Looking for RPGs with a particular cliche. . .

[Cyril]

I'm fond of the cliche "you were a/the villain all along" or anything similar  What I'm not looking for is "unknowingly working for the villain due to the villain's grand scheme," but rather your character was willingly working for, or even was, the/an antagonist at one point.

I'm thinking something along the lines of

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Magna Carta 2 or KOTOR.  You might as well throw Baten Kaitos into this category as well.

[Dice]

Umm.. Baten Kaitos I & II

Interesting sudden interest....heh

[Robert Boyd]

Cthulhu Saves the World
Okage: Shadow King
Disgaea series
FFIV (beginning)

[Itches]

Persona 3 more or less.

[Raze]

Persona 3 more or less.

Kind of see where you're coming from, but I'm not feeling it. He's just got a dark power source and

Code:

putting death back together fits more in unknowingly working for the villain

.

To throw out another iffy one though, breath of fire 4.

[Eusis]

Well, this one isn't a straight example of what you're thinking of, but it still applies in a few different ways, but (this is a recent game):

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you may want to check out Nier.

[Aeolus]

There's also:

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Golden Sun (all three of them).
Terrengima (kinda, in that you're working for the bad guys rather than being a villain all along).
Lufia and the Fortress of Doom (kinda, in that only one of your party members was the villain all along).
Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess (oh wait, Ganon out of fucking nowhere, so much for toying with dark powers to combat a mysterious threat).
Castlevania Aria of Sorrow (and by extension Dawn of Sorrow).
Chrono Cross (both technically and literally but I'm not really that interested in performing all the blind calculus needed to make enough sense of the plot to explain how or why).
Xenogears (kinda, in that alter-egos/blatant psyche metaphors are involved).
FFIV (for only the first couple of hours).
FFVII (kinda, but my explanation for this is the same as CC's).
FFVIII (same as Lufia 1's if you're the kind of person who buys into the Rinoa = Ultimecia argument).
FFTA (kinda, in that nobody presents a consistent argument as to what you are doing being right or wrong beyond stop destroying the world or because the prince said so).
Legend of Dragoon (same as Lufia 1's and FFVIII's).
Drakengard (kinda, in that everyone's an asshole including the developers who are trolling you with the very game you're playing).
Valkyrie Profile Covenant of the Plume (kinda, in that you get to choose just how evil you want to be).
Tales of Phantasia (oh wait, villain just trying to save his world out of fucking nowhere, you're killing his planet man).
Tales of Symphonia (kinda, in that there's fantasy racism everywhere and because Dawn of the New World said so).
Live-A-Live (same as Lufia 1's, FFVIII's, & LoD except that you can actually side with the villain).
Crystalis (kinda, in that you are the reason as to why there's a big bad elephant in the room to begin with (NES version only)).
Sword of Mana (kinda, in that you are the good guy fighting the bad guys but those poor misunderstood bad guys didn't deserved to be killed and you should feel bad for being so cruel to them).

Admin Edit: Cheesus H. Crisps, enough spoilers in there? :P

[Cyril]

Lots of different games here, perhaps I should try and elaborate a bit?
What I'm looking for is definitely within the range of FFIV's beginning. Chrono Cross might be pushing it, but you technically are the viillain throughout the story so I'll say sure to that one, too.  That one is more "seeing the world through the antagonist's eyes." Xenogears falls into it as well, in a strange not-exactly-you-but-wait-it-is-you sort of way.

I wasn't really thinking of "party member becomes the villain" when I made the thread.  It may be rather hypocritical of me, but I actually don't really like that cliche much.

Code:

Nier is an interesting one. While not quite what I was looking for initially, after some thought on the subject
you pretty much are one of the "bad guys."  It's not quite as clear-cut black and white, though, as no one is really good or
bad when it comes down to it. Both sides are wrong and thoughtless.

Another one you can say is Demon's Souls.  The "bad" ending is flat out you destroying everything, but that's not why I would put it there.  In Demon's Souls  during the course of the normal game you do some downright twisted things, such as destroying the last beacon of hope for all of the prisoners in Latria and brutally murdering Astraea, who was trying to bring peace to a tainted group of people. You pretty much end up using the same power of those that you're trying to stop in order to save what is left of the world.

I'm not trying to be picky, and I appreciate those who take the time to respond to the thread, I'm just trying to clarify what I'm looking for.

[Jimmy]

Having not played it myself I can't say for sure whether it is or not, but from what I've heard of Breath of Fire III might be up your alley. Aside from that possibility, I don't know that I can help that much.

[Chronix112]

One of the routes you can choose near the end of Growlanser II sorta fits your description. It a complete bastard move.

[Prime Mover]

People are only mentioning FF7 in passing, but I think that's a pretty big one in my book. I wanted to throw something at Cloud for being such a shithead in the penultimate act. One could argue that he's being controlled, and he really is, but a lot of his negative actions (giving Sephiroth the dark materia) are done by his own volition, simply because he feels it's his destiny to do them... regardless of Jenova's influence.

One other I could say is the first act of Tales of the Abyss. One could argue that Luke is just being manipulated, and he is, but he allows himself to be manipulated, without any regard to the consequences of his actions. All he's after is fame and worship... fuck everybody else. That's pretty evil in my world.

But in totality? Playing the villain? If we're defining the villain as the antagonist, that's a literary impossibility. Even the darkest, cruelest protagonists are still protagonists. From a narrative standpoint, the antagonist is defined as the force opposed to the protagonists... the character(s) that the reader is identifying with. Usually any story, film, or game that has the audience looking through the eyes of a "bad guy" only does so as much as there is an even more villainous force at work, opposed to the protagonist. Or if not that, exposing the ultimate failings of what normally would be considered the "good guys" (NCR ultimately being bureaucratic dictators in Fallout New Vegas).

It seems that what you're looking for isn't a cliche at all, it's an impossible limit. You can have games that go part way there, but not all the way, simply because it goes against the very nature of narrative story telling.

[Cyril]

One of the routes you can choose near the end of Growlanser II sorta fits your description. It a complete bastard move.

Very true.  That's far and away the best path to take in Growlanser II.  Too bad you grow some morals after the event.

It seems that what you're looking for isn't a cliche at all, it's an impossible limit. You can have games that go part way there, but not all the way, simply because it goes against the very nature of narrative story telling.

Not exactly. Baten Kaitos does it well. Breath of Fire IV, as mentioned above, literally has you as both the protagonist and antagonist at the same time, with the same person being split into two.  Whoever is the stronger personality wins out in the end.  Admittedly, I found the "antagonist's" argument more powerful and ended up on his side during my first time fighting the final battle despite trying for the "good guy" ending.

I'm using the term "antagonist" separate from "villain" here, but admittedly I'll take both antagonistic and "villain" characters for this. There can be multiple antagonists in a story, and each character can have someone antagonistic to them, but not antagonistic to anyone else in the group (think Jecht from FFX, where he has a personal conflict with Tidus, but everyone else idolizes him).  There are games, and books especially, where your character is an antagonist to the main purpose/group/goal of the story, while at the same time being on their side, but working in the shadows.
Also remember that the character you play as doesn't necessarily have to be the main character.  This is how Magna Carta 2 gets away with your character being a villain at one point in the story.

There are some excellent short stories out there where protagonists are antagonists to themselves.  If I'd look for an example in gaming, I'd say Cloud from FFVII is the perfect example of this.

[Banestar]

Soul Nomad and the World Eaters