Fission Mailed: Difference between revisions

 

 

 

Fission Mailure is whenever it appears you have lost the game, sometimes so far as to present an apparent [[Game Over]] screen, but in fact you ''had'' to fail in order to advance the plot. The title comes from ''[[Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty]]'', where there was a rare clue: what popped up was not the authentic "Mission Failed" screen, but rather a [[Spoonerism|spoonerized]] version.

 

 

[[I Thought It Meant|Not to be confused with]] any conjunction between [[Atomic Hate|nuclear weapons]] and [[Our Lawyers Advised This Trope|the postal service]]. Or between nukes and chainmail.

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{{examples}}

* The [[Trope Namer]] occurs when Raiden and Snake are fighting through Arsenal Gear in ''[[Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty]]''. At one point, the screen flashes white, indicating that Raiden has been killed, but instead of "Mission Failed", the text reads "Fission Mailed", the options read "Emit/Continent" instead of "Exit/Continue", and the action continues in the corner box that normally shows Raiden's cause of death. A few seconds later, the game goes back to normal.

** You can mail your fission at any time in ''[[Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater]]'' by taking the fake death pill, which sends you to a fake Game Over screen, except your inventory button still works, allowing you to take the revival pills. {{spoiler|The Sorrow sends you to the same Fission Mailed screen, and the same remedy works.}}

** ''[[Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots]]'' has both a tribute to the Psycho Mantis encounter in the form of Screaming Mantis (and in the Codec conversations about how to beat her when the player can't properly control Snake) and {{spoiler|Psycho Mantis' reappearance}}, and the infamous {{spoiler|microwave hallway has Snake's Life bar drain out... but wait, his Psyche is still there!}} Snake can actually complete that part with {{spoiler|''both'' bars depleted, [[Tear Jerker|tragically]] [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|pulling himself the rest of the way with only his fingers]]}}.

 

=== [[Action Adventure]] ===

* In ''[[Cave Story]]'', after defeating {{spoiler|the Core}}, you will be trapped in a flooded [[Boss Room]] and have no option but to let your [[Oxygen Meter]] run out. After it runs out, rather than the standard [[Game Over]] screen, the screen goes black, then you wake up to find that {{spoiler|[[Heroic Sacrifice|your partner has given you her air tank and drowned in your place.]]}}

** {{spoiler|Worst of all is that her death is preventable [[Guide Dang It|but you have no way of knowing that.]]}}

** Happens ''twice'' in ''[[Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood|Assassin's Creed Brotherhood]]'', first when {{spoiler|Ezio is shot by snipers on the rooftops on Monterriggioni and falls to the ground,}} then when {{spoiler|Ezio is on horseback heading for Roma after the siege, where he collapses and falls off the horse.}}

* ''[[Super Metroid]]'''s giant Metroid pops up, is unavoidable and quickly drains your life. When you're at 1 energy, it [[Androcles' Lion|remembers you're its mother]] and backs off. Health Refill station is in the next room, enjoy!

*** If you don't have at least 300 health when Mother Brain blasts you with her "hyper beam" (which happens automatically when you've dealt enough damage to her), the beam will actually kill you.

** Similar situation for the final battle in Metroid Fusion. {{spoiler|The Omega Metroid reduces Samus' health to 1 in just one swipe and cripples her. Before it strikes again, the SA-X [[Nice Job Fixing It, Villain|inadvertently saves Samus]] and when the Metroid kills it, Samus can absorb the parasite to fully restore her health and gain the Ice Beam.}}

 

=== [[Adventure Game]] ===

** The particular case in the first game, with the Game Over sequence, the ''only'' indication that you're supposed to let the Guilty verdict continue is that you weren't penalized. In fact, if you haven't been penalized at all, it will seem ''very'' weird, as the judge doesn't give you another chance, and you don't lose one of your markers. Also, the fact that you ''can't do anything to prevent the supposed Game Over''. For someone playing through the first time, these vague indications are ''very easily'' overlooked.

*** Unless you've failed before. One indicator is that, during the Judge's typical spiel, it cuts to Wright, who sweats and says something like "This doesn't look good... I'm sorry..."

* In ''[[Quest for Glory III]]'', leaving a campfire burning in the savanna will give you a [[Have a Nice Death]] message stating that you have gravely upset Smoky The Elephant, and you are provided with the usual options to restore, restart or quit. Picking any option will make the game admit that it was a joke and send you on your way.

* In ''[[The Secret of Monkey Island]]'', wandering too close to the edge of a cliff cause Guybrush to fall off and a game over screen parodying [[Sierra]]'s [[Have a Nice Death]] tendencies to appear... and then Guybrush pops back up ("rubber tree").

** In ''[[The Curse of Monkey Island]]'', at one point Guybrush has to mix alcohol with medicine and drink it, causing him to instantly pass out. The other characters then assume that he's dead and the game is over, going so far as to comment on how it's supposedly impossible to die in a [[Lucas Arts]] game. Guybrush then finds himself buried in a crypt, and the fake credits (complete with a hokey score counter) stop rolling as soon as he regains consciousness.

* In ''[[The Adventures of Sam & Max: Freelance Police|Sam & Max Hit The Road]]'', if you use the wishing well at Bumpusland, Sam says "I wish this game was over." You get a "The End" message and the screen fades to black, then Sam says "Hold it! Get back here!" and the game continues.

** Another major example is the final [[Mind Screw]] battle at the end of ''Project Origin'', while Alma is {{spoiler|raping Beckett}}.

* Happens at the beginning of ''[[Half-Life]] 2''. You are beaten severely by Civil Protection officers, and the screen blacks out. Soon after, you hear [[Action Girl|Alyx Vance]] kicking the shit out of them, and you wake up to a cheery "Dr. Freeman, I presume?" Several Fission Mailed instances are set up later in the game and throughout its Episodes, displaying overwhelming odds which are actually easy to overwhelm or evade if you know what you're doing, and the {{spoiler|bits in the Citadel where you're being carried around through the Stalker Pod lines certainly seem like Freeman's death is inevitable}}. Similarly, {{spoiler|Episode One climaxes with the Citadel exploding, the speeding wave of energy quickly engulfing your train and Alyx shouting "Gordon!", at which point the credits roll. Freeman's survival is, of course, the starting point of Episode Two.}}

* In ''[[BioShock (series)]]'', immediately after {{spoiler|you kill Ryan and Atlas is revealed to be Fontaine}}, the Little Sisters appear and guide you into a crawlspace to evade {{spoiler|Fontaine's security bots}}. There is a hole in the crawlspace, which you cannot avoid, and you appear to die before {{spoiler|waking up in Tenenbaum's safehouse}}.

* In ''[[Star Wars: Dark Forces|Jedi Outcast]]'', the player must 'die' during his first encounter with Desann.

** There's yet another quest chain in Zul'Drak where you're transported into the ghost world, complete with you in ghost form. Of course, you're not ''completely'' dead, just separated from your body, and when you die there, your corpse will be at where you entered the area instead of where you died.

** You do this in Howling Fjord as well, as [http://www.wowwiki.com/Quest:The_Echo_of_Ymiron part of the prep chain] for Utgarde Keep. You end up confronting the Lich King while in spirit form, and he kills you while you're already a ghost. You have to corpse run and rez to hand in the quest afterward.

** One of the new quests in Azshara has you searching high and low for a missing blue dragon. It turns out he's off having an affair with one of the Spirit Healers (the creepy blue and white angels that preside over your spirit when you die in-game) which means that in order to meet him you have to... you guessed it... die.

** The boss Mandokir the Bloodlord will randomly decapitate party members (both in his original raid encounter and in the new heroic encounter), killing them and displaying the standard time to release. However, chained spirits will resurrect fallen players.

* ''[[Runescape]]'': In one quest, you die. Three times. And go to the <s>Viking</s> Fremennik afterlife. Oh, and that prince/princess you were engaged to and possibly got married to a few minutes ago? Yeah, they're both dead for good.

* ''[[The Lord of the Rings Online]]'': If you play as a hobbit, you ''will'' get knocked out by bandits within the first few minutes of the tutorial.

* The free-to-play MMO ''[[Jade Dynasty]]'' contains a quest that requires you to "understand the secret of life and death". No other indication is given in the quest description of how to do this. The way to complete the quest is, of course, to die. {{spoiler|However, the game is set up so that certain quests fail if you die, and this quest is one of them. Dropping a quest counts as failing it. This means that you don't actually have to die to complete the quest; you can just drop it, and the game will think you have fulfilled the necessary conditions for completing it and move on to the next one.}}

 

*** An example of this is {{spoiler|the Mecha-Birdo boss fight. Because this battle takes place in an area apart from the rest of the game, where you are teleported out when enemy is defeated, you can exploit a simple glitch. If you deliver the final blow to Birdo and then die shortly thereafter, just sit around and wait. The event of teleporting you out of there will still continue, same as everything else in the game continues after you die.}}

* The only way to get the Flame in ''[[Prince of Persia]] 2: The Shadow and the Flame'' is to be killed by the [[Mook]] on the same screen and ignore any indications to press keys to continue.

* In ''[[La-Mulana]]'', there is a gas-filled area of the Twin Labyrinths that you enter from the Temple of the Sun. You can survive in there for 30 seconds. If the time runs out, Lemeza goes through his death animation... and reappears back in the Temple of the Sun, just outside the Twin Labyrinths, alive as if nothing happened.

* In the comedic ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog]]'' fan game ''When Tails Gets Bored'', right before the final level, there is a cutscene that starts with a reproduction of the game's Game Over screen. As it turns out, this is because Sonic is frustrated with the game and refuses to continue.

* In ''[[Mega Man Battle Network]] 3'', your first fight against Bass cannot be won, because he is surrounded by an impenetrable aura. He eventually defeats you, but instead of a game over, the next cutscene appears with Bass standing over Megaman in victory.

** Notably, if you [[Socialization Bonus|bring over items from another game]], [[One Game for the Price of Two|which would have to have already gone far past this point in the plot]], [[Disc One Nuke|you can remove Bass's barrier and take out his HP]]. [[The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard|Bass will keep going.]]

* ''[[Earthbound]]'' has the party [[Trapped by Mountain Lions|kidnapped by zombies in the hotel in Threed]]... and then the scene suddenly cuts to the town of Winters.

* ''[[Mother 3]]''. Let's just say that [[The End]] isn't the end.

* ''[[Final Fantasy II]]'': The first battle is extremely one-sided, and ends with [[Total Party Kill|the entire party being killed]]... then revived in a nearby castle, which kickstarts the plot.

* ''[[Final Fantasy III]]'': When you first get to fight the Darkness, there's no way to keep her from vaporizing you and cutting your HP to zero. Don't waste a shuriken - you're not going to win, as she's too powerful at the time and it's pretty important to the plot.

** Note, however, that this fight comes immediately after a rather difficult [[Puzzle Boss]] fight. If Cecil is dead at the end of that fight, you won't have time to resurrect him before Golbez paralyzes and kills your entire party, causing a ''genuine'' Game Over.

*** That was just a [[Game Breaking Bug|particularly buggy]] fight all around. Golbez might kill every party member except Kain (rare), every party member except Yang (even rarer), or just simply kill everybody outright (regardless of whether or not Cecil was actually alive at the beginning of the fight), resulting in one of the most surreal [[Game Over|game overs]] in video game history. Depending on how difficult the previous fight was - or whether or not you had remembered to save before [[Kleptomaniac Hero|looting the place senseless]] - it's also probably one of the most aggravating.

* ''[[Fisher-Diver]]'' has a nightmare sequence after the first day. There' player has got no fishing tools, will move slower and slower as the time goes on and is eventually bitten death by wireframe fish.

 

=== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ===

* Not a videogame, but ''[[Mahou Sensei Negima]]'' had a [http://www.mangafox.com/manga/mahou_sensei_negima/v16/c140/5.html Bad End] screen after {{spoiler|the party failed to stop Chao from making the existence of mages known to the world and Negi is captured by the teachers}}.