I was just briefly looking up some of Cing's old games, and a comment passed my eyes stating that one of the things that made the company's games unique was that the the protagonist was always vulnerable in the games. Whether this is true or not is unknown to me since I've yet to play them, but it made me wonder if there are other games out there like that. What games are out that, that are NOT survival horror, where the protagonist is still vulnerable despite whatever may happen?
Games where the protagonist is vulnerable
Connor Hill
Robert Wilson
Uhhhhhh all of them that aren't interactive movies? It depends on what you mean by vulnerable.
Wyatt Reed
Went back and pulled the guy's comment:
>One other common thread which ties in with what's mentioned in the article is how relatively powerless your characters are. They are often taken advantage of and lied to, and they have to work really hard to figure out the truth of things. In the Hotel Dusk series, Kyle never quite felt like he was fully out of danger. And Ashley is just a normal teenager. These add to how grounded the games feel.
Jonathan Johnson
So vulnerable plotwise, not gameplay wise.
The Life is Strange lesbian fucknuggets come to mind.
Eli Lewis
Guybrush Threepwood in Monkey Island is the most obvious one.
Max Payne is a train wreck (with good reason), although he isn't someone I'd call vulnerable.
In Planet Alcatraz pretty much every NPC tries to fuck you with their "quests". Someone asking for help? They're trying to kill and rob you. Just go there and talk to this guy? Kill and rob you again.
Xavier Barnes
Uh, literally 95% of games? You run out of lives you lose. What do you mean by "vulnerable" OP?
Josiah Gutierrez
That just sounds like plot/story-wise, which is fluff that can be added at any point.
>yeah you might be able to steamroll through this game by just hitting a single button, but your character has PTSD about it!
AKA it's fucking garbage. Give me a game where it's both plot related and an actual gameplay mechanic. IE: Your character is deaf, so the game has no sound (or something).
Austin Evans
Final Fantasy VII
Cloud is lied to and manipulated for nearly the whole game.
David Diaz
Dark Souls
Ryder Edwards
I remember that in Spore, if you removed your creature's eyes, you couldn't see for jack shit because they added a blurring, black circle around the screen up until the area immediately around your creature, which I guess is meant to represent touch.
Robert Rogers
I would love a Megaman game that looks like the American cover artworks.
Connor Nguyen
Tales of the Abyss shits on its protagonist for practically the whole game.
Jaxon Scott
Don't remind me of Spore, user. I already distrusted EA after 2002, and I felt so much pain and sorrow for anyone who was remotely excited for it. It didn't soften the blow, though.
Eli Allen
I think by vulnerable OP basically means "only human"
I'd say any point and click adventure qualifies because not having the proper item leads to the main character dying in a whole bunch of ways and he's usually too weak to fight anything directly.
Nicholas Davis
Given that those games are VNs?
Mason Turner
user…
Owen Baker
Story-driven strategy games usually have somewhat flawed protagonists.
Nathan Thompson
I'd like to mention every main character in Hotline Miami 1 and 2.
Jacket manages to beat the mafia, but they weren't even the villains, and he only ended up helping the villains then being thrown in jail to die.
Biker manages to find the villains but by then it's too late.
Beard manages to save Jacket but is killed in an explosion caused by events out of his control.
The Fans are killed trying to follow in Jacket's footsteps.
Manny Pardo manages to follow the Miami Mutilator's tracks but, in the end, never catches him and ends up too afraid to continue working. He also did nothing wrong.
The Writer has to choose between giving up on his dreams or giving up on his family.
Jake is either killed by the Russians he hates, or the organization he trusted with his life.
Richter manages to start a new life, but shares the same fate as Beard.
Pig buddy is a joke character.
Also, OP, I can't fully understand what you mean by 'vulnerable' and I think you mean to ask for characters that are 'powerless', to quote the person who inspired you to make this thread. You're looking for characters who, even when they do all of the right things, are unfairly punished and ultimately achieve little or nothing at all.
Christian Russell
please fuck off mark
Brayden Jenkins
Zettai Zetsumei Toshi series. You're just average people trying to escape a disaster.
Caleb Cruz
another DS game, 9 Hours 9 Persons 9 Doors, but I guess that's technically survival horror
same with Danganronpa 1
otherwise I'm drawing a blank
Asher Ramirez
Just remembered Tantei Club part II has this feeling too, seems like it's common among mystery adventure games
Carson Scott
Oh, you know what? I fucking forgot about Eternal Darkness.
Lincoln Williams
Eternal Darkness is basically sacrifice: the game. I think only two or three protagonists make it out alive and without their lives ruined, that we know of anyway.
Jackson Morales
I'm trying to remember who lived at the end of their stories. There was the main character, Alex. The WWI guy, but I think his brain got fucked by eldritch horrors. There was that chick who became a messenger for the purple "good" god or something. And there was that Indiana Jones guy who went into that temple the sentinel lady did. Then there was the nigger fire fighter or soldier or whatever the fuck he was. I forgot almost all of their names.
Cooper Phillips
Peter Jacobs spent his life tormented by bad dreams. Michael Edwards was probably killed right after delivering the essence. Edwin Lindsey is the only one that may have lived on peacefully, but we really have no information one way or the other. Alexandra had her head filled with the Ancients, but presumably the world was saved so maybe she ended up all right in the end (or was tormented by a now unshackled Mantorok for the rest of her life).
Grayson Clark
I find it strange that there was physical manifestations of an Old One on Earth in a not so hidden temple and an old church in France that no one ever thought of documenting. You'd think that a giant blob eyeball monster and a lesser demon might be top priority for religious scholars and scientists. Yes you can explain that shit away with "the old ones were really good mind manipulators", but the lesser demon didn't have the same powers that his god did, atleast I think with Chattur'gha, who was more a brute than anything.
James Gray
Jacob Ward
If VNs are video games then this is a paper video game.
Carson Young
And this is a live action video game.
Adrian Richardson
Joke's on you Cing's games are actually adventure games
Jaxson Brooks
Then they're not VNs then.
Ayden Miller
...
Nathaniel Flores
You mean
Bentley Flores
Digital Devil Saga 2 did this with the least amount of gameplay/story segregation. In an area of the final dungeon you're taken away the ability to transform. In human form all you have are guns and jack shit for defense. You're fighting a constant hoard of hindu gods, escaping is almost never a fucking option.
and if you EVER run into this thing, god has abandoned you
Ethan Jackson
If it was digital, then yes, it would be a video game.
Eli Morris
Dumb as hell but consistent, I respect that.
Bentley Mitchell
But it's an edit of captain america.
Camden Moore
Then where's his swastika tattoo?
Blake Martinez
But Another Code was the comfiest shit, something I always found impressive since it took place in an abandoned mansion far from any human contact. Ashley goes in there and it never feels like she could be out of her depth, she's just having a grand old adventure in there.
Bentley Price
This is for you (you), OP.
Lincoln Scott
I'm glad I'm not as retarded as these anons
Adrian Sanchez
VNs are games you fucks.
Jaxson Hill
Do you see "game" in the description somewhere? We don't call them visual novel games (VNGs) for a reason.
Hudson Moore
Oh shit, there's no "game" in roguelike, better pack it in and stop talking about them.
Jeremiah Mitchell
Not an argument.
Jeremiah Perez
All right all right, some visual novels are "games" in only the shallowest sense of player skill being the ability to correctly judge character interactions to be rewarded with the ending they seek. The skill being tested is understanding how the writer of the game thinks and what to expect from particular kinds of choices. However, there are some visual novels that don't even have this level of choice or "failure" consequences. These ones simply cannot be considered games by any measure.
Grayson Edwards
For one thing, they should be called Visual Novellas at best.
John Watson
If there's no state in which the player's choices cause them to fail, then no, it's not a game.
There are 2 basic fucking things to a game and that's
everything else is icing
VN's which just have a "bad end" don't count
Daniel Wilson
...
Elijah Carter
Ori and the Blind Forest kinda-sorta manages a "vulnerable protagonist" feeling, especially if you play on the hardest difficulty where even the starter enemies knock off half your health bar in one hit. The feeling goes away pretty damn fast once you start juicing up your combat abilities though.
Don't Starve also gives you a pretty vulnerable feeling. Once you get super-late into the game you can start juicing yourself up with ancient magic technology but before then, you are always one fuckup away from death at any given time. Get too close to that giant monster? Get caught out at night with no light source? Dead. Not stock enough food for winter? Dead. Not stock enough ice for summer? Dead. Not build flingomatics everywhere before summer wildfires start? Your base burns down and you're probably dead. Forget to keep your Sanity up when the hounds attack? Good luck not being dead when you get attacked by hounds and hallucinations both at the same time. You get the idea.
Owen Phillips
I suppose this counts. Combat is so clumsy that trying to play aggressively is pretty much suicidal. And that was intentional, they wanted you to sneak around and knock out enemies from behind.
Ethan Roberts
Thief 1 is shit though. The rope arrows were a neat idea but the rest of the game is just boring.
Ian Howard
It's not all shit, only the levels with monsters and supernatural shit. The ones with actual regular thieving are very fun.