(gentle music) - [Falcon] Mercy is a good thing, right? You're supposed to show
mercy to your enemies and that's what makes you
the good guy, not them. Well, what if a video
game makes it really hard, not just because of a moral quandary. Maybe you really want
revenge on that other guy, but what if it actively hurts
you for doing the right thing? Hi, folks, it's Falcon. And today on Gameranx
10 games that punish you for showing mercy. Starting off with number 10,
it's the last of us part two. This is probably one
of the most common ways that games punish you for showing mercy. When you spare a surrendering
enemy, tons of games do this. But one of the more effective recent games to pull this trick on you
is the last, was part two. Not clear exactly how
it works, but generally if you manage to clear out an entire group with only one enemy left alive then you wound, but don't kill them. There's a chance they'll put
down their guns and give up. If you're feeling merciful then there's nothing stopping you from turning around and walking away. Turn your back on 'em though they'll immediately get
up and resume attacking you. So your only reward for showing mercy is a bullet
in the back, which is dumb. Let's say you're in the "Apocalypse," you're trying to kill somebody and they make it clear that you can't, even if you try, try, try,
instead of killing you, they don't kill you and
walk away and you're like, "Oh man, this person who got
the upper hand on me once, I'm gonna get the upper hand on them. Oh, they got the upper hand on me again because they're the player character." What a dopey thing. But then again, nobody said
that AI was smart.(laughs) It's not an AI thing. I just wanted to say that. It's not really a surprise either. I mean, almost every game has
enemies and if they surrender, they almost all get back up and start attacking after a few seconds. If anything, it'd be more surprising if enemies actually did just surrender. Like there's really no option here. Either kill 'em or knock 'em
out because if you spare 'em, you're just gonna get punished for it. And number nine is "Sekiro:
Shadows Die Twice." About two thirds of the
way through the game, you return to the apex of the castle where you
confront the great Shinobi Owl, a master ninja who trained Sekiro and is basically his father figure. This guy basically taught your character everything he knows. So it's unsurprising that he's got almost as many
tricks as you do, if not more, he'll counter your attack,
he'll use trick weapons, he'll do other things, clever things. But one of his dirtiest tricks, it's about halfway through. After you take down his first life by the boss meter disappears. He gets on his hands and
knees and he begs for mercy. You might think the fight's
over and just stand there, but if you do, he'll attack
you while you're distracted. And to add insult to injury, he'll make fun of you for being gullible. However, the opposite is
true if you see through it. If you're suitably ruthless and attack him while he's on the floor
begging, the fight will resume. It'll compliment you for your cleverness for not falling for his trick. In this case, it's not hard to guess that he's trying to
pull a fast one on you. I mean, he is called the Great Shinobi, a ninja whose whole thing is to win through any means necessary. So yeah, but I mean he
is your father figure your dad ish guy. So it makes sense to consider sparing him, but it's just not in the cards. And number eight is "Batman: Arkham City." Eventually, you'd think all these goons would just learn to leave Batman alone. I mean, it's one thing to
assume you can beat him when you're out rolling
with 15 other guys, but when you're just that single goon, they should really just
accept their limitations and give up. 'Cause I mean he's Batman, you know, he's gonna totally whomp your ass. It sounds dirty, but it's really just Batman
absolutely killing you, just not finishing the job. Most of the time these idiots
just attack Batman on site. But in this one rare instance, they don't, at least not for a little while. When you return to the steel
mill to confront the joker after dealing with Mr. Freeze, you can find this little
scene with two joker goons, torturing a two-face goon who's hanging over a pit of
acid or maybe just water. I don't know, maybe Gotham's
water is just deadly at all times now after the many villains who try to poison the
water supply either way, long story short, they were gonna dunk that
guy and Batman saves him. (machine whirring) - (indistinct) Figured, see, Batman. - [Falcon] What do you get
Ezra Award for your good deed? I don't know, just a
punch the back of the head when you're not looking, you're not really in
danger of actually dying. You're Batman. He's just a standard Moog. You can take him down on a punch or two. But seriously, Batman
just saved this guy's life and instead of getting
on his hands and knees and being like, "Oh, man, thanks Batman." Instead of doing that, he punches Batman in the back of the head. Like there's your standard
ungrateful NPCs and games. Like that's a common thing with this guy is much dumber than that. And number seven, it's "Elden Ring." He'd think a longtime player
from software games would at this point just kill patches on site. Every time you run into this dude, he ends up screwing you over, double crossing you in some way. And most of the time,
he gets away sky free. Rarely do you actually get the chance to show him mercy though, most of you just depressing the urge to stab him in the face. So I guess, I mean that might
be in in itself somewhat of a mercy, but in "Elden Ring,"
you actually do fight him. If you do enough damage, he begs off. - Wait, wait please! I surrender! White flag and all! Well, finally come around, have you? I knew you would. You're a man of reason,
through-and-through.(laughs) - [Falcon] But in this case,
he's a little bit smarter than the normal bag stabbing NPC 'cause he doesn't just wait a few seconds and resume attacking again
like you might expect. From this point, he's
playing the long game. He seems relatively harmless by now. But be aware he will find multiple ways to make your life harder
as the game progresses. There is, of course, his
teleporting treasure chest, but that's really more your
fault if you fall for it, he gives you bad advice like
saying you should get captured by the abductor virgins, which teleport you to a
frustrating lava chamber that's difficult to escape from. That's pretty bad. But his most annoying
trick occurs at Mt. Gelmir. Here he lives a trail of
Rainbow Stones that lure you to the edge of a cliff, which if you approach
will trigger cut scene where he kicks you down into
the acid-filled crevasse below. - Well, if you really are that gullible. (crow cawing) - [Falcon] All this
pain and suffering just 'cause you didn't kill him
when you had the chance that's patches for you. (gentle music) And number six is "No
More Heroes: Bad Girl." The number two ranked assassin and the penultimate boss of the game. Bad Girl looks like a princess, but acts like a psychopathic killer. Qu'est-ce, fa-fa-fa-fa,
fa-fa-fa-fa-fa, fa, better That comes into play in her boss fight where if you do enough damage to her, she'll start fanning defeat
dropping to her knees and crying. We're five entries deep here
so you know what the score is. She's playing possum. If you stand too close to her, well, yeah, she'll retaliate, duh. (upbeat music) You know, instant kill
attack, not cool Bad Girl as if the name doesn't give away the game. But yeah, it's not good enough to just stop attacking her at this point. You have to physically get
away, otherwise the game over. You can try to attack her, but that doesn't work
unless you notice the tell. Sometimes she's crying for
real and let's go of the bat, but most of the time, it's a fake out and she'll just kill you. It's one of those rare mercy
punishments that's dangerous whether you know about it or not, she can transition into it pretty quickly and she'll kill you instantly when you're trying to get away. There's not really a lot
of room to show mercy here, but the potential to get tricked is if you just linger too close. And that's pretty likely to happen the first time you face her because the radius of attack isn't small. Like even if you're expecting it, she can still catch off guard. And number five is "Mass Effect 3." In the mass effect games, most of the time Paragon
equals best outcome. Renegade equals worst outcome,
but it's not always the case. Sometimes getting the
best possible outcome, just isn't possible or forces
you to make some sacrifices, you don't wanna make. The perfect example of
this sort of thing revolves around Wrex. Everyone's favorite frog
man from the first game. In "Mass Effect 3," everything
you do is basically summed up with the galactic readiness rating, which tallies up the assets
you've managed to gather for the final battle with
the Reapers, woohoo boy. To get the best possible
endings you wanna score, but sometimes doing the
right or merciful thing can have a negative effect
on military strength. So let's go all the way back to "Mass Effect 1" with a
part you have to talk down, Wrex has an effect that is, let's just call it massive.(laughs) Most players are gonna choose
to spare him at this moment because if you don't, you lose him as a party member
permanently 'cause he's dead. Keeping Wrex alive for the most part is
good for "Mass Effect 3." But if you wanna get military support for both the krogans and the
salarians at the same time, it's impossible to do with
him still being alive. So the only way to get the maximum amount
of military strength from that part of the game
is for Wrex not to be alive at this point. If he is, he'll figure
out the salarians plot and you'll lose all
krogan military support. There's a whole complicated
reason for all this, but the basic gist is that
if you show mercy to Wrex in "Mass Effect 1," it's
very possible it'll come back and bite you in the
ass in "Mass Effect 3." - Wrex, please. We can discuss this. - No more talk, Shepard. I've got to do this my way. (gun shots) - I don't think so, friend. (gun shots) - [Falcon] Again, demonstrating
the massive effects of the decisions of the game in the trilogy of the Mass
Effect, Xbox 360 baby. And number four is the
"Shin Megami Tensei" series, a major part of this mythological
mashup series of RPGs, which almost always involved Japanese high school
students battling in out with a God and or the devil in an apocalyp to Tokyo are negotiations, randomly in the middle of a
battle instead of fighting. Enemies will start talking. Sometimes they want you
to give them something, they might threaten you or sometimes, they even beg for mercy
after nearly being defeated. You're usually given the option
of showing mercy for them, which can sometimes be beneficial, but most of the time isn't. (rock music) That's true about just about
anything these demons do, seems like their decision
making is basically arbitrary. So you never really know how
they're gonna respond to stuff. It really just boils down to the fact that majority of the time
you show these idiots mercy and they'll just turn
around and punish 'em more. It can be very frustrating when you're trying to
get one of these guys to side with you only
for them to turn around and start attacking after
you've already showered them with money and items. But that's how this works. These games are like that. They're unforgiving to a fault. (upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) But if you wanna recruit more demons, you gotta put up with
these nonsensical demands regardless of if you're being pragmatic or actually trying to be merciful,
it doesn't really matter. These dumb demons will
punish you no matter what. And number three is "Grand Theft Auto IV," most of the time the good choices you make in "Grand Theft Auto IV," they pay off, not usually in major ways, but you're rarely worse
off than when you started. At the end of the Holland Nights mission, the one you take for Francis McReary the crooked cop brother
Packie where you're supposed to assassinate the smalltime
drug dealer, Clarence Little, there's actually a few different ways to complete this mission, but if you actually wanna spare the guy, then a frontal assault's the only way, you chase him up to the roof. And that's when you're give him the option to either kill him or let him go. - Yo, yo, yo, man, you got me, chill. I surrender. You wouldn't kill an
unarmed man, would you? - Sparing him. Seems like the more forgiving option, but it will come back to bite you. If Clarence is alive, he'll eventually show up
again as a random stranger. And when Niko talks to him,
he assumes that Clarence is turned over a new leaf. But instead Clarence pulls out a gun and starts blasting. - Come on, man, don't be a dick. - I might be a dick, but you's a- - [Falcon] It's pretty easy
to get caught off guard and get killed here. But if you're at all prepared, then it's easy to just pull out a gun on your own and take them out. In the world of Grand Theft Auto, no good deed goes unpunished. And number two is "Dark Souls II." The souls games are filled
with NPC as it punish you for doing a kindness. But the Royal Sorcerer Navlaan in "Dark Souls II" might be the worst. You find this guy locked up in a cell and all use keep be surrounded
by warning messages. Don't pull the lever,
don't talk to this guy. But if you approach him,
he seems totally harmless. Even his dialogue leads you to believe that you should help him. When you approach him, he
just begs for you to stay away and that nothing good
will come of helping him. - [Navlaan] I have absolutely
no intention of leaving here. Do not attempt to help me. Just let me sit here,
and wither quietly away. - [Falcon] In video game terms that might as well be a
gigantic neon sign saying, "Hey, help this guy. He's a worthy cause." In any other series,
helping someone like this would be a no-brainer. All the message of warning
are obviously just a fake out, but this is dark soul. So of course, pulling the
lever and freeing this guy's the worst possible thing you could do. For one thing, freeing him
cancels his quest line. But the real bad thing is that now, he's a full blowed invader. - [Navlaan] By the very gods. What have you done? You've really done it. You'll never escape him. - [Falcon] He attacks
you after freeing him, which is bad enough, but
it doesn't stop there. He keeps attacking you
as the game goes on, particularly at inconvenient
times and places and around tough enemies just
to make your life harder. If you want the perfect example of how bleak and cynical these games are, look no further than this guy. Your reward for freeing
a sobbing man trapped in the jail cell in a mad scientist keep
isn't just one tough fight. It's a bunch of tough fights against a powerful magician
who really wants you dead for the crime of helping him. (bright music) (metal clanking) And finally, at number
one, it's "Tactics Ogre." Most of the time when
games give you choices, they don't actually end
up mattering that much. But if there's one game
that bucks that trend, it's "Tactics Ogre." At the end of the first chapter, the game hits you with what seems like a pretty cut and dry choice. The Duke orders you to kill
5,000 political prisoners. So do you follow those
orders and you know, kill 5,000 political prisoners? Where do you do the
right thing in Spar 'em? If you actually go through with it then you go into chapter
two with the law path. Well, if you defy orders, the
chaos path begins instead. They're two completely different tracks. You'd think not slaughtering
5,000 innocent people is the obvious thing to do, but the game pretty
significantly muddies the water. If I tried to explain the
story, we'd be here all day. But the gist is that you defy your orders,
you become a renegade and you have little to
no official support. When it comes time for the main character to
take the throne in the end, it's highly unlikely that the people including the minority
group that you chose to spare will trust you. It's actually more likely that
they'll be suspicious of you because you're unpredictable. And you also spend most of the game hated by your former allies. And your enemies don't
care one way or the other. You'd think they would be some way to expose the Duke's crimes and you do eventually take him on, but it only makes things worse. The game basically endlessly punishes you for doing the right thing, but they save the ultimate
punishment for last. 'Cause how does the story conclude if your chaos rating is too
low, then you're assassinated by the very same ethnic group you chose to spare all the way back at
the beginning of the game. Hell of a reward for your mercy, huh? (lightning crashing)
(suspenseful music) (thunder rumbling)
(rain pattering) (suspenseful music)
(rain pattering) And that's all for today. Leave us a comment, let
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