Radiant Silvergun features a surprisingly dark story even by Shoot 'Em Up standards, featuring four humans and a robot mounting a desperate Last Stand after all other life on Earth is wiped out by a destructive artifact and the machines it has taken control of. How can it not be heartbreaking?
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- When the Earth Defense Army is doing a data analysis on the recently unearthed Stone-Like in Scene 2, the moment they are about to see its memories it decides to first blow up the 3rd Research Division. Cue (probably the Stone-Like) summoning an exponentially increasing number of objects around the complex while everyone inside is losing their minds!
- The last stretch of Stage 5 "Victim": while the tone of the game is rather sad, what with the crew of the Tetra being the last remnants of humanity and all, but the specific example is the moment where Gai does his Heroic Sacrifice.
- In the epilogue, C.R.E.A.T.O.R. is never able to tell the clones of Buster and Reana about the Stone-Like and change the future. All it did is create a Stable Time Loop; there's no guarantee humanity can be saved.
- The game's premise itself, particularly how it might feel being one of a few Sole Survivors of a race left in the universe in a spaceship that barely escaped the Depopulation Bomb, knowing you're all that's left and next-to-nothing about what caused it to happened in the first place. At the same time, you realize you'll have to return to the planet in a year or so when you run out of supplies. A few humans simply isn't enough to repopulate the human race, thus even if you manage to destroy the Artifact of Doom, there will be nothing but a dead, hopeless planet left.
- The fact that nothing good came out of this entire story: it's all a hopeless Last Stand that ends in a Stable Time Loop as a result of Eternal Recurrence.
- Want it to be even more heartbreaking? A translation of the dialogue spoken in Stage 1 "Link" exists online
; not only is it poignant, but it essentially proves the Stone-Like correct in its assessment of humanity.- This point is partially refuted by 2 things: the existence of Ikaruga, and the dialogue of Stage 1 being symbolism for meddling between factions of the video game industry.
- In light of that symbolism, it's small wonder the Stone-Like can't get the result it wants from Earthly life; it keeps expecting new results from a complete (or, as Ikaruga ultimately shows, near-complete) retread of everything. Or, in shooter industry terms, expecting Toaplan mimics to revitalize the genre all on their own even when something new is called for. It never does anything other than start over because it can't conceive of its own assumptions for what will create progress for itself and the planet being flawed, evidence be damned.
- This point is partially refuted by 2 things: the existence of Ikaruga, and the dialogue of Stage 1 being symbolism for meddling between factions of the video game industry
- Want it to be even more heartbreaking? A translation of the dialogue spoken in Stage 1 "Link" exists online
