10 Exact Moments Video Games Self-Destructed

The Yakuza franchise may be centered around hard-boiled crime thriller storytelling, but the tone has always been somewhat heightened, making it clear that the developers are absolutely aware of how absurd and melodramatic it all is, even though it appears to take itself quite seriously.

But there are limits, as was proven by Yakuza 4 and its infamously deflating "rubber bullets" twist.

During the game, players witness the apparent massacre of the Ueno Seiwa clan at a ramen shop at the hands of Taiga Saejima, who seemingly guns down 18 of the clan members.

But near the end of the game, it's revealed that Saejima unknowingly used weapons loaded with rubber bullets, and so he didn't in fact kill the 18 men but merely incapacitate them. It was then the scheming Katsuragi who entered the ramen shop after Saejima left and killed the men for real.

For starters, this is just insanely, embarrassingly contrived from a pure storytelling perspective, but beyond that it undermined Saejima's entire emotional arc throughout the story, making him seem like an easily tricked idiot.

Even for Yakuza's permissive standards, this was just too damn stupid.