Tone

Most writers strive to make their works tonally consistent, which means their stories have a limited emotional range. Breezy action movies keep things light by skimming over the deaths of background characters; passionate romances do the same by imagining a world without domestic squabbles. Conversely, horror stories will often add an element of menace to even the most benign encounters so that the audience remains in the state of fear they expect from the genre. Stories aimed at children are often uniquely consistent in tone, as children don’t have the same emotional range as adults. That isn’t to say they have no range, however; it all depends upon the theme and what the creator is attempting to say. Depending upon the theme, moments that may seem tonally inconsistent at first can turn out to be spot-on when viewed as part of a whole. 

One video game that uses tonal inconsistency to drive home its theme is EarthBound (Nintendo, 1995), the cult classic role-playing game for the Super Nintendo. In EarthBound, players take on the role of Ness, a heroic young teen dedicated to saving the world from an alien invasion. With its bright, simple graphics and melody-driven soundtrack, EarthBound is a decidedly upbeat title. Its friendship-focused theme is equally optimistic, suggesting that friends can overcome anything by working together. The mood is not always upbeat, however. As the story reaches its climax, the encounters become downright terrifying. At first glance, this swing from ‘fun with friends in sunny suburbia’ to ‘screaming into the void on a bed of pulsating entrails’ seems violently unnecessary, but it works within the framework of the theme. If EarthBound’s thesis is that friends can overcome any obstacle by working together, it’s not only fair to define ‘any obstacle’ in extreme terms, but necessary. If friendship can save the world from such a terrifying threat, it really can do anything. 

Stories with more complex, open-ended themes have room for a greater degree of tonal inconsistency. Hideo Kojima’s Metal Gear Solid series (Konami) is famous for its wild tonal swings, shifting from comedy and tragedy and back again, sometimes within the same scene. The reason the Metal Gear series can pull off such drastic swings is that its themes cover a broad emotional range. Questions like “Why do soldiers fight?” and “Who really benefits from war?” have no shortage of answers; some of them are deeply tragic, while others are patently absurd. This range of answers gives Kojima the necessary latitude to explore a variety of emotions, which leads to games where characters who urinate themselves and babble about anime can wax philosophic about finding love on the battlefield. It’s a bizarre dichotomy, yet it works because it fits the story’s themes. 

Not every tonally inconsistent game is attempting to make a point about its theme. Some games use tonal inconsistency sparingly for laughs. A common way games have played with tone in the past is through hidden endings that aren’t considered part of the story’s ‘canon.’ The so-called ‘Dog Ending’ of Silent Hill 2 (Konami, 2001) is a stand-out example of this phenomenon. Silent Hill 2 is a survival horror that uses graphic violence and sexual imagery to explore one man’s complex relationship with his late wife—which is why it’s so surprising when skilled players unlock the ending that reveals a crafty Shiba Inu at a control panel was behind the haunting events of the game. While this scene doesn’t have the right tone to work as the actual ending, it’s perfect as a comedy option for players who want a reason to repeat the game.