| abstract
| - Another instance of this in Metal Gear Solid 4, is that part way through the game, Otocon will tell you to switch discs. then, when Snake does not find a disc, Otocon remembers that the game is on the PlayStation 3, which has duel layered discs.
*
* The colonel telling the player to switch off his console is a reference to the original game, where Big Boss did the same near the end.
* Psycho Mantis. During his boss fight you actually have to UNPLUG YOUR CONTROLLER AND PLUG IT INTO THE SECOND CONTROLLER PORT! And, as if this isn't bad enough, until you figure it out, he constantly makes fun of you, comments about the games you've played by reading your memory card and even tells you that he's deleted your memory!
* Snake first notices that something is wrong, when all the guards are gone from a corridor, and the Mind Control Music has stopped playing.
* When Revolver Ocelot prepares to torture Solid Snake, after explaining how Snake can rapidly press a controller button to recharge his health, he suddenly turns away from Snake and toward the player before warning that he'll know if you're using an auto-fire controller.
* Also in Metal Gear Solid 2 Sons of Liberty, Snake tells Raiden not to worry about Snake running out of bullets and points to his headband and knowingly says "infinite ammo". The player can get a headband that gives them infinite ammo after beating the game.
* In Shift 2, the wall of spikes actually stop in the beginning of the game due to faulty actionscript.
* In Ratchet and Clank Going Commando when the aforementioned main characters first land on Notak, they see their target fly away. They then comment to each other that they always seem to be just a bit too late, and ask themselves how that could happen, before turning to look at the camera.
* In Tools of Destruction, when Ratchet & Clank meet The Plumber (a recurring NPC in the series) he says that he "didn't recognize them in high-definition".
* In the first Ratchet & Clank, Ratchet would turn his head and look at the player when idle. Disconcerting when you were trying to figure out the next platforming puzzle, which was when Ratchet was most likely to be idle.
* Disgaea 2 Cursed Memories has many of these, one is pointed out by the main character when one random NPC says that there are multiple endings available by responding "You aren't even trying any more are you?"
* The Disgaea series barely has a fourth wall to begin with. Characters are fully aware of their stats and levels, different NPCs try to steal the "main character" spot, and there's surprise when a Bonus Boss from an earlier game turns out to have a role in the main quest. Why, yes, the one Laharl couldn't believe was level four thousand.
* The first game also has a beautiful example at the end of chapter four, when Vulcanus says that he's going back to Celestia to come up with a new plan and starts to walk away, then pauses and turns and says, "Got that!? Don't forget it, even if I don't make an appearance for awhile!" Sure enough, he doesn't re-enter the plot until there are only a few chapters left.
* This tradition continues in crossover games. In Trinity Universe only the Disgaea characters break the fourth wall. The Prinnies are especially proud of it.
* Skate 3, oddly enough, breaks the wall early on, when a cutscene details the Object Dropper dropping objects out of the sky in a cutscene, and Atiba Jefferson comments on it, saying that "Objects are falling out of the sky, man! It's crazy!"
* Some of the AI pros say stuff when being faced in a 1-up battle, such as "Who programmed me?!?"
* True Crime: Streets of LA The 'hero', a wildly out of control cop, can run over pedestrians. One of his replies? "Don't worry about it, this is just a video game." Made extra creepy, because the bad ending, narrated by Christopher 'Creepy' Walken, has the hero cop thrown from the top of a fifty story building.
* Prince of Persia: Sands of Time does this while the Prince and Farrah are in the library. After she reads a poem to him:
* Dmitri Petrovich of the Backyard Sports series does this many times. In the original Backyard Baseball, he says that if the AI improved and there was less chatter, the game would be better. (True thing.) In Backyard Skateboarding, he says "I think we are wasting time" on the choose character screen.
* In Simon the Sorcerer the protagonist encounters a group of four wizards; when he talks to them, they pretend they are farmers. But you can point out that when you point at them with the cursor, it says "wizards"...
* And when you talk to them, you DO treat them as wizards. You can even tell them about the cursor.
* Picking up an extra life in MadWorld has the announcers wonder why the enemies never pick up power-ups - "It's like they can't see them!"
* In the Visual Novel Snow Sakura, the main character Tachibana Yuuji has his moments with this trope but nothing matches his announcement that he'll "watch you closely" when you choose that he should smell at Saki's panties.
* Kefka does this in Dissidia Final Fantasy. When a fellow villain asks him why he doesn't just ambush his rival and kill her without theatrics, he answers: "I wanna have some fun! After all, she's a -- good old friend of mine. Mwhehehe!" At the last part, he turns to look directly through the fourth wall, giving the players a knowing gaze since both they and he know about the events of Final Fantasy VI where he met her before.
* TECHNICALLY, Kefka sorta does it during his EX-burst. Right before the part where the player has to memorize a three-button sequence, he tells his opponent, and quite possibly you, to "Watch this."
* Sometimes he will hum the victory fanfare when he wins too.
* In duocedim, Gilgamesh does this when he initiates his ex-burst, starting with a spinning slash and LITERALLY breaking the fourth wall, with his face, specifically.
* The Dark Spire's final ending concludes with the characters looking up at the sky and seeing the player on the other side of the DS screen. They thank you for your guidance, and you are awarded the title "WINNER".
* While the fourth wall in Contact is pretty much swiss-cheesed by the end of the game, the ultimate in fourth-wall-breaking comes at the very end, when the player's character gets fed up with being manipulated and actually attacks you, the player, through the DS's screen.
* In The Guild 2 each character belongs to one of four classes: learned; craftsman; self-employed; and outlaw. If you click too often on an outlaw, he/she will reply, pissed: "Stop clickin' me!!!".
* In Duke Nukem Manhattan Project, right before the Final Boss fight starts, Duke turns towards the screen and invites the player to help him beat the boss.
* One of the endings of the Valkyria Chronicles DLC Enter the Edy Detachment. If you get the worst rank possible, Edy starts ranting about how she deserves a better rank, how the player sucks ("I'm talking to you, sloth fingers!"), and ends the rant by literally telling the player that she is going to re-do the mission to get a better rank. Hilarity Ensues when Homer keeps asking Edy who she's talking to.
* In Assassin's Creed II Desmond is using the Animus to view his ancestral memories of Ezio. At the end, Minerva, a precursor to the human race, looks straight at the camera and delivers her message to Desmond, chiding Ezio each time he interrupts saying that the message isn't intended for him (the only person in the room), but is instead meant for the viewer, Desmond, thereby "breaking the fourth wall" of the Animus.
* Dead Space 2 has one in the rantings of the increasingly insane Nolan Stross, whom in his paranoid ramblings mentions "him watching".
* When boarding the tram with Ellie in Chapter 9, he looks directly at the camera and screams "STOP STARING AT ME!"
* The third Gabriel Knight game has a running gag where the player is given options to try some nasty things but Gabriel will refuse to do them, and then he will comment on the player with quips like "You're sick," or "You really are sadistic. You need help." Repeated attempts later would result in "Are you still on that track? Get. Help."
* Ristar has a minor break whenever the player loses a life. When you lose the last star that represents Hit Points, it falls down and conks Ristar on the head, knocking him out.
* In the final battle of Golden Sun, the first thing that happens is that the Big Bad grows large enough to shatter the screen. Thankfully, this has no real effect on the battle other than following the Rule of Cool.
* In The Lost Age, answering "no" to every question up to a certain point results in Kraden going off on Felix and asking if he thinks this is all just a game.
* This happens in Fire Emblem of all places. Normally gameplay elements are described in a matter fitting to the world, with the increased avoid in forests being attributed to branches making it hard to hit, and the Secret book increasing skill as a legendary knight wrote down his battle techniques into a book. However, one villager in Rekka no Ken blatantly asks you if you know how to use the R button to look up information.
* In Sharin no Kuni Kenichi is generally treated like he's crazy because of his constant narrative dialogue, forever addressing some 'you' character. It's actually a subversion; He's talking to his sister who has been standing behind him all along. People treat him like he's crazy because they are not allowed to acknowledge her existence in any way. On the other hand, Touka also wakes up from a dream that was done from Kenichi's perspective and complains about the confusion that made it seem as though it were really happening. Kenichi has no idea what she is talking about.
* "It looks like there's no one here!" "Yes there is. The music just changed."
* Borderlands. If you stand idle with Mordecai he will say "Now that you mention it i do love standing here doing nothing" another interesting note. if you save someone on co op he will say that he's not paid enough and in the first DLC a character says he wish he was a villain rather than a NPC.
* In Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders, the main character loves to do that, and not only him.
* In Zeus Master Of Olympus, you can right click people to listen to their quotes. Sometimes, a trader from a not-so-friendly city will say, "Right click me? I'll right click you! You and this city stink and I only trade with you because my leader demands me to."
* Played with in Kingdom Hearts II. Stitch crawls on it, licks it, and stands on the Command Menu, as well as Sora's HUD, or, to be precise, on the Drive/Summon Gauge.
* In a more regular example in the first game, Donald Duck is out of shot during a conversation so he literally pulls the screen away from Goofy to focus on him before he begins speaking.
* The lesser known PS1 fighting game Zero Divide has an instance of fourth wall breaking, when the announcer asks if the player is trying to break the controller if buttons are mashed repeatedly. This instance can be seen here: (Cut to 1:28 when the video has loaded enough).
* Rayman has the eponymous character look towards the screen and attempt to contact the player through motions and gestures if left idle while standing still or hanging from a ledge.
* In Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc, Murfy straight-out takes out a copy of the game's manual and uses it to explain to Rayman what's going on.
* At the entrance to the Heavenly Jade Imperial Tower in Bunny Must Die is a red gate and a switch where you place your yellow gem, which naturally doesn't do anything. Cue message stating that it isn't a glitch, and Bunny wondering what the voice she just heard was.
* The first devil, El Bobomboi also lampshades the fact that she's supposed to be the first devil if you Sequence Breaking and fight Pyoa Aaaa first.
* In League of Legends, every so often, one hero Mordekaiser responds with "You only need to click once... fool!" when given the order to move.
* Some of the units in Company of Heroes will break the wall if you click on them enough. A few examples:
* In Celadon Mansion in Pokémon Red and Blue, you can talk to a programmer, graphical artist and script writer who worked on the game. They talk to you about your Game Boy and one even remarks "I drew you!"
* Looking at the computer the script writer is at mentions "Better not look at the ending!"
* Interacting with the in-game models of the development team is done in every game. In Ruby/Sapphire they're on vacation in Hoenn. In Black and White, you're even able to battle one of them.
* Fallout 2 has LOTS of these. Bartender of the parlor: "Are you OK? It seems consuming so much alcohol Z had some effect on you." Chosen One "I'll pop out of the conversation one second and check my max hit points." Chosen One: "Bastard! Wait till I load my last save!"
* Deadpool carries over his habit of breaking the fourth wall into Marvel vs. Capcom 3. When he's knocked out, he yells out "YOU PRESSED THE WRONG BUTTON!", referring to the player controlling Deadpool. Upon winning, he'll grab the camera and tell the player "Hey! Yeah, you! I'm down here bustin' my ass while you sit on yours watching me jump around! How is THAT fair?" or "You *were* recording that, weren't you, player? No? Hehe...WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU WEREN'T RECORDING THAT?!" His Level 3 Hyper Combo has him assume a girlish pose and walk toward his opponent with a pink aura and hearts surrounding him for a few seconds. If he is attacked in this state, he'll flashbang his opponent, jump up, grab his health bar and smack his opponent in the head. He then grabs his Super Meter, winds up (hitting them in the process), and knocks his opponent sky high. His dialogue while he does this? "Boop-boop-de-boop. *kisses* Health bar in your face! Feel the love of the Hyper Combo! AND IT'S A HOOOOOOOOOOME RUUUUUUUUN! This is a Hyper Combo!"
* He says "Hey I frickin' LOVE Street Fighter! Autograph your spleen for me?" at the beginning of a match if he and Ryu/Chun-Li/Akuma/Crimson Viper fight. If he wins, he'll ask to be on the cover of the next Street Fighter.
* If he fights Dante, his start quote is "How did ANYONE ever enjoy these games without me in 'em?" and, upon winning, he says "Next time, maybe you should let Nero do your fighting, skippy."
* With Phoenix Wright, he'll say (What else?) "OBJECTION! Oh man, that is really fun to say!" and, upon winning, tries to crack a joke: "I'd say justice was served. No, I don't know how. Just roll with it, okay people?!"
* Spider-Man gets a special quote referencing a real-life event: "Gonna rough you up like a Broadway musical!" and also lets Spidey know that Wesker stole his "Maximum Spider" move.
* Wolverine gets a reference to the X-Men Origins: Wolverine movie when Deadpool beats him: "Ya see that? THAT'S how you beat Wolverine, people. AND YA DON'T EVEN NEED OPTIC BLASTS!"
* There is Arthur too: "And THAT'S for lulling me into great side-scrolling adventures that were never possible to beat!"
* And Spencer (in the original game): "You were so much cooler without the dreads. But the game's easier since you can jump now." In Ultimate, it was changed to "And THAT'S for pooping on my lawn. I'M the only one who gets to do that!"
* When wearing his Alternative (Cablepool) costume, he'll say "And you thought Cable wasn't in this game."
* In his ending, he says "I'd invite you to party with me, but you'll just have to make do with the points you got for beating the game. He then accidentally destroys a city, causing the cops to put out an APB for him and his accomplice, "The Player."
* When She-Hulk fights Deadpool she tells him "I can break the fourth wall too, y'know!" and, upon beating him "If there's ever an MVC4, I'll destroy you there too, Wade." She then tells him that, were the game made in 1990, SHE'D be smacking HIM around with a health bar.
* Deadpool also has his very own game. The reason it wasn't here for so long is because...well, how can you break a fourth wall that isn't there?
* If you fall far enough to hurt yourself, but not far enough to die, The Saboteur will shout things. One of them is "Stop that!"
* There's a minor example in Dead Rising 2. The player can get Chuck to wear various outfits you find in Fortune City, and he comments on most of them with stock lines like "Killer", "Smooth", and "Nice". Make him crossdress, though, and while sometimes he'll deadpan "Pretty", he'll also say "Um...Seriously?", and "If you say so..."
* Whacky Wheels has a literal example of this. If you run into certain obstacles at high speed, your character will fly out of their little go-cart, hit the screen (leaving huge cracks) and slowly slide off.
* The early Resident Evil games shot the fourth wall on occasion.
* In Resident Evil 1 there's an area in the laboratory where the player can shoot directly into the camera. If you're using a pistol bullet holes will appear on the screen. A nice little Easter Egg.
* In the sequel, Resident Evil 2, there's a small alley with dogs where the same thing can happen. It can also be done while fighting G on the turntable lift.
* Stay on the menu screen too long in Ghost Hunter and a spirit would zoom up and audibly tap on the screen.
* In Tak and the Power of Juju the opening cutscene has the village shaman talking to the player, whom he regards as a powerful juju spirit from another world.
* The camera viewpoint moves across the interior of the shaman's hut as he chants to summon a juju spirit. When the camera is on his face, he opens his eyes and screams at the sight of the player looking at him.
* "You are so strange! Your clothes. That powerstick you hold in your hand. I have never seen a juju like you before. What is this magic box you watch me on? [Presses his hands to the screen so you can see his fingers flatten themselves on the screen.] It is clearly the most important thing in your hut! You do me great honor to watch me on it...."
* In X Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse, every character has a couple of lines when they're idle for too long, and several are directed at the player, like Bishop's "Hey you! Yeah, you! What are you doing that's so much more important than this?"
* Spyro the Dragon does this a lot in A Hero's Tail, often turning to the camera and making a remark. One that springs to mind...
*
* Oh, there are two others that are better then that.
* After obtaining the Ancient Sword in 3D Dot Game Heroes, the king asks you if you'll accept his quest. If you pick no, he'll tell you that you can't pick that because that answer doesn't advance the story.
* Yo-Jin-Bo does a pretty good job of smashing that wall, too. The guys like to tease Mon-Mon about "not being one of the characters you can get at the end of the game", and his response is that he has an Image Song and has spent too much time reading his lines to not be a "captureable character".
* The Simpsons Game is just layers of this. At the finale of the game, God asks you for his guide book back, which then zooms out to Ralph Wiggum playing on his TV. Ralph then turns and just STARES at you.
* In the Runescape 2011 Easter event, a squirrel named the 'Antipodean Squirrel', is angry about how the Easter event is Northern-Hemisphere-Centric, and about how it is Spring in the northern hemisphere and how it is autumn in the southern hemisphere and it is not fair to no autumn event. (One responce is to tell him to stop breaking the fourth wall, which the response is 'Yeah, likeyou stay in character all the time!')He is angry how one half of the world is being left out. And his way of solving the problem is to 'Stand here... and keep shouting'.
* Pokémon Ranger
* The first game has the Professor refer to the game interface after you capture the angry Rhydon -- "By options, I don't mean fooling with some text settings, I mean consider what we might do!"
* Also, Magikarp's Pokédex entry in Platinum, and Pokémon Black and White says that if it lives for many years, it can leap a mountain using Splash, but that "The move remains useless, though."
* Mega Man Battle Network 6: There's a Navi Customizer program called Humor, in which we can trigger a conversation between Lan and Mega Man (and occasionally someone else). In one occasion, Mega Man asks whether Lan is being "operated" by an unknown guy. Then Lan somehow recognized (indirectly) that he's a guy in a 6th installment of a game. Detailed here.
* I can't believe the art dealer from Little King's Story hasn't been mentioned. Upon approaching him, he says "You in front of the TV playing Little King's Story!"
* On the last level, Bubsy asks, "are you still playing this thing?".
* In the space action sim Tachyon: The Fringe, when entering a console cheat code, the main character will start taunting the player for his lack of skill.
* In the Kirby's Dream Land enclosed instrution book, if you get to the point in which the booklet says, "And here's Kirby," Kirby breaks the fourth wall from introducing himself to telling players what to do to the items to explaining the stages. Next page of "And here's Kirby" can be found here. A text version of the instruction booklet can be found here.
* Also, unlike the 3DS release manual, Kirby, as he is explaining the items, tells the people who are reading the manual about himself, and about the items. Kirby then explains the stages in the next page.
* Kirby also breaks the fourth wall yet again in the Kirby Tilt N Tumble enclosed instruction book via speech bubbles.
* Night Trap has characters frequently speak to you via the cameras, and some of them call you Control.
* If you play Rogue Galaxy for too long, Kisala will make a commentary on how long you have been playing the game.
* Team Fortress 2 has a few lines that Break the Fourth Wall:
* At the beginning of The Reconstruction, Fell talks to the player directly. Justified in that she is some sort of demigod.
* Or not, though whatever technology gives the Watchers their precognitive abilities probably grants them this knowledge as well.
* When you have selected or modified your multiplayer character's weapon in Call of Duty Black Ops, he will examine it briefly, then nod appreciatively at the player.
* The cast of Zenonia often break the fourth wall, such as when the Chief of Hades tells Regret that "People in this game are rude." and to have an open mind.
* One side-quest involves giving a fortune cookie containing a marriage proposal from a man to a woman in another tow, but the woman accidentally eats the message. Regret comments that it's like this was actually a true story that happened to a member of the development team.
* In the game Castle Shikigami III (full name Castle of Shikigami III), the characters sometimes break the fourth wall, such as Reika from Time Gal.
* Reika also mentions the game Time Gal, then asking the players.
*
* And it gets more odd; Reika metions THE PLAYERS, then TELLING THE PLAYERS TO POWER UP THEIR STRENGH at the begining of the last boss.
* In Destroy All Humans!, at the opening choice options screen on the mothership, if you fail to make a decision and leave the screen idle, Pox will sometimes say a random thing to you relating to the situation (i.e., "Well, it's your electric bill. You could have thought to turn the console off. Haven't you ever heard of global warming?" or "May I remind you that the name of this game is "Destroy All Humans", not SCREW AROUND IN THE MOTHERSHIP!").
* In Persona 4 there is an NPC that mentions the ever-so-wonderful Square button that has the power of teleportation.
* This comes up a lot during the Sly Cooper franchise, with dialogue such as: "Bentley, how do I climb ladders?" "Simple Sly. Just press the circle button."
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)