Action Dad / Video Games

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• The protagonist of Action Doom 2: Urban Brawl is willing to beat up a whole town full of gangsters, potentially take on a hulking Serial Killer psycho with his bare hands, and attack a guard-filled company headquarters all by himself, all to save his daughter. This actually backfires in you in one of the possible endings: your brutality throughout the game ends up making you so blood-covered and creepy that, when you finally find her, your own daughter is afraid of you and shoots you to defend the Corrupt Corporate Executive that kidnapped her.
• Angry Birds:
  • Do not threaten the eggs of a Bird if you want to remain standing. This advice applies to pigs, their armies, their fortresses and their space fleets.
  • Also, the backstory has Finn as both the Team Dad and as one of these for Leif and his daughter with Raquesis, Nanna. Two of the CG's at the end of the game have him protecting toddler!Leaf and running away with him after the murders of Leif's parents, Finn's master/mentor Quan and his wife Ethlyn, and the fall of their homeland of Leonster.
• Asura's Wrath: Asura was cast down by his fellow gods and sealed away for some 12,000 years. Now that's enough to piss him off, but when he finds out they're using his daughter to amplify their power, it's time to kick some heavenly, planetary-sized ass.
  • And when we mean he goes to kick heavenly ass, we're not talking in hyperbole here. The final battle of the DLC involves fighting God himself. Because that motherfucker made his daughter cry.
• This is the default mentality of the Big Daddies in BioShock for the Little Sisters. They will ignore you if you don't attack them or the Sisters (at the most, they'll shove you away if you get too close), but anybody who does so much as to slap them will face a very pissed off Big Daddy dashing straight at you with his drill (or shooting at you with his rivet gun), and he will not stop until one of you is dead. The sequel will allow the player to be this, since the playable character is the Super Prototype of the Big Daddies.
  • In fact, this is the plot of BioShock 2. Subject Delta storms the entire Rapture trying to find the Little Sister he was first imprinted on, who is Eleanor Lamb, the daughter of Big Bad Sofia Lamb. Inverted in the endgame where, upon donning the Big Sister suit, Eleanor tells you that now's her time to fight for you and gives you a plamid to call her by your side.
  • When you chose to save your adopted Little Sisters, they become very fond of you. When harvesting ADAM they usually don't require much protection, leaving you free to chase after fleeing Splicers to impale them with your drill or give them a blast of the shotgun to the face. But even over the sound of the heaviest fighting, you can easily hear the panicked scream when a Little Sister is in danger. And may God have mercy on whatever Splicer is currently grabbing her arm.
  • In the ARG for the sequel, protagonist Mark Meltzer lets his life fall apart in favor of tracking down a Big Sister who took his daughter Cindy to Rapture. He succeeds in finding Rapture, but is captured by a Big Sister and taken to Lamb, who offers a Sadistic Choice - be executed for trespassing, or become a Big Daddy bonded to Cindy.
    Lamb: Ask yourself, Mr. Meltzer... is it better to be summarily executed as an outsider caught within these grounds, or to be united not just with your daughter Cindy, but with the Rapture Family as well? The choice is yours... I urge you to accept the Protector program. You will live by her side, and remember nothing beyond your love for her.
    Meltzer: ...I wasn't the first to find Rapture, you crazy bitch. And I won't be the last. You do ... whatever you want to me... as long as I'm with Cindy... I'm ... I'm a happy man.
  • In Bioshock Infinite, Booker DeWitt quickly forms a bond with Elizabeth and spends the rest of the game in Papa Wolf mode, fighting tooth and nail to keep her safe. At the end of the game, he discovers that he really is Elizabeth's father, suffering from Laser-Guided Amnesia from being brought through a tear which made him forget giving her up as a baby.
• Breath of Fire III has Rei, the oldest in a trio of orphans that Ryu was a part of. When the group was devastated by Balio and Sunder, Rei... didn't take it very well, thinking that his adoptive family was killed, and that he failed to protect them. Around many years later, he's still in his Unstoppable Rage, targeting the criminal organization that Balio and Sunder were a part of. He only calmed down somewhat when he finds out that Ryu was still alive (in fact, it was Ryu who took care of Balio and Sunder for good). But that doesn't mean it was over; for Rei, anyway.
  I can't stop! Not until I teach those guys not to mess with me...or my family!
• Christopher Belmont of Castlevania: The Adventure & Castlevania II: Belmont's Revenge. Just when he thought he could retire from Vampire Hunting business and leave it to his son Soleiyu... said son suddenly gets possessed by Dracula. "Screw retirement, I want my son back, you son of a bitch."
  • Although it's widely believed that Belmont's Revenge is what happens when Konami learns their mistake from their extreme Nintendo Hard-ness of Adventure, it kinda shows off that when his son is in danger, Christopher DOES NOT lose his whip's power at one measly hit (a problem plaguing Adventure), except by one type of enemy. Papa Wolf to the max indeed.
• In Chaos Rings Omega, Dante is fiercely protective of his daughter Vahti, his newborn grandson Ohm, and his son-in-law Vieg (he's effectively a Parental Substitute to him since Vieg never knew his own parents). He wades through lava to save Vahti and Ohm at one point. As he slowly sinks into the lava he passes the Papa Wolf reins onto Vieg.
• Chest:
  • Tole's father, Yager, is capable of beating up debt collectors while being outnumbered.
  • Zong states that his father, the Lord of the Nether, is even stronger than he is, which is saying a lot considering Zong has all his stats maxed except for luck.
• Cyrus of Dawn of War II is one of the few who refused the power armor of a full space marine to remain a scout and train the initiates. Targeting them is a surefire way to send him on a bloody warpath.
• The nameless father in the Dead Island trailer sees his daughter being chased down the hallway by a group of zombies. He charges out of the room, grabs a nearby fire axe, and with a bellow of rage starts hacking the nearest ones up before tenderly bringing his bitten daughter into the room. Then he fights like a maniac to defend it. Shame they don't make it...
• Chuck Greene of Dead Rising 2 spends the game attempting to raise money for/find Zombrex (Zombie infection suppressant) for his infectee daughter Katey. This means that he'll have to carve his way through a seaload of Zombies to do so. Not only that, but psychopaths with chainsaws? Motorcycles? Guns? Flamethrowers? Dad will not be stopped.
  • What happens to the whacked out asshole mechanic of Case Zero who decides that because Katey's infected she's fair game for zombie hunting.
  • When Chuck learns that Sullivan is the key behind the outbreak, Sullivan gets a nice fatality at the end of the battle as a reward for his actions.
  • In Off The Record, an Updated Re-release of the original Dead Rising 2, Chuck is still a Papa Wolf...albeit a psychopathic one who has gone insane and delusional with grief after losing Katey to the infection. You have to put him down.
• The main character in Dragon Quest V. Okay, so he's not The Chosen One, his son is. Traditionally this means Dad will have to heroically die and the son will grow up tragically an orphan, to be strong enough to beat the Big Bad as an adult. It came close to this, but hell no! The main character and his family band together, and while the Legendary Hero is still only 8 years old, his Dad helps him beat the crap out of the forces of darkness and goes To Hell and Back to beat the King of Evil before it does anything like come to their world.
• EXTRAPOWER: Attack of Darkforce: Toyama, the professional wrestler who joins up in defense of the Earth, is revealed in the ending to not just be Happily Married, but with a doting daughter who greets him upon his return.
• While not playable, the Courier can ally with one during the course of the Fallout: New Vegas Expansion Pack Honest Hearts. Joshua Graham is acting war-chief for the Dead Horses tribe, watching over the Sorrows, an indigenous tribe to Zion, with the help of a fellow New Canaanite, Daniel. He feels very protective regarding all of these people. He is an unquestionable One-Man Army Made of Iron and in this case, Good Is Not Nice. If the player implies he's going to rough up Daniel to speed up the process of finding a way out of Zion...
  Joshua Graham: "If you harm Daniel or any of the Sorrows or Dead Horses, I will find you. Make no mistake. God willing, you will not leave this valley."
• One of the most touching examples is Barret Wallace of Final Fantasy VII, towards his adoptive daughter Marlene. Four years before FFVII began, Corel Village had a Mako Reactor installed to the north despite the protests of the local leader, Dyne. A few days later, the reactor had an accident (and was cleaned up enough so that it seemed normal by the time the game rolls around), but it was reason enough for Scarlet to burn the village to the ground. Out of the survivors are Dyne, his good friend Barrett Wallace, and Dyne's daughter Marlene, who was adopted by the latter. With Dyne presumed KIA, Barrett adopted the infant Marlene and raised her as if she was his own daughter. Had Dyne not crossed the Despair Event Horizon and spent those years either in a psychotic state or festering in Corel Prison, he would be the one exhibiting Papa Wolf tendencies instead. In his last words, Dyne asks Barrett to keep taking care of Marlene before he he either jumps to his death or lets himself die.
  • Continuing the trend of black male playable characters being papa wolves is Sazh Katzroy from the thirteenth numerical title in the series.
  • Advent Children: Once Cloud decides to earn his forgiveness (and gets over the idea that anything he does to help will be too late, not enough, or both), he shows definite signs of this trope. He uses his sword as a boomerang to take out the shadow creepers attacking Denzel while chopping through buildings to rescue Tifa from being crushed. And all he has to say about it is "Sorry I'm late." I'd call it a Moment of Awesome if it wasn't immediately followed by the fight against Bahamut SIN and the entire team tossing Cloud ''through a Mega Flare'' at Bahamut.
• Final Fantasy VIII: Laguna spends much of his life doing anything he can to find Ellone. And he doesn’t even know about his biological son, Squall.
• Final Fight: Mike Haggar, who piledrove all the goons of the city he was the mayor of after they kidnapped his daughter Jessica to blackmail him.
• Fire Emblem:
  • Hector of Ostia is portrayed as a potential Action Dad in his B support with Eliwood in Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade, where he tells his best friend about a prophetic dream involving his still unborn daughter and, as he mentions a redheaded boy who takes her away in the dream, he isn't very pleased to have his "little girl" courted by the other kid. Too bad Hector didn't get to be a proper Papa Wolf for Lilina, since he's killed off early in Binding Blade. His Last Words are a plea for Roy, Eliwood's son and the "redheaded boy" from the dream, to protect her.
  • However, he does play it straighter in his own route, where woe betide whoever dares harm his friends and crewmates. In fact, when Nino brings Jaffar along after their Heel–Face Turn, Hector openly warns him that he has not forgiven him for killing his spy and friend Leila (also Matthew's girlfriend), and that should the guy ever step out of line, he will kill him with his own hands.
  • The only real reason why Dorcas joined Lyn's group and later Eliwood's is to get enough money for the medical treatment that his Delicate and Sickly wife Nathalie needs.
  • Fire Emblem: Thracia 776 has the Axe Knight Hicks, who refuses to join Leaf's army if you don't rescue the children that have been kidnapped for the child hunts, including his son Maphy. If you do, however, he will join the group without hesitation.
    "Hey, I was waiting for you guys. I heard you saved Maphy, my son. Thanks to you, I was able to hide him in safe place, along with the other children. I'm Hicks, an Axe Knight of Manster. I was thinking it was about time to teach that Raydrick a lesson. I'll fight alongside you."
  • By mid-to-late game, every first-gen male character can (potentially; gender disparity means they can't all be married in a normal playthrough) be this in Fire Emblem: Awakening, and Chrom is guaranteed to be one. It's downplayed a bit here; being survivors from a Bad Future, the kids can usually take care of themselves.
• Averted in The Godfather. Optional sidequests allow you to contract kill the sons of the enemy Dons, but this doesn't make the eventual encounter with them any tougher.
• God of War:
  • At the end of the first God of War, Ares casts Kratos deep into his own mind to revisit the memory of his wife and daughter dying at his own hands. In perhaps his only moment of actual heroism motivated by a desire to protect his family, Kratos staves off the doppelgangers of himself trying to attack his family. Considering he has to hug his family to transfer his own health to them to stop them from dying, and he is fighting dopplegangers with his full strength and, in a few cases, magic, it's a pretty damn good moment of heroism.
  • In the third game, he develops this sense towards Pandora because she reminds him of his own daughter. Hephaestus as well, who tries (and fails) to kill Kratos to protect Pandora, who Kratos later states was doing what any father should: protecting his child.
  • The fourth game has Kratos raising a boy named Atreus, and he is just as viciously protective of his Norse family as he wanted to be with his Greek family. Anyone who threatens Atreus on his watch will draw out the Spartan within him, and you don't want that.
• In Golden Sun: Dark Dawn, Briggs the pirate goes from a cowardly Badass Normal to trying to storm Belinsk, the most fortified city on Angara, singlehandedly, in a run-down ship, when his son is captured and sentenced to death. Twice. Amiti, who hates pirates, is impressed, and the beastfolk of Belinsk themselves compare Briggs's viciousness favorably to their own. The Grave Eclipse happens while you're still getting Eoleo out of Death Row, and Briggs stays in the harbor and fights off the Eclipse-empowered monsters until you get there, sustaining lethal wounds in the process.
• Eli Vance from Half-Life 2. He manages to overcome a Combine Advisor's telekinesis to bash its face in with a pipe to try to save his daughter.
• Purposely invoked in Heavy Rain, where The Origami Killer/Scott Shelby's purpose was to find a father who will do anything to save his son.
  • Play properly and he does. You can do it, Ethan Mars!
• Terra in Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep, as befitting his Team Dad nature, will do anything to protect his son/younger brother figure, Ventus, and will not hesitate to attack any who threaten to harm or kill Ven. Even their master, Eraqus.
• The Legend of Zelda:
  • Link in The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. Even before he was turned into a literal wolf, he was incredibly defensive of Ilia and the kids of Ordon. The Bulbins should be thanking their lucky stars that he wasn't armed at the spring. (He got his revenge anyway when he massacred their entire camp at Arbiter's Grounds about halfway through the game, though.) He also is shown, especially toward the end, to be incredibly protective of Princess Zelda and Midna. When the Bulbin warlord uses Colin as a war flag, Link crashes through the Bulbin cavalry, beats the warlord out of his armor, and then throws him off a bridge.
    • Rusl, from the same game, is like this too. About his own son Colin; about the other children in the village (their abduction gets him into the war as well as Link); and about Link himself, who Word of God states he regards as his younger brother.
  • Teba in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is a Rito archer who planned to fly up and attack Divine Beast Vah Medoh all by himself to protect his wife Saki, his son Tulin, and the rest of his village, only letting Link help him out after seeing how good of an archer the latter was. He also plans to train Tulin to be an archer.
• Like a Dragon: Kazuma Kiryu may be a former yakuza member, but he's usually a pretty nice and helpful guy. But if you mess with his adoptive daughter Haruka or the orphans he's taking care of... oh boy, you're in for a world of pain. In fact, he's kinda protective of every kid he meets.
• The Mass Effect series provides several of them.
  • In a Spacer background, Shepard's father served in the Alliance military.
  • The male Commander Shepard is potentially this depending on how he's played. If played straight, threatening his crew is about the biggest mistake you could make. Notably, he lays a massive verbal smackdown on the Quarian Admiralty board for accusing Tali of treason in the second game, screaming at them until they drop the charges. Afterwards this even appears to have gained their respect, since they honestly didn't think that Shepard would prove to be that good an advocate for Tali.
  • Urdnot Wrex, if he survives the first game, eventually becomes this for his entire species.
  • Liara's father turns out to be one in the third game. Aside from threatening Shepard that s/he wouldn't get a lightyear of her daughter (yes, that's the correct pronoun) if s/he were still with Cerberus, the following exchange can be overheard between her and Liara.
  Aethyta: Hey... um, I've called a few friends... commandoes. Eclipse girls who, um, owe me some favors. They're all yours. Just... tell 'em where to go.
  Liara: You're giving me... asari commandoes...?
  Aethyta: Well, you're too old for me to buy you a damn pony!
  Liara: ...you're the best father a girl could wish for.
  • Andromeda gives us Alec Ryder, an N7 soldier and the father of Scott and Sarah. He and his children actually get assigned to a Pathfinder mission.
  • Scott Ryder can be one, if players agree to have a child with Gil.
• In Mortal Kombat X, Johnny Cage and Jax Briggs are fathers to Cassie Cage and Jacqui Briggs respectively. Jax is motivated to return to action partly to keep Jacqui safe.
• Flint in Mother 3 is a deconstruction of this trope. He starts out as a loving husband and father to his wife Hinawa and his twin sons Lucas and Claus. Then Hinawa is killed and Claus goes off to avenge her and disappears; torn apart by the death of his wife and disappearance of his son Flint spends most of the time out searching for Claus neglecting his only surviving child Lucas.
• The protagonist of NieR Gestalt is a man determined to go to any lengths to find a cure for the painful disease afflicting his daughter Yonah. He also displays similar tendencies towards the group he makes his True Companions.
  Nier:You want me to understand your sadness? You think I'm gonna sympathize with you? I swore to protect my daughter and my friends. If someone puts them in danger, they must stand aside or be cut down! Come on, let's go!
• In Nitro Family, mom and dad go on a killing spree to return their little child.
• The Orion Conspiracy presents Devlin McCormack. His son Danny died at the beginning of the game, and Devlin attends the funeral expressing his regret for not being a good father. Shortly afterwards, he receives a note revealing that Danny's death is not an accident, but a murder. At that moment, Devlin turns into this trope, vowing to find out who killed Danny and kill the murderer.
• Ichiro Tamura a.k.a Salary Man in Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan. Usually comes off as an ordinary office man who is reviled even by his own family, but... the moment he sees his daughter getting threatened by a giant blue rat, he goes "HENSHIN!", turns gigantic and starts kicking the rat's ass.
• Persona 5 Strikers introduces Zenkichi Hasegawa, and his daughter Akane. He's the first parent in the entire Shin Megami Tensei series or Persona spinoff series to become a front-line Persona user and party member. His daughter is also the reason he awakened Valjean in the first place.
• Olimar is a loving father of two in Pikmin... He also can either throw his soldiers at or beat the everloving crap out of any creature that stands in his way of getting home.
• Professor Layton is an Actual Pacifist, a Gentleman and a Scholar, and an all-around nice person who would rather settle problems over a cup of Earl Grey and a Stock Puzzle. But as Unwound Future clearly shows us, villains who are stupid enough to kidnap his adopted daughter will find themselves pursued by a relentless Determinator who has no problem violating the laws of physics if that's what it takes to get her back.
• [PROTOTYPE 2] starts off with a pretty bleak setting: The wife and daughter of Ex-Marine James Heller has been killed by the Mercer virus. The prologue shows just how much Heller is willing to go through to, just to get a stab at the source behind it. Give him god-like powers, and there is no end to his destructive rampage.
  • Later on, Heller learns that His daughter may actually be alive, his rage simmers down for a while, then he learns that blackwatch scientists plan on dissecting her to learn why Heller's gene line is so resistant to the virus. Cue Heller getting so pissed off he decides screw subtelty and goes off to devour Colonel Rooks to learn where she is, the only thing that keeps him from become the same thing Alex is is overhearing a phone call between Rooks and his wife about his own daughter.
• In the last part of Psychonauts, Raz's father Augustus enters the combined minds of Raz and the Big Bad and helps him defeat the final boss, despite Raz's earlier belief that Augustus hated him.
• Harry Mason from Silent Hill. Generally, he's a Non-Action Guy (he has to be shown how to use a gun by Action Girl cop Cybil) but when his little girl, short, with black hair, just turned seven last month is in danger, he'll go To Hell and Back, blunder through a Town with a Dark Secret, and kill an Eldritch Abomination to save her.
  • Silent Hill 3 further reveals that Harry killed a cultist that came after his beloved daughter.
  • Murphy Pendleton of Silent Hill: Downpour is a deconstruction. His son was murdered, and seeking revenge has only made things worse. He's in prison, his wife has left him due to very understandable reasons, and the deal he made with Sewell has him having to kill Coleridge. Even if Murphy doesn't kill him, Coleridge's death will still haunt him.
• In Sly Cooper, the title character's father was an international thief who still found the time to give his son (grammatically incorrect) words of wisdom, and enough love that Sly remembers him fondly years after his death.
  • Since the Cooper Clan is a lineage of master thieves, every male member with a direct heir can be counted as one.
  • One scene in the second game implies that Sly wants to have children someday.
• Sonic the Hedgehog: Depending on what medium you're looking at, threatening any harm to Tails, the closest thing to a little brother Sonic has, will show you even something as silly looking as a blue hedgehog will make you cry.
  • Chaos from Sonic Adventure. You dare hurt any Chao he protects and he will show you why he is called the God of Destruction.
• In the Soul Nomad & the World Eaters backstory: Losing his son to Scarlet Iago made Median very pliable to manipulation by Drazil and ended with him slaying Vigiliance, the master of death of his world, to get revenge for his son.
• In the Soul Series, the best way to bring Nathaniel "Rock" Adams into action is to kidnap or threaten his adoptive son Bangoo.
• As revealed in the game's final cutscene, your protagonist from Spinal Breakers has a wife and daughter. Which makes your attempts at fighting the Hildroids in various stages set in the past and present to prevent them from rewriting history more reasonable - you're trying to prevent them from causing your family to suffer a Ret-Gone, after all.
• Splinter Cell's Sam Fisher. When he learns that his daughter, Sara, isn't actually dead and was removed from him to send him undercover into a terrorist organization, he goes batshit insane. He no longer chokes people unconscious, preferring to leave a trail of bodies behind him, and the black humor and psychological mindgames he used to use in his interrogations is now gone; he prefers the Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique.
• In Street Fighter X Tekken, Sagat is pissed off when a young boy from a Thai village tells him that his little sister, a girl that Sagat once rescued, has disappeared again. Then, Dhalsim appears in front of him and tells him that several children from his village have also vanished. The two fighters go into full Papa Wolf mode, so they decide to team up to both rescue the abducted children and go to the Antartica, where the Pandora box is located.
  Sagat: "The disregard for the innocent has incurred the wrath of the King! That will NOT be forgiven!"
• Similarly, Ryu has a big Papa Wolf moment towards Sakura in Street Fighter Alpha 3, where Sakura pulling a Go Through Me to protect him from Bison and being injured as a result is one of the triggers that let him shake off Bison's Psycho Power-based brainwashing. When this happens, an absolutely pissed off Ryu goes to Bison and one-shots him.
  • Ken has a son while Guile has a daughter.
• The Engineer from Team Fortress 2 (related to his Sentries). His voice sounds more distressed when a Sentry is destroyed than any other building. If the Engineer is using a Frontier Justice, he gets two Revenge Crits for every time the Sentry got a kill and one for every assist kill. He also says "Start prayin', boy!" when that happens.
• Tekken: Mishima family Jinpachi, Heihachi and Kazuya but their fights against each other. Marshall Law also has a son Forrest is a playable character in Tekken 3 and Tekken Tag Tournament series.
• Them's Fightin' Herds: Arizona and Velvet's respective fathers, Texas and Stronghoof, are established fighters themselves. The latter two join the roster as the first two Season Pass characters and it's clear they are just as competent.
• A lot of fathers in the Trails Series kick even more ass than their children. Examples include Cassius Bright, Arios MacLaine, Sigmund Orlando, Victor S. Arseid, Rutger Claussell, and Giliath Osborne.
• Lee Everett and Kenny from The Walking Dead (Telltale) towards Clementine and Kenny Jr./Duck, respectively. Kenny will just barely hesitate to kick your ass if you threaten his son, he actually beat a guy to death when said guy grabbed Duck, though it was never made clear whether the man was or was not a zombie. While Lee's actions depends on the player, it is safe to assume that on default he would be a nice guy and ready to beat the shit out of anyone for even thinking of hurting Clem.

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