Marilyn Sue Dajie of Akatsuki Blitzkampf. If the manual didn't explain too much detail about her past. But in the "Alluring Princess of Murder/Enhanced Assassin Princess" novel; as it expanses to be believed. Marilyn was born to a farmer family in a rural village somewhere at Hebei, China, but unfortunately she was considered a "heihaizi" (aka bastard child) conceived outside from the One-Child Policy, until an Old Farmer adopts her for 100 yuan, and revealing his past history to her and teach her the master arts of Piguaquan. She begins to help his farm work, in order to work out her body, and earns enough money to buy "iron sandbag," filled with iron grains and mung beans to train. Some years later, being left orphan once again after Old Farmer passes away, she abandon her birth name and called herself "Marilyn Sue" to find jobs in the spring in Shanghai for her survival and likely to find a way to honor her adoptive grandfather's wish, she implies for Mizushōbai and it's very profitable. But one fateful night, she was accused of touching customer's money. She nearly killed the customer and the hostess. As she was running soaked and wet in the rain to alleyway, one of the members of Black Hand found and captured her, yet immediately welcomed and respected by its leader, Yin Hu for her lethal tactics, and not out of any sympathy for her.
Baldur's Gate III has nearly all of your party members having not-so-cheery backstories:
Astarion was a thrall of an abusive vampire lord. One benefit of having a mind flayer's brain worm in his head is that it disrupted said lord's control over him, giving him a shot at revenge.
Shadowheart's past is a mystery to her, as having her memories sealed was a part of her mission for a God of Evil. As it turns out, the people who brought her into said god's forces abducted her from her parents.
Gale had everything: command over magic the likes of which cannot be fathomed, and the favor and love of the goddess of magic. Then he got a little too greedy for his own good and fell out of favor with her after getting a Fantastic Nuke put in his chest.
Wyll made a DealWithADevil to get his warlock powers. That's just the beginning of his rabbit hole...
Karlach was Shanghaied into The Legions of Hell by someone she trusted as a child, and had what is essentially a hellfire reactor embedded in her chest as she was forced into an infernal war.
B.ARK: The Dark Tide (an invasion of fish) was hard on everyone, humans and mammals alike. And hidden memories prove just that.
For Barker , he had to leave his owner, Milla, a scientist who worked on a way to save humanity from what was coming.
For Marv, he was living with his colony in Nevada. When the invasion started, robotic crabs chased the rodents down, but Marv escaped by burrowing underground. He nearly got caught by one of them, fortunately he was lucky enough to escape its grasp by falling from a vent that was above the headquarters of B.ARK.
For Lucio, he used to live with a fisherman captain and his son in Italy, which was ironically where the invasion started. Without warning, the Kraken attacked the ship they were on. Lucio survived and barely made it out alive, though it’s unknown what happened to the captain and his son, all that was left was the captains hat, which he would wear to this day.
For Felicity, when the invasion started, she and other stray cats were chased off to Paris where she and other cats were lucky to find owners. She lived with a family that had a goldfish named Bubbles, and they gave her a necklace that glows when close to him and entrusted her to look out for their fish. Unfortunately, the minute she woke up, she found that Bubbles betrayed her and destroyed her necklace, causing her to realize that Goldfish have short memories.
The Wasp King/Hoaxe's backstory in Bug Fables is not a happy one. He was abandoned by his own parents in the Dead Lands as a baby. When he finally found a place he felt like he belonged in the Wasp Kingdom, no one there cared about him. All of a sudden, his obsession with having absolute control over everyone makes a lot more sense.
Ayane of Dead or Alive fame is a Child by Rape between the Mugen Tenshin matriarch and the outlaw ninja Raidou (the Mugen Tenshin patriarch's brother). Because she was considered a cursed child, she was shunned by everyone in the clan, except for Kasumi and Hayate, who later turn out to be her half-sibling. This upbringing has shaped her into a cold, ruthless assassin with a burning hatred for her older sister Kasumi.
Dante and Vergil grew up separately after their mother Eva died when Mundus led a demon attack on their household, while their father Sparda disappeared and died from unrevealed circumstances. In Devil May Cry 5 and its supplementary material, this incident is discussed and revisited in a flashback; Eva died before she could find Vergil, which caused the latter to believe that he was abandoned. On the other hand, Dante believed that his brother died, and he took on an alias to start a new life.
As mentioned in Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening, Lady has a supreme asshole of a father who murdered her mother and used her in a horrible plan to open the Hell Gate that Sparda closed.
In DmC: Devil May Cry, Dante's life has gone to hell after Mundus killed his mother. He became a delinquent growing up, who killed the abusive head of the orphanage he was taken into since she was a demon. He also broke out of prison several times and got into multiple confrontations with the police.
Disgaea: Hour of Darkness: Etna had a pretty crappy childhood even by series standards. She grew up as a lone orphan and was picked on mercilessly by other demons, and the only reason she was able to survive was that the Overlord was kind enough to take her in. Things don't get any better with what we learn about her past in Disgaea D2: The rest of her family were killed for rebelling against the Overlord and she was born with a magical disease where she generates so much magic energy it's killing her, and her life was only saved by her brother embedding in himself an Artifact of Doom that drains magic not just from her, but from the Netherworld itself, and it's the reason why he wasn't there for her back then.
Dyztopia: Post-Human RPG: Akari was a Smog whose father forced her to go through an abusive training regimen to become a submissive slave, all to prepare herself for the day she was about to be sold. Right when that day was about to happen, she threw herself into the fireplace to ruin her own face and make herself unsellable. Then Capricorn showed up and ate her father, and the two synced. Akari then decided to take her rage out on the rest of the world by helping Zazz turn Zeta into a hellhole, and she expects the revived humans to make the world even worse.
Markov saw the population of his colony killed by corporate mercenaries mere days after they made a discovery that would have ensured their prosperity.
Maggie's entire homeworld was razed and the inhabitants slaughtered by monsters, leaving her trapped on a burned-out husk of a world for years before she managed to escape.
Abe was a petty thief before stealing a ship and killing an innocent man in cold blood, an act that still haunts him.
Torvald lost his ship, his crew, and most of his body when a monster broke free from containment, leaving him a ruined man in a ghost ship floating through space.
Slim served in the Third Basilisk Rebellion, which resulted in him being mutated into a human-insect hybrid, the deaths of all his friends, and enough traumatic experiences that he's repressed every memory from before the end of the war, up to and including his own name.
Fallout 4: very few of your companions' pasts are exactly rosy, but Cait's life has been a living hell from the word "Go". She was raised by Abusive Parents before being sold off to slavers at the age of eighteen, enduring horrors under her owners for five years until she managed to scrounge up the money to buy her freedom, after which she got her revenge and murdered her parents. Her memories of her twenty-three years of abuse and torture drives her to drink and abuse Psycho to help her forget, as well as fighting in raider-infested arenas, in the hopes that if she isn't killed in combat, the drugs would do it for her.
Five Nights at Freddy's has this for the Suck E. Cheese's you work at, revealed both through voice-mails from the phone guy and newspaper clippings visible through the security cameras. A serial murderer had put on a Freddy Fazbear costume and lured children into the back of the establishment. He was eventually brought to justice, but the children were never found. Soon, patrons started to complain about the animatronics smelling foul and appearing to leak blood and mucus around the eyes and mouth. This, combined with the "Bite of '87" where a kid lost his frontal lobe, has caused the establishment to fall on hard times financially, forcing it to close down at year's end. To make matters worse, it's hinted in the third game that the murderer actually didn't get brought to justice, forcing the ghosts of the crying children to take matters into their own hands.
Then there's the protagonist of Five Nights at Freddy's 4. He has to deal with a brother who constantly antagonizes and bullies him, parents that at best fall under the Parental Neglect trope, and he's constantly dragged to a place full of animatronics that terrify him. Then the nightmares about said animatronics begin. To cap it all off, he's not the Bite of '87 victim but the Bite of '83
Five Nights at Freddy's: Sister Location has Eggs Benedict. It turns out he's actually Michael Afton, the son of William Afton/Springtrap (the actual murderer). Likewise, his sister was killed by Baby, and it's heavily implied that he's either The Child from FNAF 4 (who somehow survived) or The Brother.
The "Golden Freddy" cutscene takes this even further. Michael have to deal with his father, murderous Animatronics, and being cursed with immortality after barfing out Ennard. To say he's been through a lot would be a huge understatement.
The green tiger laguzMuarim of Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn was a slave in the beorc (human) nation of Begnion for some time, and had an apparently cruel master. In his supports with fellow laguz Lethe, Muarim recounts that his master would beat him if he did not have the materials with which to clean his master's weapons. It seems to have affected him psychologically, as he tells Lethe that he still has trouble thinking of himself as an equal to beorc, and feels anxious whenever he does not have the materials his master once demanded of him close at hand. He tells Lethe that he cannot imagine what it is like to live with the pride that she feels as a laguz from the race's native Gallia.
The swordsman Lon'qu of Fire Emblem: Awakening grew up in the slums of the Chon'sin, and at one point when Lon'qu was young, his good friend, the little girl Ke'ri, was killed by bandits, with Lon'qu only able to watch helplessly. He developed gynophobia as a result of the incident, believing that any woman close to him would meet the same fate.
Henry the Dark Mage of Awakening started off with Abusive Parents who ignored him to the point that he spent most of his time wandering the woods outside of his village. When he became close friends with a wolf that lived in the forest, it was killed by villagers when it tried to visit him. His parents then sent him off to a cruel, abusive orphanage (in the Japanese version) or a cold and strict mage school (in the English version) where he was harshly punished and experimented on, and all of it seems to have...broken him mentally. In the present, he seems to be operating on Blue-and-Orange Morality, is fascinated by Body Horror and zombies, and is at the point that he just doesn't understand human empathy and that threatening to kill and curse people is morally objectionable.
Niles the archer of Fire Emblem Fates was abandoned by both of his parents at a very young age, and grew up on the harsh and unforgiving streets of Nohr, falling in with a gang of thieves and other seedy types just to stay alive. At one point in his childhood, he had one of his eyes gouged out by another orphan, and when his gang of thieves threw him under the bus to escape when one of their heists went bad, he was close enough to the Despair Event Horizon that he begged his captor Prince Leo of Nohr to kill him and get it over with. He ended up becoming one of Leo's loyal retainers instead. In the present, Niles' sadistic and cruel tendencies are explained by him as a result of jealousy; when he sees someone who "doesn't know what suffering is," he feels the need to mess with them.
Jakob, the Avatar Corrin's loyal butler in Fates, was raised by Abusive Parents who cared so little for him that they abandoned him at Nohr's Windmire Castle, where he was taken in as a castle servant, and never looked back. He was mistreated and disliked by the rest of the castle staff, with the exception of young Corrin him or herself, and in the present as a result of it, he's cold, distant, and rude to most anyone who isn't the Avatar, while being slavishly loyal and dedicated to the Avatar him or herself. He tells Mozu and Azura in their supports that the Avatar is literally the only person in the castle that treated him kindly.
The Hoshidan spearwoman Oboro of Fates witnessed her merchant parents being murdered by a Nohrian assassin when she was young, and only managed to escape the same fate herself by hiding in their cart. She developed a deep hatred for all things and people Nohrian as a result and reacts...rather badly to them, to the point that her in-battle skill makes her deal more damage to Nohrian units.
Nearly everyone in Fire Emblem: Three Houses. To name some quick examples: Edelgard was subjected to deadly experiments by dark mages that killed her siblings. Dimitri's family was murdered. Claude is a biracial child born from an affair between two nobles from rival nations, and thus subject to Fantastic Racism in both Almyra and the Alliance. Dorothea grew up in abject poverty before she was discovered by an Imperial opera company. Bernadetta was abused by her father, who wanted to make her a "perfect, submissive wife" to wed off to nobles. Sylvain became the golden child of his family when he was born with a Crest, leading to his older brother being disowned. Felix's brother (who was also Ingrid's fiance) died at the same time as Dimitri's family. Mercedes had been adopted into an abusive Imperial family; she managed to escape, but her younger brother (who is also the Death Knight) wasn't as fortunate. Ashe grew up in poverty and was forced to commit theft to support himself and his family before he was adopted by a noble. Raphael's parents were murdered when he was young. Marianne was forced to isolate herself socially due to her "cursed" Crest. Lysithea and Hapi were both experimented on by the same dark mages that tortured Edelgard. Yuri was forced to act as a servant for a corrupt cardinal, and was also brutalized by Bernadetta's father for having the gall to trying to befriend her when he was of common birth. Constance lost her family in a war, which caused her psyche to splinter into twoopposite personas.
Eula Lawrence has been ostracized or most of her life and is even stated in her bios that people of Mondstadt refuse to sell her anything because she's a Lawrence. Yeah, her family name is THAT hated. Despite being a noble with money, she had to pretty much hunt her own food and cook it under a campfire herself just to eat. Is it any wonder she is the way she is?
Kaeya Alberich's adoptive father Crepus died in an ambush set up by the Fatui on the eighteenth birthday of his biological son (and Kaeya's sworn brother) Diluc. Kaeya not only arrived too late to protect his father but was shocked that Crepus would be desperate enough to use a Delusion. Not only that, it made him feel torn between choosing to support Mondstadt or Khaenri'ah. Feeling that his adoptive father had shown him the love he did not get from his birth father, Kaeya chose to come clean to Diluc about what he truly is, and they clashed with each other because of it. Ever since then, he and Diluc had not been on good terms.
Quite a few characters in Granblue Fantasy have tragic backstories, but Ferry◊ the spirit maiden stands out due to how much it affects her. Her parents are dead, her beloved younger sister is missing and she spent 100 years in self-inflicted isolation and self-hatred, thinking that she was responsible for the calamity that befell her home island and resulted in her condition. Most of her character arc deals with Ferry trying to come to terms with her existence as an immortal spirit, as well as her younger sister's death. The anime adaptation manages to make her past even more tragic: She was invisible and without memories during those 100 years and it's eventually revealed that her condition was the result of being literally sacrificed by an amoral researcher who was trying to become immortal. She even had to helplessly watch her father die right in front of her.
Like a Dragon: If they are a major character, they likely have quite a bit of baggage from their past weighing them down.
As revealed in Yakuza 4 and reinforced in Yakuza 0, Goro Majima was doing okay for himself in the Tojo Clan until he learned that his sworn brother, Taiga Saejima, was being set up to go to prison. When he refused to cooperate, he was blinded in his left eye, then turned over to Futoshi Shimano of the Omi Alliance and tortured for over a year before being allowed to work for a local cabaret in what was, essentially, a supervised work release under the Omi's supervision.
Yakuza 0: Tetsu Tachibana and Makoto Makimura were born to a Japanese woman trapped in China and married to a Chinese husband after World War II. Their being half-Japanese and half-Chinese made them the objects of scorn among other Chinese until a young Tachibana ran away to Japan, where he fell in with a gang. Makoto and her mother made their way to Japan to find him, and reunited with her maternal grandfather in the process, but her mother had been so alienated from Japan and its culture for so long that she couldn't reintegrate in her homeland and eventually committed suicide. Makoto continued to look for her brother, only to get kidnapped by a gang — the same gang her brother led, though neither one knew it at the time — and sold off to the Jingweon Mafia, where she endured such horrific abuse that it drove her psychosomatically blind until she was rescued by a Chinese assassin who took her in as a surrogate daughter.
Yakuza: Like a Dragon: Ichiban Kasuga had been found abandoned in a coin locker as a newborn infant by the proprietor of a Kamurocho soapland. While he was raised in a loving environment with his adoptive father and the staff of the soapland, he fell into depression after his father died and became a violent delinquent until he ran afoul of a yakuza group, only barely surviving by namedropping Masumi Arakawa — at the time, a feared figure among the yakuza. When Arakawa surprisingly saved him, he became undyingly loyal to him and joined him as soon as he was able.
It extends even further for Kasuga, and he isn't even the only one. Masumi Arakawa had an abusive mother, and his father was murdered when they went out to eat at an upscale Yokohama restaurant. Later, as a young yakuza, he was arranged to marry his boss's daughter, but had already fallen in love with another woman, Akane. When his boss found out, he sent assassins after Akane, leaving her with little time to hide their baby in a coin locker before escaping, and eventually making her way to Hawaii. Arakawa never knew this and assumed Akane was killed, but was able to save his son...or so he thought. The child he had saved was actually the son of a Kamurocho thug named Jo Sawashiro, who sought to abandon his son in a coin locker because he never wanted to be a father. When Sawashiro suffered a pang of consciousness, he went back to the coin lockers, only to see Arakawa break the locker open and rescue the child inside — Sawashiro's son. Arakawa's actual son would be the one rescued by a soapland owner and raised as Ichiban Kasuga, while Sawashiro's child — who had become ill from hypothermia and left wheelchair-bound for years as a result — would be raised as Masato Arakawa.
In The King of Fighters, one or two fighters crop up with these kinds of pasts, but extra points go to Rock Howard, who has this through virtually no fault of his own. He's the son of the notoriously death-retardant Geese Howard, who barely took any interest in the boy's well-being. Rock was rendered an orphan by one of Geese's nemeses, Terry Bogart (who tried to keep him from falling to his death, only for Geese to yank his hand out of Terry's grip and Go Out with a Smile as he fell), who took it upon himself to raise and train Rock himself...possibly out of penance. Rock is surprisingly well-adjusted, but it constantly at war with himself internally, given he has "evil blood".
Knight Bewitched: In the original version of the game, Uno reveals that in his past, he started off killing a lord that did unspeakable things to a young boy who begged him to reduce taxes on the town. His relationship to the boy or even if he is the boy is left unclear. The guide book DLC and Enhanced Edition confirms he was sold as a slave to that lord, who he killed, though the taxation part is no longer part of his backstory.
Celestial Hearts: Kayah was originally from Lestonia, but left because of harassment from homophobes. Even outside of her home, she experienced homophobia until she settled down in Livia. As a result, she doesn't trust strangers easily, since she wonders if they'll judge her.
Mikazuki villa: Yachiyo has the ability to keep "surviving" at expense of the lives of those around her, which gives her severe Survivor's Guilt. Sana who was neglected and disowned by her family. Felicia who accidentally killed her own parents in a prank gone wrong.
Every void type girl seems to have this. Mitama grew up in poverty and did everything she could to earn a place in a high end school, only to be set up by her supposedly best friend and expelled from there, and ended up at her old school where everyone bullied and threatened her family for embarassing them. Yozuru, whose mother died (highly implied to be suicide) after Yozuru grew up increasingly apathetic and hateful towards her. Sudachi whose wish killed her entire class leaving her the sole survivor.
Everyone from Promised Blood are shell-shocked war veterans. A prime example is Yuna, who is constantly hearing the screams of her dead comrades.
Many of the characters in the Metal Gear series have them. Raiden, The Boss (kind of), PsychoMantis, and Fortune (spoofed by Hiimdaisy above), to name a few. In fact, it's easier to mention the ones who didn't have it: MeiLing, and.... Okay, maybe just Mei Ling.
In Moonrise, Chika, Alice, and the Player Character have their own dark pasts. Alice's parents were brutally murdered by her brother, and her status in the supernatural community is a fraught one. Chika lives far from her homeland to escape her homophobic parents, became a werewolf in a bloody accident, and heads the Rogues faction because the last leader died. It's implied that the Player Character had a mental breakdown after medical school and also lacks familial support.
Olberic was the bodyguard of a king, only to fail to protect him and his land from his close friend and fellow equal in skill, Erhardt. It doesn't help that he murdered his king in front of him and defeated Olberic. Wandering the lands to find redemption, he also struggles with seeing himself as useful only in the heat of battle.
Primrose was born into a wealthy family, only for her father to be murdered in front of her eyes as a child. She was rendered poor and had to turn to prostitution to survive.
Primrose's friend Yusufa was sold to Helgenish as a child, having to spend her life dealing with both his abuse as well as the bullying of the other girls working for him, all without any friends to support her besides Primrose.
Therion has never known any sort of family aside from a sort of brother figure in Darius. He scraped by, taking what he could, and in his banter in Olberic's Chapter 4, he hints that he was beaten up or similarly abused by people older and more powerful than he was. And even his partnership with Darius backfired on him when Darius betrayed him, almost literally stabbing him in the back and tossing him off a cliff simply because he was offered money and power to do so. The party members and Cordelia Ravus are quite possibly the first people to treat him with any sort of kindness or respect in years, if not his whole life.
The Outer Worlds: Ellie doesn't talk much about her past, but the hints she does drop do not paint a pretty picture. Enough digging reveals that Ellie is actually exaggerating how bad her childhood was. While her parents were and are neglectful and emotionally abusive, her childhood was definitely not the horrifyingly traumatic hellhole she insinuates it was.
Devlin McCormack in The Orion Conspiracy definitely has this. Let us see. He fought as a soldier in the Corporation War, which apparently left him with issues. He admits that he was not a good father to his son Danny and that he in fact drove him away. Interestingly enough, Danny's death and the investigation of it is what drives Devlin for a portion of the game. Also, the local Jerkass claims that Devlin drove his wife to suicide, which would indicate that Devlin may not have been a good husband. Of course, it is hard to say that really is the case, or if there is more to that story than that.
Oxenfree has a couple of characters with this backstory:
Jonas grew up in a crime-ridden town and he may or may not have been involved in criminal activity himself. His mother also died shortly before the main story and possible dialogue suggests he doesn't have a good educational or pop culture background.
Alex watched her brother drown and was helpless to stop it because she didn't know how to swim. Her parents got a divorce because they couldn't handle the grief and it's even said that a lot of the townsfolk hate her and blame her for her brother's death.
Most of your party in Persona 5 have some pretty crappy backstories:
Ryuji had an abusive father who beats both him and his mother. Kamoshida also broke his legs, causing his Career-Ending Injury, spreading rumors of his home life that provocated Ryuji into punching him, which in turn ended the Track Team and made the members hating and blaming Ryuji.
Ann was bullied and harassed with gossip and rumors due to her heritage and appearance and became the unfortunate Lust Object of one of her own teachers.
Yusuke was orphaned and abused by his adoptive parent. Worse, his adoptive parent is the reason his mother died.
Futaba witnesses her own mother die in a car accident in front of her eyes and was subsequently gaslit into believing she had driven her mother to suicide.
From Royal, Kasumi isn't actually Kasumi. Sumire watched her twin sister Kasumi die in a car accident after the two had a falling out, and the guilt she felt afterwards drove her into the care of a Well-Intentioned Extremist psychologist who used the game's Applied Phlebotinum to brainwash her into believing she was Kasumi.
Kaito lost his parents during the Crystallization Strife and was bullied in school. As a result, he wants to uphold the current status quo of being friends with the wizarding community.
Similarly, Marie was bullied for standing out in school too much and was forcibly transformed into a monster by the previous leaders of the Magic School.
Nina lost her family and friends on the Night of Black Snow due to them transforming into monsters, forcing her to kill them in self-defense.
Asha was a child spy who was forced to take ether drugs by the Western Kingdom. As a result, she is addicted to the drug's ability to grant her magic and will do anything to maintain her powers.
Remy was seen as nothing more than a political pawn to her parents and she was traumatized by being one of the few survivors in her squad. She also killed her family to prevent them from succeeding in their evil ambitions.
The Anti-Wizard Coalition is made up of people who suffered from the war between the Magic School and the Western Kingdom, leading to their village being overrun by monsters. Remy is able to negotiate with them by promising to fight the monsters that are infesting their lands.
As part of its shtick of setting you up with fanservice and then smacking you in the face with drama, Senran Kagura is not afraid to point out that high school students who are training to lead lives of demon-hunting or black-ops wetwork that would probably see them dead by 25 probably don't have the most stable backgrounds. Evil Shinobi schools accept any psychopath off the street, which compounds the problem, but even Good Shinobi (keep in mind these labels are nominal at best) having training practices that preceded junior school. Just the most straightforward Good Shinobi team has:
Asuka, who's the most at ease with the life of a Shinobi, but that's because she was Conditioned to Accept Horror since before she could walk. This leaves her somewhat blind to how horrifying the path of a Shinobi is, opening up an optimistic streak her foes ruthlessly exploit.
Katsuragi, whose parents have execute-on-sight orders active against them for abandoning a mission. Katsuragi's training to fulfill a bargain and clear their name.
Ikaruga, who was adopted from an impoverished family into a noble house. There's no love in this arrangement, purely the family wanting a worthy heir to inherit the family sword and name, and her adoptive older brother has nottaken this turn of events well.
Yagyuu, who lost her sister in a car crash, only to discover Hibari is a dead ringer for the deceased, leaving her with a mess of issues as she tries to spend every waking second with the Replacement Goldfish.
Hibari herself, who never wanted to be a Shinobi, but was pressured into it by her family after being the only child to inherit a special ability. Happy to have a scion, they never pressured her when she fell short, leaving her horribly unequipped to deal with the high-stakes lifestyle, completely aware of this fact, and terrified she's going to screw up.
Jennifer from Rule of Rose. There's a reason why the narrator never fails to refer to her as the "poor, unlucky girl".
In Shadowverse, Erika served as an assassin for her kingdom in the past. She feels guilt over the atrocities she committed then, and serves the Princess in an attempt to atone.
In Silent Hill, a dark and troubled past guarantees you a season ticket to the titular town.
Soaring Machinariae: After the second fight with the Gravekeeper, Iris states that she can sense a deep sadness from the mysterious Machinariae. The Gravekeeper is Rosa, a Machinariae whose handler suffered fatal injuries right before reaching the top of the Tower of Desire. The handler wished for Rosa to gain the power to act without him, but she went mad without his support. After learning the truth behind the Desire System's Equivalent Exchange, she wants to destroy the system by driving off or killing anyone who tries to seek a wish from it.
Siegfried from the Soul Series is a gaming poster child for the Tragic Hero. He's a German knight searching for Soul Edge as a weapon that will allow him revenge against his father's murderer... except tragically, Siegfriedmurdered his own father by mistake in a battle, he ran into the woods screaming mad and invented an entire fantasy to avoid the mind-shattering guilt. After travelling Europe for a time and killing several people he suspected of possessing the weapon, he eventually finds the sword and it easily possesses him from the moment his fingers seize the hilt, mutating his body and transforming him into Nightmare. Lying dormant as part of Nightmare he actually manages to wrest free from the sword's control, but he is wracked with guilt over the thousands of innocents he killed during his rampage as Nightmare, and then this freedom is short-lived because he tried to be a custodian of Soul Edge to prevent others getting hold of it and the sword found a way to regain its evil influence over him. When he is freed for a second time by the events of IV, he has become a Death Seeker who believes that he can never be forgiven for his crimes and he pushes away anyone who tries to help him. Ironically, he gets better in V when Hilde forgives and redeems him, but in VIthe events of V are revealed to be a Bad Future that has to be avoided at all costs, and Siegfried's somewhat-happy ending is retconned away. Will he ever find peace?
Star Control II has this for both the Ur-Quan and the Kohr-Ah. The Ur-Quan used to be the leaders of The Federation (the Sentient Milieu), until they discovered the mind-controlling Dynarri, who enslaved them and the rest of the federation for generations. The psychological damage was so great that it permanently altered their genetic structure itself. After the Dynarri empire fell, the Ur-Quan became genocidal maniacs hell-bent on imprisoning every other species, while the Kohr-Ah faction became outright OmnicidalManiacs.
Krax Grog's Geodonian community on Infernis Prime was captured by the ESA and put through deadly experiments, of which he was the only survivor. The ESA then enslaved him and put him in a digging site, but he eventually escaped and joined the ORC.
Mari Williams and Jack Victor were kids on a contraband smuggling ship, but the ship was captured and their parents were arrested. Mari eventually found her mother, but the latter was brainwashed and no longer remembered her.
Jianna Flux and Soren Xander were one of the few survivors of Scrap Springs, which tried to fight back against ESA occupation. The ESA wiped them out and Jianna only survived due to being converted into a cyborg. Jianna's father joined the ORC to atone for starting an unwinnable battle against the ESA, but he was killed in Moletown on a mission to free prisoners. However, the ending reveals her father was actually imprisoned, and she gets to reunite with him.
Sword of Paladin: Anguis states that since birth, he had no choice but to steal and kill in order to survive his harsh environment. As a result, he knows no other way to find inner peace than to drain the life of any alternate world he can find.
The Tales Series should probably get its own folder. The heroes, villains, supporting cast, and even random NPCs in pretty much any installment can be counted on to have serious issues. Even better, their pasts are usually plot-relevant, and since the franchise loves plots full of Wham Episodes, most characters' pasts are also spoilertastic.
The Heavy from Team Fortress 2 subverts this to hell and back.
Director: Your father was a counter-revolutionary. When he was killed, you, your mother, and your sisters were transported to a North Siberian gulag. Paint me the picture. Heavy: No. This is my gun. I like to shoot this gun. Is all you need to know. Director: Your family only lived in that gulag for three months. In December 1941 it burned to the ground. All of the prisoners had escaped. All of the guards had been killed. Tortured to death. Heavy: I. Like. To shoot. This gun. Is all you need to know.
Later played straight in the comic A Cold Day In Hell, when some of the other mercs visit Heavy's home. It turns out that the events The Director described actually happened, but Heavy's Big Brother Instinct caused him not to want to discuss his family with a total stranger.
Lee from The Walking Dead: Season One was convicted of killing a state senator after catching him sleeping with his wife. Lee tells Carley that whatever happened was an accident. In the conversation with The Stranger in Episode 5, you can find out that it wasn't an accident after all...
◊ the spirit maiden stands out due to how much it affects her. Her parents are dead, her beloved younger sister is missing and she spent 100 years in self-inflicted isolation and self-hatred, thinking that she was responsible for the calamity that befell her home island and resulted in her condition. Most of her character arc deals with Ferry trying to come to terms with her existence as an immortal spirit, as well as her younger sister's death. The anime adaptation manages to make her past even more tragic: She was invisible and without memories during those 100 years and it's eventually revealed that her condition was the result of being literally sacrificed by an amoral researcher who was trying to become immortal. She even had to helplessly watch her father die right in front of her.
