10 JRPGs Where Companions Can Derail the Entire Story

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Published Jun 24, 2026, 2:22 PM EDT

Daniel Trock is a Contributor at DualShockers specializing in PC games, lists, and reviews. He has been writing professionally since 2018 and covering games since 2020, with previous work spanning guides, news, lists, and reviews across multiple publications.

Before joining DualShockers, Daniel contributed guides to GamerJournalist and lists to TheGamer. He currently covers tech topics for SlashGear and BGR. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology from Marist College and a Master of Fine Arts in Creative and Professional Writing from Western Connecticut State University.

When it comes to JRPGs, companions and/or party members can often make or break the narrative, especially if you’ve got a silent or amnesiac protagonist. It’s the friends and allies that help to carry and propel the story, forming the bedrock of your motivations beyond “go here and kill a thing.” However, because of this, the trajectory of the story is also heavily reliant upon your companions’ personal wants and motivations, and on occasion, those motivations can potentially twist the story in weird or unexpected directions.

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This particular phenomenon can manifest in a couple of ways: in a more benign case, a companion may make a bad choice or betray you, but them doing so is a canon event, so it’ll at least get resolved eventually. In a more extreme case, following their impulses could lead you to an entire alternate ending, and more often than not, it’s going to be a bad one. The following games contain examples of one or both of these scenarios, guaranteed to make you rub your temples and ask why your good friends can’t stop making bad decisions.

Spoilers for all the following games ahead!

10 Digimon Story: Time Stranger

Don’t Mess With Time

Digimon Story: Time Stranger

At the start of Digimon Story: Time Stranger, while Agent Yuki is investigating the disturbance beneath Shinjuku, they encounter a mysterious girl and end up in the midst of a major catastrophic event before being catapulted back in time by a shadowy figure. In the past, Agent Yuki meets the girl again, Inori, as well as the Digimon she befriends, Aegiomon. Together, the three of you work to solve the dispute in the digital world while protecting the real world.

Despite the party’s best efforts, though, the tensions between the Digimon factions and humanity end up boiling over, ultimately leading to a space-time singularity that swallows up Inori. Aegiomon, completely distraught, abandons Agent Yuki to jump recklessly through time in a fruitless effort to find and rescue her. As we learn, Aegiomon’s attempts to futz with history all ultimately failed, trapping him in an endless timeloop until Homeostasis swiped one of his loose shadows to turn into an agent for change. That’s you, by the way. I guess in derailing the story, Aegiomon actually ended up bringing it all together in the end.

9 NieR Replicant

The Things we Do for Our Friends

NieR Replicant ver.1.22474487139...

For the majority of his life, NieR Replicant’s titular protagonist only cared about one thing: his sister, Yonah. He’d do just about anything to keep her safe and healthy, including repeatedly throwing himself into danger. However, while he’s traveling around and battling Shades, he gradually befriends both Kaine and Emil, who make his life both better and, perhaps, a bit more complicated with their tendencies toward self-sacrifice.

Kaine is the first to sacrifice herself, having Emil petrify her in front of the library basement to seal in a giant Shade, which leaves a deep impact on Nier throughout the ensuing timeskip. Later on, after Kaine has been freed and Emil has unlocked his true power, when the trio storms the Shadowlord’s castle, Emil is forced to sacrifice himself to contain a gigantic magical explosion. Nier just can’t seem to stop losing the people close to him, and unless you go to the effort of completing subsequent playthroughs, he’s not going to get a proper happy ending.

8 Bravely Default 2

Don’t Be in a Rush to Die

The central goal behind the party’s quest in Bravely Default 2 is finding the four elemental crystals that were stolen from Gloria’s home kingdom of Musa when it was destroyed. Finding these crystals will allow the heroes to seal away an ancient evil, the Night’s Nexus, at least until the next time the seal weakens in a few centuries. It’s not really a solution to the problem, but it’s the best one we have at the moment.

Sadly, even after obtaining all four crystals and defeating Edna, they don’t have enough juice in them to actually seal the Night’s Nexus, forcing Gloria to carry everything by sacrificing herself to empower them. If you’re not satisfied with that ending, and I don’t know why you would be content with letting your friend off herself for a pointless cycle, you can resume your save data and pursue the true ending route by finding all the Asterisks and destroying the Night’s Nexus properly.

7 Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth

It’s Hard to Tell Who’s On Your Side

Not long after Kasuga arrives in Hawaii and befriends Eiji in Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, he ends up getting drugged and mugged by Chitose, who swipes his passport and, for some reason, his clothes. Kasuga and, eventually, Kiryu, track her down to District Five, and after some circumstances involving the local gang, she ends up joining the burgeoning party as well.

Sadly, as is revealed later in the game, it’s revealed that both Eiji and Chitose are agents for the Seiryu Clan. Eiji was faking being wheelchair-bound in order to earn Kasuga’s trust, while Chitose, in addition to leaking the party’s movements to the Seiryu, was also the same VTuber who dumped the false rumors about Kasuga that led to him coming to Hawaii in the first place. By all accounts, the smart move would’ve been to chuck the two of them out a window and run for it, but Kasuga, always being the nice lad he is, opts to forgive Chitose, and wants to make amends with Eiji as well, though he’s a little more resistant to Kasuga’s kindness. His loss.

6 Chrono Trigger

Think Carefully Before Delivering Punishment

Late in Chrono Trigger, after Queen Zeal manages to awaken Lavos in the distant past, the party attempts to battle the creature, but are ultimately defeated, resulting in Crono’s death. Following this, the party works on its own to track down Magus, having also failed at his attempt at vengeance upon the creature. He’s not in the best state of mind, mocking the party for losing as well, and half-heartedly offering Frog the opportunity to kill him.

The optimal move to make here is to spare Magus and enlist his aid in reviving Crono and stopping Queen Zeal. However, Frog does want his revenge, and if you choose to give it to him, whether in a one-on-one duel with Magus or with the entire party, Magus will be struck down. Technically, you can still revive Crono without Magus, but it wouldn’t lead to the best version of the ending, and despite everything, he does still kinda deserve his pound of flesh from Lavos.

5 Fire Emblem Fates

What Does Family Mean to You?

A trope you see a lot in certain genres of fiction is an examination of the meaning of family, and whether blood relations are more important emotional bonds. If you think you’ve got a definitive answer to that question, Fire Emblem Fates will put it to the test in a rather definitive manner, as the premise of the game is centered around Corrin being taken from their homeland and raised by an opposing country.

At the midpoint of the game, Corrin is ultimately forced to decide between siding with their adopted family in Hoshido, or returning to their blood relatives in Nohr. Obviously, both families want Corrin’s support, both for the obvious reason and for the strategic advantages, and whichever side you don’t pick, they immediately name Corrin as persona non grata. If both of these outcomes seem less than ideal, that's kind of the point: the game’s hidden third route has Corrin denounce both sides and instead pursue the evil forces keeping them in their perpetual state of unrest.

4 Tales of Symphonia

Choose Your Allies Carefully

Tales Of Symphonia Remastered

Something Tales of Symphonia isn’t super upfront about is the invisible affinity system between Lloyd and the other party members. The characters you have Lloyd spend more time with during story beats will gradually increase his affinity with them, coming to a head when the party visits Flanoir in search of a doctor. During the night, the three characters you have the highest affinity with will ask for a chat, and choosing any of them will yield a nice heart-to-heart before continuing the story normally.

However, in addition to your high-affinity party members, you’ll also receive an invitation to talk from Kratos. Having this talk will leave Lloyd in an uncertain state, causing him to mistakenly question Zelos’s loyalty to the party. Fast-forward to the Tower of Salvation, and when Zelos betrays the party, instead of leaving with Pronyma, he’ll instead force you to fight and kill him, saddened that he apparently never managed to earn your trust. I guess that’s what you get for talking to Kratos instead of the people who actually like you.

3 Shin Megami Tensei IV

A Deal with the Devil/Angel

Since the start of the Megami Tensei franchise, the running theme has been the conflict between order and chaos, represented by angelic and demonic forces, respectively, as well as with particular members of your party. In Shin Megami Tensei IV, Jonathan is your order representative, Walter walks on the path of chaos, and Isabeau is your voice of neutrality.

As you and your fellow samurai come to understand the true nature of the world and the ensuing divine war, Jonathan believes mankind should follow the will of God, while Walter would rather side with demons in the name of freedom. Depending on your personal alignment based on your choices, you can choose who you want to side with, which in turn will decide the ultimate fate of humanity and the world. Though, if you go the extra mile to stay neutral, you can also side with Isabeau and seek a way to free the world from this endless cycle of war.

2 Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter

Dang It, Joshua

Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter

At the end of Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter, it’s revealed that Joshua, in his youth, was an assassin for a covert organization known as Ouroboros. His memories of this had been suppressed due to some magical shenanigans by Ouroboros exec Weissman, whom you’d encountered multiple points throughout the game as “Professor Alba,” but after one last encounter with Weissman, Joshua recovers the full weight of his memories.

Joshua relays most of this to Estelle after the game’s credits, but that doesn’t stop her from confessing her feelings for him and her desire to stay with him. Joshua loves her back, but unfortunately, he’s too scared of Ouroboros and its operatives to put Estelle at risk, so he slips a sedative into her mouth with a kiss to knock her out, then departs to infiltrate and battle them on his own. They probably could’ve taken them on together, but Joshua couldn’t quite square his feelings for Estelle against his perceived need to see this old obligation through.

1 Persona 4

Cooler Heads Must Prevail

For the vast majority of Persona 4, the Investigation Team is more or less on the same page. Everyone wants to use their powers to explore and fight in the TV world to figure out the identity of our serial murderer-slash-kidnapper. However, when said kidnapper, Namatame, takes Nanako to the TV world, she ends up in the hospital in critical condition after the team manages to drag both of them back.

When Nanako’s in the hospital, her heart seems to stop for a moment, leaving the team shocked and enraged at Namatame, who’s confined to another room in the same building. Blind with fury, Yosuke suggests using your power to shove Namatame into the nearby TV as payback for what he did to Nanako. If you can successfully calm everyone down, Nanako will make a miraculous recovery, but if you go through with Yosuke’s suggestion, Namatame will be killed in the TV world, Nanako will die for real, and the true perpetrator behind this mystery will get off scott-free.