Also many others like Overboss and Nefarious (although the latter's protagonist seems guided into more of an antiheroic position). And in Despotism 3K you can be an evil AI... while Automachef stars a wannabe evil AI.
Think of it as the anti-Strategy game. You have a map where you can place buildings, but your goal is not to develop a civilization, it is to restore nature to the map, and leave no trace behind.
It is very good if you like zen relaxing games. Warm recommend.
My advice for the dragon is to say, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean for the joke to offend you. If it makes you uncomfortable I will not make jokes about your hair in the future."
Oohhh I'm sorry bud that's a 3, after your apology to your wife, her glare doesn't fade, but instead intensifies as she sneers. "Oh so now you think I can't take a joke huh?! That I'm just some.. Humorless Crone that sucks all the joy out of your life, is that it?"
I'd add something like "i bet that this bitch Jessica can take a joke". Jessica is the woman you cheated with (in your wife's dream but it still counts)
Derail Valley. Open-world train simulator with almost zero rules (except the laws of physics) and actual incentive for going too fast and driving recklessly.
Instead of a strategy game where you’re defending the world from some mad scientist, you’re the villain on a tropical island building a lair and sending out henchmen to rob the world and scheme
Warcraft III is not about heroes saving the world from evil.
It's very much you being played into doing evil things for the overall good only to escalate into you killing everyone,and only later evolves back into heroes saving the world
Tried it but couldn't really get into it. Might be because I played it on console (it was free with my subscription) and the controls feel a bit iffy compared to how I imagine PC.
Already knowing the story beats also takes away some of the excitement I guess.
Yeah, imho the entire reason you play Undertale is for the story. If you’ve already been spoiled, unless you really love the gameplay, there really isn’t a reason to play unfortunately.
Which sucks because the first thing people seem to do whenever it releases is flood the internet with "(insert game) all endings + secrets" within a month of playing.
My current GM told us a story of one of his previous campaigns played their own version of DnD that consisted of them in an office creating and filing paper work in a world that vaguely resembles our modern day, just with fantasy races
Not exactly what you look for, but it reminds me, how Hollow Knight: Silksong trailer mirrored original Hollow Knight trailer. Descend -> Ascend. There was more mirrorism, but it's not what you were asking for and I can't recall other stuff Silksong reversed.
Also not sure if that counts, but... Puella Magi Madoka Magica. It starts as cute magical girl and becomes eldritch horror quickly.
Or... TenSura? The main character is a slime. I expected him to be pushover and anime being comedic about other characters defending him. Man, I was soooo wrong about that. Slime being the strongest of all.
But the two examples aren't games.
The stuff I mention below has minor spoilers. One could argue they are more than minor, but IMO they don't change anything much, especially that both example are easily shown at the beginning.
Does deception count? Wander from Shadow of the Colossus is fighting evil colossi to save his lover. Except that colossi are just kinda innocent beings. Maybe innocent is not the correct word, but they are just like big animals. Some of them are aggressive. But so are animals in real life if you bother them in their territory. But colossi aren monsters as he was told. It's basically a plot twist you can easily catch yourself at the beginning of the game, so not really big plot twist plot twist. More like "plot twist that player knows anyway", it's more plot twist for the character.
Or maybe Assassin's Creed 3? You play as a pretty fine guy, called Haytham Kenway. You assassinate bad guys do this, do that. Then you learn that you are a villain. Game quickly shifts to give you control over his son, who is a good guy.
There are; but the problem is that while the premise might work for a brief joke, it doesn't hold up for a prolonged multi-hour experience. For example having the princess kidnap the dragon might be good for a silly comic or even a short episode/movie, but a 20+ hour game? How long until it's nothing more than you stomping goombas while finding the sword of princess slaying just like any other game? It's the exact same set-up, just with the 'dragon' being a female human and the 'princess' being a reptile.
Reccetear(sp?) An item shop tale. As the title implies you run an item shop to get out of debt in a fantasy town. It has some dungeon crawling elements but it's a lot of trying to stay ahead of the market and running an item shop.
So like a videogame series "another mundanery" where each one is absolutely vital to have played the other before it to follow the story which involves no magic, fantastical weaponry, or exotic locals?
Unlike other JRPGs from that time, Japanese devs rejected the fantasy setting and went for contemporary America setting, at least the way it is depicted in the media. Thus you play as a team of kids in a suburb, get around by bike and beat up hooligans, skaters and bullies rather than slimes and goblins. You save by calling your dad. Yes there are monsters and aliens, but I don't think this changes the vibe of the setting that dramatically.
Moonlighter: run an item shop, only the items you sell are things you get from dungeon crawls
chroma squad: super sentai game where, instead of a superpowered brawler, it's a tactics game where your units are stunt actors making a tv show.
Wildmender: an amnesiac is trying to survive alone in a post apocalyptic wasteland, but it's a cozy game where combat is minimal, and your main goal is geoscaping a desert.
Friends vs. Friends: You're playing a card game with your buddies, but it's a first person shooter.
Gambonanza: it is to chess what balatro is to poker.
Loop Hero. Maybe not quite "reverse" of its genre, but its a little deck building roguelike where instead of your deck being moves for your character, its tiles for the map.
The Dark Queen of Mortholme. And indie game in which you're an evil queen and final boss of the game while pc/opponent is the hero who keeps respawning and evolving around your attacks. Game only ends when you are killed by the hero.
Not sure how much it might count, but Reventure comes to mind.
On the surface it’s a 2-D platformer in a (mostly) fantasy setting with a pretty ‘normal’ setup of trying to rescue the princess and defeat the dark lord.
But the ‘actual’ goal is to play through the game and find every possible ending for it, similar to how someone playing a visual novel game may try to find all possible paths through the dialog tree.
Funnily enough I tried to but couldn't find anywhere to get it. Don't know if it really fits though because from what I know it looks similar to Hotline Miami's and Postal's genre.
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u/memoryblocks 18h ago
Octodad. Stealth game where the stealth is acting like a normal human person.