History PermanentlyMissableContent / TurnBasedStrategy

*** [[spoiler:Yen'fay]] can also only be recruited if you talk to him with [[spoiler:Say'ri]]. It's simple enough to simply deploy [[spoiler:Say'ri]] on the map, but as he's the ''only'' character in the game who can't be recruited with [[CantDropTheHero Chrom]], he's fairly easy to miss.

** There are only four characters over the course of the series (discounting Three Houses, which has an entirely different system of recruitment) whom you have more than one chance to recruit. You have two chances each to recruit Rickard from ''VideoGame/FireEmblemMysteryOfTheEmblem'' and its remake, Perceval from ''VideoGame/FireEmblemTheBindingBlade'' and Amelia from ''VideoGame/FireEmblemTheSacredStones''. Cath from ''The Binding Blade'' will appear in every indoors map until you recruit her, but Roy must talk to her over three chapters out of six for that to happen, so if you avoid talking to her for whatever reason in too many of the maps, you can still miss her.

*** Children characters (except Lucina) are recruited through Paralogues. In order to unlock them, you must get the mothers married, but because Sumia has very few potential husbands (Chrom, Male Avatar, Frederick, Gaius and Henry), it's easy to miss out on Cynthia.
*** A bunch of characters are only [[OptionalPartyMember optional recruitments]], and in several cases, it's possible to accidentally kill them instead of recruiting them. Still others have certain requirements that must be fulfilled in their respective recruitment chapters before they join the main party.

*** First, if playing as a male Corrin and marrying anyone besides Flora, Reina, Scarlet, or a second-generation character, one of the other men will lose out on a potential wife, and therefore their child will not be available.

*** Two non-child examples are Benny and Charlotte in ''Revelation''. Most of the units in ''Fates'' who aren't automatically handed to you are either recruitable with Corrin or will still join as long they survived the chapter. Not so with these two, who ''must'' be spoken to with Elise, and ''won't'' join at all if she didn't get to them, even if you left them alive. If Elise is killed in the battle, then Benny and Charlotte can't be recruited.

*** You pick one of the titular houses to teach at the beginning of the game, with each one having its own set of students for units. Most students from the other houses can be swayed into switching with proper stat/support raising, letting you use them as units. However, you only have the first 12 chapters, the span of an in-game year, to get the units you want from the other two houses, because [[spoiler:a TimeSkip occurs after that point and renders anyone not recruited before then inaccessible (and most likely causes them to become an enemy unit in the second half of the game]]. The time-based progression of the game means that recruiting a large amount of students requires either a NewGamePlus or lots of time dedicated to raising support over other important activities.

*** Most of the time, classing up requires a seal item corresponding to the class's rank, and seals can be bought feequently. However, the Dark Mage class can only be gotten by using a special Dark Seal, and it needs another Dark Seal to upgrade into the Dark Bishop. Dark Seals are only found as held items of the Death Knight, a very powerful enemy unit who appears in a few storyline battles. It's hard to beat him or steal his item without specific strategies, but missing out more than a few times renders it impossible to make a unit into a Dark Mage/Bishop. It's especially nasty on the Black Eagles route, since you only get '''three''' chances to get Dark Seals [[spoiler:if you take the Crimson Flower branch]], and those three chances are during Part 1, when the Death Knight is at his deadliest.

%% Update needed for the below example because of Three Houses
** There are only four characters over the course of the series (fifteen games as of its writing) whom you have more than one chance to recruit. You have two chances each to recruit Rickard from ''VideoGame/FireEmblemMysteryOfTheEmblem'' and its remake, Perceval from ''VideoGame/FireEmblemTheBindingBlade'' and Amelia from ''VideoGame/FireEmblemTheSacredStones''. Cath from ''The Binding Blade'' will appear in every indoors map until you recruit her, but Roy must talk to her over three chapters out of six for that to happen, so if you avoid talking to her for whatever reason in too many of the maps, you can still miss her.

** Doesn't help that they're two permanently missables in one - not only do they need to be captured so that Morphers can become them, but they also teach Blue Mage abilities - and they can't be learned from Morphers.

* In ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWarsAlphaGaiden'', fans had to choose between keeping Getter Robo G or Shin Getter Robo once Shin Getter appeared (In ''Alpha'', Anime/MazingerZ was like this instead, but in that case keeping the original is harder than getting the upgrade [[LethalJokeCharacter - of course, with the power up Powered Mazinger Z gets, you won't WANT to upgrade]]), ''Impact'' forced you to choose between Shin Getter Robo and normal Weissritter with the [[CombinationAttack Rampage Ghost]] or Getter Robo G and Rein Weissritter ([[TakeAThirdOption it was also possible to get NEITHER of them]]) and in ''Compact 3'', you either got Getter G and Kouchi Oni early or Shin Getter and Tekkoki Oni later.

* One of the most insidious permanently missable items is the Snakish sword in ''VideoGame/PhantomBrave''. It can only be accessed once: during the tutorial. And, thanks to the game system, you can't just pick it up and leave with it. You have to confine a spirit to it and wait until the spirit is removed from the board, and even then you're not guaranteed to get it. There is a more sure-fire way to get it, but it's by getting a hidden character, and the opportunity to get that character is all but impossible after that section, making ''that'' a permanently missable too.
* In every game of the ''VideoGame/{{Suikoden}}'' series, while most of the [[Mystical108 108]] recruitable characters either join automatically over the course of the story or can be recruited at any time, some have limited windows of opportunity, after which they're permanently missable. Since recruiting all of them is required to get the [[MultipleEndings best ending]], and on top of that these characters tend to be very ''easy'' to miss, the result is the definition of a GuideDangIt situation.
** One particular example in ''VideoGame/SuikodenII'' is the Clive subquest. He's chasing after a woman. Easy enough, let's help him out. If your ''total play time'' is too high, then he loses the trail and will never find it again, giving him the "bad" ending for his character (he chases her for the rest of his life). The problem with this is two fold: first, there's no indication that this will happen at any point, meaning if you lose the trail, you'll have no idea why without a guide. Second, in order to fully complete his quest, you have to reach the last possible village in the game (which is, itself, optional) in less than twenty hours play time (not the easiest accomplishment even if you know from the start to try for it). For most gamers without a specific guide for recruiting characters and level building, this is all but impossible. Thus, most players either don't bother with Clive's subquest (as it's immaterial to whether you get the best ending for the game as a whole), or they [[VideoGame/GameShark cheat]].
* The same thing is true of the old Genesis ''VideoGame/ShiningForce'' games, including one character that you have to speak to over several acts, who never says anything back. However, these characters are not necessary for the overall story or endings, but the characters you could prospectively lose include JokeCharacter, a defied examplle of SquishyWizard, the game's best [[AnAdventurerIsYou Tank]] and the [[GameBreaker two best characters in the game]], who are [[GuideDangIt difficult to find without the help of a strategy guide]]
** Another batch of potential things to Lose Forever was introduced in the GBA remake...cards. Some cards are tucked away in inconspicuous places; Anri's is in a bookcase, and most bookcases in the game simply call up useless flavor text when examined. Others, however, are nicknamed "Friendship Cards" in that you have to build rapport with certain party members to get them. How do you build this rapport? Simple: bring the character in question with you into battle ''and make sure they never get KO'd''; this unlocks more and more of their monologues in headquarters between missions, and eventually they say something to the effect of "take this; we're friends" and reward you with their card.
** Certain enemies have to be finished off by certain characters. A particularly Egregrious example is Balzack, who has to be defeated by a knight named Earnest (who, it should be noted, you just recieved prior to the Balzack battle. Granted, this makes sense, since Earnest exists to Wangst over his beef with Balzack; on the other hand, [[GuideDangIt the mission immediately before that asks you to eliminate a random Hellhound with Guntz.]]
** Several of the best (or [[RuleOfCool coolest]]) characters (and one JokeCharacter) could be missed without ever being seen if you took the direct route over the [[SideQuest scenic route]]. These included the {{Ninja}}, {{Samurai}}, [[PrestigeClass magic-wielding centaur]], [[BareFistedMonk healer/monk]], [[EasterEgg mutant egg creature]], and a hamster.
* In ''VideoGame/AdvanceWars 2'' and ''Advance Wars Dual Strike'', certain levels have cities that, when captured, unlock a bonus mission. If you clear said certain levels without capturing said certain cities, the bonus mission - and the prize for completing it - is permanently missable...until your next playthrough at least. While the game hints at which levels have these cities, [[GuideDangIt you don't know which city out of several is the one you need to capture.]] Although...it's up to the player whether or not the prize for completing the bonus missions (The ability to deploy Neotanks in ''2'', or Black Boats, Black Bombs, and Piperunners in ''[=DS=]'') is actually worth the work, especially considering finding the map unlocks a brutally difficult extra mission that you are now forced to complete...

* They pop up on occasion in ''VideoGame/BattleForWesnoth''. Capturing certain villages or visiting certain areas in campaign mode will give you free units which usually have no upkeep cost. These can be very useful in some campaigns. On a couple of occasions (the three Heavy Infantry and Burin from the Rise of Wesnoth), missing them renders the whole campaign basically {{Unwinnable}}.
* In both versions of ''VideoGame/YggdraUnion'', every item save for starting equipment is missable. Everything requires you to have done a lot of searching and hope that you can find something before you run out of turns. To top it off certain items can only be acquired through various means. Many items require you to have fought and killed them with higher luck, others require you to steal it (your luck should not be high enough to force a drop), others still require you to have done something in previous maps and the oh so impossible to find Fanelia weapon which requires you to have acquired the Hyper drill by collecting 7 hard to find duds (and in the process missing out on certain equipment in the old game unless you saved and reloaded) and stepped on a space 3 times to having to kill an enemy with a specific card ability. And in order to even equip Hyper drill(a requirement to get fanelia), Durant must be at the max level in the game(not an easy thing to do)

* Some of the dungeons in ''VideoGame/EternalEyes'' cannot be accessed after you defeat their respective bosses. While in some cases this doesn't seem so bad, some of those dungeons contain [[RandomlyDrops randomly dropped]] equipment that you might want. In particular, Villee Fort (which gets replaced in the tenth and final chapter) has the excellent Ninja Suit in it, which is one of the few equipment that can increase your Movement Points and let you travel farther.

* In ''[[TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}} Warhammer 40,000: Rites of War]]'', it is possible to find valuable artifacts or other war-gear on the various scenario maps of the campaign. But if you complete a scenario without first finding all the available wargear (and there are scenarios where, given the limited number of turns you have to finish, you simply will not be able to look everywhere), that artifact or piece of gear is permanently missable.

* ''VideoGame/ValkyriaChronicles4'' averts this with its Squad Stories, personal missions starring three party members each. Obviously, if a squad member suffers FinalDeath before you complete their Squad Story, said Story is inaccessible. However, you unlock the option to resurrect fallen characters after beating the game, meaning no Squad Story can be permanently missed. This is particularly useful for the squad member who suffers a PlotlineDeath in Chapter 16.

* In ''VideoGame/XCOM2'', most weapon upgrades require salvaged alien corpses to craft. The top-tier GREMLIN and Psi Amp upgrades need Sectopod wrecks and Gatekeeper shells, respectively, which are end-game enemies you won't encounter all that often before the global timer forces you to tackle the final mission. A lot of mission types don't allow you to take salvage with you in the first place, so if the RNG is having a particularly bad time during your current campaign, you might never get the chance to fully upgrade your armory.

*** There's only one way to grant a unit the Dancer class, which is by having them win a competition held late in the first part of the game. Only one unit can be sent to compete, and if they don't have enough Charm to win, then the Dancer class is missed on that playthrough.

* In every game of the ''VideoGame/{{Suikoden}}'' series, while most of the [[OneHundredAndEight 108]] recruitable characters either join automatically over the course of the story or can be recruited at any time, some have limited windows of opportunity, after which they're permanently missable. Since recruiting all of them is required to get the [[MultipleEndings best ending]], and on top of that these characters tend to be very ''easy'' to miss, the result is the definition of a GuideDangIt situation.

* ''VideoGame/ValkyriaChronicles4'' averts this with its Squad Stories, personal missions starring three party members each. Obviously, if a squad member suffers FinalDeath before you complete their Squad Story, said Story is inaccessible. However, you unlock the option to resurrect fallen characters after beating the game, meaning no Squad Story can be permanently missed. This is important because [[spoiler: you're forced to send one squad member on a suicide mission in Chapter 16, resulting in an unavoidable death.]]

** There are a couple of spells, namely Ultima and Zodiarc, that can only be learned when an eligible character (Ramza in his default Squire class and any Summoner respectively) survives getting hit by them. The problem is that there are precious few battles where either spell is used (in fact, Zodiarc is only used in ''one'' optional fight), and if you complete all those battles without learning them in time, then those spells are gone forever.

** One of these in particular is a GuideDangIt. The Escutheon II is a super version of the first shield you can purchase. However, in addition to only being available on one map, on top of a pillar which can only be accessed in a particular manner. The character with Move-Find Item, must have a sufficiently high jump stat, and bounce off of a large creature, such as one of the cats or a dragon.

** Since you cannot replay missions in the series, this goes for everything and almost everyone that is not automatically given to you. Often in ways of ''GuideDangIt''. Watch out for items hidden in deserts or for chests in stages with enemy thieves.

** There are only four characters over the course of the series (read: fifteen games!) whom you have more than one chance to recruit. You have two chances each to recruit Rickard from ''VideoGame/FireEmblemMysteryOfTheEmblem'' and its remake, Perceval from ''VideoGame/FireEmblemTheBindingBlade'' and Amelia from ''VideoGame/FireEmblemTheSacredStones''. Cath from ''The Binding Blade'' will appear in every indoors map until you recruit her, but Roy must talk to her over three chapters out of six for that to happen, so if you avoid talking to her for whatever reason in too many of the maps, you can still miss her.

*** Most of the time, classing up requires a seal item corresponding to the class's rank, and seals can be bought feequently. However, the Dark Mage class can only be gotten by using a special Dark Seal, and it needs another Dark Seal to upgrade into the Dark Bishop. Dark Seals are only found as held items of the Death Knight, a very powerful enemy unit who appears in a few storyline battles. It's hard to beat him or steal his item without specific strategies, but missing out more than a few times renders it impossible to make a unit into a Dark Mage/Bishop.

** ''VideoGame/FireEmblemThreeHouses'' has you pick one of the titular houses to teach at the beginning of the game, with each one having its own set of students for units. Most students from the other houses can be swayed into switching with proper stat/support raising, letting you use them as units. However, you only have the first 12 chapters, the span of an in-game year, to get the units you want from the other two houses, because [[spoiler:a TimeSkip occurs after that point and renders anyone not recruited before then inaccessible (and most likely causes them to become an enemy unit in the second half of the game)]]. It's possible to recruit most or even all of the available students before that point, but the time-based progression of the game makes it difficult.

** In ''Genealogy of the Holy War,'' not pairing up the 'right' people in the first half of the game can result in certain weapons becoming unusable or downright lost.
** There are only three characters over the course of the series (read: Twelve Games!) whom you have more than one chance to recruit. You have two chances each to recruit Amelia in ''Sacred Stones'' and Percival from ''Sealed Sword''. Cath/Cass from ''Sealed Sword'' will appear in every indoors map until you recruit her, but Roy must talk to her over three chapters for that to happen, so if you avoid talking to her for whatever reason in too many of the maps, you can still miss her.

*** Two non-child examples are Benny and Charlotte in ''Revelation''. Most of the units in ''Fates'' who aren't automatically handed to you are either recruitable with Corrin or will still join as long they survived the chapter. Not so with these two, who ''must'' be spoken to with Elise, and ''won't'' join at all if she didn't get to them, even if you left them alive. If Elise isn't deployed (or if you let her die for whatever reason), then Benny and Charlotte can't be recruited.

* In ''VideoGame/AdvanceWars 2'' and ''Advance Wars Dual Strike'', certain levels have cities that, when captured, unlock a bonus mission. If you clear said certain levels without capturing said certain cities, the bonus mission - and the prize for completing it - is permanently missable...until your next playthrough at least. While the game hints at which levels have these cities, [[GuideDangIt you don't know which city out of several is the one you need to capture.]] Although...it's up to the player whether or not the prize for completing the bonus missions (The ability to deploy Neotanks in ''2'', or Black Boats, Black Bombs, and Piperunners in ''[=DS=]]'') is actually worth the work, especially considering finding the map unlocks a brutally difficult extra mission that you are now forced to complete...

* In ''VideoGame/AdvanceWars 2'' and ''Advance Wars Dual Strike'', certain levels have cities that, when captured, unlock a bonus mission. If you clear said certain levels without capturing said certain cities, the bonus mission - and the prize for completing it - is permanently missable...until your next playthrough at least. While the game hints at which levels have these cities, [[GuideDangIt you don't know which city out of several is the one you need to capture.]] Although...it's up to the player whether or not the prize for completing the bonus missions (The ability to deploy Neotanks) is actually worth the work, especially considering finding the map unlocks a brutally difficult extra mission that you are now forced to complete...

** There are only three characters over the course of the series (read: Twelve Games!) whom you have more than one chance to recruit. You have two chances each to recruit Amelia in ''Sacred Stones'' and Percival from ''Sealed Sword''. Cath/Cass from ''Sealed Sword'' will appear in every indoors map until you recruit her, but Roy must talk to her over three chapters for that to happen.

** One particular example in ''VideoGame/SuikodenII'' is the Clive subquest. He's chasing after a woman. Easy enough, let's help him out. If your ''total play time'' is too high, then he loses the trail and will never find it again, giving him the "bad" ending for his character (he chases her for the rest of his life). The problem with this is two fold: first, there's no indication that this will happen at any point, meaning if you lose the trail, you'll have no idea why without a guide. Second, in order to fully complete his quest, you have to reach the last possible village in the game (which is, itself, optional) in less than twenty hours play time (not the easiest accomplishment even if you know from the start to try for it). For most gamers without a specific guide for recruiting characters and level building, this is all but impossible. Thus, most players either don't bother with Clive's subquest (as it's immaterial to whether you get the best ending for the game as a whole), or they [[GameShark cheat]].

* After you beat ''Videogame/YuGiOhMonsterCapsuleGB'', you can't fight Weevil, Bonz, or Mako again, or go into the RPG Worlds. It's also possible to skip rescuing Yugi's friends, rendering them unavailable as figurines.

* In ''VideoGame/AdvanceWars 2'' and ''Advance Wars Dual Strike'', certain levels have cities that, when captured, unlock a bonus mission. If you clear said certain levels without capturing said certain cities, the bonus mission - and the prize for completing it - is permanently missable...until your next playthrough at least. While the game hints at which levels have these cities, [[GuideDangIt you don't know which city out of several is the one you need to capture.]] Although...it's up to the player whether or not the prize for completing the bonus missions (The ability to deploy Neotanks) is actually worth the work.

* In every game of the ''{{Suikoden}}'' series, while most of the [[OneHundredAndEight 108]] recruitable characters either join automatically over the course of the story or can be recruited at any time, some have limited windows of opportunity, after which they're permanently missable. Since recruiting all of them is required to get the [[MultipleEndings best ending]], and on top of that these characters tend to be very ''easy'' to miss, the result is the definition of a GuideDangIt situation.

* The same thing is true of the old Genesis ''ShiningForce'' games, including one character that you have to speak to over several acts, who never says anything back. However, these characters are not necessary for the overall story or endings, but the characters you could prospectively lose include JokeCharacter, a defied examplle of SquishyWizard, the game's best [[AnAdventurerIsYou Tank]] and the [[GameBreaker two best characters in the game]], who are [[GuideDangIt difficult to find without the help of a strategy guide]]

* One of the most insidious permanently missable items is the Snakish sword in ''PhantomBrave''. It can only be accessed once: during the tutorial. And, thanks to the game system, you can't just pick it up and leave with it. You have to confine a spirit to it and wait until the spirit is removed from the board, and even then you're not guaranteed to get it. There is a more sure-fire way to get it, but it's by getting a hidden character, and the opportunity to get that character is all but impossible after that section, making ''that'' a permanently missable too.