Non Standard Game Over / Role-Playing Game

Examples of Non-Standard Game Over in role-playing games.

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• Akalabeth: World of Doom starts by simply asking you "Ready?" If you answer no, it boots you back to the DOS prompt.
• In Arx Fatalis, it is possible for the player to, by killing the friendly and plot-critical king, and stealing a key from his body, to open the doors leading to the surface. On opening the door, you are instantly frozen solid and die.
• In Atelier Meruru: The Apprentice of Arland, if at any time you allow Meruru's popularity to drop to zero, then Rufus comes to the workshop, chastises her, and then sends her before her father Dessier, who is so mad at her that he reneges on his promise and ends her alchemy studies immediately, followed by a Game Over without even getting the Bad Ending (and thus no "Castle Life" Trophy).
• Baldur's Gate:
  • Make Gorion hostile towards you in Baldur's Gate's prologue (it's not necessary to attack him, you might try to pickpocket him, or cause someone else in his field of sight to go hostile) and he will cast lightning towards you, ending your journey before it even starts.
  • In Baldur's Gate II if you attack anyone in the Shadow Thieves secret complex while being allied to them, Arkanis Gath will spawn and instantly kill you. The same in the vampires' guild if you sided with them.
  • During the Unseeing Eye quest, you are tasked to retrieve the pieces of a magical rod to restore it and kill your opponent, but warned that you must not bring it to the surface for any reason at all. If you do, the magical rod will kill you.
  • Baldur's Gate III:
    • There's an injured mind flayer in the remains of the nautiloid ship that will try to feed on you. Failing to resist its Mind Control leads to a cutscene of it enveloping your head in its tentacles to eat your brain and instant death for the whole party.
    • If Squishy Wizard party member Gale falls in combat, his magic Virtual Ghost will appear and tell you that many lives depend on his resurrection. Fail to do so within three days, and the Fantastic Nuke in his chest goes off, killing the party and everyone else in the region. Additionally, once Gale's Netherese Orb has been stabilized and the nature of his divine quest has been revealed, you gain an innocuous general ability to detonate the orb. Doing so will cause a cutscene which describes how the incredible power of the magical blast reduced half of the Sword Coast to a smouldering crater. And that you suck.
    • If you equip one of the Whispering Masks in the hag Auntie Ethel's hideout, she will begin exerting her influence over you. Failing to take it off immediately afterwards will result in her assuming full control. Should this happen to the entire party, the game will immediately end.
    • With only yourself and Lae'zel in your party^note If you have recruited other companions, this will result in a fight breaking out that may lead to Lae'zel being killed and Lost Forever, after taking a few long rests, she will appear before you with a knife when she notices you feeling unwell due to your mind flayer larva infestation, and offer to Mercy Kill you before killing herself, to prevent you both from transforming into mind flayers. Failing to pass a skill check, or consenting to die by her hand, will lead to an immediate Game Over, as Lae'zel will honor her word and commit suicide afterwards.
    • Similar to Lae'zel, if you only have yourself and Astarion in your party^note Having other party members will allow you to have Withers resurrect you while controlling another party member afterwards, should this come to pass, consenting to let Astarion drain your blood, and failing to stop him from going too far, will lead to a Game Over as he drains you dry.
    • In the Grymforge, finding Philemeen and failing to talk her down will lead to her killing you and nearby party members, along with herself, by igniting a barrel of smokepowder. If your entire party is in the room with her, none will be spared from the blast, leading to an immediate Total Party Kill.
    • Underneath the Blighted Village there's a "Bottomless Pit". Jumping down without casting Feather Fall leads to your party unceremoniously splatting onto the floor of the Underdark.
    • Taunt High Queen Vlakiith of the Githyanki too many times and she'll use Wish to wipe you from existence.
    • If warlock Wyll is chosen as the Player Character, failing his questline in Act II and getting him Dragged Off to Hell becomes this.
    • If Astarion is the Player Character, the climax of his questline has him shackled to a ritual meant to sacrifice lives to ascend a vampire. Which means Game Over if he's not freed in three turns.
    • In Act III, you are tasked with collecting the three Netherstones in order to defeat the Elder Brain. You are unable to drop them from your inventory, but you can store them in containers, and then throw a container into a bottomless chasm. Doing so leads to the Emperor calling you out on doing such a dumbass thing before his protection over you vanishes, and you and your party are immediately mutated into mind flayers.
    • The Dark Urge gets a special one if you've taken on a party member as a Love Interest. As a result of your cursed blood you get a psychotic urge one night to kill this lover in their sleep, and should you fail the roll to resist and the worst comes to pass, the Dark Urge goes flying way over the Despair Event Horizon. Depending on how hard you play into this with dialogue options, you can end up outright begging the rest of the party to Mercy Kill you, and you can convince them to oblige, because you're well past the point of ever wanting to hurt somebody close to them ever again.
• Amusingly played in Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden. If the final boss's We Can Rule Together offer is accepted, Barkley is immediately hypnotized and his very first course of action is to kill his son Hoopz, who, up to that point, was the main reason he was adventuring in the first place. Besides that dialog choice, it's also possible to die outside of combat during a Quick Time Event or while navigating the sugar cave.
• In Biomotor Unitron, losing a battle usually has few repercussions: you leave the Arena or Dungeon and return to the main screen. However, losing to the first Dark Unitron causes the game to cut to a Game Over screen, which the game never normally displays.
• Several of the Boktai games have non-standard bad endings if the player ever abuses the vampiric side his character is cursed with in later parts of the series.
• Boxxy Quest:
  • BoxxyQuest: The Shifted Spires: In Skype, speaking to Bracketsy after he says he'll kill the party if it's done, leads to an immediate death by him. No fight scene, just a rapid death and the usual Game Over screen.
  • BoxxyQuest: The Gathering Storm: Multiple:
    • If you lose in battle to either the Fetish Dolls or the nameless inn wraith, then they won't just kill you straight away. Instead, you'll get a small scene showing Catie's Fate Worse than Death.
    • There's a very dark one near the end, after the final duel with Boxxyfan. His breathing apparatus gets knocked off, and the game tells you to destroy it. However, if you're paying close attention to the menu, then you may notice that you're suddenly given the option to "Flee" at this point, tempting you into thinking there may be a pacifist solution. No such luck — Boxxyfan thanks Catie for giving him a second chance… and then he coldly stabs her in the chest and taunts her while she bleeds to death.
• Breath of Fire:
  • Breath of Fire II has a case of a Nonstandard Game Over that's also a bad ending. A still screen depicting an army of demons taking over the world can be seen in one of two ways: either by choosing not to unseal the gate to the final dungeon, or failing to break out of the final boss's paralysis spell.
  • Breath of Fire III also has a case of a Nonstandard Game Over, which doubled as a bad ending. It was achieved by submitting to the final boss and relinquishing Ryu's powers instead of fighting against her.
  • Breath of Fire IV also has a case of a Nonstandard Game Over, which (again) doubled as a bad ending. It featured Ryu ultimately agreeing with Fou-Lu, merging with him instead of battling him, and caused the player to control the final boss against the entirety of your former party. Destroying them was quick and brutal, and afterwards the game left no doubt in the player's mind as to the fate of humanity (it was blown up).
  • Continuing this tradition, Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter has one when you max out your D-Counter and select The End. Basically, the dragon who even let Ryu have his kick-ass dragon powers (Odjn^note  Russian for "one") explodes out of his body. However, this is actually necessary if you want to progress through the game, so be prepared to do this a lot.
• Chrono Trigger has several:
  • If you lose to Lavos, you get to watch him destroy the world. The text "But... the future refused to change." then appears.
  • In the DS version, if you lose to the Superboss Dream Devourer, Schala says she will erase all existence, and then you see the "the future refused to change" screen, which has been slightly altered.
    In the end... the future refused to change.
  • Losing to Magus in 600 AD (who is no pushover) will treat you to a very short scene in which he turns around and continues summoning. And, before the screen fades to black, Lavos's great scream is the last thing you hear.
• Code Geass: The game for Nintendo DS normally uses a still picture from the show's ending credits as the Game Over screen, with a voiceover by C.C. admonishing the player to not be so stupid next time. However, one can earn a Non-Standard Game Over simply by choosing not to interfere with Euphemia's special administrative region, which goes off successfully, avoiding the slaughter from the TV show completely. This turn of events yields a different quote from C.C.:
  C.C.: Well, this is a Good Ending, I guess...
• Corruption of Laetitia: If the player refuses to take Malayna's offer to become a demon, Marian's ritual succeeds and Celeste dies. Before the game over screen, one of the cloaked followers, Riliane, will express regret at not being able to save Celeste, hinting that she can become an ally if the player chooses to survive.
• Cyberpunk 2077:
  • At the start of the game, if you don't hide after stealing the Relic, Adam Smasher walks right in and mocks V before slamming them to the ground. The last things you see & hear are Jackie's screams and Smasher's robotic boot coming down on your skull.
  • Normally when you die, you are treated to a "Flatlined" screen (implied to be the last thing V's optical implants show to them before they die) and can load the latest checkpoint/saved game to continue. However, if you die during "(Don't Fear) The Reaper", one of several endgame missions, you are instead immediately treated to the Sudden Downer Ending credits, in which their allies berate them for throwing their life away like that. This is because this "job" is a Suicide Mission, which V takes on simply because it's more fun than just eating the gun, and V's death there is even more plausible an ending than their survival.
  • In the "Search and Destroy" mainline mission, if you knock on the door less than 4 times upon reaching the safehouse, V instantly gets blown up and the "Flatlined" screen shows up instead. Takemura leaves several vague warnings beforehand regarding this.
  • In the Phantom Liberty DLC's King of Wands route mission "Killing Moon" where you send Songbird to the moon, if you attempt to go out of the spacecraft through a hatch, Johnny Silverhand will ask you regarding this. If you insist on leaving, V will fall out of the hatch as the spacecraft flies, sending to the "Flatlined" screen afterwards.
• In A Dance with Rogues, your character is subject to two loyalty tests in the middle of the first chapter. Failing either of them (selling the thieves' guild to the man in the Mysterious Note quest or going off north instead of returning to Betancuria in Lesson 7) causes the game to end and the standard credits to roll. Also, if you refuse to summon Hyath but keep the ring, you get a dreamscape cutscene and you die as soon as you leave the Summer Isles.
• In Dark Chronicle, you must throw an electric fish into the Brainwashed and Crazy Shingala's mouth to short out the device that's controlling him. If you kill him by accident, the game ends on the spot.
• There is a fake-out version of this in Deltarune Chapter 2. Going to the room with the moss will throw you into a variation of the egg-room. Going forward on the road will have you immediately murdered and sent to a game over screen. What might tip the knowing player off that this is fake, however, is that the game over screen used is from UNDERTALE, even down to using "Determination" instead of "Faint Courage". Despite this, you wake up fine in the moss room, and "Determination" doesn't appear on the Chapter's soundtrack.
• Deltatraveler does this once a chapter, as Video Game Cruelty Punishment if you do especially screwed-up things on the Obliteration route.
  • In the first chapter, if you try to make Kris brag to Toriel about having killed all the monsters, Kris won't have it — they'll tear out their SOUL and shatter it themselves.
  • If you try to make Noelle go along with your murderous plans in Section 2, Kris goes away from being the Silent Protagonist and begs Noelle to destroy the SOUL for them. She freezes it.
  • In the third section, if on the Obliteration route you kill Dogaressa and spare Dogamy, Susie proposes playing baseball with the SOUL. Kris makes the throw... and on the game over screen, Susie brags about having hit a home run!
• In Digimon Survive, Chapter 8 has the Player Character Takuma temporarily return to the human world and learn that he and Agumon need to Save Both Worlds. You can refuse to go back, earning a Downer Ending in which Agumon tearfully says goodbye, none of their friends are ever seen again, Takuma becomes a pariah after pictures of him fighting with Agumon begin circulating on social media, and the planet slowly becomes uninhabitable with Takuma and his mother becoming refugees before the Game Over screen appears.
• In Dink Smallwood mod If Ducks Ruled the World taking too long to get to the ducks in question means that their evil plan is a success and the world… changes from color to grayscale, after which King Daniel chews you out for it and you get to restart or quit.
• Dragon Age: Inquisition typically gives the message "Your Journey Ends" should the player fall in combat, but tends to go into more detail during main quests.
  • If you get evicted from the ball by reaching 0 court approval during Wicked Eyes and Wicked Hearts, you are told that Orlais was left leaderless and thrown in chaos, leaving both it and your Inquisition easy prey for the Big Bad.
  • If you decided to side with the Templars earlier on and fail to defend the Great Hall by reaching 0 status (or dying), you are told that the Red Templars rampage across Thedas, killing or enslaving everyone and you are shown Ser Barris being executed by a Red Templar Horror.
  • If you die while attempting to escape the Envy Demon during Champions of the Just, you are told that it impersonates you and uses the Inquisition to conquer the world and destroy the Chantry.
  • Conversely, if you sided with the mages and die while stuck in the bad future, you are told that with the Inquisitor gone, the Inquisition fell to pieces and the Big Bad took over the world in less than a year.
  • If you die while stuck in the fade in "Here Lies the Abyss", you are told that the Big Bad possessed the Wardens, turning them into a demon army that conquered the Inquisition, Orlais, and then used the Tevinter Imperium to conquer Ferelden.
• Dragon Quest:
  • In Dragon Quest, when you finally face the Dragonlord, he offers you a chance to join him and rule half the world. Smart players select "no" and get on with the battle, but if you choose "yes" (and confirm it): "Then half of this world is thine, half of the darkness, and... If thou dies I can bring thee back for another attempt without loss of thy deeds to date." Then the screen turns red. "Thy journey is over. Take now a long, long rest. Hahahaha..." Then the game freezes. It's been rumored that this also erases your game data, but that is not correct. Dragon Quest Builders is set in the timeline after this bad ending, where the fallen hero indeed rules "half the world." (Actually a castle named "Half the World," showing that the Dragonlord conned the hero.)
  • In Dragon Quest VII, refusing to aid Pamela during the Emberdale festival will result in Burnmont erupting and killing everyone. The next second, the party wakes up at the inn, because it was All Just a Dream… that can repeat if they choose not to help Pamela.
  • In Dragon Quest Builders, the Dragonlord will make the same offer he made of the hero from the first game (see above) to join him and rule half the world. As with before, refusing his offer commences the final battle. If you accept the offer, on the other hand, the Dragonlord will give you the deepest and darkest recesses of the world to reign over… in other words, your subterranean tomb. Afterwards, the game returns to the title screen.
• In Dragon's Dogma, upon confronting the Dragon, he will reveal that he's managed to kidnap your "Beloved" as determined by the in-game Relationship Values and offers you a choice: Continue to fight or sacrifice said beloved, with the Dragon promising to leave and leave you as an immortal with the claim to the Duchy. He sweetens the deal by mentioning that The current Duke took the deal long ago. Taking the deal cuts to a scene of you sitting in the throne of Gran Soren wearing the Duke's robes.
• In Drakan: The Ancients' Gates, near the end of the game, you need to get into a castle run by someone known as the Flesh Mage. The only way in involves passing through a pacification spell. You are warned about this several times and told to go get a potion to protect yourself. However, nothing stops you from simply walking in, whereupon you fall unconscious. A cutscene follows where you are a prisoner of the Flesh Mage and get a face to face meeting with him, then the screen goes black along with a brief scream as he begins skinning you alive.
• In Driftmoon, choosing to join the Big Bad Ixal gives you an ending where the main character becomes a puppet in his army of undead.
• Dyztopia: Post-Human RPG:
  • If Chase is the only one left standing in the boss fight with Morgalia, the battle automatically ends in a game over and Morgalia kidnaps Chase so that Clyde can brainwash her.
  • On the Evil Runi route, Gemini will automatically win if she mind wipes Akira enough times, leading to Akira being lobotimized. She then unleashes a massive attack with the execute property to ensure a total party wipe.
• In Toby "Radiation" Fox's horror-themed "EarthBound (1994) Halloween" Game Mod, lose a battle to the final boss and you'll end up in the continue screen as usual… except the narrator refuses to let you continue.
  Just kidding, you are dead forever!
  Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha...
• In The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, for most of the main quest, Martin Septim is flagged as essential, meaning that if his HP gets reduced to zero, he will not die, but will instead be knocked unconscious for a few seconds. But during two points of the main quest (the battle at Bruma and the final mission in the Imperial City), he loses his essential status, and if he dies, it shows a few lines of text and prompts you to reload. Made worse by a glitch that prevents him from equipping proper armor during the former event, forcing you to exploit another glitch to keep him alive.
• Etrian Odyssey II: Heroes of Lagaard: After defeating the first form of the Overlord, he tempts you with immortality in exchange for abandoning your pursuit of the Holy Grail. Agreeing ends your game. Refusing gives you a moment's reprieve to patch up your party (but you're forbidden from leaving the boss room) before you commence the next phase of the fight.
• In E.V.O.: Search for Eden, several bosses ask you to join them (the Tyrasaurs at the end of the dinosaur stage, the Birdman King in the first mammal stage, and the boss Rogon in the final stage). Saying "yes" results in a short (and usually somewhat comedic) ending, then puts you back on the world map, while "no" results in their respective battles. Averted with the Yeti, as both of the options offered to you will always lead to a fight.
• E.V.O.: Theory Of Evolution has dozens of different evolutionary dead ends if you evolve with lopsided statistics or pick the wrong choice at certain points of the game, describing how your species diverged from the path that would have led it to becoming the dominant one on Earth.
• In Exile there's a few, mostly when you kill a major NPC you're not supposed to, like King Micah or Erika Redmark. But the one that really takes the cake is the one in Exile II, where you can open a portal that will eventually collapse the entire northwester quarter of the underworld, killing hundreds of thousands, perhaps even millions of people — including your party. But on the "bright" side, it will stop the Empire invasion, since most of their troops were in that area.
• Fake Happy End: When the protagonist falls to the basement, they're chased by the Creeping Horror boss. If the player makes contact with the boss monster before gaining access to the combat system, the boss instantly kills them in a cutscene. Once the player recruits Karin, the Creeping Horror serves as a Beef Gate to keep the player from exploring the basement further until they become strong enough through the main story.
• Fallout:
  • Fallout has several, narrated like the Have a Nice Deaths by Ron Perlman. If you choose to reveal Vault 13's location to the Lieutenant, a cinematic plays where your character is dipped in the vats, becoming a Super Mutant, Vault 13's citizens are captured to befall a similar fate, and the Overseer is violently killed by mutant invaders.
  • Fallout and Fallout 2 both have a built-in time limit — if this is ever reached, a small cinematic plays showing Vault 13 dying out in the first game, and the words "THE END" in the second. It takes 150 days^note until you get the water chip, then it's 400 total days (later removed in a patch) in the first game and thirteen years in the second game and the patched first game, though, so it's really no bother unless you're actively seeking it out^note The 150 day time limit is surprisingly generous: you can finish the main quest in 50-80 days if you're slow and/or don't know what you're doing, and the 400 day time limit is enough time to finish every quest in the game with time to spare, while the 13 year limit of the second game requires a lot of actual patience to reach since you have to wander the overworld for a long, long time — the only reason it's present in the game at all is because it is hardcoded into the game's engine, so it was easier for the developers to just stretch it to the maximum possible value than remove it completely.
  • Fallout 3 allows you to tell Colonel Autumn the activation code for the water purifier. He thanks you, then shoots you. Also, if you fail to activate the purifier in time, it explodes, terminating your game regardless of whether Broken Steel is installed, since without the purifier, the events of the epilogue can't take place, and the main characters are probably killed in the explosion anyways.
  • Also in Fallout 3, attacking Betty in the Tranquility Lane simulation results in death via a pulse blast.
    "You can't do that here. And now you have to pay." [zap]
  • Fallout: New Vegas:
    • The Dead Money expansion starts with you coming to in the Sierra Madre Casino with an explosive collar around your neck and a voice (Elijah) giving you orders. If you refuse to do what Elijah tells you, he'll remind you that you have an explosive collar around your neck and that you should do what he says. If you refuse again, he sets it off. Similarly, if you tell Dean Domino you're not going to help him when meeting him for the first time, he sets off the bomb in the cushion of the chair you're sitting in.
    • At the end of Dead Money, if you agree to work with Elijah at the end, as opposed to killing him, the game ends and a cutscene explains how the Courier and Elijah spread the toxic cloud across the entirety of the Mojave, turning it into an uninhabitable wasteland. There's another one where examining a computer message specifically meant for Dean Domino in the Sierra Madre Vault will lock the Courier in there. After s/he eventually dies, a hologram of him/her is created.
    • Old World Blues had one, but it was cut from the final game. The Courier would have the option to surrender their brain to the Think Tanks and be helpless to stop them from performing their crazy experiments on the Mojave. Goodsprings is destroyed by falling blocks, the Jacobstown Super Mutants are driven mad by a satellite, Black Mountain is overrun by giant, man-eating mutant cows, and the Legion and NCR are brainwashed into thinking they're respectively living in ancient Rome (on the moon) and Pre-War America.
  • Fallout 4 will come to an abrupt end if, during the pre-war segment of the game at the very beginning, you try to leave town instead of going to Vault 111 to escape the nuclear explosion.
• The Final Fantasy series have several examples of this throughout much of their games:
  • In the Origins version of Final Fantasy II, if you somehow manage to beat the opening battle against the Black Knights, the game simply takes you back to the start menu.
  • There are two in Final Fantasy III: If you try to cross the swamp in front of the Goldor Manor without the Levigrass Shoes, your party sinks into the swamp. Also, if you try to pass the statues without collecting all of the Fangs, your party members are instantly killed by an unseen force.
  "The party has met an untimely end."
  • Final Fantasy V has one in the Fork Tower, which houses both the Flare and Holy magic in separate towers. Both magic spells have to be picked up in tandem or else the tower will explode. While the boss fights that precede getting each spell don't have time limits, you only have a few seconds after getting the Holy spell for the other team to grab the Flare spell and start their boss fight before everything blows up and you're kicked back to the title screen.
  • Final Fantasy VI:
    • The game has the famous opera scene that Celes takes the lead in. As she sings her lines, you have to choose the next set of lines for her to sing, and if you choose the wrong set, she botches the play. If you screw up 4 times, the game mocks you for failing and you get a game over.
    • Don't escape the collapsing Floating Continent in time, then your party members will be killed during the event.
    • In the World of Ruin, after meeting Sabin in Tzen, failing to save the child from the building within the time limit causes the house to collapse with Celes still inside.
    • The optional dungeon inside Zone Eater's belly in the World of Ruin, one room has a collapsing ceiling which you must move to an open gap or you'll be crushed.
  • In Final Fantasy VII, if you don't get out of the reactor in the opening mission before it blows up, it simply blows up with you inside it.
    • In Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII, there are two ways to get a Game Over during the second phase of Sephiroth's boss fight; either you lose all your health, or you don't put up enough of a fight to stop him from pushing you to the edge of the platform. Cue a short cutscene of Sephiroth throwing Zack over the edge to his death.
  • Quite a few in Final Fantasy VIII.
    • Failing to complete either the Fire Cavern dungeon or the escape from Dollet before the expiration of the time limit imposed in those missions will result in a Game Over.
    • When escaping the D-District Prison, there's a scene where you have to walk Squall across a bridge. If he falls off the bridge, the game ends immediately.
    • At the Missile Base, failure to alter the coordinates of several missiles results in a scene where your home is promptly obliterated by said missiles without even so much as a time limit. Also, the obvious Non-Standard Game Over of not taking out the boss of the dungeon before the Missile Base blows up.
    • Also, failing to rescue Rinoa in time leaves her floating off into space forever, and in the boss fight with Adel, she uses Rinoa as a Human Shield, draining HP to heal herself. Killing Rinoa through attacks that hit all enemies or by letting Adel drain all her HP results in game over.
    • It is even possible to botch the train hijacking mission early in the game and result in the two trains colliding, although you are given the choice of not taking the Game Over by retrying the mission. However, you lose the opportunity to raise your SeeD rank, and if you fail enough times, your SeeD rank will actually drop.
    • Same choice scenario with the paratrooper punching match in the Battle of the Gardens at the end of Disc 2, except there's no penalty for retrying. Not only that, but you have the option to try again with +200 HP and each time you fail, the game gives you a tip that could help you win that time, though some are more useful than others.
    • Same with the Laguna scenario when he's fighting the Ruby Dragon. If the Ruby Dragon takes all of his HP, then you can chose either "I'm done for" or "Not yet!" If you choose the former, it's a Game Over, but "Not yet!" allows you try again. There's no penalty and you can do it as many times as necessary.
  • There are two instant-lose conditions in Final Fantasy IX at the start of the Evil Forest section. Garnet and then Vivi get abducted by a monster, and you have to kill it to free them. During each fight, the monster sucks up Garnet and Vivi's HP, and if their HP hits zero, they die and the game ends. Also, in the fight against Black Waltz #2, it will not attack Garnet. However, if all the other party members are KO'd, it will cast Sleep on Garnet and spirit her away, ending the game.
  • Final Fantasy X: If you take too long during the final fight against Sin, it will unleash its Overdrive "Giga-Graviton," which will destroy the airship you're standing on, instantly killing your party. You can't even use an Aeon to take the hit for you.
  • Take too long to destroy Vegnagun in the second-to-last battle in Final Fantasy X-2, and you get to watch Shuyin fire it, obliterating Spira.
  • In Final Fantasy XII, if you fail to defeat Demon Wall before he closes in on you, he will close in on you, triggering a game over.
  • This is actually the only way to get a Game Over in Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII, by running out of time left for the world. The player is then given the choice to start over with all of their accumulated power and equipment.
  • Final Fantasy XV:
    • There are a few means to suffer this trope: crashing the Regalia Type-F during take off and landing, jumping off of a bridge over a gorgein the Regalia Type-D, or failing to keep up with Ardyn's car during the guided-driving section. Fortunately, this game offers a friendly warning whenever an NSGO is imminent.
    • In the Episode Ignis DLC, there is an alternate path called the Extra Verse, which you unlock by beating the episode once. This scenario takes Ignis to the keep where the Crystal is being held, should you choose the "Play Along" option which wasn't available before. Ignis still tries to use the Ring of the Lucii to fight Ardyn, and should you choose "Give Up" or lose the battle, a short scene plays out in which Ardyn gloats about his plans, taunts the badly wounded Ignis, and walks away. Ignis dies, lamenting how he was unable to save or even die with Noctis — giving you a bad ending and the Game Over screen.
• Gacha World:
  • In the Bullet Hell minigame, losing causes a cutscene that claims Gacha World has crashed and prompts the player to either retry or quit.
  • In the True Final Boss battle, losing causes a cutscene which simply prompts the player to either retry or to quit compared to the usual three options of home/retry/world.
• In Gingiva, you can choose to marry any of the mid-bosses (which range from a sentient beating heart with legs to a blue otter-like creature). Your sprite will be holding a baby bottle while babies slowly fill the screen. You will eventually receive a prompt where you can sue for divorce. Choose yes, and your levels will go down due to years of inactivity. Choose no, and you will get the Game Over screen a few seconds later.
  A fairy tale ending.
• Gateway to the Savage Frontier, an old Gold Box Dungeons and Dragons RPG, has a stone statue offer you a reward to give it the statuettes you are collecting. If you accept, it gives you all the gold in the vault and you are immediately captured by the Zhentarim (the chief bad guys) and enslaved.
• In Golden Sun, after you let the bad guys make off with the Elemental Stars, you are asked (not told) by your village elder to go after the stars. Refuse twice and the screen fades to a sepia tone, accompanied with the text "And so, the world drifted towards its fated destruction." You are then given the option of continuing from the beginning of the conversation. This is ironic because the destruction it is describing is the slow erosion described in the second game, due to alchemy not being unlocked, but you assume it is because alchemy WAS unlocked that the world ended. Golden Sun: The Lost Age justifies it, since after lighting three out of four lighthouses, the world's erosion at the hands of Alchemy gets direr until the fourth one is lit. But the Mars Star was in Isaac's hands all along, so Felix never had the chance to seize it before the erosion devoured Prox and the Mars Lighthouse.
• Abusing Data Hack in the original .hack tetrology causes the game to glitch and malfunction as your rate of viral infection increased. Allow your infection rate to exceed 100%, and risk the possibility of suffering a SYSTEM ERROR. The bonus dungeon in Quarantine required you to risk this, as almost every single enemy is infected and requires a data drain just to give a chance to kill it, and you will almost always be at 100%.
• There are a few points in Half-Minute Hero's "Hero 30" mode where failing to complete the stage's objective before defeating its Evil Overlord will prematurely end your journey. Instead of the world exploding, you'll be treated to a still picture of what your hero wound up doing because he couldn't proceed (stranded on an island, forced into back-breaking slavery, etc.), and you won't be allowed to save your scores for that attempt.
• In Haven (2020), if both Yu and Kay get KO'ed or flow-jammed while fighting the Hornets, they are captured and returned to the Apiary, ending their story prematurely.
• In Infinite Space, you wind up in some sort of negative space where it's unhealthy to stay. You are presented with three options, and in two of the options you slowly drift around, with the situation getting worse and worse. You think you will get rescued or catch a lucky break, but instead your party poofs into nothingness.
• Jade Empire has one as well during the final boss fight. Your opponent gives you the chance to surrender and lay down your life for the greater good (in his eyes). If you do, he kills you and a scene plays showing a statue of your character in the armor of your enemy in a dystopic future, with the final boss laughing evilly.
• In Kingdom Come: Deliverance, if Henry gets arrested in Skalitz at the start of the game, you're treated to a cutscene where the Cumans invade the town while all Henry can hear are screams and his parents calling for him outside until the Cumans set fire to the prison with him in it. You're then given a Game Over screen reading "You have died in prison."
  • The A Woman's Lot DLC sees you playing as Theresa the day before the raid. If you do anything bad enough to get her thrown in jail, she's executed in short order instead of dying in jail like Henry.
• Kingdom Hearts II: During a lot of timed battles, a few bosses, and battles where the objective is to prevent a party member from dying, there's a possibility that you'll be booted to the Game Over screen before running out of HP. Should this happen, you'll get an image of Sora standing there pouting, rather than his usual floating around dead animation. Most memorably happens during the Demyx battle.
• Knights of the Old Republic:
  • Keep on talking to Calo Nord in the Lower City cantina. You won't last long.
  • Walking into the Krayt Dragon's cave before you killed it will leave you with the same result as the dumb schmuck who did it before you.
  • In court on Manaan following the raid on the Sith base, pleading guilty or failing to convince the court that the Sith broke the neutrality agreement. ^note If you do not trigger the Missing Selkath quest by talking to Shaelas, you can still bail out by stating that "the Sith lured you there" under the pretext of "diplomatic relations". You win by creating reasonable doubt, as such an action is "within character" for the Sith. This leads to a brief scene in which you're returned to your cage and executed by electrocution.
  • Failing the Power Pillar puzzle twice inside the Tomb of Naga Sadow on Korriban results in the weakened ceiling above the chamber you get sealed in falling down upon your lone PC due to the unstable electrical output that pillars give off.
  • Purposefully being an idiot by using the Special Fire Grenade on the acid pit blocking the way to both the quest-related ceremonial Sith Lightsaber and Star Map despite what the datapad detailing what would happen if one uses it on said pit which results in the fumes that appear afterward to kill your lone PC.
  • Getting blown up during a fighter sequence.
  • On the Unknown World, when approaching the Elder base, answering "I'm with the Rakata" triggers the Elders' defenses, wiping your group out instantly. ^note A workaround that sometimes does the trick is to go into solo mode, leave your other two party members WAY back from the entrance, and then trigger the option. It'll take down the Player Character, but the other two still might remain alive.
  • Answering a riddle wrong in the contest of wills with the mind trapped Rakata will also lead to the screen going black as you have to take his place and he takes your body.
  • If you have the cheat console, typing "Dancedancemalak" before the final fight activates a cutscene where you turn Malak into a Twi'lek dancing girl and boogie together for a few seconds.
  • If you play Dark Side and female, there was a third ending where Carth's plea for a Last-Second Chance works and the two of you opt to die together on the collapsing Star Forge. It is very easy to restore, however.
• The Last Story: If you refuse to marry Calista 3 times in chapter 42, you get a Game Over.
• Lie of Caelum: During the prologue, at the end of B44F, Shiro can leave the room without killing Ten, but this will result in him staying in the Saith Facility while it blows up, and a mysterious voice states there is no hope for the world. The player is then sent to the title screen with no chance to save or start the main game.
• One of the earliest examples comes from the 1980s era CRPG The Magic Candle. At the very beginning of the game, you are asked by the King to accept the game's major quest. You have the option of declining, and if you do, the game ends immediately and unceremoniously.
• In the Magic Knight Rayearth RPG for the SNES, there is one battle where you're pitted against your mind controlled friends. Defeat them, and you get a screen telling you that you're a bad friend, and a game over. Losing to any of the final dungeon's bosses gives you a Nonstandard Game Over as well; each boss has a different one.
• In The Magic of Scheherazade:
  • You'll come across a part where a new ally will ask you if you're afraid of the monsters. Answering 'no' twice is the only way to recruit him, while saying 'yes' at any point of the conversation will result in an automatic game over… regardless of how many lives you have!
  • Later on in the game, you'll have to guess that Coronya is really Scheherazade, and a wrong guess will result in an instant game over, again regardless of how many lives you have. Hope you are good at spelling!
• Manafinder: The ending for siding with Illia has no Final Boss and doesn't grant access to New Game Plus, meaning the only way to continue the game loop is to reject Illia and properly progress through the other routes.
• Mass Effect:
  • There are several nonstandard game overs in Mass Effect 2, which are only possible to view if you make monumentally stupid decisions during the course of the game:
    • During Archangel's recruitment mission, you can side with the mercenaries hunting him down. Doing so results in Archangel's death and a Critical Mission Failure.
    • During Samara's loyalty mission, you can recruit Morinth instead of Samara. Once aboard the Normandy, you then have the option to seduce Morinth. Doing so causes things to end about as well as you'd expect.
    • Joker will meet an untimely end at the hands of the Collectors if you rush too quickly during their attack and abduction of the Normandy crew.
    • Not unlocking the valves fast enough for your chosen Tech expert during the Suicide Mission will lead to an abrupt Game Over.
    • If you take too long to defeat David during the final boss fight in the Overlord DLC, it will upload to the Normandy and infect EDI.
    • Wait for the Arrival Countdown to hit Zero during the second scene and Shepard will experience what is a rapid glimpse of Reapers coming down on the galaxy to cleanse all life.
    • You can technically win the game, yet still get one of these. A normal win allows you to continue playing in the aftermath for missions you didn't do or play the Downloadable Content as it comes out, and will give you the option to upload the storyline into Mass Effect 3. But if you didn't bother to prepare at all for the suicide mission (not getting certain ship upgrades, or doing any loyalty missions), all of your party members die by the end of the Final Battle, along with Commander Shepard. That's just not very conducive to epilogue play, but you did technically win the game (if you want to call that "winning"). However, it still counts as a nonstandard game over since a save game with an ending where Shepard dies cannot be imported into Mass Effect 3, and is pretty much the only story-possibility or choice that the Expanded Universe directly contradicts.
  • There's many more in Mass Effect 3:
    • Any time an objective with a health bar is destroyed.
    • If you take too long to use the laser designator on the Reaper-Destroyer during Priority: Rannoch, it'll end up destroying the quarian fleet.
    • If you're unable to convince the Illusive Man to shoot himself, failing to take the Renegade interrupt(s) provided results in him shooting and killing Shepard.
    • Taking too long to make the final decision results in the destruction of the Crucible.
    • In the Omega DLC, taking too long on the final segment will result in Aria's death.
    • During the Citadel DLC, you're required to infiltrate a party at a casino. Being detected is a Critical Mission Failure.
• Metal Saga features several Nonstandard Game Overs, usually for humor and initiated with a single conversation. The very first appears before the game even begins, when the player character's mother asks if he'd like to stay and work in the family garage instead of embarking on a quest for fame and fortune. If the player agrees, an epilogue detailing the rest of the character's life (which is entirely un-noteworthy) begins and the game ends. The player character may also marry his first prospective party member at any time simply by asking her, at which point they both quit adventuring to start a family.
• Defeating the final boss without having completed a specific earlier quest in Might and Magic VI gives you a special video that begins the same as the normal ending, but then suddenly goes off in a different direction when, without a magic field to contain it, the Hive's explosion destroys the entire world.
• Monster Hunter: The games trigger a nonstandard game over during missions in which the player kills a target monster when the objective is to capture it alive. Rarer instances include letting Ceadeus enter the last area of the underwater ruins before cutting its beard and letting Jhen Mohran destroy completely the dragon ship, both cases happening in Monster Hunter 3 (Tri).
• Mother 3:
  • There is one in Chapter 2. In Osohe Castle, there is a statue holding a heavy metal ball. Ramming into this statue causes the ball to fall off the statue and through a crack in the floor. If Duster is stupid enough to stand in the place where the crack is after ramming into it, the metal ball will crush him and trigger a game over. This is the only game over in the entire game that is not triggered by an enemy.
  • If, at any point, you make physical contact with the Ultimate Chimera, you're not even given a hopeless boss battle; the Ultimate Chimera starts chomping, complete with biting sound effects, and the screen fades to red before going to the standard "Retry?" screen.
• NieR: Automata technically has twenty-six endings, but the majority of them are just the result of dying in a situation where the regular explanation for continuing wouldn't make sense, running off during important missions or killing plot-important friendly NPCs. They even show the entirety of the game's credits... in one second. One ending, in particular, is caused by physically pulling out your own operating chip from the inventory menu, and another is caused by eating a mackerel with the full knowledge that it's poisonous and will shut down a robot's systems. That ending suggests that the taste was entirely Worth It.
• In Ni no Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom, if you lose a skirmish battle, you get a Game Over message. However, you just get tossed back to the world map outside the skirmish flag, you don't lose anything (other than any kingsguilders you might have spent to try to make things easier and you'll have earned them during the battle anyway) and more importantly you keep all experience / level ups gained during the skirmish, making future ones easier.
• In OFF, the Judge offers you a battle tutorial, during which he instructs you to not pick the Auto option, as he wouldn't be able to survive your onslaught. If you do so anyway and let the computer act long enough, the Judge will indeed die, leaving you without a guide and abruptly giving you a Game Over.
• In Pandora's Tower, a counter on the screen shows you how far Elena's transformation has advanced. Let it run out and the game ends, with Aeron returning to a ruined Observatory to see Elena fully transformed. He lets himself be killed by her, the narration goes on to explain that Elena has united Elyria with an army of monsters under her rule, then cue the Game Over.
• Parasite Eve has two non-standard game overs. After defeating the mutant spider on the hospital roof, Eve kills one of the pilots of a fighter jet and if you don't run to the maintenance lift in time, the jet crashes onto the roof and explodes, taking you with it. After the final battle at the end of the game, the Final Boss revives itself and slowly chases after you while picking up speed and then starts to fly after you. If the creature touches you at any point, it's an instant game over.
• Persona:
  • Persona 3:
    • If the player opts to kill Ryoji, it'll result in the entire party losing their memories and living happily because of their "bright future". Except that an apocalypse will destroy humanity. Something the player is aware of.
    • In the "The Answer" chapter, losing in any of the battles with the SEES members will have them comment on Aigis' loss before leaving her and her sister behind.
  • Persona 4:
    • If someone appears on the Midnight Channel, you have to rescue the person from the TV world before a certain date passes. If the deadline passes and you didn't save the person, said person will die when the fog is at its heaviest. Your hero collapses and you are then given the option to exit to the title screen or flash back seven days to try again. The stated in-game reason for this Game Over is not because the person dies (though that's obviously the motivation), but because the death frustrates any further attempts by the hero to investigate the murders due to lack of clues or information. For the very last victim, the cutscene is different: if you fail, Naoto calls the hero to tell them that shadows are coming out of the TV, and suddenly cuts off with a scream.
    • You can get several flavors of this depending on how you mishandle Namatame; murdering him in revenge, failing to deduce that he is a Red Herring, or failing to deduce who the true culprit is results in you missing out on the final dungeon and leaving Inaba without any real sense of closure. Oh, and Nanako dies or falls into a coma.
  • Persona 5:
    • If you fail to complete most dungeons in time, you're shown a sequence where you are sitting at LeBlanc when cops come in to arrest you for breaking parole, Sojiro showing different levels of disbelief and disappointment, however the reasons are unique to each dungeon. There are three variations of this kind of game over, and a take on "But Thou Must!" during the finale. They are:
      
      For the first five major dungeons, not completing them by their respective end dates has the protagonist falsely remember what happened after that, with the consequences being unpleasant. Not completing Kamoshida's dungeon has Ryuji, Mishima and the protagonist being expelled from Shujin as the reason with a very disappointed Sojiro; not completing Madarame's dungeon has Madarame press charges against Yusuke's will after the exhibition closes; not completing Kaneshiro's dungeon has Makoto being found by the police at an "illegal services shop" and muttering your name after being brutally beaten and drugged; not completing Futaba's dungeon has her revealing incriminating information that also gets Sojiro taken into custody for harboring you; not completing Okumura's dungeon has Haru's fiance file charges against you on the wedding day; and not completing Sae's Dungeon results in the police learning you're the leader of the Phantom Thieves. They all end with Sae leaving the room in disgust because the case leads to a dead end, but he gets killed after she leaves.
      
      If you don't finish the seventh dungeon in time, Goro Akechi, the detective who sold you out during the casino heist, appears at your house and has you arrested. What makes this ending interesting is that you fight Goro as a boss halfway through the seventh dungeon and he sacrifices his life in order to atone for what he did. This scenario will still occur, even if you defeat Goro and not finish the dungeon, and there's even a hazy filter over the screen, leaving a lot of room for speculation as to what's truly going on…
      
      The Royal re-release adds another one for the extra January dungeon. If you don't complete it within the deadline, Maruki's fusion of Mementos and the real world becomes permanent, and Maruki meets with the protagonist in a dream. Figuring that Joker's inability to make a decision is because of sheer stress, Maruki takes the choice out of his hands by removing his motivation to do anything other than sleep. When the protagonist wakes up, his phone's battery is long dead, and his room is riddled with cobwebs. He has no more will or motivation to get out of bed, and just goes back to sleep. Lavenza tries to reach him but can't, as Maruki also cost Joker his rebellious spirit.
    • After finishing the sixth palace, you need to answer Sae's questions correctly and not sell out your friends; doing one or the other leads to another game over. Like the first five, the protagonist gets killed, except you actually see his death happen this time. Afterwards, Igor, the proprietor of the Velvet Room, chastises you for your poor choices and informs you that The End of the World as We Know It is coming. Have fun spending the rest of your afterlife as a prisoner!
    • Right before the Final Boss battle, Yaldabaoth, having wiped the protagonist's friends out of existence, strikes up a deal: leave him alone, and he'll let the protagonist use the Metaverse as he sees fit. Agree to this deal, and an ending occurs where the people of Tokyo become fretful and the protagonist smirks wickedly at the camera, hinting that he's given in to abusing his power.
    • Royal adds one that can be reached at two points in the third semester. If you accept Maruki's reality on 1/9 or declare to Akechi your intent to do so on 2/2, Maruki creates a new reality where there is no suffering, and you and your companions live lives full of bliss and comfort at the expense of desire.
• Pillars of Dust: There are humorous non-combat game overs, though the player will always spawn in the same map.
  • The talking wells often try to tempt the party to jump into them. This sometimes results in a secret treasure room, but can also result in the party falling to their deaths.
  • In Carlton's Chapter 1, he can be killed by a bandit with a Pickle Stabber if he refuses to give up a key item.
  • In the Tower of Pain, Gregg can be killed if he falls down a hole in the floor or if he gets hit by a pendulum blade.
• In Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire, trying the patience of a god in their own realm is a very bad idea.
  • The game starts in Berath's realm, where they offer the Watcher a choice: be resurrected as their herald with the mission to figure out what Eothas is planing, or die. The player can choose the latter and be reincarnated as a cat.
  • In one quest line, the Watcher ends up in the realm of Rymrgand, god of entropy. The god will consider killing the Watcher before deciding angering Berath isn't worth it, but if the Watcher says they welcome oblivion, the god will give you exactly what you asked for.
• In Planescape: Torment, the protagonist is immortal… with a few exceptions. Making the Lady of Pain angry can do this. Do it once, and she punishes you by sending you to a special Maze. That's the lenient punishment, and her way of saying, "this is a warning". Make her mad a second time, and that's it. Game Over. Lothar, the master necromancer can do this too, as he's mastered the arts of death just that well, and he has an even shorter fuse. By plot, you are bound to resurrect each time you are killed, often with little more than a snarky comment from one of your party members. There are two "deaths" from which you can't recover, though: sitting on the throne of the Silent King, which dooms you to rule over the Catacombs forever, or pestering a Gorgon enough for her to get pissed and petrify you.
• Pokémon fan games:
  • In Pokémon Uranium, if you lose a battle against the Big Bad at any point in the storyline, you're not warped back to the last Pokémon Center and allowed to return and try again; instead, you're treated to a Game Over where your failure doomed Tandor to 100 years of nuclear winter before getting booted back to the main menu (essentially getting warped back to your last save).
  • Likewise in Pokémon Clover, if you lose to the final boss, he will use the Legendary to erase all of existance, starting with you (which boots you back to the title screen, mercifully sparing your save file). If you hack in a Legendary, Rare Candies, or Master Balls before beating the Pokémon League, you get arrested just before entering the Hall of Fame and get imprisoned in the Beehive Police Station, from which your only option is to commit suicide (which does erase your saved file).
• In Pokémon Ranger: Shadows of Almia, there's a timed mission in which you have to close a massive valve to prevent the Cargo Ship from sinking with you, Barlow, and all the Pokémon. If time runs out, the game narrates that the ship sunk to the bottom of the ocean with a cutscene of the exterior. Notably, this is the only time in a Pokémon game where the Player Character can die. Even in the Actionized Sequel Pokémon Legends: Arceus getting mauled by wild Pokémon simply results in blacking out as usual.
• Puella Magi Madoka Magica Portable has this if you lose to Walpurgisnatch in Homura's route. You get to see Homulily, Homura's Witch form...but she serves as the Game-Over Man in this instance, not as a fightable boss.
• Radiant Historia turns this into an art form. The game will regularly present you with two choices of what to do next, and aside from the very first one, one of these choices will always lead to some sort of horrible ripple effect that makes it impossible to save the world. Given that it's a game about time travel, Stocke just warps back to Historia, gets a lecture on what he did wrong from the resident Spirit Advisors, and goes back to try it over again.
• Romancing SaGa 2 had several; If you fail the Komulune Island mission and allow the volcano to erupt, or perform the South Sea Mermaid quest. These will only happen as last emperor, though.
• In Romancing SaGa 3, if you die during the battle with the final boss, you get to watch it cause an explosive chain reaction that destroys the entire universe. It even destroys the depiction of the world map (on an actual map) that is floating in space when you access it. It blows up if you beat the game, too, but gets better.
• Rune Factory 4: Near the end of the game's first act, you must travel into the Forest of Beginnings. Once you enter, your Return spell will become unusable. If you die in the Forest of Beginnings, you will be trapped there forever, and the game will return to the title screen.
• Shadow Hearts
  • In Shadow Hearts: Covenant, the party can enter the Bonus Dungeon, Black Forest. It's a maze where you're guided by talking flowers. Yes, talking flowers. The white flowers always tell the truth, and generally give you clues about how to get through the forest. However, near the end, a white flower tells you how to "proceed deeper into the forest." If you follow its advice, your characters get lost in the forest forever (complete with a creepy message) and thus, Game Over.
  • In Koudelka, failing to obtain a certain object before fighting the final boss will result in a gruesome cutscene rather than the standard Game Over screen. Also, if you lose the fight with the final boss, you're shown the "sad" ending, which is actually longer than the "happy" one and leads to the story of the original Shadow Hearts game.
• Shin Megami Tensei
  • In Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne, if you refuse to support any Reason and respond to Aradia's prompts with fear, the Final Boss will condemn you for ruining any possibility of restoring the world, refuse to fight you, and leave you to wallow in the doomed world you have created.
  • Shin Megami Tensei IV:
    • If you fall in battle, you are greeted by Charon, who offers to resurrect you for a fee of Macca or 3DS Play Coins. If you choose to pay in Macca, but don't have enough of it, he'll let you come back to life anyway, but if you die again before getting enough Macca to pay off the debt, you're treated to a unique sequence in which Charon notes that he can't revive you and has your soul thrown aside. You can also choose to not be brought back to life, but instead to wait in line like the many other (billions) souls. He then points out that you'll be waiting for eons, if not longer, to be resurrected, and come on, it's just a little money, right? If you still choose to wait, he tells you to get in line and the game ends.
    • Right before the alignment lock, the White will ask you to destroy the Yamato Perpetual Reactor in order to create a black hole that will destroy the universe, freeing it from the Forever War between Law and Chaos. Agreeing to do so naturally cuts the game short.
  • In Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse, you can cut the game short by agreeing to side with Merkabah or Lucifer during the big Mêlée à Trois midway through the game.
  • Devil Survivor:
    • There is one mission where a group of angels are fighting it out with a group of demons. Honda and some random civvie are also in this fight. If you choose to side with the demons and go along with Honda's plan to escape the blockade, the mission completes… until you get a montage and text explaining that while you did manage to escape the lockdown, on the Final Day, God's judgment kills everyone in the Yamanote Loop and humanity is completely controlled by Heaven. Then you get the Mission Failed screen. Nice Job Triggering Instrumentality, Hero.
    • If you choose to escape with Yuzu on day 7 or fail to unlock any of the other endings, you are saddled with a shortened day 7, a rather anti-climatic final boss fight, and the knowledge that you have unleashed demons on the outside world. Overclocked somewhat rectifies this by starting Yuzu's extended scenario midway through day 7 instead of the start of day 8 like Amane and Naoya.
  • Devil Survivor 2: You can trigger a game over from the start-up by refusing being saved from certain death at the beginning of the game or accepting Miyako's plan in Record Breaker's Triangulum Arc.
• In South Park: The Stick of Truth:
  • Near the end, you are informed that a snuke has been planted inside the butthole of Mr. Slave. Someone suggests that the only way to retrieve it would be for someone to shrink and deactivate it manually. Of course, the player is the only one who can do that, but the rest of the characters on screen start trying to figure out who could do it. At this point, the player has the choice to shrink down to volunteer or to leave the room. Choosing the second option will cause the snuke to explode, and the game to show the TV-show-style credits prior to the "Game Over" screen.
  • There's also the desperation attack from the first boss, the chief of the hallway monitors: calling the player's parents. If he succeeds, the player's father calls him to tell him he's grounded, followed by the usual Game Over screen.
  • During the last phase of the final boss, Nazi Zombie Princess Kenny, Eric restrains him and orders you to break the Gentleman's Code and fart on Princess Kenny's balls. Refusing to do so will cause Kenny to break free and start eating Eric, leading to a game over.
• South Park: The Fractured but Whole:
  • During the opening cutscene of the game, trying to skip it results in the Coon telling you that the cutscene is so sweet you shouldn't skip it. Continuing to do this causes him to complain about it, still preventing you from skipping the cutscene. Do this 10 times and Coon eventually allows you to skip the cutscene… along with the rest of the game, going straight to credits.
  • If you miss the QTE in the tutorial, your character misses a jump and falls to their death. Craig then comments that he thought you were going to do a sick jump.
  • Mess around with the "Cube of Ultimate Destruction" (Rubix cube) in Cartman's basement/the Coon Lair too much and it falls over, destroying the universe while Cartman lets out a hilariously nasal Big "NO!".
  • During the beginning of the game, a large majority of South Park is cut off by a trio of Sixth Graders. If you try to approach them before recruiting Super Craig/Craig and Human Kite/Kyle, The Coon/Eric will call in to warn you against it. Failing to heed his word three times will result in the Sixth Graders beating you to death as The Coon reacts in horror.
  • During the climax of Night 1, you fight Randy Marsh drunk on red wine, with his main goal being to retrieve the car keys that Scott Malkinson/Captain Diabetes stole from him earlier that night. Naturally, this means that you get an automatic game over should Randy knock Diabetes out to retrieve his keys. Randy also starts the battle with an attack that you need to use your recently unlocked TimeFart Glitch to prevent, as failing to do so results in Randy delivering a drawn-out No-Holds-Barred Beatdown to Captain Diabetes, one-hit killing him several times over.
  • At the beginning of Day 3, your character gets trapped in Butters' room after getting grounded by his dad. If you try to leave through the window, heroic music plays as your character jumps… which gets cut short when your character splatters all over the pavement.
• Stella Glow: Normally, the player gets a game over if Alto and/or a plot-critical character falls during battle (interestingly, this sometimes includes a boss when the objective is to reach them); and in off-mission battles, the game over only occurs if all present characters are defeated. However, near the end of Chapter 8, when the Anthem ends up enabling the angelic invasion onto the now-defenseless world, a game over is triggered if any character, be it Alto, a supporting character or even a former antagonist like Hilda or her followers, is defeated. This is due to the characters' battered state of mind (having realized that their actions, far from saving the world, inadvertently endangered it), and the objective is to flee ASAP.
• Suikoden uses this trope often:
  • In Suikoden II, Tinto City gets overrun by zombies, and it can be at this point that the poor kid just decides that he can't handle it anymore. This can result in him (and his adopted sister) deciding to cut their losses and make a mad dash for safety. Of course, the core of your several-dozen-strong entourage comes after you once they realize you're gone. If you persist in leaving, one of the leaders of your army will die. From here, if you change your mind and decide to go back, said dead person will be replaced by his son. The hero's second-in-command will Bright Slap him and ask him to come back one last time. If you leave the town to the south, the screen will fade slowly and be replaced by a still picture of a log cabin, indicating that the hero and his sister have chosen to live away from society, in order to have a so-called 'normal life' without wars or fighting.
  • In Suikoden IV you can elect to stay and make a life for yourself and your two companions on a deserted island as opposed to looking for a way to escape. This is a particularily insidious one since it never ends; you are placed into a "Groundhog Day" Loop repeating the same actions over and over, leading some players to think that they are still playing the game and are stuck. It does hint that something's different by replacing the character portraits with black and white sketches and removing the local save point. Also on the scene if you don't use the Rune of Punishment and let your flagship get rammed by the enemy.
  • In Suikoden V:
    • If you accept Salum Barows' suggestion of taking the throne for yourself instead of rescuing the rightful heir, you'll get a cutscene where said heir is informed that you were assassinated.
    • If you fail to defeat Roy in a duel, you're put into a coma from the injuries, and your group forces Roy to take your place, but soon the army's overrun. "Perhaps it's a good thing that he won't wake up."
  • In Suikoden Tierkreis, if you choose to agree with the plan to sacrifice all of the Starbearers to stop The One King, this will result in the main character becoming the new One King instead. On the other hand, this also provides more information about the Tierkreis world.
• Super Mario Bros.:
  • Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door:
    • In the first chapter, after retrieving the game’s second Black Key, a spiked ceiling will slowly descend. Failing to leave in 50 seconds will result in a Game Over
    • In the second chapter you get one if Lord Crump's time bomb goes off.
    • In the 6th chapter of the game, you have to retrieve a diary for a Ghost Toad, who warns you not to read it. If you do so anyway, the ghost will appear and kill you.
    • An obscure one during the final chapter. You will find yourself in a scenario similar with the Red Bones way back in chapter 1. Doing nothing, instead of being kicked out of the room like the last time, you’ll sink to the floor. You’ll be warned by your partner. Failing to follow the advice, your partner will warn you again, with more urgency. Ignore the warning one more time, and you’ll meet your end.
    • The final boss will ask you to become her servant. Agree, and you get another Game Over. Hopefully you saved right before the final door.
  • Super Paper Mario:
    • At the very start, you can refuse the Pure Heart that Merlon tries to give you by saying "No" three times (with Merlon getting increasingly desperate each time.) After that, he'll wander off worrying, and it's a Press Start to Game Over! This is before you even get to control Mario!
    • When you get the fishbowl and enter outer space, Tippi tells you to put it on. If you refuse several times (even after she lampshades that Mario can breathe underwater), and then say yes to "do you really want to meet a terrible fate?", it's Game Over. In fact, she basically calls you a moron and lets you die.
    • When Queen Jaydes asks Mario to find Luvbi, he has the option to refuse. Refusing enough times will result in Jaydes zapping Mario with lightning and stating that he shall be condemned for eternity.
    • Near the end, Dimentio will ask you to join his side. Say yes four times and he will promptly enslave you.
  • In Paper Mario: Sticker Star, you can drown in quicksand in the overworld — this is nothing new. However, if you fight an enemy on a quicksand pit like a Pokey, take too long to select a move in the battle screens and you can drown in quicksand there too — hence, this game allows you to die on a menu screen. There's also poison water in the forest world that periodically damages you if you don't take your turn.
  • Paper Mario: The Origami King continues the tradition of Paper Mario Non-Standard Game Overs:
    • If you fail the Snifit's guessing game in Shroom City enough times, Mario gets sucked into the lamp on the top of his tent along with Luigi, and the Game Over screen appears.
    • Getting caught by the Paper Macho Chain Chomp at any point during the Green Streamer quest results in you and/or everyone else with you getting eaten and instantly ends the game.
    • Failing the final "Sudden Death" minigame during "Shy Guys Finish Last" results in Mario getting shot out of a cannon into the horizon as Olivia panics in the studio.
    • The game's final instance is pure Schmuck Bait: When you finally get back to Peach's Castle, it's possible to fall down through the trap door in the castle's foyer you were dropped through in the very beginning of the game again. However, if you fall through it this time, Mario will lose all of his HP upon landing and you get a Game Over.
  • In Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga, you get a Game Over if you fail to exit Bowser's Castle in the allotted time. (Of course, even the first time around, it's easy enough that it shouldn't take even half the time the game gives you.)
  • In Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time, losing to the Shroob Mothership will get a Game Over where Mario and the others panic as the ship they're in crashes down.
• In Super Robot Wars Alpha 3, if you choose to fight the Buff Clan to the bitter end, the heroes end up too exhausted from the endless fighting, leading to their failure to defend Buster Machine 3 from the space monsters. Ultimately, they are trapped in a hopeless three-way battle with the Buff Clan and the space monsters, culminating in the destruction of all life in the galaxy by Ide. That last outcome also happens if you allow Ideon to be destroyed during battle.
• In Super Robot Wars Z, if you choose to abandon your memories and continue living in Paradigm City as Roger Smith, then choose "I can't decide what I want" as the protagonist when thinking about how they hope to repair the multiple worlds, the spacetime repair ends up failing: The world ends up being overrun by Overdevils and an army of Mega Deus, the New Federation and ZAFT continue their pointless war, the only people who could have fixed the worlds disappeared, Quattro crosses the Despair Event Horizon and may now be trying to drop the Axis...
• Tales Series:
  • Tales of Destiny offers a unique example: if you manage to defeat Leon when he attempts to arrest you (a task requiring either cheats or insane amounts of early-game level grinding), you are treated to a positive Non-Standard Game Over Screen, in which your budding party goes on to have zany adventures apparently unrelated to the ones the plot intended for them to have. Presumably, said zany adventures only last as long as it takes for the Big Bad to execute his plans and destroy the world, but the Non-Standard Game Over does not address this little issue.
  • In Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World, if you defeat Lloyd and Marta in the game's penultimate boss battle, you don't proceed to the real final boss. Instead, you get a scene where Emil commits suicide upon seeing that he wounded Marta while faking possession by his Superpowered Evil Side and becomes a core. The final scene is days later and shows Marta writing in a diary as if to Emil, noting that they will never see him again.
  • There's also one in Tales of Zestiria: There's a room in one dungeon where Sorey and his group are trapped as long as Rose searches for a way to free them. This sounds easy, right? But soon after Rose touched a wrong button smoke starts to fill the room and if Sorey doesn't manage to undo this in the right time a message pops up which says that no-one ever heard of him after they entered the dungeon (this is actually a reference to the regular game over screen in Tales of Symphonia).
• Torment: Tides of Numenera can start with one of these, if you decide to plow yourself into the ground at terminal velocity in the opening dialogue. You are told that your memorial is an impact crater. Later on, you can find a jar containing a trapped fragment of the incredibly destructive Iron Wind. Fiddle with it too much and the Final Castoff will die in a way that precludes the possibility of getting back up.
• In Treasure of the Rudra, you get one when you are at the bio tanks and input the wrong combination to stop the pollution.
• In Uncommon Time, three of the Multiple Endings are this, caused by losing to Climax Bosses and the Final Boss.
  • Losing to Teagan results in her deciding to Mercy Kill Alto afterwards.
  • If you lose to the Herald of Winter, Alto's resentful subconscious takes control of her actions and chooses to sabotage the World Tuning to usher in The End of the World as We Know It.
  • If you lose to the Final Boss, the party dies but Alto is somehow able to pull through long enough to perform the World Tuning with the assistance of the elemental spirits, providing a Bittersweet Ending.
• In Underrail^note no relation to Undertale, though they are both set underground, exposing yourself to the Mutagen D6 Gas will cause you to turn into a Mutant Hulk, permanently rendering you a playable version of the enemies from Depot A. This is basically a delayed game over as everyone except other Mutant Hulks will attack and try to kill you on sight, and the Mutie Enclave in the Black Sea (the one place you might be able to seek sanctuary) will become inaccessible to you as you cannot pilot a jetski anymore. However, there is somebody in the Core City Sewers who might be able to help you get there, leading you to a unique Bittersweet Ending where the character takes up a new life in the Mutie Enclave, wracked with constant pain and haunted by memories of a past you cannot fully remember, but at least you are fairly safe and comfortable.
• Undertale has two characters who can take over the "Game Over" screen:
  • At the end of any type of "Neutral" route; after you beat what appears to be the final boss, Flowey will appear, hijack the six souls, and gain enough power to demolish the fourth wall and become Photoshop Flowey, fighting you in the actual last battle. If you die (and you most likely will at least once), you get sent to the Game Over screen… which is being run by Flowey, as this is his save file. He mocks you about the nightmare you'll never wake up from, and will exit out of the game rather than let you continue directly. Note that this is not treated as the end, despite your save file having been ostentatiously erased before this battle.
  • At the end of a Genocide run, you square off against Sans, the lazy skeleton brother, who has shown his true power in a desperate attempt to get you to stop this run before you ruin everything. Around the halfway point of the battle, the boss (clearly showing signs of tiring out) tries to convince you to have mercy on him, not attacking for a turn, and is able to be Spared. Attack him, and he gets the hint and resumes the fight; Spare him, and Sans will briefly make amends with you... only to reveal that it was a ruse and trap you in an inescapable bone cage until your health runs out and your SOUL shatters as usual. The Game Over screen plays a sped-up "Dogsong", and that coupled with the boss taking over the text really hammers in the fact that you got tricked into letting your guard down by someone who's able to slay you in a blink of an eye, and has a thousand reasons to do so.
    Sans: geeettttttt dunked on!!!
    Sans: if we're really friends... you won't come back.
• In Undertale Yellow, during the Genocide or Neutral routes, you have to make Hydrochloric acid to progress. This sounds simple enough. Until you realize you can drink it. Doing so will immediately kill you, obviously. Flowey even has nothing to say to you beyond a bewildered "Why...?"
• Valkyrie Profile. If you really louse up and annoy the gods enough, you are sent into a swamp and told by Freya that you are faulty machinery, then proceed to fight her. Whether you win or lose, the game ends.
• Losing to the final boss of Valkyrie Profile 2: Silmeria results in the boss doing some To the Pain taunting at your fallen character.
• Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume gives you an unwinnable battle where Freya comes to kick your ass, and a different ending if you abuse the Plume too much in chapters 3 and 4. And like before, even with cheats, the game ends as the death of her causes a premature end of the world, and Ailyth won't approve of that.
• In Vay, you're required to seek out the help from the wind fairy Sirufa in order to get across the continent to find one of the Orbs. However, the "wind" needed to get across is actually a killer case of flatulence, and all three of your party members need to wear gas masks before they enter her domain, or else they'll pass out and die, ending your game.
• Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader:
  • It's very possible to cause one not long after the prologue by simply telling Abelard that you do not want to be a Rogue Trader. They'll drop you off at the next planet and presumably you go off and live the rest of your life quietly.
  • You can also cause one in Commorragh, if you push the flesh crafter too far.
• The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings:
  • If Geralt tries to attack Roche at the end of his interrogation during the prologue, Ves shoots him dead with a crossbow.
  • Likewise, being too rude to Iorveth during the meeting in the Arachas lair gets Geralt shot dead.
  • Getting caught sneaking through the Kaedweni Camp in Iorveth's path results in Geralt getting shot with a crapload of arrows.
  • If you cause too much trouble in Flotsam or Loc Muinne, a guard will come up to you and demand a fine from you. If you refuse to pay it, then Geralt gets gunned down by the soldiers.
  • If you lose a fistfight with a guard while trying to save Dandelion from the gallows, Geralt will be hanged as well.
• The Witcher 3:
  • In the Hearts of Stone expansion, if the player chooses to bargain for Geralt and von Everec's souls, failing to solve Gaunter O'Dimm's riddle in time leads to him appearing behind Geralt and slowly start turning him to dust before the standard "You Are Dead" screen appears.
  • In the Blood and Wine expansion, choosing to seek out the Unseen Elder vampire and angering him by asking too many questions leads to him killing Geralt before he can draw his sword.
• Wizardry:
  • In Wizardry 4, one of the parties of do-gooders that Werdna can fight drops a charge card upon being defeated. Attempting to use this card to pay for anything will result in the merchant recognizing the card as stolen, and Werdna being banished to the grave again by a Lawyer-Friendly Cameo of Karl Malden.
  • Near the end of Wizardry 8, the player's party will learn that The Dark Savant has set up a bomb that will destroy the planet that the game takes place on. Of course, the right course of action is to disable the bomb, but the player can ignore that. If they do so, then upon reaching the end of Ascension Peak, they will meet The Dark Savant, who will taunt them about forgetting this. Afterwards, he teleports out, and the bomb will go off. The game over screen will change to reflect this, with a comedic message along the lines of, 'Not what you hoped for, but then, no one lives forever.'
• In Xenoblade Chronicles 1, during the final battle with Egil in his mech, he prepares an attack that you are given a minute to stop. If you fail to do that, the Mechonis brings its sword down on the Bionis for infinite damage.
• In Wasteland 2, the Desert Ranger museum holds an antique Davy Crockett nuke, with a blinking red button on it. Pressing it has the entire screen flash white and shake, with your party's HP instantly reduced to 0, and you're presented with an ending card saying the nuke you set off wiped out the Desert Rangers as well as an achievement labeled "What Does This Button Do?"
• In YIIK: A Post-Modern RPG, if Alex agrees to join with the Proto-Comet, he gets pulled into it along with its other selves and flies off to destroy more realities. The credits abruptly begin sped up and ends with "Thanks for playing...?", with an angry face next to the message.

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