Video Game Cruelty Potential / Platform Games

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• Quite a lot of games allow you to beat up harmless animals and NPCs. For example, in Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc, you can beat up tortoises (who yell or make cranky reproaches) and rats (who giggle and say things like "Ooh, harder!" and "Don't hold back!").
  • In Rayman Origins, you can hit your own friends in Co-Op, and throw them into a hazard to their demise. This is why slapping was created.
• Battletoads has an interesting case, as the fact that you can injure the other player in co-op can turn "unpleasantly hard experience" into "friendship killing experience" if you start hitting your partner intentionally. As this Cracked article puts it:
  It would murder your friendships to force you to spend more time with it, because friendly fire was always on. You had a better chance of staying friends with someone if you entered a Saw trap together.
  Thumping each other was fun, but every Battletoad was equipped with the grappling equivalent of the double Vulcan Nerve Pinch: holding a friend or enemy above your head paralyzed them, while you could walk around the level, loudly wondering which instant death pit you'd cast them into.
• B3313
  • Neither of Dry Town's stars require you to flood the entire place, but it's something you can do at either the top of the big house or at the top of the tower. The Bob-omb inside the big house admonishes Mario for even possibly planning to do it, but then says it's just part of the cycle of life. A different level called Flooded Town partially matches the architecture of Dry Town, implying it did get flooded at some point.
  • Dark Downtown's star requires you to drown the whole village. If you go to Bob-Omb Village, a Bob-Omb will tell you that the level has been their refuge ever since you flooded the town and begs you to leave and "not take their energy sources", lest "everyone and everything will die". Collect any star from the level, and you're treated to a dark snowy field that is implied to be the village in decay. Congrats, you extinguished a whole civilization.
• Clarence's Big Chance: You can jump on Clarence's pet cat, pet dog, and even his own mom and dad (and then eat their still-beating hearts for sustenance.) The game lampshades it, of course.
• In Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped, you can kill chickens with the wumpa bazooka.
  • And, in the second game, bouncing off of Polar's head in the warp room enough times will net you some extra lives.
  • Something similar occurs in Warped, where in the first Egypt level there's a monkey hiding in four vases that throws rocks at you. After you break all of the vases, it will cower in fear and you can jump on him to obtain some Wumpa Fruit.
• Dynamite Headdy has a reward system of secret bonus points that you can root out and achieve through various means, the most common of which involves destroying odd-looking enemies or certain stage props. One recurring bonus point provider is a large-headed character named Bino, who seems to be something of a stagehand or extra, and every time you kill him (while he's doing nothing but minding his own business), he makes a pitiful little crying noise.
• Several of the Harry Potter games allow you to throw things like boulders and exploding cauldrons at Ron and Hermione. Their complaints are hysterical. Adding to the hilarity, occasionally Harry will respond with a very insincere-sounding apology. Even better when they accidentally hit themselves with these things. You can also push them into spiky plants.
  • According to Emma Watson, after an argument with her brother, he would often go and throw chairs at her virtual self.
• How big of an asshole can you be in Iji? Seriously, point, shoot, and you can hit Omnicidal Maniac in minutes. Alternatively, you can actually pull off being an Actual Pacifist if you work for it. so much easier to be cruel. However, the story will change if you go around blowing everybody to pieces, leading one boss to laugh at you for attempting to shoot your way to peace.
• Jak II: Renegade gives you free roam. Because for most of the game you're a Phlebotinum Rebel with a thing for guns and a Superpowered Evil Side that isn't actually much worse than your normal side, you can do whatever you want as long as it isn't actually outside the game physics. Knocking civilians into the water to drown? Check. Reducing vast numbers of cars to burning shrapnel with the Peace Maker? Check. Beating everyone within a significant area to death with your bare hands? Big ol' check. An especially entertaining one is to steal one of the sturdier vehicles and piss off the Krimzon Guard...then brake at the exact right time so that the Guard on a bike who's following you careens into the back of your car and dies. It's fun when your enemies are Too Dumb to Live.
  • Perhaps even crueler and more delightful is the fact that if you're in a large ship, you can fly around the city at high speeds ramming into citizens on small ships causing an instant explosion of the craft and the driver. You can do this multiple times with one large ship.
  • The third game adds even more opportunities for cruelty, with much more manoeuvreable KG Heavy vehicles, the slow time ability and the Super Nova ability, essentially a portable muke.
• Kirby:
  • In Kirby's Epic Yarn, it's possible to pick up the other player and throw them into hazards.
  • With friendship being a core theme of Kirby Star Allies, the fact that Kirby is allowed to simply inhale his expendable companions (including Dream Friends) for their abilities feels rather contradictory. A number of Friend Abilities will also have them do things like willfully allow themselves to thrown around by Suplex's various grapples (nothing says "friendship" like letting yourself take a backbreaker or a lariat to the face for the greater good) and toss themselves into Chef's cookpot (which somehow produces extra food while leaving them unharmed), though Kirby himself can also be subjected to such treatment, so it's at least more balanced in that regard.
  • Kirby and the Forgotten Land: You can harass the Waddle Dees around Waddle Dee Town with your copy abilities or by slide kicking them. You can even hit Elfilin and Bandana Waddle Dee. There are also times where you'll encounter non-hostile enemy creatures (such as the Awoofies in the Alivel Mall's food court areas) that don't get aggressive but you're still free to ruin their day.
• LittleBigPlanet:
  • In spades; Don't deny that you've spent even just a few minutes torturing sackbots in the second game. In particular since they're not waterproof, you can fill a level with a few inches of water then infinitely spawn them and watch them explode within a second of them coming into existence. Alternatively, spawn a cluster of them then fill the level with water and watch them all explode simultaneously like some horrific symphony.
  • There's also the Creatinator powerup, which starts off being able to produce water but can be changed so you can use it to burn your victims to ash, electrify them, erase them from existence, or nuke them.
  • In the first level of the sixth world, there's an arcade with six cabinets, two being played by sackbots, three being playable and unlocking challenges when completed, and one out of order being repaired by a sackbot. If you try to play the latter, tilting the left control stick will harmlessly electrocute him. You can do this for as long as you want.
  • In the first game, the second-to-last level has all the characters you've met up to this point locked up. It's possible to not rescue any of them, except for the King and Queen, because they're your ride to the end of the level.
• In New Super Mario Bros. Wii, you can really screw over your fellow players. The down side is that they can dick you over just as much.
  • Really, combining the tighter jumps in the game along with the physics in multiplayer is more like Video Game Cruelty Provocation.
  • Also, there are those Toad rescue missions. You can throw them into an enemy, lava, or poison water. Or, you can bring them to the end, which gives you some 1-ups and a Mushroom House.
  • Gets worse in New Super Mario Bros. U, with one player in charge of placing platforms anywhere in the level, including just above a player jumping over a pit.
    • The Expansion Pack New Super Luigi U has Nabbit, who cannot use power-ups but can still take them, thus screwing over fellow players. To cap it all off, he gets extra lives for the amount of items he collected at the end of the stage.
• The Oddworld series: Finding new and interesting ways to kill Abe & co.
  • Try possessing a Slig and killing one of the Mudokons. If there were other Mudokons nearby, they will start hitting themselves in a suicide attempt. Unless you go back to Abe and apologize to them, they will succeed in killing themselves.
  • In the first two games, if you slap a Mudokon, he'll slap you back. Place two Mudokons next to each other, stand on the same space as one of them and slap the other. Then duck and roll away. The two Mudokons will exchange slaps until one of them dies.
  • As an extension to the above, in Exoddus you can set up full scale brawls in areas with many Mudokons clumped in a group. When one of them dies, the rest will all become depressed. Slapping one of them will then lead to all of them committing suicide. In one area close to the end of the game, this is even used as a legit puzzle mechanic.
  • Letting blind Mudokons walk into walls, or if you're particularly cruel, into a bone-saw.
  • Possessing enemies and making them commit suicide in various horrible ways. They may deserve it, but still ...
• Psychonauts:
  • You can set fire to squirrels and birds with your mind. And then eat them. You can also toss them against walls and stuff and they break apart into various pieces. You can't eat them afterward, though. But you do get to hear Raz comment "Oops," "I meant to do that," and "I'll See You in Hell." Later on, you'll get an upgrade that sets nearby objects and enemies on fire and it's a good way to save your aggression used for PSI Blasts.
    Ford: "Remember, use Pyrokinesis only when it is very, very important. Or really, really entertaining!"
  • You can try out your many psychic powers on your campmates, who react differently to each and every different power used on them, and even try to set them on fire. While they never actually catch flame, they do start to smoke a little bit.
    • In the Milkman Conspiracy, you can set the rainbow squirts on fire.
    • You can also enter into a trashcan's mind, then telekinetically throw them off the end of the world... while still being in their mind.
    • The best part is messing with their dysfunctions. If Phoebe constantly worries about setting something on fire, using Pyrokinesis on her is several times as funny. You won't be able to stop trying to convince Chloe that the aliens have finally come to pick her up.
  • There's a level in which you're (relatively) a titanic behemoth, allowing you to smash civilization and burn down puppy orphanages.
  • Watching Raz squish tiny, scared lungfish, which causes them to flatten and turn red. Also, you can grab and throw tanks and other vehicles sent after you.
  • Your Exposition Fairy, Ford, actually encourages you to be as creative as possible when fighting Censors. Since they're very weak Mooks who can be killed by almost anything, you can have a lot of fun with them.
• In some of the Ratchet & Clank games, you can get Skill Points for shooting down enough cars. Not that bad? Try the stage in the second game where you have to take on a Thugs 4 Less boss as Giant Clank on a small, heavily urbanized moon. You can knock down every single building if you take your time, and even be rewarded for it with health and ammo. And you're supposed to be the good guy. Even better: You get a "Skill Point" specifically for "Turn[ing] the Lunar City into a parking lot".
  • Another specific example in the second game is the guided tour on planet Todano, where the player is free to unleash their sizable arsenal on the endlessly populating robo-tourists with reckless abandon. The Megacorp Helpdesk will call Ratchet out on this with increasingly threatening messages warning him to stop, but carry on further and the game will eventually just give up on trying to stop the player's violent behavior.
• Rockman 4 Minus ∞: Eddie can be killed. Just use the Recycle Inhaler and he turns into an Energy Splitter. There is also an Up'n'Down with a scuba mask in Dive Man's stage. Shoot at him to destroy said scuba mask and watch him drown.
• The Shantae series:
  • Shantae: Risky's Revenge: You can kill the forest chef's beloved pet dog Wobble Bell for 100 gems, and unlike the Mooks you face, he will never respawn. As 100 gems is quite a lot of money, most speed runners encourage this (after all, speed runners are known for killing animals).
  • Melting the Live Item Heart Squids into Heart Containers isn't necessary, but is the only way to get more Hearts Are Health and can be done in Shantae and the Pirate's Curse and Shantae and the Seven Sirens.
  • Shantae: Half-Genie Hero: During the magic carpet race, you can smack the other racers off their carpets. They can't interact with you, so you're either doing it just to be a jerk or to get the Achievement/Trophy for knocking them all off.
• In The Simpsons Game, you can hurt any NPC, which makes them run away from you.
  • Likewise, in Hit and Run, you can kick NPCs until they fall over. You can then kick them into the road, and run them over in a car... repeatedly. Unfortunately, all this does fill up your Hit and Run meter, and can fill it up quite quickly...
    • In other words, Homer Simpson beating the ever-loving hell out of Ralph Wiggum. You can have Homer kick Marge around, even Matt Groening did that when he play-tested the game!
• In the 3DS version of Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure and Skylanders: Giants, you can not only attack sheep with cartoonish results, you can also kill them. Their corpses fly and vanish and everything. There is even a room in Giants devoted to them entirely, where you can merrily explode, electrocute, and smash them into oblivion.
• Killing Omochao in Sonic Adventure 2 is a pretty good example. Simply shoot him as Tails/Eggman (tricky to do, because you can only do it without the auto-aim), jump on him as Sonic/Shadow, or punch him as Knuckles/Rouge to knock him off a cliff (easier to do the later in the game when you try this). He still shows up, but says things like, "I'm mad at you. I'm not going to help you out anymore!" Which, for most players, is a perk. Too bad he's only bluffing; he still has to help you no matter how much you abuse him.
  • Best way to kill Omochao is to go to Eternal Engine and destroy a window nearby him. He will get sucked out and regenerate right next to the window. Cue infinite deaths of Omochao.
  • If you REALLY feel like kicking the dog, go into the Chao gardens and beat on any of the cute, harmless, innocent Chao you're raising there. Eventually, it'll start shivering in fear. Pick on it long enough and it'll eventually start hiccuping and rubbing its eyes. Carry on still further, and it will openly cry. After that, the Chao will run away from the character you abused it with, and if you pick it up, it will squirm and cry (in a manner that sounds a lot like "No, no, no!" and "Put me down!").
  • And you can do this with every single character. One after the other. And isolate your target Chao in the Dark Garden, which is basically Fire and Brimstone Hell. So the poor Chao has been beaten up systematically by six people, even Tails, and abandoned in Hell next to a blood lake.
  • There is a pool in Sonic Adventure — in the hotel. It's shallow and mostly just there for decoration... except if you stand there long enough, it's one of maybe three places in the entire game Sonic can drown. Seriously, there's no reason to do it, yet almost nobody can resist, it seems.
  • Worse off of the things in Sonic Adventure you can do, you could actually kill your Chao by attacking it seven times. Again, you can kill an infant creature by attacking it several times while it cries each hit. You can imagine why you can't do so in the sequel.
  • Shadow the Hedgehog also offers you a chance to abuse more Chao. In the Cryptic Castle stage, there is a room full of little Chao running around and you can beat each one up and they cry and cry and cry. This is actually beneficial to you if you're playing the Dark mission on that stage, as it will boost your dark gauge. In the Expert Mode version of the stage, you can also do this to Cream, which instantly maxes out your dark gauge.
• Spyro the Dragon: You can have Spyro breathe fire at NPCs, or attack them by ramming them with his horns, which causes them to jump or yelp in protest. In the speedway levels from Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage! onwards, you actually have to harm innocent NPCs doing nothing but minding their own business in order to complete the level. The same game's Ocean Speedway even has a tribune full of fish-people who came specifically to admire a boat race; they are killable, and you get no penalty whatsoever for turning them all into crusty, flame-cooked fish n' chips after you utterly destroyed the boats taking part in said race. Even better (or worse), Spyro is meant to be Avalar's savior.
  • In fact, you get REWARDED for it in the Reignited Trilogy.
• In the Space Junk Galaxy level of Super Mario Galaxy, before fighting Tarantox, you can actually kill the Toad Tarantox captured in his web before your battle with him by pulling the Sling Pod said Toad is tied to away from Tarantox's web-strewn planet and sending him flying into space. He does survive later on, however.
• Part of the fun in Super Mario Maker is the ability to build ruthless Nintendo Hard or just plain sadistic levels for others to challenge. However, if the creator wants to share their brutal level, they have to actually beat it themselves, to prevent Unwinnable by Design stages.
  • If you create a castle level with Yoshi, you can leave him on the drawbridge and watch him plunge into the lava along with the enemies.
• In Super Mario Bros. 2 you can throw Mooks like Shy Guys into quicksand and watch them slowly sink to their death while they frantically kick and struggle in a vain attempt to survive.
• In the Cool, Cool Mountain world in Super Mario 64, you can throw the baby penguins off the cliff. Yes, even while momma penguin is watching.
  • If you use a cheat code on the N64 version, you can also throw the mother penguin off the cliff as well.
• In a mild case, in Super Mario Sunshine you can spray water at the Piantas, though it seems to only briefly annoy them. It's still fun to hear them yell angry gibberish at you, though. This crosses over into Video Game Caring Potential with the greasy mechanic piantas who work inside the cannons, though: because of how hot and gross it is in those things they happily raise their arms and laugh when you spray them.
  • Likewise you can bounce off their heads. You can even jump off the heads of the Toads, but not Princess Peach (before she gets kidnapped). You can still squirt her with water.
• Part of the fun in Super Mario World involves subjecting Yoshi to an assortment of deaths and situations it will never escape. Some chief examples include dismounting it while jumping over a pool of lava (and watching as it slowly sinks down into it), alternately throwing it into the brown lava (chocolate?) in any of the Chocolate Island levels, tossing it into the ether just before you hit the level goal, sacrificing it just as you float under the Cheese Bridge 1 level goal to get to the secret exit, watching the layer 2 up-and-down block maze in the Valley of Bowser crash it, leaving it stuck in glitched blocks, letting it run into a hole in the ground, letting it run wildly back and forth in an enclosed area, and leaving it stranded in a pit of enemies that it will never escape from.
  • Yoshi can eat the friendly dolphins that help you cross the water in one level, though it's only possible in some versions of the game.
  • It's worth noting that it's a Running Gag in Game Mods of SMW (particularly of the Platform Hell variety) to kill Yoshi in hilarious ways. Several of them lampshade this by naming the levels things like "Dinosaur Cruelty" or having him display Medium Awareness (e.g., "All right. Let's just get this over with already. I am going to see you again anyways. I hate being used as a sacrifice in many Kaizo hacks." in Springboard and Shells Hack). Ross O' Donovan dedicated an entire level to this in Super Mario Maker, where he forced the Game Grumps to repeatedly either helplessly watch Yoshi die or actively kill him off to proceed, fittingly titled YOU ARE A MONSTER ^note And you can be a monster too with the level code: 0D6C-0000-0049-8B08.
• Tomb Raider features a variety of unique death animations for Lara Croft depending on how she dies. This can lead players to intentionally kill her to watch her writhe in agony or crash into rocks. In the commentary for Tomb Raider: Anniversary, the creator comments that during the development time, it just wasn't a good day unless they impaled Lara on some spikes.
  • Ragdoll Physics took brutality to a new level in the otherwise sham-game The Angel of Darkness; videos exist on YouTube of players gleefully tossing the protagonist off a ledge to hear the scream and see the resulting death pose. While rag doll physics do exist in the later games, they are usually accompanied by a quick fadeout before the player reaches the bottom of the cliff, or the exact instant that contact is made, whereas the early games let you get a good look at post-mortem Lara for about eight seconds.
• In Wario Land you don't just get away with being a dick, you even get rewarded: if you throw a smaller mook underneath a Pouncer or a lightning bolt, you are rewarded with 10 coins rather than the usual 1. Feed a live mook to a Chicken Duck and you're rewarded with 30 coins. You also get rewarded with 1 coin for killing the entirely harmless Wandering Gooms (Though to be fair they are working for the bad guys), and 10 coins for managing to catch and kill the crab and fly enemies that just try to get away from you when you draw near.
• This is the very selling point of Wild 9, with the Tagline being "Torture Your Enemies". Which you do, by throwing them to their deaths, shoving them into electrical panels, dropping them on spikes, pushing them into the mouth of Man-Eating Plant monsters, or just pounding their faces repeatedly on the ground until they fall apart.

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