Stalked by the Bell: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

But some video games like to make their punishments a bit more interactive. A classic example is deploying an [[Invincible Minor Minion]] ([[Touch of Death]] optional) to chase the player while they still try to complete their objective, but other forms can include [[Malevolent Architecture]] (like an [[Advancing Wall of Doom]]).

 

 

 

Likewise, this is not merely a [[Timed Mission]] justified by an in-universe threat, as many missions are ''already'' justified by a [[Self-Destruct Mechanism]], [[Incredibly Obvious Bomb]], etc.

 

* In the original ''[[Rygar]]'', time running out would cause the entire background to go black and a huge, invincible wraithlike monster to fly at you from the left. Interestingly enough, it not only was possible to evade this monster, but repeatedly; the real danger was not getting killed by it ''or'' the monsters normally a part of the level.

* In ''[[Terraria]]'', taking too long to battle certain bosses will cause them to become invincible and kill you with one hit.

* In ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword|The Legend of Zelda Skyward Sword]]'', you must enter "Silent Realms" to collect tears at one point, in order to progress. These tears also extend a timer, and when that timer runs out, you get chased by the realm's guardians - who can kill you in one hit. With some pretty badass music too.

 

* Take too long to kill the enemies in a level of ''[[Joust]]'', and an "unbeatable?" pterodactyl will appear and try to kill you. It's not completely invincible, but the window to kill it is so small as to be nearly non-existent.

** Early versions of this game even had a bug where the path it took let the player stand on a ledge and kill a continuous stream of them.

* In ''[[Smash TV]]'', if you loitered in a cleared room for too long after killing all the enemies in it, spinning disks of death would enter the room and kill you if you didn't make a hasty exit.

 

* In the Flash browser game ''Lucky Tower'', shortly after discovering an adorable tame fox and deciding to take him home with you, a bizarre imp-creature first eats your adorable familiar, then begins to chase after you. If you dawdle too much with trying to figure out how to get rid of him, he eats you too.

 

* In the arcade game based on ''[[The Simpsons]]'', Homer, Marge, Bart and Lisa get flicked by a giant hand if they stay on one screen too long.

* ''[[Splatterhouse]] 3'' often had either your wife or son trapped in some room at the far side of the level where you started and a timer counting down, along with periodic cutscene reminders that they were in peril from the boss monster in that room. If you failed to reach the room in time they would already be dead when you arrive to fight the boss, which didn't end the game but would change the ending you would receive when you complete the game.

* Death also shows up in ''Grabbed by the Ghoulies'' by Rareware. If you fail a challenge (say, run out of time), the Grim Reaper will show up and chase Cooper {{spoiler|or Amber}} around, destroying everything in his path. {{spoiler|You can outrun him, though, and in fact you HAVE to summon him to clear a [[Scrappy Level]] of a room.}}

 

* In ''Zone Raiders'', a massive flying battleship would attack if the timer reached zero. The timer would freeze whenever the player was out of detection range; which meant no live enemies or stationary detectors in the area.

 

* ''[[Think Quick]]!'' also used a dragon to enforce the time limit; this dragon was actually the game's Big Bad.

 

* ''[[Resident Evil Gun Survivor|Resident Evil Survivor 2]]'' sends [[The Determinator|Nemesis]] in to chase and kill you once the timer runs out. Since he's invulnerable to your weapons and can kill you in one hit, this is a good sign that it's time to leave.

 

* ''[[Bomberman]]'': The enemies the timeout spawns aren't invincible, but until you gather up the right power ups, they're still far too numerous and fast for you to defeat or evade. They're deadly at low levels, but by level 30 they're an annoyance at worst.

* ''[[The Tower of Druaga]]'' was especially sadistic. When the timer ran out, invincible Will-o-the-Wisps traced the walls in varying speeds. Also, the timer resets to 60 seconds. If Gil is still alive and in the maze when the timer hits 0, Gil dies instantly. This is just one aspect of this game that makes it [[Nintendo Hard|hair-tearingly difficult]].

 

* Graveyards in ''[[Spiral Knights]]'' spawn Phantoms a few minutes after entering the level. They're fast, tough, annoying, and can only be temporarily killed.

 

* The ''[[Bubble Bobble]]'' video games have (up to two) Baron von Blubba/Skel-Monsta, an invincible whale skull which chases the protagonists when they cannot defeat all of the enemies in a level.

** The secret rooms also had their own version, Rascal/Rubblen.

* ''[[Athena (video game)|Athena]]'' actually has two different types of [[Invincible Minor Minion]] that will send powerful attacks in Athena's direction if she lingers too long on one screen.

 

* This is a major theme of the old PC RTS game ''[[Outpost 2]]''. The plot of the planet involved gathering up enough resources to escape from your planet after a terraforming experiment goes horribly wrong. True to form, taking too long on any given mission would lead to the the player hearing "WARNING: The Blight is approaching!" and having scant minutes left, if that, to finish the map before their colony is consumed and destroyed by [[Grey Goo]] nanomachines.

 

* Multiple [[The Grim Reaper|Grim Reapers]] hunt you down if you take too long in a level of ''[[Chocobo's Dungeon]]''. They're stronger than the boss of the game, and if you somehow "kill" one, another takes his place.

 

* While there is no on-screen timer, if you spend too long in a given room in level 2-4 of ''[[Super Paper Mario]]'' you will be attacked by the invincible [[Nightmare Fuel|True Mimi]].

* Looking for gold Shadows or treasures in ''[[Persona 3]]''? Beware of Death himself if you take too long...

** Doubles if the [[Voice with an Internet Connection]] [[Mission Control]] states that the floor has no enemies, more enemies, or rarely still, ''all enemies as gold Shadows''. The time limit is invisible, but in those cases, it will take half, nay, ''quarter'' the usual time limit until Death spawns.

** Also, drawing a tainted card in a Shuffle Time will reduce the timer faster.

* ''[[Recettear]]'' has powerful enemies which spawn if you linger on one floor of a dungeon for too long.

* In ''[[Final Fantasy XII]]'' your time at the Barheim Passage can become really nasty if you don't keep the lights on

 

* ''[[Berzerk]]'' has Evil Otto electrocuting lollygagging players... and occasionally his own minions. Oops.

** [[wikipedia:Berzerk#Berzerk in popular culture|Otto has actually been responsible for at least two fatal heart attacks of players.]]

* In the arcade version of ''[[Rush N Attack]]'' (aka ''Green Beret''), a bomber will fly by and drop a bomb on the player if he stays too long in the same place.

 

* The Atari arcade game ''720 Degrees'' had [[Everything's Worse with Bees|a persistent swarm of bees]] that would show up if you took too long in getting into a skate park, and get faster the longer you evade them, thus they will eventually catch you unless you enter a park. "SKATE OR DIE!"

** The bees come from an earlier Atari game, ''[[Paperboy]]''.

** Honorable mention to ''Fruity Frank'', where the enemy was only ''almost'' invincible And it was more of a boss than a "minor minion": The dreaded Strawberry.

 

* If you stand around too long in any room in ''[[Fatal Frame]]'', a ghost will appear which like any other ghost in the game has a lethal touch. Only likely to occur if you leave the game unpaused, though.

 

 

 

* A [[Game Show]] example: ''[[Run for Money Tousouchuu]]'' (the original Japanese version of [[Chase|Cha$e]]) often closes off a section of the play field midway through the game. Sometimes, instead of immediate disqualification for not vacating the area in time, the penalty is getting locked in the closed area while they release a ''hundred'' Hunters into it.

 

* The Nintendo DS game ''[[Hotel Dusk: Room 215]]'' has a variant with a particular puzzle where {{spoiler|you are locked in a room in the basement that resembles a safe. If you do too many actions that have no effect, the main character notices that it's getting hard to breathe. If you look at too many things before decoding a secret message, you will suffocate, black out, and get a Game Over screen (this is also the only way you can die in the game).}}

** {{spoiler|Although oddly enough, even after your "death", you still see the standard Game Over screen which consists of Kyle Hyde standing outside the hotel with his suitcase, as if he was just kicked out instead of kicked the bucket.}}

 

* In ''Express Raiders'', if you stay on a train car too long, a [[Cartoon Bomb]] is planted on the coupling and explodes after a few seconds, disconnecting you from the rest of the train.

 

* In ''Math Man'' (no relation to the ''[[Square One TV]]'' [[Show Within a Show]]), once the bucket reaches the top of the screen, it floods with paint and drowns the titular player character.

 

* In ''[[Kirby]]'s Adventure'', the first Nightmare battle features Kirby and the Nightmare Orb falling to some surface. If the player takes too long, the Nightmare Orb will fly off, and Kirby will crash into the ground and die. More accurately, gets crushed between the ground and upper part of the screen.

* The boss of Spring Yard Zone in the original ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog]]'' will periodically swoop down to grab a block from the bridge that Sonic is standing on. If the player takes too long, he will have nowhere to stand. Similarly, the Sandopolis Zone boss from the aforementioned ''Sonic & Knuckles'' slowly walks towards a wall on the side of the arena, squishing the player if he doesn't destroy the machine quickly enough.

* Both the "Puzzle Plank" and "Rolling Masterpiece Galaxies" from ''[[Super Mario Galaxy 2]]'' feature planets that actually get cut apart by circular saws, causing you to fall to your death if you stay on them too long.

 

* In ''Gussun Oyoyo'', water will begin to slowly rise after a while. There is a powerup that causes the water to go away, but only temporarily.

 

* In ''[[Air Fortress]]'', the fortress itself will explode and kill you if you don't find your ship and escape in time after destroying the Power Reactor in the fortress.

 

* ''[[Worms]]'' has its "sudden death" stage, where the entire map slowly sinks into the water (which wouldn't work if the Worms didn't have [[Super Drowning Skills]]).

** So did ''Rainbow Islands''.

 

 

* [[Game Show]] example: In ''[[DERO]]!'' (as well as its [[Spiritual Successor]] ''TORE!''), the Key Box Challenge portion of the Wall Room round is played in a corridor with padded walls. When time runs out, the walls close together to trap the player in between the pads. The player only fails the game if he/she gets stuck between the pads; if they complete the challenge a split-second after time expires and still manage to reach the Safety Zone at the end of the corridor without getting trapped, their attempt is still ruled a success (and this has in fact happened on the show).

 

* ''[[The Legend of Zelda]]'' LCD Watch & Game (No, not the other way around) would punish you if you stayed in a cleared room too long. Once you have the key to leave the room, after awhile your hearts would start to deplete.

 

* In ''Scurge: Hive'', once your "infection level" time limit runs out, you start losing health. If you die this way the camera sticks around long enough to see the character metamorphose into a grotesque Scurge monster before breaking down.

* In ''Demon Sword'' for the NES, if you lollygag (stay in the same general area) too long, packs of "Demon Wolves" will start spawning and [[Incredibly Lame Pun|hound you to death]].

 

* In a rare non-action example, [[Infocom]]'s ''[[Planetfall]]'' kills the player after 8 full days of game time. {{spoiler|The planet is host to a Disease, which you catch shortly after landing there. The Disease is fatal. You actually notice your character getting sicker and sicker as you go along, and if you read the stuff in the Library you'll learn all about the Disease.}} It's hard to encounter this unless you're deliberately dragging your feet, however.

** This happens in a more indirect manner in ''Stationfall'': there simply isn't enough food around to last you more than a few days, as the food dispensers seem to be more interested in killing you.

* In ''Shadow of Memories'' (known as ''[[Shadow of Destiny]]'' in America), Eike will be killed in some way once the in-game clock reaches a certain time (which varies depending on the chapter). The whole point of the game is to go back in time to find a way to prevent your death. If you reach the "fated hour", two things can happen: in the present, you see a cutscene of Eike being killed, and then you get warped to Homunculus's place, who chastises you and gives you a hint on how to avoid death, before sending you back to the beginning of the chapter. However, if the time in the present reaches the fated hour while Eike is in the past (since time still passes in the present even when Eike isn't), you see Eike convulse strangely, and then literally fade from existence, resulting in a [[Game Over]].

 

* It was discovered in a [[Let's Play]] that if you spend five minutes on a level of the arcade version of ''[[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles the Arcade Game]]'' without dying, an insta-kill bomb would drop on your head. (The Commodore 64 port would throw attacks at the player's character if he lingered too long in a completed level.)

 

* Many racing games have the player's car coast and decelerate into a stop when the timer hits zero.

** In most games like this, you can get a time extension and keep racing if you can coast your way to the checkpoint.

**** Most older arcade racing games (''OutRun'', ''[[Daytona USA]]'', etc.) are like that; most newer racing games use a much more lenient time limit to end the games of idlers or people who prematurely stop playing.

* The player car in ''[[Rally-X]]'' games halves its speed and loses the smoke-screen ability when the player runs out of gas.

* In ''[[Crazy Taxi]]'', if you don't get a customer to his or her destination on time, the customer will get out of the taxi ''while it's still moving''.

 

* In ''[[Super Smash Bros.]] Melee'', if a Sudden Death fight drags on for too long, bob-ombs begin to rain from the sky.

** Similarly done in ''Power Stone 2''. If a match takes too long, ''giant meteors rain from the sky and crash into the players'', reducing their health to just a mere silver. This makes one hit, even the weakest punch, become an instant kill. However, if players take too long to kill each other in this sudden death, ''more meteors fall from the sky'' and kills all the remaining players simultaneously, ending the match in a draw. Likewise, taking too long to kill one of the two bosses in adventure mode causes the boss to unleash a super attack that kills the player instantly.

 

* ''[[Team Fortress 2]]'' either calls a stalemate if the timer runs out or has a sudden death mode where respawn (and class change) is disabled, and either team can win by killing all enemies. The timer is slightly more flexible in this game though, as "Overtime" kicks in if the timer runs out but any point is currently contested or one of the intels isn't at its point.

* ''[[Call of Duty]]'': Arcade Mode in ''Modern Warfare'' adds a timer and a life limit. good luck on Veteran.

* [[Deus Ex: Human Revolution|Deus Ex Human Revolution]] follows the prologue with a hostage situation at a Sarif facility. Jensen is told to hurry; take your time, and the hostages will be dead before you even arrive.

 

* In ''[[World of Warcraft]]'', many raid bosses go into an [[Unstoppable Rage]] if you don't defeat them within a set time limit, pretty much guaranteeing a [[Party Wipe]]. It's sometimes possible to kill them anyway in the few seconds left before you get demolished. Some bosses use infinitely spawning hordes of [[Mooks]] or stacking damage increases to achieve the same effect - sooner or later you get overwhelmed.

** One particularly interesting way to achieve this effect is to have the boss use a superpowerful or instant kill attack on a regular timer, but give players [[Applied Phlebotinum]] with a certain number of charges that will reduce or prevent the damage. When the charges run out, the next attack will wipe the raid. Most notably used by Kil'jaeden.

{{quote|'''Algalon''': Farewell, mortals. Your bravery is admirable, for such flawed creatures. You are... out of time. *disappears*}}

* In ''[[Final Fantasy XI]]'', certain world-spawned (only one to a world) High Notorious Monsters ([[HN Ms]]) will go into an [[Unstoppable Rage]] with attack and defense stats sky-high if not killed within a certain amount of time after the fight started. Pretty much certain death. In this case, the dev team put in rage mode as a countermeasure to players attempting to manipulate the spawn timers to keep it in their time zone; players from all time zones (and all around the world) are supposed to have a shot at it.

 

* In ''[[Wario Land]] 4'', after hitting the switch that opens the portal out of the level, you have a time limit within which you have to get to the portal. If time runs out, you start losing coins - when your coins hit zero, you die and lose all the other treasures you got in the level.

** ''[[Wario Land]] Shake It!'' continues the trend, except when time starts to get low, you hear the final boss theme, and when it actually runs out, cue Wario in some kind of nightmare place, who gets suddenly picked up by the final boss, shaken until his treasure gets flung everywhere and thrown into the distance.

* ''[[Conker's Bad Fur Day]]'' features a multiplayer mode in which one side has to escape past the enemy line to reach a truck that will take them to safety. Taking too long to do this will result in a [[Kill Sat]] blasting the escapee(s) to death.

 

* In ''[[Tetris the Grand Master]] 2'' and ''3'', if the clock reaches 15 minutes, the game will go into instant-drop speed and the delays for piece lock, appearance, and the line clear animation will minimize. However, a round of of TGM2 or 3 usually doesn't last more than 10 minutes, so you'd have to ''try'' to get the clock to reach 15 minutes before you die.

** ''TGM3'''s Sakura mode has a time limit for both the whole game and the current stage. Run the stage timer out and you move on to the next (but your stage clear percentage will go down); run the game timer out and it's [[Game Over]]. However, if you get stuck on a stage, you can hold down Start to skip it (at the cost of 30 seconds from your total timer). This feature is disabled during the Extra stages, where only the total timer is present and you cannot bypass a stage either by timeout or skipping.

** In the higher stages of Kirby's Avalanche, a computer will, despite all of your disruption tactics, somehow always manage to pull off an Avalanche (a chain of 9 or greater) if you don't beat them in under two minutes.

 

* One of the ''[[Pikmin|Pikmin 2]]'' dungeons has the dungeon boss show up if the player takes too long on any given sublevel. Naturally, the boss can only be harmed with a type of Pikmin that isn't made available until the final floor.

* ''[[Lost Magic]]'': If the infinitely respawning enemies or the fact that [[The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard]] don't already kill you. the arbitrary time limits surely will.

 

* The [[Boss Battle]] mode of ''[[Guitar Hero|Guitar Hero III]]'' would initiate a sudden-death-esque "death drain" on both players if they got far enough without anyone failing. It would deplete your [[Hit Points|"Rock Meter"]] steadily, and could only be staved off with points gained from hitting notes. Later games in the series changed this: if both players survived through the whole song, it would repeat, only with the chart on ''hyperspeed''. With each successive repetition, the chart scrolls faster, making it harder to read the notes.

** Additionally, in Guitar Hero 3's career battles, only you would be death-drained, and it'd be during the opponent's "killing solo". incidentally, it's not getting to the end of the track that results in failure (you don't get close on Devil Went Down To Georgia), it actually IS your rock meter bottoming out that causes you to fail.

 

* In the ''[[Pokémon]]: [[Pokémon Mystery Dungeon|Mystery Dungeon]]'' games, when the player spends too much time in a dungeon, eventually some messages about a "mysterious wind" start appearing. If the player takes too much to find the exit, the Pokemon are blown out of the level and it counts as a loss.

** This is the default mechanic for any game based off the Shiren: Mysterious Wanderer formula. (Chocobo Mystery Dungeon deviates from it as mentioned earlier.)

 

* In Sunset Kid's dungeon in the final chapter of ''[[Live a Live]]'' you must find the character's [[Infinity+1 Sword]] (''a 44 magnum'') and get the hell out of there before eight bells strike, each fading out the visibility in the dungeon. If the player can't make it, four dangerous monsters will pop out and attack you. Through some [[Level Grinding]], though, you can get powerful enough to defeat them and get a very useful piece of equipment.

* ''[[Wizardry]]: Tale of the Forsaken Land''. Stay too long on a level, and the Grim Reaper pops out and starts chasing you around. He's as fast as you and can move through solid objects. If he catches you, a random party member gets possessed. If that party member then dies, it is [[Perma Death]]. The only way to cure that status is in town. The Reaper also appears in certain areas regardless of time.

* In ''[[Persona 3]]'' and its PSP remake, Elizabeth, her brother Theodore, and their older sister Margaret have - in addition to quite a few ''other'' special rules they won't tell you about - invisible time limits for their [[Bonus Boss]] fights, after which they fully heal themselves and proceed to nuke the [[Player Character]] into oblivion. For Margaret, the time limit is fifty turns. Elizabeth and Theo are less generous.

 

* Can't beat a boss within the time limit in ''[[Zanac]]''? The game will increase the AI's difficulty. Thanks, Compile. In area 11, if the fortress isn't defeated in the time limit, player goes back to the beginning of the stage.

* Capcom [[Shoot'Em Up]] ''[[1942|1943]]'', not to be outdone by Compile, forced players to redo battleship stages if the player could not destroy 70% of the boss battleship. More often than not, the player restarted the level with low fuel and the default weapon. But if the player couldn't complete the mission with special weapons and a full fuel tank, then how...?

** ''Gradius V'' has one midboss that is guaranteed to take out a life if you don't kill it, because it's taller than the screen's height and, upon timeout, goes from the right-hand side of the screen to off the left-hand side in a straight line.

*** The [[Spider Tank]] boss has a [[Wave Motion Gun]] that can only be avoided by hiding behind one of the blocks, and it will eventually fire it in a place where there's no cover.

** ''[[Touhou Project]]'' has this also in that timing out bullet patterns (spellcards) prevents you from gaining points from them. However, certain boss patterns can become harder as time passes. The biggest example is how several bosses (generally [[Bonus Boss|Extra Stage bosses]]) have a pattern that becomes [[Turns Red|more difficult as the boss takes damage]]. This would normally mean in [[Pacifist Run]] the boss would stay in its easiest pattern, meaning it is easier to beat the boss without damaging it. Therefore, these patterns, in the last thirty seconds or so before they are timed out, enter a [[Harder Than Hard|super-difficult mode]] that is ''more difficult than the pattern would ever be normally.''

** In ''[[Border Down]]'', the maximum boss time bonus is 3,000,000 points. You get it by beating the boss when the timer is at 0:00. Every positive second from zero lowers the bonus by 60,000 points and every negative second from zero lowers the bonus by 300,000 points. When the boss timer reaches -30 sec, the level ends and you '''lose 6,000,000 points.'''

** The boss Macbeth in ''[[Star Fox (series)|Star FOX]] 64'' will instantly kill you if you take too long.

*** However, this takes so long that it's probably harder to get that far without dying than it is to just defeat the boss. Other levels will trigger something bad to happen (a building blows up in Fortuna or Katina). This still finishes the level, but you miss out on a secret path.

* ''[[Defender]]'' summons [[Goddamned Bats|Goddamned Baiters]] to harass you if you take too long.

 

 

* In ''[[Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty]]'', if you fail to disarm any of the big bombs in time - the entire structure is blown sky-high.

 

* The "New York Minute" difficulty mode in ''[[Max Payne (series)|Max Payne]]'' adds a timer that never goes above one minute (except in VERY specific levels) and is refilled by meeting certain objectives in a level. If that minute runs out completely, you simply die.

 

* In ''[[Super Robot Wars Compact 3]]'', the Omega Missile from [[Mechander Robo]] frequently shows up after 3 turns from Stage 10 until Stage 16. It has a post movement MAPW with a range of 1-6 around itself that hits for about 4k damage and NEVER misses.

 

* In the [[Manga]] ''[[School Mermaid]]'', anyone who hunts the titular creatures has to kill one and devour its flesh before the sun rises. If they fail, they {{spoiler|turn into a mermaid themselves}}.

 

[[Category:Older Than the NES]]

[[Category:Video Game Difficulty Tropes]]