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When someone dies in a cutscene, because the story gods have demanded it. It doesn't always fit with how the game handles combat death and wounds, be they Non Lethal KO or Only Mostly Dead. Characters who have taken fireballs (and worse) to the face at pointblank range will be felled with a single gunshot or stab wound, even if they're level 99. Don't even try your resurrection magic, it would be wrong. A few games actually see magic users or clerics attempting to heal fallen characters, but failing, somehow implying that the dying character is injured in a way beyond conventional methods of healing to help. It's technically a Hand Wave, but they tried... Sometimes this happens in RTS games as well, where in most levels a death can easily be fixed by building the relevant unit production structure. This is generally because developers found that when players weren't able to build heroes back during campaigns, they'd frequently ignore some of the most powerful units for fear of them dying.
If the killed character is an NPC, it's even worse, the gameplay mechanic usually simply doesn't allow the player to revive such a character.
The flip-side is that, occasionally, what the story gods took away, they may give back; there may be a way to bring someone Back From The Dead in a cutscene, but it's usually optional. If not, well, that's what makes it drama.
Usually a glaring example of Gameplay And Story Segregation. Very commonly part of a Player Punch and Death By Origin Story.
Roughly, this is the worst form of death in videogames, going Plotline Death, Final Death, Only Mostly Dead, and Non Lethal KO.
Yes, this is a death trope, so do we have to say it? Major unmarked spoilers. Read at your own risk.
Examples
- Final Fantasy is the most famous of these, particularly FF7 (Aeris's death is important to the story, so you're not allowed the chance to use a Phoenix Down to bring her back).
- In a Plot Armor reversal, in the Kalm "flashback" when young Cloud is running around with Sephiroth, Sephy is near-invincible in random encounters and will revive Cloud if Cloud dies. (And then Sephy dies instantly if you poke him with a straw at game's end ...)
- It gets more bizarre if in the flashback, Sephiroth's AI decides to be an ass hole and never revive you. This can lead to a hilarious moment where after Sephiroth is out of Cloud's party, Cloud is running around town by himself in his "dead" state.
- In Final Fantasy V, after Galuf's battle with Exdeath, your other party members attempt to use healing spells and items, including a Phoenix Down, to revive him. It doesn't work, and he dies anyway. (To be fair, that's because he was simply too far gone, having single-handedly fought Exdeath even when he was technically dead.)
- Somewhat subverted in Final Fantasy IV: at one point, the party doesn't even get a chance to fight Golbez — two side characters are just blown out of the way in a cut scene. After he leaves, they sure look dead enough, but Rydia enters to revive them. The same game has Tellah burn out his life to cast Meteor in an earlier sequence, putting him beyond resurrection. Before that, two sibling wizards petrify themselves to save the main characters from a room closing in on them. Although you can attempt to use spells to revive them, it is explained that the bond between the wizards is so strong that no magic can break the Break spell.
- The game is however generally quite fond of Plotline Deaths as a means to make room for new or returning character. However, most of the characters return to life near the end of the game, and the GBA remake allows the player to choose among them for the final dungeon as well as the two bonus dungeons of the remake.
- Zack in Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core is somewhat unique in that he's the main character and you play through his Bolivian Army Ending first-hand; however, it still gels oddly with the game mechanics (this troper was still on full HP when he died, and was doing 9999 damage a swing to the final, invincible trio of generic Mooks.) The game's creators could have easily reduced his damage as he weakened or made the scene only end when the player's HP ran out, but ...
- The scene actually doesn't end until he runs out of HP, but because he doesn't die when he runs out of HP, it is possible to start up a healing spell, have your HP reduced to zero, and then cast the spell and fully heal yourself. But it still starts the scene transition because you ran out of health. It's a little weird that way.
- Final Fantasy Tactics usually plays this straight, but one of the sidequests has a cutscene in which Mustadio gets the crap kicked out of him and Ramza starts hollering for a Phoenix Down. Mustadio survives. Now just think, if someone (cough, Ramza, cough, Delita) had thought of this for someone's Dead Little Sister, maybe the game would have been a lot happier...
- Attempting to do so during the battle with said Dead Little Sister (at least the original PS 1 version) gives you the bizarre message that you "missed."
- This is a particularly bad example of Gameplay And Story Segregation. "She's RIGHT THERE! She's even marked as KO, not counting down to Final Death. Why can't I revive her?" "Because in the plot says she died."
- This one is especially strange because even if she survived that battle, she would've died during the cutscene afterward anyway. Or in other words, there is no good reason even for the developers to not let you Phoenix Down her.
- Because she wasn't dead. Remember, Delita said his little sister saved him, that is how he survived.
- Both Chrono Trigger and Suikoden had deaths that could be reversed via time travel, if someone did the right things. In Suikoden II, if you fulfil the requirements the dead person turns out to have literally been hiding the entire time.
- Well, it's not like they could just use a Revive on Crono, seeing as how he was a pile of ashes at the time.
- Various non-player characters in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion cannot die until their role in a given plotline is fulfilled, if then. For example, you can range up and down the Archmage's tower in the Imperial City, killing key members of the Guild, over, and over again. Or go to the Imperial Palace, and cut down Chancellor Ocato until your weapon breaks. Most of the rulers of the cities of Cyrodil are likewise "immortal", save for one. Note that in Morrowind it was possible to kill plot-relevant NPCs, and in so doing, break the plot.
- Granted, this can be disabled in the PC version, giving you the same message as you got for killing critical NPCs in Morrowind. This Troper prefers playing this way, instead of having random invincible people. (Curse you, skooma merchant!)
- In the first Expansion Pack for Morrowind, before the designers came up with truly immortal NPCs, they simulated the effect by giving the king a magic ring that makes him like unto a god. This was probably necessary because the king in question was such a Magnificent Bastard that otherwise even the most saintly PC would have been tempted to indulge in a little regicide.
- Unfortunately some of the unkillable allies in oblivion are seriously lacking in skill, 'dying' over and over again during various missions, this can ruin the immersion somewhat.
- Heavily subverted in the eroge-SRPG, Genrin no Kishougun 2. When characters die in combat THEY ARE DEAD FOREVER, not only can you not use them again but they can't even appear in story related sequences, which is particularly frightening in the fact that all but one of the first heroines introduced are your main combatants. Don't let them die.
- In one of the endings in Baldurs Gate II and its Expansion Pack, Viconia is eventually assassinated by the Drow society that she had fled from by means of poison. However, throughout the game there are numerous people who have resurrection spells to bring back the dead, and you can even get a ring that renders its wearer immune to all poisons. Viconia herself is such a spellcaster, and even if another character is an epic level cleric, she's Killed Off For Real. (It should be mentioned, though, that if a character you are engaging in a romantic subplot dies and is resurrected in the game, it breaks the romance...for some reason. It is also possible for a character to be killed beyond the means of magic to revive them, but this normally requires spells like disintegrate, or such massive damage that the character is chunked.)
- The games also have some cutscenes (in particular the battle at the end of the prologue in the first game) where a character is killed in actual combat... except that he simply drops dead after a while, even if the enemy wasn't hitting him/her at that point.
- In addition, at the beginning of Baldurs Gate II, you find Khalid, Jaheira's husband, dead, the body mutilated. In a conversation with another character later in the name, the possibility of death and resurrection is brought up, and Jaheira mentions that sometimes it doesn't work—true, in D&D at the time—and that in cases of the body being damaged it can prevent raising—also true, for some spells.
- Shadow Of The Colossus. But it only happens in the ending, and it's YOU.
- In Killzone 2, you play as Sev, a soldier with a "medic gun" that can heal downed soldiers (as long as they haven't been shot in the head). Some time near the end of the game, one of your partners, Garza, is wounded by Radec and eventually dies. Why you couldn't use your Medic gun to heal him doesn't make much sense.
- The difference between Plotline Death and gameplay death shows up again in God Of War... But it's the opposite of the usual difference. When Kratos dies in gameplay, it's permanent, and you have to reload the last checkpoint... however, when the plot requires him to die, he's allowed a chance to fight back out of the Underworld and complete his quest.
- Given the circumstances of the death (killed by Ares seconds after claiming Pandora's Box, the one weapon that can kill him), and knowing Kratos, it's possible that when he dies in the plot, he's finally pissed off enough to kill his way out of there. That, and it's only on that visit that someone drops a rope for him.
- Circumstances of his death is probably the key, especially since it's implied he needs supernatural help to be able to escape from the Underworld. If he dies before claiming Pandora's Box, then he's just like anyone else who tried to get it and failed. If he dies after climbing out of Hades and challenging Ares, then even the power of the Box wasn't enough to kill the God of War.
- The same thing happens in Jade Empire. If you die, it's reload time, unless you're killed confronting the Big Bad, since that's where you're supposed to die. You then fight your way back from the afterlife.
- Although it is justified by the Water Dragon bringing you back (well, a little) to life.
- In King Arthur And The Knights Of Justice, at the end of the game, Morgana kills the two knights that were in your party. If you want them back, you have to go to the Land of the Dead.
- In SD Gundam G Generation DS, the Rival Route is accessed by imitating the novelization of Mobile Suit Gundam; in other words, someone other than Char has to deal the last blow to Amuro, which kills him rather than simply damaging the Gundam as per the anime.
- In Persona 2 Innocent Sin a friend/lover of Yukino dies by bleeding wounds. Even though they didn't try to use magic here to heal him, they did try when Maya got stab by the Spear of Longinius at the end. She too didn't live due to the spear being able to cause wounds that can't be healed.
- In Persona 3, Shinjiro.
- Unless you're playing as the female protagonist in the PSP remake in which case you can give him a gift watch that will stop the fatal shot that should have killed him.
- A version of this occurs in Little Big Adventure II. Normally, non-villain characters in the game can't be killed, and most of them won't die even if they accidentally get whacked by a villain aiming at the hero. However, at one point a dissident escaping prison with you gets shot before he can get out of the building, and dies. An interesting thing about this is that your character possesses some sort of a healing ability, and the dissident doesn't really die instantly after being shot — but since the event happens during the cutscene, there's no way you can save him.
- Lampshaded in the RPG Dungeon Siege: You are given a mission to find an elder. When you arrive there, a cutscene plays where he is killed. When you return to town to report the elder's death, they ask you why didn't you just use one of your potions of revival to bring the elder back to life.
- The FPS Requiem:Avenging Angel features a Plotline Death that must be reversed to continue the game. (One of the player's powers is "revive")
- Also, later in the game, a semi-major ally character dies. It makes sense that you're unable to revive her, as she is blown to pieces, and your revive ability requires an intact body to function properly.
- Fire Emblem: Genealogy of Holy War, Sigurd, main character and Lord for the first half of the game dies on you at the end of a chapter. Along with his entire army except for one or two survivors. Fortunately, all the ladies left children behind to carry on the struggle. Two children each, in fact.
- In Sword of Flame, Ninian (playable character) and Hector's brother Uther (NPC). We also have Eliwood's father Elbert and Matthew's love Leila (both NPC) who also suffer deaths without any chance to save them. Ironically, in Binding Blade, we had Hector becoming the embodiment of Plotline Death.
- Ninian got resurrected again though, and lived happily ever after, Athos was the true plotline death in that he apparently overdid it in the fight against the Dragon, regardless of whether or not you actually used him.
- Also, Lord Helman (Lord Elbert's friend who gets stabbed by Ephidel, becoming the first victim of the Black Fang in the game)
- Ninian is replaced by Nils for gameplay purposes.
- In The Sacred Stones, we have Glen the Sunstone and the Ismaire the Queen of the White Dunes, though at least the former obeys normal combat rules (he simply attacks from the wrong position in the Elemental Rock Paper Scissors and receives a guaranteed critical hit to boot).
- In Path of Radiance, we have Greil and Rajaion.
- In Radiant Dawn (for at least your first playthrough), Pelleas.
- In Shadow Dragon, your decoy in the fourth part of the Prologue, and Marth's parents.
- The PC RPG Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura has a NPC companion dying (well, if you manage to find him after he decides to leave the group at one point) as a part of his personal storyline. He can be resurrected, although his skills and personality change slightly in the process (and technologist characters have to be prepared for their deaths and create their resurrection gadgets in advance).
- Subverted in Indigo Prophecy (Fahrenheit in Europe) - the last third of the game is played as the main character despite him being technically dead.
- In the Ultima series, the player's party members die and get resurrected all the time... with two notable exceptions. In Ultima V, a character slain by evil king Blackthorne's pendulum is permanently dead. And in Ultima VII, a sacrifice is required for the Balance Serpent, for which one of your party members volunteers who will then be gone forever. Until the much-maligned Ultima IX. *sigh*
- In an interesting example, Phantasy Star II uses cloning as the preferred "revival" method of fallen characters - why a plot-killed character can't be cloned is vaguely explained in the US version by stating she can't be cloned because she's not human, even though cloning prior to this point works on her; a line in the original JP version states that the data required to revive her has gone missing, presumably removed by the Big Bad specifically to prevent it. The Japan-only PS 2 remake of adds an optional side-quest to fix this.
- There seem to be two contradictory explanations in regards to the Japanese version: one explanation is that there's a line saying the data has gone missing, the other explanation is that the cloning center in the Japanese version is a hospital and she just can't be revived because she's dead. Is there anyone who knows Japanese and can reconcile these?
- Also in Phantasy Star IV, Alys is struck by an attack that's used repeatedly in the battle proper, but when it hits her in the plot, the effects are lethal. This is certainly an example of Gameplay And Story Segregation, however the 'lethal' result is interesting in that Alis doesn't die immediately - she becomes sick, and dies slowly over the next few (in-story) days/weeks - an attack that in most [=RPGs=] would either kill you or not, actually killed because of side-effects such as infections that most games would just ignore. This attack also seems to suppress healing abilities; the party healer attempts to heal her in the cutscene that follows, only to fail.
- To be fair, at the point where Alys does die, your healer, although above the commoner level, is still weaker in terms of both medicine and magic than when you DO fight the battle proper, and you're lacking a key Mac Guffin necessary to make the enemy vulnerable; it's not much of a stretch to have it deflect some of the energy as well (an idea used as the justification for only bringing five people against the Big Bad).
- In Sword Of Mana, the main character has to kill Amanda after she is bitten by Medusa. They try to bring her back using healing magic, but it only gives her enough time to speak a few final words before dying. One is left to wonder why they didn't try an Angel Grail instead.
- There are several of these in Mass Effect: Corporal Jenkins gets gunned down by Mecha Mooks right at the beginning of the game's first battle. Nihlus gets shot in the back of the head by Saren. And on Virmire, Shepard must choose whether to save Kaidan or Ashley; the one not chosen dies in a nuclear explosion. Wrex can also be killed in a cutscene on Virmire, but it's probably more of a Final Death than a Plotline Death, since whether or not he died depends on the player's choices.
- In La Pucelle, Alouette the Maiden of Light uses the last of her power to help Prier purify Croix's (the Dark Prince} heart and passes on.
- Jin Uzuki makes a Heroic Sacrifice in the ending sequence of Xenosaga Episode III. Why did his sister have to survive?
- Arbritary Headcount Limit. Team Save the World already had 3 Characters, Jin included.
- Valkyrie Profile: Damn near everybody. But in a sort of inversion, since you're playing as a Valkyrie, that's how everyone joins your party.
- In Jeanne D Arc, one would naturally expect the lead female to be burned at the stake. However, since Jeanne herself had already gone MIA, and the French higher-ups made her childhood friend Liane pose as her for the remainder of the war... Although Team Pet Cuisses inherits her stats via the Paragon's Armlet, Liane only comes back as a spirit to assist in a Battle In The Center Of The Mind against a demonic duplicate, and the player can recruit her ghost as a post-game bonus. Nevertheless, she remains legitimately dead to the plot, and Jeanne and Roger are last seen praying for her at the Chapel near Domremy.
- In Silent Hill 2 there is no way to prevent Maria's death in Brookhaven's basement.
- Or in the jail cell. Or in the room with the Pyramid Heads. Or when you fight her, on some endings, anyways.
- In Clive Barkers Jericho, two of the Jericho Squad members, Devin Ross and Paul Rawlings, have the ability to heal fallen comrades, provided that they maintain visual contact. Close to the beginning of the game, however, Ross dies after being slashed across the chest and dropped from a great height, and, no matter how hard he tries, Rawlings can not bring him back. This is important to the game mechanics during the following levels, however, as Ross' spirit lives on, possessing the bodies of his squadmates, so that he may share their consciousness and use their abilities, as well as still being able to use his own healing abilities.
- Also, just before the final boss fight, both Simone Cole and Xavier Jones are killed by the Firstborn, who uses its powerful blasts of lightning from its hands to blow them into bloody chunks. They cannot be revived at all, and no-one even tries, quite possibly because bringing back someone from the dead who has been blown into tiny pieces would be a tad difficult. This is also necessary for the mechanics of the boss fight, as the Firstborn is able to use the squad's magical abilities against them, and it wouldn't have been feasible (or really very fair) for it to use Cole's time-slowing/firepower-increasing abilites or Jones' astral projection against the other characters.
- Ace Combat deaths (for anyone but yourself) only happen when the story says that they happen. Unlike Gameplay Immortality, this applies to enemy NPCs as well. For example, in Zero Erich Hillenberand will always survive you shooting him down (in fact his first line is about him ejecting as you opened fire), while Anton Kupchenko won't; same goes for Ilya Pasternak who is killed in 6. A twist in Zero is that your story path determines whether or not "Espada 1" survives being shot down, although this is inconsequential to the broader story.
- Also done in AC:5 with one of your squadmates and an enemy. If you shoot the named enemy in the second-to-last mission there's a comment about you being the ace of aces, but the enemy still appears during the final sequence to get his final Kharmic Death.
- In Tales Of Symphonia, the party healer's failure to save a dying NPC is Handwaved as healing magic being less effective on people without Exspheres. But it was always completely effective on Genis and Colette even before they got theirs.
- Nevermind Zelos's death if you choose to end the game with Kratos. He has access to both an Exsphere and Cruxis Crystal. This is Handwaved by no characters even attempting to save him.
- Super Robot Wars, especially Original Generation series love this trope. We have Captain Daitetsu Minase and Ouka Nagisa dying on the course of the game and there's no way to resurrect them. Likewise, some Anti Villain like Folka's Aloof Big Brother Altis Tarl will fall into this.
- But they have also toyed with us with this trope. Axel Almer and Alfimi were supposed to be Killed Off For Real after OG 2, yet they came Back From The Dead when OG Gaiden rolls in. Likewise, put one of your character a Defensive Support skill, and get him/her near Kyosuke during the last mission of the bonus section of O Gs. Lamia Loveless would still get killed... until OG Gaiden rolls in and it's revealed that she's only Not Quite Dead. Considering all these examples span in the period of two games, it could count as before OG Gaiden gets released, people thought these characters are goners.
- Another version of toying around: According to Compact 3, Fernando Albark, Maysis Mark and Alion Lucada are supposed to suffer Plotline Death, there's no way you can save them. But their stories get tweaked that they didn't die. Fernando and Alion ends up joining you for good, while Maysis takes the back seat. Likewise, this also happens to Despinis, who ends up doing a Heel Face Turn before she could get killed, ensuring her survival.
- And for non-OG examples (for this instance, Z), we have Setsuko's teammates Toby Watson and Denzel Hammer, killed by Asakim Dowin to further traumatize Setsuko.
- Wizardry 8 has this in spades. When a PC gets killed, you can resurrect him/her with relatively little effort (Resurrection Powder). Should the same happen to an NPC, he/she is gone (with a rather gory explosion, usually). A particularly egregious example is the death of Jan-Ette, a recurring NPC from the previous Wizardry, who you find imprisoned and dying on Bayjin. She actually manages to talk to your party one last time, then she simply collapses in a heap and vanishes from sight.
- In Sonic The Hedgehog 2006, Sonic seemed to forget to carry some rings and thus was impaled by Mephilis.
- Baldarov from Warsong (Volkov in the original Japanese version of Langrisser) is struck down by an assassin's arrow at the end of Scenario 5, forcing the hero Garett (Ledin) to continue to journey on his own. Hopefully, you'll have given him an opportunity to level/get promoted before Baldarov/Volkov's inevitable death.
- In Square's Saga Frontier 2, most of your characters will die in plot deaths fighting in battle, due to old age, or due to illness. Granted, the game spans almost a century (Only one character is shown to have lived to experience the entire game).
- Johan in this game is a good example of a Plotline Death that avoids Gameplay and Story Segregation. Characters in the game die if their LP runs out, and during Johan's final sequence, his LP slowly ticks away to zero due to a poison as he fights hordes of incoming monsters. Annoyingly enough, main character Gustave dies in the EXACT SAME place and time, from the EXACT SAME HORDE OF MONSTERS without ever getting a chance to fight properly.
- In Luminous Arc 2, you may have battled and beaten him plenty of times, but Master Mattias only died in a cutscene, complete with a special CG.
- In Valkyria Chronicles, despite the fact you have a medic that can revive teammates who have taken tank shells to the face, Isara dies of a single gunshot. The medic is nowhere to be seen.
- Otomo in Battle Realms, if you choose to follow the Dragon Clan plotline.
- In Rise Of Legends Carlini dies in a cutscene near the beginning of third campaign. Normally it just takes some resources and time to revive a fallen hero. Moreover in this mission you get to control a hero that has abillity to resurrect friendly units.
- To be fair, he was killed by the Death God.
- Pretty blatant in Call Of Duty, especially the fourth. Non-plot essential characters drop like flies, but if they are plot-essential, then they're invulnerable to damage. Then in some later scene, they die, of course.
- In the original Wing Commander, if a character died, they were gone for good, sometimes resulting in your having to fly missions solo. (Given wingman AI, though, arguably even when they are alive you're still flying missions solo.) Starting with the sequel, though, pilots shot down eject, until the storyline calls for them to die.
- Cubone's mother was killed, and several trainers mourn their dead Pokemon in the Red/Blue games, despite the fact that in game, they can only faint and can easily be revived at the Poke Center.
- In Ratchet and Clank: A Crack in Time, Ratchet dies in a cutscene after taking a relatively weak looking energy blast to the chest from General Azimuth's wrench. Clank goes back in time later on to save him and succeeds, but one does wonder why Ratchet's nanotech didn't just heal him in the first place...
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