Games Where The Only Way To Win...Is To Lose?
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Alot of JRPGs use this. You usually come up against a ridiculously overpowered enemy and you have to die in order to progress.
Morrowind.
Easy answer: Don't you have to die in the very beginning of Demon's Souls?
The Pilgrimage of the Seven Graces. You have to drown yourself and then run out of health. Your health just needs to get really low so you don't really die I guess. I couldn't figure it out in the game so I looked it up online. What can I say, sometimes the answers just appear, sometimes they don't.
Easy answer: Don't you have to die in the very beginning of Demon's Souls?
Hmm there is a fight in DA:O where you are suppose to lose but think you can win that and the game progresses it?s just hard and pointless since you just end up skipping a fun quest.
I can't actually recall any that you actually have to lose in game (rather than losing in a cut scene after winning in game which I assume is not what you mean) to progress.
I can't actually recall any that you actually have to lose in game (rather than losing in a cut scene after winning in game which I assume is not what you mean) to progress.
Are you talking about the one where you rescue Princess Uninteresting and then get stopped on the way out by a pack of guards?DementedSheep said:
Because you can't win that fight. I've tried. I killed every enemy except the boss guard lady. She has infinite health. You can beat her ridiculously long health down to nothing but she'll never die.
The best and worst game that illustrates this is Shadow of The Colossus. It has one of the most annoying endings I've ever seen. I hope that a third game comes out to explain the story. The game itself was super fun, but I couldn't stand the ending - which I won't spoil.
Planescape: Torment. You don't really "die", because you're immortal, but there are some points where you really have to get your shit ruined to progress. Like, for example, getting yourself killed by lightning traps several times in order to navigate your own tomb.
And of course, finding your mortality is the game's ultimate goal.
And of course, finding your mortality is the game's ultimate goal.
This is what I was thinking more of, but I didn't include PS:T because of how obvious it was.Skoldpadda said:
-Baroque and PS:T are the only games I can think of.
It's one thing to lose a level/boss fight after you're winning (SEE: KOTOR1) but I can't really think of a lot of GAMES that are build around the premise of 'you must die in order to live/progress/beat a boss/etc'.
Nope, you can beat her.Zhukov said:
But then you miss out on the opportunity to witness Sten and Oghren try to pass themselves off as circus performers.
I remember having to lose a certain battle in Tales of Symphonia, but it is possible to win it. The outcome is pretty much the same either way though, just the cutscene after is slightly different. Nothing remarkable. I can't think of anything else
The goal of The Path is to find the "wolf" who kills you...I think. I don't know whether anything in it is meant to be literal and I only played it once at a friends house. I guess it's meant to be symbolic of growing up or something. It's is made by the same guys who made the game where you play as an old lady walking through a graveyard and have a chance to spontaneously die of natural causes.
I remember Lost Odessey pulling this. Apparently. You fight like an entire army with 4 dudes and you kill the first wave but get captured by the second.
Constantly dying to the first wave doesn't count though :/
I was so bad at that game...
There's a bit in Persona 4 where you don't "die" because due to plot reasons the main character going down once = game over. The one boss uses a move that makes all your attacks miss, you go through 2 turns of this and it hits a cutscene where you get amazingly saved by another character.
Then there's a second fight with a different boss right after. The game was nice enough to reset your party's health and SP bars though. If you had just the one health bar you would be so fucked.
BlazBlue has this in reverse though... SO annoying. You "beat" a story fight and oops no jk you lost, final boss wins in a cutscene. Well, you are playing Noel's storyline... She just can't win anything properly to save her life. Literally. Even online!
I actually manage to win against someone like Hakumen's retarded counters and normals (too much damage!) or Lambda's ridiculous full screen projectile combos and no she collapses in pain on the win screen. Fuck sake.
They could pull off the boss winning so much more effectively in gameplay though. Like if you let Hazama in once he kills you with one combo or if you block one attack it's so powerful it instantly activates Guard Crush on you.
I do like Hazama though. He's so delightfully melodramatic and evil. You can tell the voice actors had fun voicing the characters.
"You'll have a front row seat... TO THE END OF THE WORLD!!!!!!!!"
Constantly dying to the first wave doesn't count though :/
I was so bad at that game...
There's a bit in Persona 4 where you don't "die" because due to plot reasons the main character going down once = game over. The one boss uses a move that makes all your attacks miss, you go through 2 turns of this and it hits a cutscene where you get amazingly saved by another character.
Then there's a second fight with a different boss right after. The game was nice enough to reset your party's health and SP bars though. If you had just the one health bar you would be so fucked.
BlazBlue has this in reverse though... SO annoying. You "beat" a story fight and oops no jk you lost, final boss wins in a cutscene. Well, you are playing Noel's storyline... She just can't win anything properly to save her life. Literally. Even online!
I actually manage to win against someone like Hakumen's retarded counters and normals (too much damage!) or Lambda's ridiculous full screen projectile combos and no she collapses in pain on the win screen. Fuck sake.
They could pull off the boss winning so much more effectively in gameplay though. Like if you let Hazama in once he kills you with one combo or if you block one attack it's so powerful it instantly activates Guard Crush on you.
I do like Hazama though. He's so delightfully melodramatic and evil. You can tell the voice actors had fun voicing the characters.
"You'll have a front row seat... TO THE END OF THE WORLD!!!!!!!!"
Cant think a game i played before except Hero CoreTanis said:
In this Metroidvania retro black and white game, you collect a tons of computers hidden in the base that will allow you to stop Tetron from ever rebuilding himself back. You also find out that you and him were made by an ancient civilization as war weapons and their programing doesnt allow them to EVER stop fighting. Its only after finding all the data that you can finally destroy yourself AND Tetron to stop the eternal conflict.
But honestly, i was recently trying to think a meta twist in a game, where the antagonist looks at the camera and finally manages to take it away from the back of the protagonist. Meaning that YOU now control the antagonist, who is now laughting evily because he KNOWS that the player would NEVER accept defeat in a game and they will fight the protaginist not because they like it, but because they are here for the fun. Since the antagonist is the strongest avatar they will ever have in this game, he thinks that the player would happily dispose of the protagonist now that he is weaker in comparation and no longer as fun.
You have 2 options, either you fight with your new avatar and make the antagonist win, or just do absolutely nothing and he gets beat up by the protagonist.
There's an old adventure game called Legend of Kyrandia: Malcolm's Revenge, in which you play as the former jester Malcolm, who now needs to clear his name of murder. This game is genius on multiple levels, and absolutely hilarious as well.
At one point, you get caught in Limbo. There, the Fish Queen forces you to play tic-tac-toe with her. The problem is that you have to lose! Now, if you know how tic-tac-toe works, you know that if both people know what they are doing, it will inevitably end in a tie. It's hardly even a game.
The Fish Queen, on the other hand, is the most incompetent tic-tac-toe player you can imagine, lending surprising difficulty to letting her win. If she doesn't, she will force to play another game, one after the other, until she finally achieves victory and lets you go. Oh, and as long as you are in Limbo, she will periodically call you back for another game. So be prepared to play a lot of tic-tac-toe.
At one point, you get caught in Limbo. There, the Fish Queen forces you to play tic-tac-toe with her. The problem is that you have to lose! Now, if you know how tic-tac-toe works, you know that if both people know what they are doing, it will inevitably end in a tie. It's hardly even a game.
The Fish Queen, on the other hand, is the most incompetent tic-tac-toe player you can imagine, lending surprising difficulty to letting her win. If she doesn't, she will force to play another game, one after the other, until she finally achieves victory and lets you go. Oh, and as long as you are in Limbo, she will periodically call you back for another game. So be prepared to play a lot of tic-tac-toe.
Heh, I remember the first time I got to that part. I was like "WTF difficulty spike?!?!" and stuck with it. I'd reload every time it would become obvious the battle was lost and thus never got to actually "lose" and see that the game goes on. Eventually I got it done and then went to Bioware forums to ***** about that fight, only to find out that I was doing it wrong...DementedSheep said:
The first boss in Demon's Souls is supposed to be a loss, but just in case you are just that good, you are killed in a cutscene right after if you win. Fucking dragon...
Xenogears and the first two Star Ocean games are terrible for this. Xenogears has about 2-3 fights that you must lose, one of which is winnable but even if you win it the game just carries on as if you lost! (though you do get an item reward). The Star Ocean games have fights like this mixed in with a battle you cant win but must not lose as you have to survive a minute or two to continue the game (not that the game tells you this ofc). Skies of Arcadia legends also has a battle like this but to be fair you are not supposed to fight it, you even get a Reputation bonus for surrendering instead.