilty, and their subsequent explanation is as much them trying to justify their actions to themselves as to the speaker of The Words. A simple question does not hold the same challenge, which is why they don't react to it. -Dark Hunter
  • Also remember that the Ur-Quan have a racial genetic memory, they talk about their ancestors howling in the chambers in their mind when you have the Dnyarri in your cargo hold for example. By repeating the very first words that ever gave them pause, spoken by their friends, you're triggering the memories of thousands of years ago, making them see you as ancient friends, instead of just another sentient begging for mercy.


Star Ocean


Street Fighter

  • Cody's theme in SSFIV is heavily based off of the intro from Final Fight. The rapper repeats the words "Turn the beat back!" quite often. This is a look into Cody's psyche; he longs to relive his glory days as a hero and get out of his funk, but sadly has convinced himself that things can never go back to how they were.
  • In Street Fighter III: Third Strike, Makoto is introduced as a upper-tier, fairly strong (competition-wise) character. When she's added to the roster in Super Street Fighter IV, her tier ranking takes a nosedive and she unfortunately ends up as bottom tier and the only character lower than Dan. However, Super Street Fighter IV takes place prior to 3rd Strike in universe. Makoto at this time would most likely have limited experience battling against different styles of martial arts, having just inherited the dojo. When she realizes just how much she has yet to learn, she returns home to Take a Level In Badass and undergo Training from Hell before making her return in 3rd Strike and becoming a high tier character.


Suikoden

  • Getting all of the Stars of Destiny in Suikoden III results not in the typical alternate ending but only in a scenario in which you get to see events from the antagonists' point of view. This isn't just to be annoying: the last four Stars are the antagonists themselves, who never actually join the main characters. --User:Cat In Cyberspace


Super Robot Wars

  • The first time I fought the Stern Regisseur in Super Robot Wars: Original Generation 2, I was somewhat confused by the Game Over condition: You have to destroy the massive space station-sized Stern Regisseur before it can enter Earth's atmosphere. On my first playthrough, I thought "Couldn't I destroy it just as fine above Earth as in space?" But on my second playthrough, I realized that the point of the scene was that in its desperation to destroy humanity, the Stern Regisseur was trying to Colony Drop itself.
  • The theme of Dis Astranagant is titled "Gun Of Dis," which abbreviates to G.O.D. Normally this could be passed off as a coincidence; however, the magic phrase needed for it to use its most powerful attack is "tetractys grammaton," which stems from tetragrammaton, a term referring to YHWH, God's name.


Terranigma

  • When I finished Terranigma I wondered why did Dark Gaia make Ark into a good, self-sacrificing person? And then I realized, Ark's "heroic" traits were exactly what he needed to accomplish his mission. He needed to be brave and enough of a zealot to explore a unknown continent for what was probably very long time, he needed to care enough about his fellow villagers (especially Elle) to give him a proper motivation to do said exploring, he needed to be impulsive enough to trigger the trap that turned the villagers into crystal and trusting enough to take Dark Gaia/The Village Elder's word at face value.


Tetris

  • It didn't occur to me until just moments ago as I read this very wiki's Tetris page that each and every Tetris piece is comprised of four blocks. Four. Tetra. Tetrominos. That's why the game's called Tetris, not just because four lines is the highest-scoring combo! And I've been playing Tetris ever since I was a kid! My brother and sister and I made up lyrics to Music A! * HEADDESK HEADDESK HEADDESK* --User:Wild Knight
  • Tetris the Grand Master 2 PLUS's full title is typically written like this: Tetris: The Absolute - The Grand Master 2 PLUS. At first, having "The Absolute" in between "Tetris" and "The Grand Master" seems a little counterintuitive. But, at the time of this game's release, when TGM 3 wasn't around yet, attaining Grand Master rank in Master and T.A. Death Modes was the highest honor you could get in the TGM series at the time--that is, you were absolutely a Grand Master.


Twisted Metal

  • In Twisted Metal 3, the intro of the level London had Calypso talking about London and told the player to say hello to his "old friend." At first, I thought that Calypso knew about the British Royal Family because he said that right after he referred to the Buckingham Palace. Now I just realized, after almost 10 years, that Calypso was talking about Minion. As he is the boss that the player will face in London after defeating all the other oppositions. User:Counter Blitzkrieg
  • In Twisted Metal Black if you read Minion's coded messages you'd find that the entire game takes place in Sweet Tooth's head. With this in mind I suddenly realized that Darkside's ending makes a lot more sense. She was locked inside a mask and is fighting for the key, when she wins she must kill Mr. Creel, the man who locked her in the mask if she wants the key. She does this then decides she doesn't want the key saying how great her mask is and then goes off to hunt for (and presumably kill) people like Mr. Creel. It seems stupid but consider Sweet tooth's fondness for his mask and his ending. He wants to remove a curse that causes his head to be on fire 24/7. Calypso gives him a cure but then says if he continues killing people it would wear off. He then rejects the offer within 10 seconds and kills Calypso. Put it this way they both decided to stay in their mask and hunt and kill people. What Darkside did is what Sweet tooth would've done.


Uncharted

  • This troper didn't like the sudden appearance of the mutants in Uncharted:Drake's Fortune at first. Especially, after fighting a few and finding no place to hide. Until it finally hit me: They make taking cover useless. Meaning that the mechanic that you have been accustomed on for the whole game is no more. Rather than being an Unexpected Genre Shift, it DOES make them much more menacing. This is much more apparent when you have to battle both the mutants and the mercenary soldiers at once, forcing you to alternate between tactics. - User:Psyclone
    • This happens again in Among Thieves. You spend a few levels platforming around cyclopean ruins that no mere mortal could have built. You chalk this up to video game logic even though it should be obvious that it would require nigh-unbreakable supermen to build such devices by hand. Guess what Shambhala is populated by.
  • At the begining of Among Thieves, Nate, Flint and Chloe are all preparing to steal the oil lamp. So, if you've just joined us, An American, A Brit and An Australian are trying to break into a Museum together......
    • And? So? Therefore? Ergo?


Unreal Tournament


URU

  • I had been playing URU for a long time with different characters before I got to the online version. One Relto page later, I stopped, looked at what the page had added, and had to leave the computer for a few moments when I found out that Relto was a copy of Myst. Some of the things Yeesha had written made a lot more sense after that.
    • It was the mountain page, right?


Valkyria Chronicles

  • Quite a few people see Prince Maximilian's speech before the final battle in Valkyria Chronicles to be a rather weak attempt at making the player feel sympathy for him, especially in the light of the fact that he pretty much abandoned Selvaria to her fate and ordered her to sacrifice her own life for his ambitions. However, reflecting back upon it, it can be argued that the authors were being more subtle about it: at that point in the game, we as players know that both Maximilian and Selvaria have had it pretty rough, with Selvaria being considered nothing more than a thinking, talking weapon because of her Valkyrur blood, and Maximilian getting orphaned because of jealous cospirators. And Maximilian, being a brilliant Magnificent Bastard, couldn't possibly have missed the fact that Selvaria served him out of love, and obviously knew of what Selvaria might have been through at the institution she was imprisoned in. But even with this, other people's pain means nothing to him, while his must be avenged at all costs - even if it means relinquishing his own humanity by becoming an artificial Valkyria. So, in the end, it can be said that both Maximilian and Selvaria have had their own share of hardship... but Maximilian, when faced with the suffering of another person, failed to have empathy about it; unlike Selvaria who at least understood what Alicia was going through and felt kinship towards her. Kinda puts Maximilian's speech in a new, and hardly flattering, light, doesn't it?
  • I first wondered, why does Barious have such ominous music? Yes, the Darcsens blew the whole place up or not, but the song is out of place, especially when you consider that the song only plays twice more in the entire game. But then consider what times that song plays again: the second time Selvaria appears, wreaking destruction on your army, and when Alicia is revealed as a Valkyrur, wreaking just as much destruction on the Imps. Also consider that the Darcsen Calamity is actually a Valkyria Calamity, presumably caused by a Final Flame not unlike the one caused by Selvaria at Ghirlandaio. The song has less to do with Barious than that wherever Valkyrur or their tech appear, mass destruction follows them. -Observato
  • Norse legend has it that a Valkyrie's name signifies what personality she represents. One of them, roughly translated to Randgrid, can be described as a "shield breaker". Makes the hiding of a Weapon of Mass Destruction in Randgriz way more appropriate.
  • Also, Valkyries were often symbolized by a spear. That both Selvaria and Alicia had spears, and that the aforementioned WMD was also a spear is obvious. Also, ravens often signify their presence. And Darcsen hair looks something like a raven. Works even better when you consider that ravens are a bad omen, but don't actually do anything. Same with the Darcsens, what with their false accusations with blowing up the Valkyrur in the Calamity.


Valkyrie Profile

  • In the first game, Arngrim is not allowed to be transferred up to Valhalla, unlike most of your other Einherjar. Freya initially gives you the reason that it's because he's just not "hero" caliber, but over the course of the game you can get his Hero rating up pretty high, well above the level that most chapters request for Einherjar to be sent up. Initially, this was probably a gameplay cheat since he's needed for the best ending. Then comes the second game, where his preincarnation starts out opposing Odin's plans before being turned into an Einherjar. In the third, his Truthade profile says he was booted out of Valhalla and back into the cycle of reincarnation after mouthing off to Odin about the second game's events, which better explains why Freya said Arngrim wouldn't be welcome in Valhalla--she recognizes him and doesn't want to deal with him causing trouble again. - User:Mr Death
  • On first hearing it, Surt's last words in the B ending ("It can't be! * cough* Evil.. you mean to say evil prospers? I do not accept this.. I do NOT ACCEPT THIS!") could be taken as the villain thinking he was right. But then you get the A ending, and he has a similar reaction to Loki, refusing to work with him when he finds out about Bloodbane and Fenrir. Then play Silmeria, where Odin is most definitely a villain and turns out to be the cause of Ragnarok. Surt was right. Odin is evil, and in the B ending, Lenneth is unknowingly a Villain Protagonist. That's why it's so unsatisfying. - User:Mr Death
  • Listening to the soundtrack, the music for the final boss battle against Loki is titled "The True Nature Of All." What better title for a battle to destroy the god of lies? - User:Mr Death


Vampire The Masquerade

  • Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines. As in many western RPGs, there is a Haggle skill that can get you better prices in stores. But what use is haggling in modern-day America, where prices are fixed? It seems silly until you realise that every single "store" in the game is one where haggling would logically be permitted. You buy things from a pawn shop and out of the back of a truck. Even the petrol station's gear is being sold "unofficially" by one of the employees.
  • A fine example is examplified by the Voerman sisters. Therese, who claims to have sired Jeanette, is acting in a manner completely different from her sister and childe, acting in a typical Ventrue manner and personality while her sister is anything but. Then it is revealed that the two are actually two distinct personalities of the same person, who turns out to be Malkavian. This also justifies how the two personalities fit into the stereotypes of two completely different clans in spite of the fact that one sired the other, in that she obviously has a few screws loose to connect the two personalities under the same bloodline.


Viewtiful Joe

  • In Viewtiful Joe 2, the plot resolves around Joe and Sylvia getting the seven Rainbow Oscars. Captain Blue was turned into the Blue Oscar because he gave the movie a happy ending. Joe and Sylvia are sent to the first movie and once they defeat the boss, a new Oscar appears. Joe's father, Jet, berates the two for rummaging through his classic film collection. So the Brilliance is because Jet is the Black Emperor and has the Black Film, he's had his whole life to track down the movies that hold the power of the Rainbow Oscars and needed Joe and Sylvia to give the movies happy ending.
    • Or is it Fridge Horror that Jet has gone and defeated all the original heroes of these movies and turned them into the other Rainbow Oscars?


Wario Land

  • Now, I've always been a fan of Wario Land, but my understanding of the series recently changed when I realized that the whole series is Nintendo's Self-Parody of Super Mario Bros., in the form of a Fractured Fairy Tale. The kind, heroic and friendly Mario is replaced with a greedy, selfish, brute whose appearance is an exaggeration of all of Mario's features (big nose, curly mustashe, ect.) The enemies are more evil, and while Mario journeys across the Mushroom Kingdom to resuce Princess Peach and save the world, Wario only does heroic deeds when he sees an oppurtunity to get rich doing so. Wario does things such as set himself on fire and break through stone with his head to progress, which is quite different than Mario's athleticism and jumping on top of enemies. Brilliant! -User:Dr Furball
  • I used to dislike Wario's toilet humour. Then I realized it: Mario likes MUshrooms and wario likes WAshrooms.


Xenogears

  • On my first game through Xenogears I had plenty Wall Banger and What Do You Mean Its Not Symbolic moments. However, with the gift of hindsight on the second playthrough, it suddenly made a whole lot more sense and falls into place beautifully.
    • Do you have any more information you can share with the rest of the class?


Zone Of The Enders

  • In Zone of the Enders: Anubis, despite being supposedly BAHRAM's ace fighter, Ken is accused as Faux Action Girl for cannot used her Orbital Frame, Ardjet without AI assistance. But then, early in the game, in an easy to forget scene, Dingo Egret decides to use his frame without AI, then ADA decides to shows all the statistics he need to controls in the screen, at that point Dingo decides to give up (It also happens in the Anime of the Game Dolores, i, just to drive the point home). And Viola practically possessing Ardjet, the fastest way to clean it is, for all computer users, you know it, by formatting the whole drive clean. So is understandable that Ken got a little panic, since computer stick is the only way to drive Orbital frame, and at that point,her computer drive is practically clean as new.
    • Speaking of ZOE, you'll notice that Jehuty is considerably more capable and powerful in the second game as opposed to the first, even though there's no indication of any modifications to the frame itself. The difference, I realized later, is that in the first game, Jehuty's being piloted by a scared teenage kid who's letting the AI do the work. In the second game, however, Jehuty's being piloted by an ace, someone who really knows how to work a frame, accounting for the apparent power discrepancy. -- User:Mr Death
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