Final Death: Difference between revisions

Note, this is usually separate from [[Plotline Death]] via [[Cutscene]]. No, you the player were either not good enough or not lucky enough. Hope you saved your game, unless the game doesn't let you do that.

 

 

This is a video game trope; the equivalent of this in fiction is [[Deader Than Dead]]. The inverse of this is [[Death Is a Slap on The Wrist]].

{{examples}}

 

 

* As mentioned by the AVGN, in ''[[The Wizard of Oz]]'', if the Lion dies, he's dead for the rest of the game.

* The [[Buffy]] [[X Box]] game and ''Chaos Bleeds'' work like this. The health bar for Buffy and enemies is really just a guide to show when they can be killed. On the one hand vampires need to be staked, zombies need their head removed, ect. On the other hand, Buffy dies for good if fed on, bitten, or is dealt one of the special killing moves with no health.

 

 

* ''[[Heavy Rain]]'' is a defining example of this trope: at several points throughout its plot, any one of the four playable characters can get themselves into a situation during which they can die. It's possible to survive the encounter every time it happens, but if they don't, though, they stay dead, and the game keeps on going. Two of them can't die until the final showdown, though.

* ''[[One Chance]]''.

 

 

* In the NES version of ''[[Double Dragon|Double Dragon III]]'', the player starts off as Billy Lee (and Jimmy if a second player is present) and gains two additional fighters (Chin Seimei and Yagyu Ranzou) after the second and third stages. The player can change characters once they gain the other fighters, but each of them has exactly one life. This can be problematic since a death during the first two stages means an instant [[Game Over]], and with all four characters shared by both players in co-op mode, an unskilled player will become a handicap if he wastes the other characters before his partner can use them. There's only one continue in the whole game and it's only usable after Mission 3.

* The [[Puella Magi Madoka Magica]] Fangame ''Grief Syndrome'' starts with all five of the main cast, but if any of them die they're gone for good. {{spoiler|And if Sayaka dies before the final boss you're forced to fight her witch form.}}

 

 

* If all of your cars are impounded in ''[[Need for Speed]] : Most Wanted'' or ''Carbon'', you must start your career from the beginning.

* in ''Xpand Rally'', in case of a really disastrous crash the pilot can die and the career must. Obviously, restarted from scratch with a new one.

 

* ''[[Oregon Trail]]''.

* This is {{spoiler|the entire point of}} Jesse Venbrux's ultra-short freeware game ''Execution''.

** To elaborate on this, You start the game looking at a man tied to a pole through your scope. Shooting him yields the message: 'You Lose'. {{spoiler|Attempting to play a second time starts the game with 'Your actions have consequences, it is already too late'. If you try to play, the man will still be dead.}}

 

 

* In some deathmatch-style games, there may be options to give each player only one life per round, or use a communal batch of "tickets" that can only decrease in number. Neutralizing all the respawn points in "control point" matches can also cause enemy deaths to be final.

* The manikins in ''[[Dissidia Final Fantasy]]''. While in the original game they were just Mooks, in the prequel ''Duodecim'' it's revealed that anyone killed by a manikin isn't revived for the next cycle in the [[Groundhog Day Loop]]. {{spoiler|This is why Lightning, Kain, Yuna, Laguna, Tifa, and Vaan weren't in the original. They got overwhelmed by manikins after closing the rift that they were spawning out of.}}

 

 

* ''[[Call of Duty]]'' series: Sometimes fallen [[Redshirt Army]] characters can be healed with medkits, but if their name turns red, they are dead for real. Inverted with major characters, who are invincible except for [[Plotline Death]].

* ''[[Left 4 Dead]]'' and its sequel has this for the finales. If a survivor dies in the final map, they are dead for good and get an honorable mention in the credits. The sequel does avert this if someone is carrying the [[Magical Defibrillator]].

 

 

* There were some old floppy-disk games where if your character died, the whole game would erase itself, ie game over forever, unless you shell out the dough for a new copy. Some online or downloadable games do this as well.

* This gets inverted in the MSX game ''[http://vault.digitalmzx.net/show.php?id=1273 The Short-Lived Adventures of Hobo Dan]'' - you can die as often as you want, but after you actually ''beat'' the game, it ''erases itself''.

 

 

** Quoth the game manual:

{{quote| ''Note: [[Blizzard Entertainment]] is in no way responsible for your hardcore character. If you choose to create and play a hardcore character, you do so at your own risk. Blizzard is not responsible for the death and loss of your hardcore characters for any reason including Internet lag, bugs, Acts of God, your little sister, or any other reason whatsoever. Consult the End User License Agreement for more details. Blizzard will not, and does not have the capability to restore any deceased Hardcore characters. Don't even ask. La-la-la-la-la, we can't hear you.''}}

* So, too, does independently-designed ''[[Diablo]]'' clone ''[[Torchlight]]'', but this setting is readily available upon character creation.

 

 

* There's a longstanding debate over permadeath in MUDs and MMOs. Most of these games have no permadeath and the trend has been in the opposite direction by increasingly making it so that [[Death Is a Slap on The Wrist]]. However there have been exceptions, sometimes with very limited scope:

* ''[[Wizardry]] Online'' [http://www.strategyinformer.com/news/12902/wizardry-online-announced-will-feature-permadeath promises] to feature permadeath as a core mechanic.

 

 

* The true extreme is ''[[You Only Live Once]]'' a flash platformer which is [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin]]. No extra lives, no continues, you only live once. Oh, and you can't play again, as it will remember that you died. And deleting cookies won't help. And purging your cache. And reinstalling your browser. The only way to truly restart the game is by going [http://www.macromedia.com/support/documentation/en/flashplayer/help/settings_manager07.html here] and deleting the files uploaded to your player, but it's [[Completely Missing the Point]].

** It may seem like there are a number of death sequences, but actually, the death scenes remain fairly static - the only thing that changes is the location and circumstances of your demise (which are sometimes alluded to by the paramedics). Otherwise, it's precisely the same sequence... unless you beat the game, in which case {{spoiler|you're arrested for killing Sir Giant Pink Lizard (and your character says [[Memetic Mutation|"Don't tase me bro!"]], no less), and the Goomba [[Expy|expies]] have a funeral for him}}. See [http://cs.redeemer.ca/~ckeefer/kCMSv2/index.php?f=viewArticle&ID=12 this blog entry] for some screenshots.

* ''[[Mega Man X]] 3'' is notable for that. If you play as Zero and Zero dies, that's it, he's DEAD FOREVER AND YOU CAN'T USE IT ANYMOAR!! ...actually he is just "really badly damaged and therefore can't help you anymore", but the idea is still there.

* In the NES ''[[Star Wars]]'' game Luke can collect up to 7 extra lives (as well as having 10 continues), but if either Han or Leia dies they're gone for good unless you have Obi-Wan in your party, since he can use the Force to revive them, but only about 7 times total.

* Survival Mode in ''[[Prince of Persia]] Classic''.

 

 

* Many [[Real Time Strategy]] games have a kind of [[Final Death]] in place, with units that happen to die in a battle needing to be replaced. ''[[Age of Empires II]]'' could have special named units die and simply be lost, although this only happens to minor, one time characters (except during some campaigns, which require characters such as Joan of Arc, Attila the Hun and El Cid to stay alive during the scenario). The ''[[Total War]]'' series, while turn based, has your family members, which can die in battle, assassination, naval battle, plague, riots, disasters, and simply old age. Of course, new family members are born every few turns, but if you lose them all, you lose the game.

* Some bosses in ''[[Patapon]]'' can perma-kill your soldiers.

 

 

* Closer to it are [[Roguelike]] games, such as ''[[Nethack]]'' and ''[[Angband]]'': If your character dies (and you can be ''very'' [[Everything Trying to Kill You|sure]] that [[Nintendo Hard|they will]]), ''your saved game is erased.'' Some versions of these games try to detect -- and reject -- copies of the deleted save file, but most simply put in finger-wagging messages.

** The presense of [[Final Death]] makes roguelike games stressful, of course, but it can also make them more exciting: when the Ancient Blue Wyrm can actually kill your character off for real, the thrill of actually defeating it [[You Can Barely Stand|with a single HP left]] is indescribable.

 

 

* The "Gone" status from the classic ''[[Wizardry]]'' is just that: You tried twice to resurrect someone, and it didn't work.

* ''[[The Witcher|The Witcher 2]]'' has this for ''you'' on [[Harder Than Hard|insane difficulty]]. If Geralt dies, all your saves from that playthrough are rendered inaccessible and you must start over.

 

 

* The ''[[Escape Velocity]]'' series has a checkbox marked "Strict" for character creation that will delete your character file if you die ingame. While you can eject from a blasted ship if you bought pods, you'll lose your current identity and fail all of your missions.

* In the original ''[[Star Fox (series)|Star Fox]]'', if any of your wingmen get shot down, that's it; they're brown bread, toast, worm food, and thou must continue the game without them. Averted in the sequels, where they just get a [[Non-Lethal KO]] and are temporarily grounded for repairs.

 

 

* In one of the [[Crack is Cheaper|most expensive home games ever made]], ''[[Steel Battalion]]'', your character will be killed and your profile erased if your Vertical Tank (Mecha) is destroyed and you fail to use the eject button on the massive controller included.

* In ''[[Shadow President]]'', depending on the actions that you take throughout the game, your advisors may resign due to policy disagreements, be assassinated, or be caught up in a scandal. These advisors do not come back, making your job as President very difficult, as they're able to provide many of the facts behind other countries including military capabilities, population statistics, and financial standings.

 

 

* In a non-death example, the latest ''[[Punch Out]]'' revamp has a "Mac's Last Stand" mode. Basically, lose three matches, and Mac quits. Which means you can never play Career Mode again from your profile.

 

 

* The PSP game ''[[Metal Gear Solid Portable Ops|Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops]]'' allows you to recruit your own allies and send them into battle. If these allies die, they cannot be brought back. Amusingly enough, while random allies can end up gone for good if they end up on the wrong end of too many bullets, any character who can't be renamed simply passes out and you get him/her back later. This obviously applies to the main character, Naked Snake, but extremely minor side character Jonathan is also invincible, even though he gets one [[Cutscene]] and then stops being in the plot {{spoiler|until his meaningless and accidental [[Plotline Death]], three quarters of the game later...}}.

* In ''[[Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood|Assassin's Creed Brotherhood]]'', novice Assassins that die are gone for good and you need to recruit a replacement.

 

* The relatively unknown PSX game ''Hell Night'' had you fleeing through an [[Absurdly Spacious Sewer]] with a partner. If the monster caught up with you, your partner would die permanently and instantly. You'd be on your own until you found the next one.

* ''[[Obs Cure]]'' gives your four (later five) characters to play as. If any of them dies, the game continues on without them, until [[Kill'Em All|everyone has been killed]]. This is the ''only'' way that a character can die; there are no [[Plotline Death|Plotline Deaths]] within the main cast, and you can theoretically finish the game with [[Everybody Lives|everybody still alive]] (indeed, this is the only way to get [[Multiple Endings|the good ending]]). The sequel removes this system, instead opting for [[Plotline Death|Plotline Deaths]].

 

* In the first ''[[Star Wars Battlefront]]'' game, when using a Jedi Hero NPC, he respawns whenever he's killed... until your troop levels drop below a certain amount, at which point he'll simply fall down dead and stay that way.

 

* In ''[[Tactics Ogre]]'', deaths are permanent, unless the character is resurrected during the battle in which they died. Note that the resurrection spell is not found until late-game and is very expensive [[Mana Meter|MP-wise]]. Few alternatives exist, and those are found even later.

* ''[[Final Fantasy Tactics]]'' had characters reduced to 0 HP have [[Non-Lethal KO]] only for a limited time within the battle. If they were not healed and the battle wasn't finished within a certain number of rounds, they're gone for good.

* Unlike every other game in the series, the original ''[[Super Robot Wars]]'' on the [[Game Boy]] has permadeath. It can get away with it because it has [[Excuse Plot|the bare minimum of plot]], compared to the series' modern trend of [[Massive Multiplayer Crossover|mixing tons of plots together]].

 

* In ''[[Jagged Alliance]] 2'', ALL deaths are final. This ranges from a bullet, to a knife in the gut, to, in one frustrating example, an unlucky swimming skill check. Down to Davy Jones' locker, Ira!

* In the ''[[X-COM]]'' series you can hire recruits cheaply and easily. Usually most of them will suffer perma deaths before they're experienced enough to stop being [[One-Hit-Point Wonder|One Hit Point Wonders]] who graduated at the [[Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy]].

* While not "turn-based", ''[[Ogre Battle]]'' is tactical, and sometimes, if a human dies, they ''permanently'' change class into an angel or a zombie. The angel's nice, but only happens to [[Game Preferred Gender|female]] characters who were extremely lawful in life. The zombie class can happen to any human, and is exceptionally [[Spoony Bard|spoony]]. (However, they could upgrade to a passable skeleton, only to turn into an even spoonier ghost.) In some games, there was a zombie dragon for dragons.

 

* Likewise, ''[[Survival Crisis Z]]'' has Hardcore mode, where player death is final. Real Men play Hardcore.

** Your allies will also die permanently if they get bitten too many times, even on normal.

** Terraria, the "Minecraft if it were 2-d and more combat based" game, has hardcore difficulty. If you die, the character you made is gone. As multiple characters can go through your worlds, it's not a total loss if you stored items regularly. You still lose that inventory and HP/MP gained on the character.

 

 

* In ''[[Yu Yu Hakusho]]'', Yusuke and his friends are forced to play in an actualized version of a video game titled "Goblin City" against a young kid known only as the Gamemaster. The Gamemaster takes the role of the game's final boss the Goblin King, not realizing that the Goblin King is killed off after the player completes the game, whereas the player can revive as many times as he wants since the game has unlimited continues. As a result, the Gamemaster dies for real when Kurama completes the final stage.

 

* Being ''devoured'' in the board game ''[[Arkham Horror]]''.

 

* A particular ''[[Pokémon]]'' horror story features [[Yandere|Mew]] doing this to all its trainer's pokémon.

* This is the underlying point of the [[Nuzlocke Comics|Nuzlocke]] [[Self-Imposed Challenge|challenge]] in ''[[Pokémon]]'' games. The base rules are simple: one can only attempt to capture the first Pokémon they encounter in any given route, and anyone that faints is considered dead and must be released or placed in a PC box indefintely at the next opportunity to do so.<ref>It's also considered good practice to nickname everyone you successfully acquire. Any additional rules are up to the player, should they choose to add them.</ref> As this makes any Pokémon captured very difficult to replace, it becomes surprisingly heartbreaking whenever one of them '''''do''''' faint, whether as a result of a random [[Critical Hit]] or, worse, because of your own mistakes. [[Arc Words|I believe this is all happening for a reason.]]

 

* The novel ''Sword Art Online'' is about the world's first Virtual Reality MMORPG in which the creator tries to increase its realism by taking out magic and also adding the fact that if you die in game, your headset will microwave your brain making death final. The story ends with about 4000 people dying.

* Used in ''[[Otherland]]'' in a fictional MMORPG, where character death is permanent. After losing his high-level character due to the interference of the titular network, [[Serious Business|Orlando's driving goal is to find out why]].

 

* In ''[[Dungeons and Dragons]]'', the [[Final Death]] is that of old age. Any sentient creature, even if [[Deader Than Dead]], can be brought back by a ''true resurrection'' spell, unless dead of old age. Certain spells such as ''trap the soul'' can prevent resurrection at the GM's discretion, but using a ''wish'' to bring someone back to life can trump even that. Just make sure the wish isn't being granted by a [[Jackass Genie]]...

** There are ways around even that. An Elan ([[The Order of the Stick|no relation]]) has no maximum age. The Green Star Adept [[Prestige Class]] confers agelessness, although it otherwise isn't that good. And depending on the DM, "Reincarnate" might be interpreted as a loophole, as it explicitly creates a young body.

* You get three tries to bring someone back with the only resurrection spell in ''[[Rifts]]''. It's ''very'' high-level. If you fail all three times (you have a 45% chance to succeed), one other mage may make three attempts. If the other mage fails thrice, the dead person is gone.

 

* The form without an option even to restart the entire campaign, seen in ''You Only Live Once'' or ''Sub Mission'' above, is parodied in a ''[[Cracked.com|Cracked]]'' Photoplasty. It's called the [http://www.cracked.com/photoplasty_381_22-terrible-ideas-that-would-have-ruined-great-video-games/ #22 terrible idea that would have ruined] ''[[Super Mario Bros. (video game)|Super Mario Bros]]''.

 

* TV example, sort of: ''[[Captain N]]'' could survive death in the video game world a few times, but if his "extra lives" ran out, he'd "go to the big game-over in the sky" (Also a [[Never Say "Die"]]).

* The [[Avatar: The Last Airbender|Avatar spirit]] itself would suffer this if the current incarnation of the Avatar is ever killed while in the [[Super Mode|Avatar state]]. Otherwise it would just reincarnate into the next part of the cycle after his/her death.

 

* As near as we know, most living beings suffer this when they die. [[No One Could Survive That|Some have managed to survive events that by all accounts should have killed them]], [[Only Mostly Dead|there may be a window for revival]]; and it can be [[Reincarnation|subverted]], [[Back From the Dead|inverted]], or [[Afterlife Tropes|ignored]] depending on what you believe. This may become a [[Discredited Trope]] in the future as [[Immortal Life Is Cheap|technology improves]].