What happened to the mouse?/Left Hanging: Video Game edition

[Dalisclock]

Inspired by the following Tropes

What Happened to the Mouse? - TV Tropes

"What happened to the mouse?" occurs when a minor character, action or very minor plotline is suddenly dropped from the story for no apparent reason, without any real explanation about what happened to it, and without a resolution. There are …

tvtropes.org

Left Hanging - TV Tropes

The special feeling that you get when you've watched a show and realized that an unusually large number of loose ends have been left dangling. This special feeling is usually preceded by a glance at the clock, noting that it is 9:54, and saying …

tvtropes.org

So the thing that inspired this thread is that when I played BOTW last year, I left a couple SIde quests uncompleted when I stopped playing(I plan to get back to it later, I swear). Notably, there's a side quest in Kakariko village where a kid asks you to play hide and seek with him. Well, I looked around for a bit, couldn't find the kid and then went off to explore the world and do stuff and save Hryule. I never went back to look for that kid. He's probably still hiding in the village, waiting for Link to come back and find him so he can stop hiding.

I sometimes think about that for no reason, like "That kid is still hiding, waiting for me to come back. It's been close to a year now. Maybe I should go find him". I don't have that feeling about any other quest in that game, but for some reason that fictional child who doesn't know I'm not coming for quite a while is bugging me. Maybe because it reminds me of the poor dog from Futurama who waited for Fry to come back and when he never did, the pupper just kept waiting there forever.

I guess I'm asking is what stuff in games left unresolved, either by you or the game, bugs you.

 

[BrawlMan]

Rebecca Chambers. Other than, "Jill, Chris, Barry, and Rebecca got out of the mansion and survived" written by Capcom ,there was no physical evidence to show otherwise. It wasn't until Vendetta movie that came out around 2017 was when they finally bothered to answer that question.

Lucia. Her character arc was resolved, but they didn't use her again, outside of a prequel novel to DMC 5. Lady and Trish had their character arcs completed, yet they couldn't bother to bring Lucia back. I get why at the time, but everyone got over DMC 2 a long time ago. She's one of the few dark-skinned devil hunters you see in the series. Yet, they're more than happy to bring that brat, Patty back for a voice cameo, and they did a race lift on Dante's information broker, Morrison.

 

[Gordon_4]

Well there’s the original Dark Energy plot lines from Mass Effect 2. Also until DragonAge 4 comes out I’m left hanging on what’s happening with Solas and The Tevinter Imperium.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

Well there’s the original Dark Energy plot lines from Mass Effect 2.

Didn't fit on the beer coaster the plot for 3 was written on.

Also until DragonAge 4 comes out I’m left hanging on what’s happening with Solas and The Tevinter Imperium.

Let's just agree that he killed them all and released a delightful line of spring fashions made from their skins.

 

[Gordon_4]

Let's just agree that he killed them all and released a delightful line of spring fashions made from their skins.

You know considering who and what he ended up being, I'm not going to call that outside the realm of impossibility. Not likely, but not impossible either.

 

[Bob_McMillan]

Well there’s the original Dark Energy plot lines from Mass Effect 2.

I don't even remember what that was.

OT: Uhhh let's say half the shit they teased in Arkham City? It's not so much that they left it unresolved in Arkham Knight, but more of that the payoff so clearly shows that they put basically completely forgot about them.

Azrael was a cool side quest you could totally miss in City. What is he in Knight? A boring optional playable character with a shockingly short arc that consists of like three copy and paste challenges with the flimsiest of plot of attached, culminating in a single button press. Same goes for Hush, except he is literally just a single button press. Neither encounter adds anything to the game beyond saying "Hey, remember us from the last game?".

Ra's and Talia's resurrections were also teased, along with Killer Croc. Both would be concluded in the season pass as DLC, which is utter bullshit in my opinion.

Oh, and Harley was supposed to be pregnant with Joker's baby. Which is disgusting, so thank God they changed their minds on that.

 

[Kyrian007]

Maybe because it reminds me of the poor dog from Futurama who waited for Fry to come back and when he never did, the pupper just kept waiting there forever.

I guess I'm asking is what stuff in games left unresolved, either by you or the game, bugs you.

Or, maybe exactly like your example in Futurama... getting back to that left out thing would only ruin an otherwise great experience. Futurama retconned Jurassic Bark, and Seymour got his Fry back within the hour. And what had been a great, devastating ending to a great episode became... "meh, its fine. Fry comes back an hour later."

I see a lot of these in playthroughs of games like Fallout or Skyrim. Generally because I never try to experience everything with one character. I know I'll want to try different character builds, so I leave a lot of stuff for future runs through the game. And so I get a lot of the dangling threads from earlier characters... explained when I play with that next character. Let me tell you, 95% of the time... the stuff I was imagining was going on was WAY more interesting than what was actually in the game.

So when it comes to left hanging or the mouse... It is almost always better to leave it hanging. That's why they left it hanging in the first place, it was going nowhere interesting.

 

[BrawlMan]

So when it comes to left hanging or the mouse... It is almost always better to leave it hanging. That's why they left it hanging in the first place, it was going nowhere interesting.

That depends on what you're talking about. Sometimes yes, and sometimes no. But if a piece of media makes a big deal or calls attention to it, and it does not get resolved, or gets resolved as an actor and a laziest way possible, I'm calling out on it for what it is, and they're to be criticized. I know there's various reasons for the stuff like this happening: budget, time constraints, or creators losing interest. Which usually makes it all the worse if it's the third option. Even worse when all the above happens.

Oh, and Harley was supposed to be pregnant with Joker's baby. Which is disgusting, so thank God they changed their minds on that

Looks like Rocksteady he was trying to appeal to the bad fanfic writers.

Any House of the Dead game after 3, due to being prequels. The third game is set in 2019, and the sequels and spinoff that come afterwards are all set in the past. We don't know the fate of any surviving characters, because the third game takes place in a post-apocalypse.

We never find out what happens to Joseph Oda in Evil Within 2. Other than a name drop after completing a side quest and looking at a slide photo. Sebastian demands Kidman to tell him what happened to joseph, but all we get is a she'll explain later. We never see that conversation happen afterward.

Resident Evil series suffered so much from either wasted plots, or plot threads left hanging. Usually because Capcom couldn't commit to an idea or always tried to start fresh or soft reboot the story. Only for it to always go back to Umbrella or Wesker in some way, no matter the game. I meant, that some are left for the better. For example, I got sick of Ada by the fourth game, and wish she never existed by the sixth game. I don't care about Leon Ada's Batman-Catwoman relationship. It sucks. We're no closer to knowing about Ada from when she started all the way back in 1998. We don't know what shadowy organization she works for, and Capcom never bothers to answer these questions, nor clarify them. The same goes for the Revelations games. The first Revelation game might as well be in its own pocket dimension. The second game, while a little better about this, you might as well ignore the little teaser "good" ending that implies that some part of Alex Wesker is still alive inside Natalie. What's the point of a good ending if you're going to do dumb crap like that? Capcom is never going back to a lot of these characters or hanging plot threads. Especially now with the completion of Village.

 

[Specter Von Baren]

Give me time and I'm sure I'll remember something. But I certainly agree with Brawlman on Lucia, her story from DMC2 is probably the best part of it (though I know that's not a high bar) and it sucks to know she doesn't show up again.

 

[sXeth]

Waframe plays a pretty consistent left hanging with Alad V... but also cycles him out whenever they need a random minor antagonist to show up (like 7 times now). Vay Hek being a loose but lesser used counterpart on the Grineer side.


Though the real left hangings are (without delving too much into spoilers), Arlo the Emissary, The Worm Queen, and Captain Vor (the latter particularly with the current story arcs basically taking place in his damn lawn)