10 Video Game Heroes With Surprisingly High Bodycounts
2. Link - Zelda: A Link To The Past
Depending on your stance, killing monsters doesn't technically count as breaking your "no killing" rule, right?
Except for when it isn't legions of doom, but guards manipulated against their own free will by the wizard Agahnim. Ordinary, good natured palace guards, under order of the king, twisted and corrupted by dark magics.
Whilst you may be nimble enough to evade them on the world map, there are some that require killing to progress. Now, if this were your first playthrough, you wouldn't think twice as you mow them down in the name of saving the day.
It's when you discover at the end that these were normal guards, that you notice the control has been taken from you to kill innocent folk in the name of progress. What makes it worse, as mentioned before, is that some need killing to proceed.
It makes you wonder if Link knew this all along, forcing your hand, or that the forced nature of progression was to elaborate the need to save the world at any cost.
Whatever the reason, Link's not saying.