History SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism / VideoGames

** ''MassEffect3'' however has a more cynical tone. Renegade Shepard starts sliding down from 'pragmatic' to 'cold-blooded, ruthless killer', and Paragon Shepard starts to slowly break under the weight of a galaxy. However, there's still a faint thread of hope; if the Crucible comes together, then maybe, just maybe, the Reapers can be defeated. The whole game has, if you play a "perfect playthrough" slowly shifting the scale from cynical to idealistic and sets it self up for the ultimate EarnYourHappyEnding.....[[spoiler:only to end cynically for Paragon Shepard and somewhat idealistically for a Renegade Shepard who had lost so many of their friends as they die knowing they ended a cycle]].

** ''MassEffect3'' however has a more cynical tone. Renegade Shepard starts sliding down from 'pragmatic' to 'cold-blooded, ruthless killer', and Paragon Shepard starts to slowly break under the weight of a galaxy. However, there's still a faint thread of hope; if the Crucible comes together, then maybe, just maybe, the Reapers can be defeated. The whole game has, if you play a "perfect playthrough" slowly shifting the scale from cynical to idealistic and sets it self up for the ultimate EarnYourHappyEnding.....[[spoiler:only to abruptly shunts straight to the cynical end(at least in the eyes of the fans), dropping the mother of all {{Sudden Downer Ending}}s on you out of nowhere]].

* The Witcher novels and games lean havily on the cynical side.

** ''MassEffect3'' however has a more cynical tone. Renegade Shepard starts sliding down from 'pragmatic' to 'cold-blooded, ruthless killer', and Paragon Shepard starts to slowly break under the weight of a galaxy. However, there's still a faint thread of hope; if the Crucible comes together, then maybe, just maybe, the Reapers can be defeated. [[spoiler:The reason the ending is so despised is because it abruptly shunts straight to the cynical end, dropping the mother of all {{Sudden Downer Ending}}s on you out of nowhere]].

* ''ChronoTrigger'' firmly believes in the strength of the human spirit to overcome anything, and shows its heroes eventually surviving numerous trials to triumph over a EldritchAbomination that was destined to doom their world, all by the aid of a mysterious Entity that allowed them to travel through time. The game ends with the three main characters happily looking forward to their futures.
** ''ChronoCross'', however, is a bit more difficult to place on the scale. On the one hand, HumansAreBastards who pollute the planet and discriminate against demihumans, time travel dooms other timelines to non-existence, and several characters from ChronoTrigger are stated or implied to be dead. On the other hand, fate can still be fought against ([[spoiler:[[ClimaxBoss literally]]]]), humans are still perfectly capable of living in peace with other beings, and the ending outright says that every being can create its own fate and none are worthless. All in all, it's still on the idealistic side, but much closer to the center.

** To be precise, The first FireEmblem and ''[[FireEmblemJugdral Seisen No Keifu]]'' are the most cynical of the series where horrible things like rape, human sacrifice rituals and even an entire generation failing to stop the dark plot which would fit well in something like OgreBattle. ''FireEmblemTheSacredStones'' was the most idealistic as before the events, Magvel has been, for all intents and purposes, a utopia who did not seen war without external influence. Telius and Elibe is somewhere is the middle.

** ''MassEffect3'' however has a more cynical tone. Renegade Shepard starts sliding down from 'pragmatic' to 'cold-blooded, ruthless killer', and Paragon Shepard starts to slowly break under the weight of a galaxy. However, there's still a faint thread of optimism and hope; if the Crucible comes together, then maybe, just maybe, the Reapers can be defeated. [[spoiler:The reason the ending is so despised is because it drops straight off the 'cynical' end of the scale]].

** ''MassEffect3'' however has a more cynical tone. Renegade Shepard is no longer a pragmatic person who takes the necessary sacrifices but just a cold hearted murderer who kills the same allies who had stood by him/her and Paragon Shepard is wondering if they could really hope to stop the cycle. As you play, things seem to set themselves up for a massive example of EarnYourHappyEnding...[[spoiler:then you get the mother of all {{Sudden Downer Ending}}s dropped on you out of nowhere]].

* Compare ''TombRaider'' With ''{{Uncharted}}'', ''Tomb Raider'' being the cynical one and ''Uncharted'' being the idealistic one.

** ''MassEffect3'' however has a more cynical tone. Renegade Shepard is no longer a pragmatic person who takes the necessary sacrifices but just a cold hearted murderer who kills the same allies who had stood by him/her and Paragon Shepard is wondering if they could really hope to stop the cycle. As you play, things seem to set themselves up for a massive EarnYourHappyEnding...[[spoiler:then you get the mother of all {{SuddenDownerEnding}}s dropped on you out of nowhere]].

** ''MassEffect3'' however has a more cynical tone. Renegade Shepard is no longer a pragmatic person who takes the necessary sacrifices but just a cold hearted murderer who kills the same allies who had stood by him/her and Paragon Shepard is wondering if they could really hope to stop the cycle. Through this sets up the stage for a bittersweet and possible idealistic/uplifting "if you try really hard you can achieve success".................then came the [[GainaxEnding endings themselves...]]

** ''MassEffect3'' however is completely cynical from start to finish. Renegade Shepard is no longer a pragmatic person who takes the necessary sacrifices but just a cold hearted murderer who kills the same allies who had stood by him/her and Paragon Shepard is wondering if they could really hope to stop the cycle.

* On the other hand, ''Tokimemo'' 's SpiritualSuccessor ''MitsumeteKnight'' is firmly set on the cynical side. This is a CrapsaccharineWorld where war and politics are dominant, with [[AristocratsAreEvil evil aristocrats]] effectively ruling the country you're fighting for as a foreign mercenary, using the King as a puppet: they are masters of the ScrewTheRulesIHaveMoney and WeHaveReserves tropes, and deeply racists to boot. GreyAndGreyMorality is the story's mood thanks to this and the fact the enemy country has valid motives to fight and is composed of mostly [[WorthyOpponent decent guys]]. Even most the girls you can woo during the game (i.e. the softiest part of the game) have heartwrenching storylines full of BreakTheCutie moments, and even AnyoneCanDie moments depending on your choices. And as far endings go, they are [[spoiler: [[BittersweetEnding bittersweet at best]], since, even if you get the confession of love of one of the girls, you'll be thrown off the country like an old rag after you win the war for the country due to the aforementioned aristocrats' racist stance, and have to leave the girls behind in some cases (others will leave the country with you)]].

* Compare ''TombRaider'' With ''{{Uncharted}}'', ''Tomb Raider'' being the cynical one and ''Uncharted'' being the idealistic one.

* In ''StarcraftII'', Matt Horner is an idealist fighting Mengsk's government because it's right. Almost everyone else is doing it for revenge. This is also essentially the mood for the cinematic A Better Tomorrow. After breaking open New Folsom prison, Matt Horner believes that their real victory was releasing everyone who ever spoke out against Mengsk. That the point of their revolution is to build [[TitleDrop a better tomorrow]]. Tosh scoffs at this and calls it naive; claiming that tyranny can only be succeeded by tyranny, and that one can only fight the present enemy. Raynor is in the middle, believing that Matt's better future will arrive; but those fighting out of hatred and revenge, like him and Tosh, will have no place in it.

** ''RedAlert'' however, is quite possibly the most cynical and depressing of the games. It's starts with a time-travel plot GoneHorriblyWrong, and goes downwards from there. The first Soviet mission consists of burning a village to the ground, and pretty much every single Soviet character is a power-hungry sadist or voyeur, all of whom participate in a heinous political BattleRoyale. Of particular note is when a drunk Stalin impulsively tells his favourite General to order the executions of all the other Generals because Stalin (very obviously delusionally) knows they are plotting against him. The Allied campaign has subtle hints to the death and mutilation of Allied soldiers during a ''successful'' experiment, characters being tortured and ends with one character committing murder.

*** Nier is certainly so. After beating the game once, you can play again, and now you can understand Shade language, [[spoiler: after finding out Shades are actually materialised human souls.]] Well, the player can. Which means that you find out that all of the bosses you fight are [[spoiler: either learning to be better people, getting revenge for a terrible crime humans committed, trying to save their daughter or]] not evil at all. And you kill them, no matter what. Oh, and while the first ending is good out of ignorance, and the second reveals that a character thought dead actually ''isn't'', the third and fourth are agonising [[spoiler: because one party member goes crazy because she thinks the other is dead. Which means either you or her die. No third option. And if you die, your daughter forgets everything about you. And the other party member is alive! No one needed to die at all!]]

* Say hello to ''Petit Eva: Evangelion @ School'', ''NeonGenesisEvangelion'' as taken, kicking and screaming, over to the "Idealism" side of the scale. While seeing [=NGE=] characters in a lighthearted GagSeries is a bit jarring, it's certainly not a bad lighthearted GagSeries.

* Many 6th or 7th Generation shooters bend heavily to the cynical side. ''[[ResistanceFallOfMan Resistance]]'', ''ModernWarfare'', ''{{Halo}}'', ''{{FEAR}}'', and ''GearsOfWar'' all falling into a generally {{hopeless war}} for the main character despite your best efforts [[CutsceneIncompetence thanks to cutscenes]]. Even ElectronicArts First Person shooters went to a darker side with ''ArmyOfTwo'' and ''[[{{Battlefield}} Battlefield: BadCompany]]'' (which were in the first games were more on the Idealist side before their DarkerAndEdgier paint). Due to the Trilogy Effect however, it is more about having to seriously [[EarnYourHappyEnding earning their good endings]].

* [[EnslavedOdysseytotheWest ''Enslaved: Odyssey to the West'']] is a rather cynical game, what with [[EndoftheWorldasWeKnowIt the world having ended as we know it]] after a giant war that left cities completely reclaimed by nature and mechs and slavers killing or enslaving the surviving populations; communities can't go long without attracting unwanted attention to be of real safety, many people are completely unafraid of giving up others' lives to save their own, and everything just [[CrapsackWorld all-around sucks]]. The premise of the game has to do with Monkey being enslaved by Trip to take her home after they were both captured by slavers; when they finally reach Trip's community, [[spoiler: they find that the town had been revisited by slavers, just as [[TheCynic Monkey had predicted]], killing or enslaving all remaining survivors. Trip then goes back on her promise to release Monkey, and she decides to get revenge on Pyramid, the one doing the enslaving.]] Things don't get much better when they add Pigsy to their group, who [[spoiler: tries to get Monkey killed out of jealousy]], and though he helps them get a weapon capable of defeating Pyramid, it looks like everything's over when they are swarmed by Pyramid's own mega-mechs. [[spoiler: Pigsy then sacrifices his life to allow Monkey and Trip to destroy Pyramid, which results in the discovery of Pyramid as a WellIntentionedExtremist who shared his memories of the world before the war with the slaves through the slave headbands, allowing them to "live" in his virtual reality instead of survive in the real world. Monkey sees the world the slaves see and remarks on its beauty before Trip kills Pyramid, pulling the slaves from their idealistic virtual life. She has to ask if she did the right thing.]]

** ''ChronoCross'', however, is a bit more difficult to place on the scale. On the one hand, HumansAreBastards who pollute the planet and discriminate against demihumans, time travel dooms other timelines to non-existence,and several characters from ChronoTrigger are stated or implied to be dead. On the other hand, fate can still be fought against (even if it's much harder this time around), humans are still perfectly capable of living in peace with other beings, and the ending outright says that every being can create its own fate and none are worthless. All in all, it's still on the idealistic side, but much closer to the center.
* ''VideoGame/SkiesOfArcadia'' was notable in its time (and still ''is'' notable) for being an idealistic RPG with an optimistic hero during an era in which TrueArtIsAngsty reigned supreme.

* ''{{Xenogears}}'' is ''relentlessly'' cynical. Almost everything good in this game will, at some point, find itself broken. [[TheProtagonist The happy-go-lucky protagonist]] [[spoiler: harbors a hidden personality that is sadistic, immoral and almost godlike in power, and has died, along with his fated love, time after time in invariably tragic ways.]] Every major location in the game is, at some point, considered your task to save. [[spoiler: Most are destroyed after you save them.]] It doesn't matter, because [[spoiler: almost all of humanity is wiped out by the end, just one in a series of near-total apocalypses which have been visited on mankind deliberately throughout human history.]] Wicked, inhuman shadow masters control the world, ruling it from their invisible nation of scientifically-advanced fantasy Nazis. Everybody on earth has their lives controlled by these people so that they can one day [[spoiler: be used as parts to revive the superweapon they all believe is their God.]] Almost all of the major antagonists are the antagonists because their idealism was shattered in some amazingly cruel fashion. Just ask [[spoiler:Lacan and Krelian.]] The only thing you really accomplish by saving the world [[spoiler: is that a few dozen people ''don't'' die.]]

*** Along with ''VideoGame/{{Final Fantasy Type-0}}'', in fact both of the spinoffs of the ''XIII'' series are firmly cynical so far.

* Compare ''Series/TombRaider'' With ''{{Uncharted}}'', ''Tomb Raider'' being the cynical one and ''Uncharted'' being the idealistic one.

** To be precise, The first FireEmblem and SeisenNoKeifu are the most cynical of the series where horrible things like rape, human sacrifice rituals and even an entire generation failing to stop the dark plot which would fit well in something like OgreBattle. ''FireEmblemTheSacredStones'' was the most idealistic as before the events, Magvel has been, for all intents and purposes, a utopia who did not seen war without external influence. Telius and Elibe is somewhere is the middle.