Nice Job Breaking It Hero / Visual Novels

• In the Danganronpa series:
  • In Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc, in Chapter 3, Makoto acquiesces to Kiyotaka's demand to see Alter Ego in the hopes of snapping him out of his Heroic BSoD following Mondo's execution. Kiyotaka becomes obsessed with Alter Ego, driving a wedge between him and Hifumi that Celestia takes advantage of to kill them both. Earlier, in Chihiro's last free time event, Makoto will recommend Mondo as a training partner because he's one of the strongest students. Mondo actually has a severe inferiority complex that Chihiro inadvertently triggers, resulting in Mondo blacking out and murdering Chihiro in a rage.
  • In Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair, it turns out that the protagonist, Hinata, was the one who smuggled AI Junko into the system and caused the mutual killing to happen on Jabberwock Island. Though in this case, it turns out this was his previous persona, Izuru Kamukura, and Hajime remembers none of this.
    • Then, there's what Nagito Komaeda did in chapter 5. He arranged a complicated plan to get himself killed in a way that would let Chiaki graduate, since he'd just learned that Chiaki was the only member of class not an amnesiac Remnant of Despair. Problem is, there's no way this plan could have worked out well, since the class was in the Neo World Program as therapy to save them from being Brainwashed and Crazy, and Chiaki was actually an NPC in the Neo World whose job was to aid their recovery. So, if the plan fails, the cast loses The Heart and two of their most intelligent members (Chiaki and Nagito himself). If the plan succeeds, five innocent people die for nothing, because Chiaki is an AI and can't leave like the others, and Alter Ego Junko gets to bodyjack all of the students.
  • Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony:
    • Kaede's attempt to trap and kill the Mastermind ended with the innocent Rantaro being killed and the killing game officially starting, something Kaede had wanted to prevent. It's subverted in chapter 6 since it's re-visiting Rantaro's murder that finally unveils the Mastermind.
    • Kokichi Oma is prone to this because of his difficult relationship with the others and need to pull complicated plans instead of just explaining what he wants. For example, in chapter 2, he wants everyone to watch their motive videos together so no one can have a proper motive. Instead of just saying that, he manipulates Gonta into kidnapping the others and goes to steal their videos. The chaos surrounding this results in nobody watching any more videos, Kokichi getting trapped in a room with bugs, and gives Kirumi a perfect opportunity to kill Ryoma while everyone else is busy dealing with Kokichi.
• In Double Homework, the protagonist and Tamara managed to force the door of the cable car in which they were trapped open and get to safety that way. However, they started an avalanche that killed a dozen people, including their parents.
• Fate/stay night:
  • Heaven's Feel route has a villain whose big plan to become immortal involves bestowing incredible power on a certain girl, then using her as a sacrifice. So let's give her that power in the most brutal, abusive way possible, and while we're at it, have her raped on a regular basis! What could go wro— *crunch*. Nice job Breaking The Cutie, Zouken.
  • On a related note, said Cutie would have remained relatively stable if Shirou's relationship with her hadn't resulted in her finally regaining some sense of self-worth at exactly the right moment to trigger a full-on case of the crazies.
• Mizuhara steals Toko's medicine in Kara no Shoujo because she believes it's an illegal drug and a present from Reiji, of whom she is jealous. This ends up getting Toko hit by a car, having all her limbs removed, getting kidnapped, and finally dying. On the plus note, she doesn't have to see the full consequences of her actions since she gets murdered about five minutes later.
• In Katawa Shoujo, most of the bad endings leave the girl worse off compared to her situation if Hisao had just become her friend while dating one of the other girls. In Hanako's route, Hisao worsens Hanako's problems by making her more dependent on others with his over-protectiveness, while in Rin's route, he convinces her to put her art on display, a decision she comes to regret.
  • This is also most obvious with Hanako who is even better off on Lilly's route, than on her own, due to both Lilly and Hisao focusing on their own relationship, rather than over-protecting her.
  • Making Rin choose what sounds good for her and her career - or even saying the wrong thing to her in her route are heavily implied to push her towards eventually committing suicide after she accepts the scholarship.
• Late in Soichiro Irie's route of the Romance Game Kiss of Revenge, Dr. Issei Sezaki realizes that the protagonist is the daughter of a woman who died at Ebisu General Hospital due to a surgical error twelve years previous. He immediately goes to his father, the hospital director, to insist that they owe her a proper apology. Unfortunately, Issei wasn't aware that his father had already asked Irie to check into the protagonist's background, and that Irie knew the details of who she was but was keeping the knowledge of her connection to the death twelve years ago hidden from the director. As a result of Issei's effort to do the right thing, his father is tipped off to the fact that Irie is working against him, giving him the upper hand and almost destroying Irie's plan to make the director step down in a way that will not endanger himself, the protagonist, or the rest of the hospital.
• No Case Should Remain Unsolved: Seowon's father never reported her death because he wanted to keep up the illusion that she's still alive for his wife's sake. Unfortunately, this only worsened his wife's mental state and led her to kidnap an innocent little girl in her delusion.
• Early in Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Trials and Tribulations, Phoenix proves his client innocent of theft... with an alibi which implicates him as a murderer. Whoops.
  • In Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Justice For All, in the last trial, Phoenix's work in clearing Matt Engarde of his charges very nearly implicates a completely innocent witness in the crime, to the point where it takes a confession from Engarde himself to actually prove who was the real murderer. This all happened because Phoenix had no other option than to stall for time though, as the assassin who Engarde used to commit the crime had kidnapped Maya to ensure Phoenix would cooperate and get Engarde free.
  • In Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney case 5, the same detective was apparently stabbed to death in both the prosecutions building and the detective's preecinct at the exact same time. Phoenix works his ass off finding fingerprints, getting info, and cross-examining people as well as pointing out contradictions in a video tape in order to prove that the murder that took place in the precinct was not an actual murder, which he does... this, however, proves that the murder took place in the prosecutor's building and therefore the only person who could have killed the victim was his client... good job there Phoenix! He then ends up having to scramble to prove that the murder DID take place in the location that he just proved it didn't.
    • An additional moment in the same case has Phoenix arguing long and hard and making very logical points to prove that a very specific piece of evidence proves that something did not happen. When he shouts victory and throws it in Edgeworth's face, it takes a few beats of silence before he realizes he just screwed over his client horribly by proving, which his irrefutable logic, that no one else could have committed the murder.
  • Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Dual Destinies:
    • In case 3, Apollo and Athena spend a lot of time proving how someone didn't commit the murder du jour. Unfortunately, said person is not their client. They then spend more time proving that a third person also didn't commit the murder. That person is also not their client. They end up getting rid of all doubts that their client is the only one with the means and opportunity to commit the crime. Whoops!
    • In the DLC case, Phoenix and Athena are asked to prevent an orca from being put down after she was accused of killing the aquarium's owner. They do so by proving that the captain was in fact murdered by a human. So the blame is instead moved to the orca's trainer, the one who asked them to defend the orca in the first place.
• In Steam Prison, a lot of the trouble in Ulrik's path is caused by Ulrik carelessly telling Vice that Cyrus is from the Heights. He realizes almost as soon as the words are out of his mouth that he probably shouldn't have shared that particular information, but his low estimation of Vice and the rest of Rafale's capabilities causes him to severely misjudge just how much damage his carelessness is going to do until it starts blowing up in his face.
• In Sunrider Mask of Arcadius, when Captain Kayto Shields is on the fence about whether the Solar Alliance really has the best interests of Neutral Rim worlds like his home planet Cera at heart, the Alliance liaison officer Kryska Stares invites him to tour one of the planet Ongess’s orbital habitats with her so that he can see how the Alliance’s relief efforts are helping the people. This decision gets both of them captured by Cosette Cosmos, leading the Alliance to mount a heavy-handed rescue operation in which they gun down civilians and guerilla fighters indiscriminately, including a child. This carnage, and Alliance Admiral Harold Grey’s willingness to cover it up, can convince Kayto that he cannot afford to trust the Alliance.
• Time Hollow for the DS. Expect everything you alter in time to have at least one catastrophic side effect. Best summed up in the second chapter, where you take your friend's bike lock key to keep them from getting hit by a truck later that night. It hits a little boy and his dog instead. But it's never permanent. Just as the first problem was fixable, the new one that cropped up is as well, until it reaches a point where everything is finally stabilized. That was one of the best things about the game (and the whole concept of the Hollow Pen), that it acknowledged that all actions have consequences and there are very few simple solutions, but no hole is ever too deep. If all you had to do was prevent what started the whole mess in the first place, the game would be over in two minutes! There's a special ending where you get to do just that.
• Tsukihime:
  • Nice job destroying SHIKI in a way that makes you swallow his and more importantly Roa's persona, Akiha. Made you a totally crazed yandere with emotional restraint issues. Plus essentially turned Shiki into a breathing corpse because he couldn't get more energy from SHIKI, And turned yourself into a bloodsucking monster that admittedly didn't kill its victims, at least. And... well, we'll just stop there, hm?
  • Even earlier:
    Neck, back of the head, from the right eye to the lips,
    Upper right arm, lower right arm, right ring finger, left elbow, left thumb,
    Middle finger, left breast, from the rib bones to the heart, two places of the stomach to the abdomen,
    Left crotch, left leg thigh, left leg shin, all of left foot toes.
    As I went past her.
    Without even taking a second.
    Literally at a blink of an eye.
    I "dissected" her into 17 pieces of meat.

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