History CerebusSyndrome / VideoGames

* ''VideoGame/HatofulBoyfriend'' is an AffectionateParody of {{Dating Sim}}s where you date wacky pigeons as a wacky human female. It also has the grim Bad Boys Love route unlocked after obtaining every other ending that ''starts'' with [[spoiler:the female protagonist being KilledOffForReal]] and gets worse from there on with a series of genuinely shocking and heartbreaking [[TheReveal Reveals]] that transform even the silliest and most lighthearted birds into massive [[TheWoobie Woobies]] or BigDamnHeroes.

* ''GrandTheftAutoIV''. While San Andreas was wacky and had little in the way of cogent plot, GTAIV tackled [[DarkerAndEdgier dark, adult themes usually reserved for cinema]]. The contrast between the series' story and the still very much comedic setting made this example particularly egregious. If you were to ask a younger fan, they'd no doubt cite this as an example of [[JumpingTheShark]] by injecting a fun, lighthearted series with too much git, grime and introspective reflection, but ask an older fan and they'll tell you it was an unambiguous case of [[GrowingTheBeard]]; the series growing up along side fans, allowing them to enjoy it well into adulthood.

* ''LiveALive'' (pronounced Life Alive) as a result of the theme. When it happens depends entirely on your mileage and the order you play the chapters. Some are LighterAndSofter then others, at least two are NightmareFuel, and if it's your first time you play in the chronological order without spoilers.

** While ''Mother 3'' is certainly more of a TearJerker than ''Earthbound'', they both have CerebusSyndrome within their games. ''Earthbound'' starts with you dealing with cops who take pride in their ability to block roads and ends with you fighting a being of pure evil that is considered NightmareFuel by many players. ''Mother 3'' starts with you in a peaceful, utopian village and ends with the main villain essentially owning the entire world.

** Which is pretty much the textbook description for Operation Market Garden.

* ''JakAndDaxter'' is a silly, shiny, nice game with colors all around. Its two sequels are very clearly influenced by ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAuto'' in both gameplay and themes, but still remain good games, and it's arguable that the more serious shift allowed for better, more grown up jokes.

** In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIX'', you start with a bunch of thieves/actors kidnapping a rebellious princess and a kid who go to watch a theater play. The first 7 or 8 hours of the game (especially in the [[{{Woolseyism}} brilliantly done]] French translation) are light hearted and fun. Then, the thieves'/actors' hometown is invaded, the rebellious princess [[spoiler:see the death of her mother and watch her kingdom getting nuked]], the whole world comes close from destruction, and the little cute kid of the intro gets to deal with his own mortality.

** VideoGame/DragonQuestV begins with the main character as a child, journeying with his dad, occasionally going off on his own or with a friend on adventures straight out of Tom Sawyer, TheChroniclesOfNarnia, or George Mac Donald's fairy tales. Then, while trying to rescue a bratty prince, [[spoiler: he watches his father get killed, and is sold into slavery, setting up the main plot of the game.]]

** ''VideoGame/{{Grandia}}'' start with two kids doing their usual antics in their hometown and dreaming of adventures that are, quite obviously, way above their level. By the end of the game, one of the kids, Justin, as turned into a badass by being [[PlayerPunch punched in the face, repeatedly]]
** ''VideoGame/ArcTheLad'' starts with a mostly light hearted storyline, with three of the seven Player Characters being comic reliefs. Then ''Arc 2'' came along, and it became [[DarkerAndEdgier Darker]], and [[AMillionIsAStatistic Darker]], and [[PlayerPunch darker]], and [[TearJerker darker]]... At the end, Gogen was still cracking jokes and [[LethalJokeCharacter Poco]] was still a klutz, but [[spoiler:it is hard to notice the comedy when you failed to stop the apocalypse, lost your [[BattleCouple Main couple]], while the credits are running]]

*** The sequel, ''VideoGame/ChronoCross'', starts out rather okay, but after mid game, [[spoiler: the hero gets his body switched with the bad guy, and the plot goes complicated and dark.]] Worse, the story's tieing up with ''VideoGame/ChronoTrigger'' by destroying every bit of happy parts of the prequel. [[spoiler:Crono, Marle, and Lucca are likely to be killed shortly after "Trigger" ended, Schela is turned from a heroic sacrifical woman to a WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds]].
** Zig-Zagged in ''KingdomHearts''. While the first games ''released'' chronologically were pretty light-hearted, ''Days'' and ''Birth By Sleep'' are actually a lot darker in general, what with finding new characters who were DoomedByCanon and finding it all set in a CrapSaccharineWorld and a couple malicious villains. The games even started off pretty light-hearted, too.

* The flash game [[http://www.kongregate.com/games/2DArray/viricide Viricide]] goes, over the course of the paragraphs that pop up between the 17 waves, from jokes about an AI's malfunctioning doble entandra system, to said AI explaining that her programmer was taking depression meds while working on her, and one day told her he was going to solve all his problems by taking all the pills in the bottle at once instead of taking them two at a time. She never saw him again, but hopes what he did made him feel better.
** [[spoiler: She also goes from referring to her programer as "my programmer" to calling him "my father" and "Dad" and she ask you to [[ICannotSelfTerminate disable her "emotional core"]] which gives her a personality]]

** But the third map, Shi no Numa, not only features four well-defined characters, but has lots and lots of easter eggs hinting to the origins of the zombies, and most of all, [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyM3lTBjmvQ&feature=related This.]]
** Der Riese, the next map continues this somewhat. To some extent, less dark looking than Verrukt, but it's where the zombies and hellhounds were created, apparently after experimentation on live patients and dogs, according to these [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dnrceOUp_8 radio conversations and easter eggs]]. It's also got things like teleporters, rounds with both dogs and zombies, and possibly the origins of both of them.

* Arguable in Franchise/{{Pokemon}}. While world-influencing and universe-influencing events were beyond the scope of the early games, Team Rocket tortured people, killed a Pokémon, held people hostage, took over companies and buildings (terrorism), attacked (and recruited) ten-year-olds, and [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking promoted gambling]]. They were on a much smaller scale but it is arguable how much heavier the plot really got, if at all. SequelEscalation is definite either way.
*** Team Galactic does all of that stuff too, but they also try to ''suicide bomb'' Celestic Town.

* Brutally done in ''{{Eversion}}''. In fact, it's the entire point.
* Not just with the comics, the SonicTheHedgehog games are particularly infamous for this, starting with ''Sonic Adventure'', but it really took hold in ''Shadow the Hedgehog''. This also corresponded with a decline in quality (reaching its low with the notorious ''Sonic the Hedgehog'' from 2006) that essentially caused the FanDumb to tear itself apart. Only when ReverseCerebusSyndrome kicked in did the blue speedster begin to win back the approval of the critics and his jaded fan base by not only lightening the tone, but discarding almost all of the LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters.

* The Broodwar addon did this to {{Starcraft}}, although the Starcraft universe wasn't a very cheerful one to begin with.

* ''VideoGame/HatofulBoyfriend'' is an AffectionateParody of {{Dating Sim}}s where you date wacky pigeons as a wacky human female. It also has the grim Bad Boys Love route unlocked after obtaining every other ending that ''starts'' with [[spoiler:the female protagonist being KilledOffForReal]] and gets worse from there on with a series of genuinely shocking and heartbreaking [[TheReveal Reveals]] that transform even the silliest and most light-hearted birds into massive [[TheWoobie Woobies]] or BigDamnHeroes.
* ''VideoGame/KidIcarusUprising'' goes through this once you hit Chapter 18. For something that starts out as a DenserAndWackier AffectionateParody of both GreekMythology and videogames in general with NoFourthWall, the shift to one of the bleakest tones in ''any'' Nintendo game comes as quite a shock to say the least.
* ''VideoGame/CustomRobo'' doesn't even try to take itself seriously. Villains are mostly comical, the story lighthearted, and not too much hint of the events to come. Then comes the InfoDump with two seperate save points...and it all goes downhill from there (granted, you can invoke some humour by picking the funny dialogue options. It's just not played up automatically).
* VideoGame/BrothersInArms Hell's Highway follows this trope quite well. Not counting the InMediasRes at the beginning, the game starts pretty upbeat, with the squad bouncing across the Dutch countryside in their jeeps. There are a few darker moments, like a part with a priest getting killed by an artillery shell, Baker's flashbacks, and the bloody fighting, but it manages to bounce back after everything's said and done....until Eindhoven. After that, things begin to spiral downwards.
* Although it starts rather dark, the VisualNovel [[VisualNovel/SwanSong Swan Song]] becomes progressively darker as it continues.

* Any game of VideoGame/DwarfFortress. ''All of them.'' A lighthearted romp at the start, with seven cheery dwarves building their home in a seemingly cheery forest, plain, or jungle. And then [[FromBadToWorse it gets worse]] as time goes on, with dwarves dying off, being disemboweled, being flung against walls, until eventually your fortress explodes into civil war under constant sieges and deaths.

*** The difference between the first act of ''VideoGame/TalesOfTheAbyss'' and the third act of ''Tales Of The Abyss'' is the difference between [[spoiler: accidentally destroying a city of 10,000 people]] and Jade lightening the mood by [[DeadpanSnarker snarking at you]], and [[spoiler: voluntarily sacrificing 10,000 replicas including the protagonist, all of whom are still mentally children,]] while Jade wishes he could go back in time and kill himself as a newborn because everything in the game is his fault, including this incident, because ''he suggested it.'' Compared to ''VideoGame/TalesOfSymphonia'', the last American release, the game itself is pretty much CerberusSyndrome applied to the series as a whole, though the trend is reversed with ''VideoGame/TalesOfVesperia.''

*** Performed rather well in ''VideoGame/TalesOfGraces'' with the playable prologue. We're introduced to the young kids having fun with their new friend, meeting a new important friend...and then quickly watching as their new friend sacrifices herself before their very eyes with ''nothing'' they could do and (while they didn't know it yet), their other new friend was [[spoiler:possessed by Lambda]]. The result? Four to five out of the seven playable characters have a rather DarkAndTroubledPast.

* The ''Zookeeper'' puzzle game's apparent ExcusePlot is about a zoo keeper who has to keep order in a zoo in which the animals are rebelling against the strict, evil zoo curator, who tends to comedically mock the keeper in the game over screen. If you play weel enough, you learn the backstory: [[spoiler:the curator and his wife once wished to create the greatest zoo in the world, but then she died in an accident, which he [[ItsAllMyFault felt terribly guilty for]]. In his grief, he began to hate the zoo, until the zoo keeper's (his ''son'') hard work makes him see the error of his ways.]]

* BrothersInArms Hell's Highway follows this trope quite well. Not counting the InMediasRes at the beginning, the game starts pretty upbeat, with the squad bouncing across the Dutch countryside in their jeeps. There are a few darker moments, like a part with a priest getting killed by an artillery shell, Baker's flashbacks, and the bloody fighting, but it manages to bounce back after everything's said and done....until Eindhoven. After that, things begin to spiral downwards.

* Any game of VideoGame/DwarfFortress. ''All of them.'' A lighthearted romp at the start, with seven cheery dwarves building their home in a seemingly cheery forest, plain, or jungle. And then [[ItGotWorse it gets worse]] as time goes on, with dwarves dying off, being disemboweled, being flung against walls, until eventually your fortress explodes into civil war under constant sieges and deaths.

* ''VideoGame/HatofulBoyfriend'' is an AffectionateParody of {{Dating Sim}}s where you date wacky pigeons as a wacky human female. It also has the grim Bad Boys Love route unlocked after obtaining every other ending that ''starts'' with [[spoiler:the female protagonist being KilledOffForReal]] and [[ItGotWorse gets worse]] from there on with a series of genuinely shocking and heartbreaking [[TheReveal Reveals]] that transform even the silliest and most light-hearted birds into massive [[TheWoobie Woobies]] or BigDamnHeroes.

* VideoGame/CustomRobo doesn't even try to take itself seriously. Villains are mostly comical, the story lighthearted, and not too much hint of the events to come. Then comes the InfoDump with two seperate save points...and it all goes downhill from there (granted, you can invoke some humour by picking the funny dialogue options. It's just not played up automatically).

* The main [[SuperMarioBros Mario]] usually makes no attempt to do this, but the ''VideoGame/PaperMario'' and ''VideoGame/MarioAndLuigi'' series do.
** ''VideoGame/PaperMario'' is the only Mario RPG to play the typical [[GrandfatherClause Bowser kidnapping the princess]] plot straight; the second was already darker, starring an EldritchAbomination as a BigBad; and then ''Super Paper Mario'' came in, featuring an OmnicidalManiac, the main characters dying and going to Hell (LessDisturbingInContext), and TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt actually happening.

** Some of the later spin-offs are even nastier. ''VideoGame/PokemonColosseum'' takes place in a CrapsackWorld where the enemy is an organization that {{Mind Rape}}s Pokémon into heartless killing-machines for a pastime, PokemonRanger has the third BigBad plotting to KillAllHumans just because his plan to TakeOverTheWorld failed, and there's the second VideoGame/PokemonMysteryDungeon which is home to [[BadFuture a horrific and nightmarish alternate future]] that gives {{Terminator}}'s future a run for its money, [[TearJerker one of the most gut-wrenching endings in gaming]] (things got better during TheStinger thankfully), and the heroes considering ''killing themselves to save the world.''

** Some of the later spin-offs are even nastier. PokemonColosseum takes place in a CrapsackWorld where the enemy is an organization that {{Mind Rape}}s Pokémon into heartless killing-machines for a pastime, PokemonRanger has the third BigBad plotting to KillAllHumans just because his plan to TakeOverTheWorld failed, and there's the second VideoGame/PokemonMysteryDungeon which is home to [[BadFuture a horrific and nightmarish alternate future]] that gives {{Terminator}}'s future a run for its money, [[TearJerker one of the most gut-wrenching endings in gaming]] (things got better during TheStinger thankfully), and the heroes considering ''killing themselves to save the world.''

** Zig-Zagged in ''KingdomHearts''. While the first games ''released'' chronologically were pretty light-hearted, ''Days'' and ''Birth By Sleep'' are actually a lot darker in general, what with finding new characters who were DoomedByCanon and finding it all set in a CrapSaccharineWorld and a couple CompleteMonster villains. The games even started off pretty light-hearted, too.

** And the big bad? Strum wanted to take over the world. Von Bolt wanted to live forever. Caulder, on the other hand, [[CompleteMonster conducts experiments on what's left of humanity.]]

** It goes from apparently incompetent {{Yakuza}} with a badass leader, to DarkerAndEdgier Yakuza without said leader, to two WellIntentionedExtremist cults who [[spoiler:almost kill everyone in their region and change the world for the worst]], to an even more extreme cult with a ManipulativeBastard leader that wants to ''destroy the world''. ''VideoGame/PokemonBlackAndWhite'' scaled back with a WellIntentionedExtremist AnimalWrongsGroup but they still aim higher than the Yakuza (and the main villain of that game is [[CompleteMonster nastier]] than any before him). [=NPCs=] and the storyline in the games tend to get worse too, such as Maylene's dad having an addiction to gambling that has driven him to not leave the facility and the periodic ParentalAbandonment.

** The [[Anime/{{Pokemon}} anime]] had a different form of this than most. While it usually doesn't get really dark outside of the [[BigDamnMovies movies]], the series goes in the opposite direction of its DenserAndWackier first season. Then by the Diamond and Pearl seasons, Team Galactic and [[KnightOfCerebus Pokemon Hunter J]] made some episodes a lot darker. And now they're in Unova, where the TerribleTrio suddenly TookALevelInBadass, and our heroes will presumably fight [[spoiler:[[CompleteMonster Ghetsis]]]] at some point...

*** And in the first game? It begins with Sora playing on the beach...then he watches as his world is consumed by shadows and destroyed in front of his eyes, with his friends either being lost or [[AndIMustScream turned into monsters]]. But don't worry - he's with Donald and Goofy now, so he quickly gets over it...and then comes Hollow Bastion. ItGetsWorse, but the game still ends on a rather light-hearted note. ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsII'' meanwhile starts off with a blonde haired kid you never knew before enjoying the last seven days of his summer vacation and a couple....weird things go on. And then he finds out that it was all a lie, as he's forcefully merged with Sora. The game then becomes quite light-hearted just like the original...and then it starts to get darker but like the first, still ends on a happy note.

** The VideoGame/PokemonMysteryDungeon series. The ''Rescue Team'' games had its dark moments but was fairly consistently upbeat throughout. The ''Explorers'' series start off their plots more or less in line with the first games' in terms of tone, but almost immediately after the halfway point drops, all traces of comedy vanish, setting the stage for an ''incredibly'' morose plot.