Calling The Old Man Out / Video Games

• Jude in Agarest Senki 2 does this to his father Jainus calling him on his Chronic Hero Syndrome when he offers to help Yumil. While Jude says he has no problem helping Yumil, he tells his dad that they can't go risking their necks for a job (they're mercenaries) that either doesn't pay or pays little as they are working to support Chloe (Jainus' wife) and can't afford to play hero.
• Not necessarily calling the Old Man out, but the Old Woman. In BioShock 2, Eleanor Lamb is being turned into a one-person hive mind by her mother, and is terrified of what she sees as a plot as mad as Andrew Ryan's. With her "Father"'s help (IE: You, her former Big Daddy), she frees herself. The kind of person she becomes depends largely on your moral choices concerning Little Sister disposal and a few Kill/Spare choices along the way.
• In Borderlands 2, Angel has spent her entire life as essentially a slave to her father, Handsome Jack. At the end of her final mission, where she has the player destroy her life support system so she can die her final act is to call him "an asshole." Since her father apparently kept constantly chiding her for using "bad language", and ordered the death penalty for anyone else who used profanity, this is one of the deeper insults she could offer him.
• In Chrono Trigger, if he's present, Magus tells Queen Zeal how pathetic she really is, and that killing her would be the merciful thing to do. She doesn't know he's her son, though. To emphasize how personal the battle is for him, the boss music is replaced by Magus' battle theme.
• Dragon Age:
  • Dragon Age: Inquisition:
    • Dorian's entire personal quest revolves around confronting his father for trying to change his sexuality with blood magic, in order to better fit with the Tevinter idea of perfection. It's up to the player if Dorian leaves it at that after his callout, or if he decides to try and reconcile with his father. This quest is a complete tearjerker and nightmare fuel in a way that Dorian reveals to the Inquisitor (and to the player) that his father who always espoused against using blood magic ends up using it and considers his son being reduced to a vegatable rather than being himself as a worthy risk to take:
      Halward: I only wanted what was best for you!
      Dorian: You wanted the best for you! For your fucking legacy! Anything for that.
    • Morrigan of all people dishes one out, provided that you imported a world state where Kierran has the Old God Soul. When Flemeth leads Kierran into the Fade, Morrigan is more fearful and desperate than at any other point in the series, but that doesn't stop her from trying to defend herself and her son or calling her mother out on her horrible parenting and body-snatching tendencies. The player gets to see that she truly does care about her son, beyond whatever ambiguous power he is said to have. And for the first time too, the player will see Flemeth visibly being taken aback by Morrigan's words.
      Morrigan: I am many things, but I will not be the mother you were to me. / Take over my body now if you must. Just let Kierran go. He will be better off without me... just I was better off without you.
• Dragon Quest:
  • In Dragon Quest VII, Winged Humanoid Pendragon gets called out by his elderly mother on behalf of his adopted daughter, Firia. She isn't adopted, mind - she was just born without wings, and he pretended she was just an abandoned orphan because he was too scared to admit his 'flesh and blood was flawed'. This included standing by while his other daughter treated Firia like a slave, and while the other kids in Gorges mocked and abused her — at one point their 'pranks' almost cause her to fall to her death.
  • Inverted in Dragon Quest VIII by King Clavius and Prince Charmles. Having given his son every opportunity to grow into a good heir, only to watch the Entitled Bastard screw the rules, he finally calls him out by publicly revealing he knew all along that Charmles had bought his Argon Heart instead of finishing his Rite of Passage, and had kept silent as a Secret Test of Character and declaring he had proven himself incapable of serving as heir.
• Lady in Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening calls out her father Arkham multiple times for being a complete monster who killed her mother to gain power, Arkham believes she doesn't have the strength to kill her "dear papa" and even emotionally manipulates her into attacking Vergil by making it seem like he was brainwashed. At the end Arkham during his Villainous Breakdown pitifully tries to justify his actions to his daughter, who in response shoots him in the head though she does burst into tears shortly after.
• Nero in the final mission of Devil May Cry 5 gloriously gets to call out both his uncle and father Dante and Vergil, for pointlessly trying to kill each other, saying he’ll forcefully put an end to their Sibling Rivalry once and for all. Dante concedes to his nephew’s wishes (after getting an Offhand Backhand) but Vergil, being Vergil, is just annoyed at his son interrupting their Duel to the Death and only begrudgingly gives in once Nero kicks his ass. During said asskicking, Nero also takes the time to rightfully call out Vergil for being a callous bastard.
  Nero: Feeling accepting yet?
  Vergil: Of your existence, or your strength?
  Nero: Both, you fucking asshole!
• In the Dawnguard DLC for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Serana calls out both of her parents for treating her as a pawn rather than a daughter. She is actually more vicious towards her mother Valerica because she had already given up on her father, the evil Lord Harkon, a long time ago. If the player has been supportive towards Serana in dialogue and kept her as a Follower for a long time, she will mention that the Dragonborn has done more for her in the short time they've known each other than her mother has done in the last few millennia. Later she'll comment that her mother was, in a way, just as bad as her father. Valerica, to her credit, is sane enough to apologize to Serana and admit her mistakes. Lord Harkon is too far gone to care.
• Fallout 3:
  • You have exactly one chance to do this after rescuing your father from Tranquility Lane, but it changes nothing. This is chiefly due to the small range of dialogue options that would allow you to truly Call The Old Man Out. You're never able to mention that his leaving created too much turmoil and danger for you to remain in Vault 101 as he intended and the option that comes closest requires you to have performed one of the game's more evil acts (blowing up Megaton), which allows your father to maintain the moral high ground. Similarly, you're unable to explain to Doctor Li why you left the Vault against James' wishes, except with a childish "I do what I want" kind of answer.
  • You can do this when talking to Sentinel Cross. She calls you an Ungrateful Bastard and is so offended she will not be your companion.
• Final Fantasy:
  • The father and son of Final Fantasy X set up a Calling The Old Man Out throughout the entire game (case in point: in a Flashback where a young Tidus doesn't show any grief for his missing father and wishes that he'll never come back, his mother asks him if he won't wish for his return so that he can tell him how much he hates him). Near the end of the game they subvert it when Tidus, who has sympathized too much with his father to resent him anymore, tries to call out Jecht despite the tears from his eyes and the knot in his throat. He's barely able to say that he hates Jecht, but does choke it out, only to immediately follow it up by saying that he doesn't mean it, but doesn't know what else to feel. To his credit, Jecht had already acknowledged what a horrible father he had been, and that Tidus was justified in his hate.
    • Dissidia Final Fantasy changes their dynamic a bit; Jecht is more or less something of a Posthumous Character (kind of, it's complicated) in Final Fantasy X, but in Dissidia, he's fully alive and his normal self. Tidus's showdown with Jecht has Jecht initially beating the tar out of Tidus, only for Tidus to recover and yell, "There's no tomorrow for me until I beat you today!" Before the fight, he did get the chance to call him a "no good, self-centered old bastard." And his antagonistic relationship with his father is never actually explained in Dissidia, beyond the need to settle things with Jecht. It's unclear if it's a case of hatred and loathing or anger at living in the old man's shadow and disgust at his father's being manipulated.
  • Balthier tries to call out his father in Final Fantasy XII, but Cid just ignores it.
    "How could you do this? How could you fall so far?"
• This pops up several times in the Fire Emblem series:
  • Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War:
    • First Generation: Lex calls out his father, Langobalt, if you make them fight.
    • Second Generation: If Levin is the father of Phee and Sety, they call him out for abandoning their mother Ferry. If Nanna's father is Fin, she will also call him out on letting her mother Lachesis leave Lester and try crossing for the Yied Desert in search of her eldest son Delmud. And last, Altena calls out her adoptive father Travant and mixes it with You Killed My Parents.
  • Fire Emblem: Thracia 776: Averted, as Mareeta isn't upset with her father Galzus, and in fact, she's overjoyed to see him and manages to recruit him for the group. Justified as Galzus had saved her life before and tried to hide it, but she could see through him anyway.
  • In Fire Emblem: Awakening, Severa didn't take kindly to how her mother Cordelia held an Undying Loyalty to Prince Chrom, the guy whom she once held an Unrequited Love for. At some point, she was both so upset at what she saw as a borderline betrayal to her dad (whoever he is) and so scared about Cordelia possibly dying in the war, that she yelled at her mother for it. The result? Cordelia went out to fight, died in battle and never returned home, and Severa was totally traumatized by it. When Severa returns to the past with her friends and she's recruited by the Shepherds, she again questions Cordelia and her thoughts on Chrom... but this time it's more of a desperate facade where she pretends to be a jerk, as she's very aware that this Cordelia isn't the same mother she lost (Timey-Wimey Ball and all) and doesn't want to emotionally connect to her only to probably lose her again.
  • In Fire Emblem Fates, some of the kids end up doing this to their parents.
    • The main one is the Avatar towards his/her supposed father, King Garon. At the end of Birthright, the Avatar confronts Garon over his crimes, particularly causing the deaths of the Avatar's mother, Queen Mikoto. The Avatar is especially furious that Garon doesn't care that Elise and Xander just died and in the ensuing battle, ends up killing Garon.
    • Shiro disappears from his Deeprealm to seek out answers about himself in the real world, thus forcing his father Ryoma and the rest of the army to save him from some thugs. Ryoma lectures Shiro for his reckless behavior, but when he protests that he didn't raise him to be so irresponsible, Shiro turns it back on him and criticizes Ryoma for how much he kept from him.
      Shiro: Dad, want a reality check? You didn't raise me at all.
    • When Saizo finds his son Asugi, he's not happy about his son casting aside the family name and working with thieves. Asugi, however, calls Saizo out on caring more for the Saizo family name than for raising his son.
    • Nina, Niles' daughter, is quick to criticize her father for not doing more to raise her, and that she thinks Niles criticizing her thieving for justice despite having been a thief himself when he was younger is incredibly hypocritical. As a result, they have one of the more strained parent-child relationships in the game.
    • Leo's son Forrest is upset enough with his father's harsh attitude toward Forrest's crossdressing that he storms off, and is still a bit bitter toward him for some time afterward. In the Japanese localization, he’s far more meek and apologetic, but in English he tears in to his father throughout his paralogue, outright saying Leo isn’t worthy of him.
  • In Fire Emblem: Three Houses, if you complete Felix's prologue, he will chastise his father Rodrigue for putting his obligations to the late King Lambert over those of the people of his kingdom, and for saying that Felix's older brother Glenn (who, like Lambert, was killed in the Tragedy of Duscur) died a hero's death. While Rodrigue takes issue with Felix's tone, he soon admits that Felix may not be entirely wrong about his beliefs.
• At the beginning of the mission "Reuniting the Family" in Grand Theft Auto V, Jimmy goes on a rant saying he's tired of Michael's shortcomings and refusal to acknowledge them, wrapping it up by saying that he misses him. Interestingly, Michael doesn't argue with him.
  Jimmy: You are just a lame and angry psycho sometimes. You do bad shit and things, and I don't know if I love you and I'm pretty sure I hate you a little bit, but I'm just so fucking upset that we can't even see each other. You're just a drunk, lame dad.
  Michael: You know what? That just might be the nicest thing anybody's ever said to me.
• Two of the "messenger quests" on Knights of the Old Republic have this trope, and a third has an arguable variant on it. The most literal one is Carth's seems the son he thought dead has actually joined the Sith. Cue one awkward moment in the Korriban academy with two hot-headed Onasis. Bastila's is a female version her terminally-ill and rather ill-tempered mother on Tatooine needs help retrieving a data holocron made by Bastila's late father. The arguable one is Mission's, as her deadbeat brother was the one who more or less raised her. She finds out it was his idea to abandon her at the age of twelve. Cue a lot of players wanting to kick the guy's blue butt into orbit!
• Raziel from Legacy of Kain has this trope as one of his primary motivations throughout Soul Reaver, the first half of Soul Reaver 2, and continues as a lingering issue right up until the end of Defiance in regards to Kain, his vampiric "father".
• In Mass Effect 2, Jacob's personal mission has him learning that after being promoted to acting captain and crash landing on a planet where the local flora leads to mental decay, his father eventually set up a Lord of the Flies-esque "paradise" for himself, killed off his fellow officers, made the women his personal harem and sabotaged attempts at outside contact. Jacob for his part is absolutely disgusted, no longer accepting the man before him as his father and depending on what Shepard recommends him will either have him arrested by the Alliance, leave him to the survivors, or force him to commit suicide.
• Matryonas Last Night provides a fatal example of this. Before he kills them, Matryona calls out both of his parents for forcing him to act like a girl since birth and throwing him away once they get the daughter they always wanted. He decided to save his mother for last because she was the primary source of his rage and misery.
• In the last chapter of Max Payne 2:, checking Senator Woden's phone messages will reveal a recent one where Vlad, who saw Woden as a father figure, rants about having never received a word of thanks from him. This is a rather extreme example of the trope, as Vlad was planning to kill Woden. Vlad is also pretty egotistical about it. "Would it have killed you to say 'thank you' for once in your life? 'Vlad, my son—can I call you my son, because I sure do love you like one. Vlad, my son, you are a true prodigy. Everything you touch turns to gold!'"
• Odin Sphere:
  • Oswald does this to Odin at the end of the first episode.
  • Velvet and Ingway had a few moments of chewing out their illegitimate daddy Odin as well, although they went about it in entirely different ways: Velvet outright rejected him; Ingway whipped up an army of Netherworld denizens, learned a secret transformation, and then stormed his kingdom and tried to kill him.
  • Cornelius has a moment like this with his dad: After one royal blunder too many, King Edmund tries to abdicate the throne and give the crown to his son. Cornelius tells him that he can't - the people will never accept a cursed Pooka as their king - and while Edmund never deserved the crown in the first place, now is the time for him to stop being a coward and act like a true ruler.
• The penultimate mission in Oni is something like this: Konoko raids the TCTF headquarters in an attempt to call out Griffin (her nearest thing to a father figure, save her dead uncle, after years of systematically lying to her and using her, and ultimately trying to have her killed. Once he is cornered, the player is given a choice: you can kill Griffin or let him live. If you choose the latter option, the final boss is much easier as a consequence, and Griffin redeems himself at the very end.
• In Persona 2: Innocent Sin (and seen in a flashback in Eternal Punishment), you discover that Philemon helped orchestrate the events of the series up to this point to test whether he or Nyarlathotep was truly the more powerful aspect of humanity. Events that involved creating an ill girl, the deaths of numerous people — both innocent and not-so-innocent — and an Earth-Shattering Kaboom before he offered the opportunity to perform a Cosmic Retcon that made that an alternate timeline. The game gives you the option of punching him for what he's helped put everyone through.
• In Persona 4, Ryutaro Dojima gets this at a few points from his daughter Nanako, and the Player Character (his nephew).
  • Midway through Nanako's Social Link, she has to give her father a form for when he can come in for parent-teacher meetings. Noticing that Dojima is too busy to take a serious look at the sheet, Nanako accuses him of caring more about hunting down bad guys than for spending time with his family, says he's not her "real" dad and runs off to the Samegawa Flood Plain, where she used to go with her parents while her mother was alive. Dojima searches for her, and after finding her, lets the protagonist talk to her and convince her to come home.
  • Near the end of Dojima's Social Link, you, as the Player Character and provided your courage parameters are high enough, have a dialogue option to call him a coward for his inability to interact with Nanako, following her mother's death. He calls you a punk for doing so but nonetheless agrees with you.
• In Persona 5 Strikers, Zenkichi, like Dojima before him, has a strained relationship with his daughter Akane. Akane, who's more outspoken and moody than Nanako, is a lot more forthcoming when calling Zenkichi out on not being there for her, especially when he's late for the annual visit to Akane's mother's grave. Akane's Shadow accuses Zenkichi of knowing who was responsible for her mother's death and not acting on the information, (since she doesn't realize that he abandoned the investigation to protect her) and is furious that he didn't try to get justice for the innocent man who was made into a scapegoat for the real killer.
• Silver essentially does this in Pokemon Heart Gold And Soul Silver, in the Celebi time travel scene. It's not quite as obvious he's Giovanni's son in the English version as in the original Japanese, but the trope is still in evidence.
• Lillie to her and Gladion's mother, Lusamine late in Pokémon Sun and Moon, laying out every horrible thing the character in question has done.
• In Red Dead Redemption II Arthur isn't afraid to call out Dutch, mostly because of the years he's spent with the gang and how well he knows him. Even late in the game he calls out Dutch for getting the gang in trouble (I.e killing Leviticus Cornwall, an important and wealthy industrialist)
• In Resident Evil 2 (Remake) Claire does this on behalf of Sherry (who is too docile to complain herself) calling out her mother Annette for her disregard towards her daughter’s life. Seen when Sherry gets infected and Annette watching from a security camera initially writes her off as dead, Claire enraged scolds “Are you fucking kidding me? You’re her mother. Get in here.” Annette does ultimately redeem herself curing Sherry and apologizing for being a terrible mother before succumbing to her injuries and dying.
• Struggling: Troy's speech to the scientists who created them at the Galaxy Brain Summit is a variation of this, calling out the pain and suffering that their audience's prior actions ended up leading to. Hopefully, the standing ovation they received in a response implies that they took it to heart and will be more careful and responsible in the future.
• In Tales of Symphonia there's an example that teeters right on the level of Narm Charm. You'd think Lloyd would want to call Kratos out for not admitting he was Lloyd's father, or for betraying Lloyd to Cruxius, or any number of things. But no, Lloyd's tirade of choice is after the Duel Boss encounter, when he lectures Kratos for being a Death Seeker.
  Lloyd: What will you accomplish by dying? Nothing! There is no meaning in dying!
  Kratos: You're... right... to think, I had to have my son teach me such an obvious lesson...
• Tekken:
  • Kazuya Mishima, after being thrown to a ravine by his father Heihachi, when at the tender age of 5 nonetheless, made a Deal with the Devil to get back up, build up his strength, topple his father, and then throw him back to the same ravine he was thrown.
    Kazuya: Should've found a steeper cliff.
  • There's also his son, Jin Kazama, to both of his father and paternal grandfather.
• Krista Sparks has this in her Twisted Metal: Head-On ending to her father, Calypso.
  Krista: What's the problem? You didn't want to help me! You just want another contestant to kill all those innocent people! You destroy everything and run around like you own the world!
  • The tragic irony is that he did want to help her more than anything, but is unable to do anything unless someone wishes for it and could only wish if she won the contest. You can clearly see how utterly heartbroken he is by having to put her through this.
• This occurs in Warframe, specifically The War Within. After escaping the Kuva Fortress, the Operator gets into an argument with the Lotus regarding the truth behind Margulis and the Zaramin children.
  Lotus: A mother wants to shield her child from the evils of the world. Margulis didn't lie to you. She protected you.
  Operator: But isn't it better I know the truth? Wouldn't you want to know? Teshin said—
  Lotus: Teshin thinks he knows better. Maybe he does. Maybe you needed to know to survive the Queens. But you are changed now.
  Operator: That's what you have to say? That I'm 'changed'?
  Lotus: What you did, you didn't have a choice. Tenno, you were only just a—
  Operator: Don't. Don't do that. Don't... make excuses for me.

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