Bit of an explanation as to what prompted me to make this post: I recently played through Sniper Ghost Warrior: Contracts 1 and 2 and I just felt off. I've slaughtered hundreds of innocents for my amusement in games like Fallout and TES, I play through No Russian with a grin, but for some reason, I refrain from killing bad guys in SGW? The first one has you hunt down Russian oligarchs and war criminals, while the second one is about Middle Eastern terrorists and this is the game where I feel bad about killing? There's just something about the soldiers talking about their daily problems like making no money, uncomfortable boots and sweating too much, or showing eachother pictures of their dogs, not to mention the absolute horror when you've got a knife against their throat or when they find a body. I hope this isn't weird, but I've never experienced remorse for killing a video game enemy, and I've played a lot of different games. I'd like to hear about your experiences, and which games do a good job humanising common enemies, the concept intrigues me.
Surely not a rare opinion, but Undertale. Especially if you do a fully blind playthrough, since you get to see the consequences of your actions:
Bro Undertale really fucked me up because you get a choice to Kill the hand that feeds you at the start. I didn’t know there was a choice. I thought you just had to fight. I kill them. I then find out you didn’t have to kill them. So being at the start of the game, I simply restart my save. And the game literally doesn’t forget that I’m a murderer on a new save and the same NPC in the new save brings up and says something along the lines of “making a new save doesn’t make you a better person kiddo” when it’s time to confront them again. It made me sick as fuck to the stomach.
I played it 5 or so years ago but I never forgot that detail.
It's a really deep game if you keep playing it, I really recommend you try to get the 'better ending', why not trying to talk to that flowey again? ;)
Yeah I thought it was a "I'll rough you up a little to show that I'm ready and you'll let me through" moment and it was anything but that