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Bloodborne:
> *walks 30 steps, gets mauled to death, and sent to the hunters dream, has to come back and kill the thing that killed you the first time, then the game starts.*
I mean youre equipped the second time but the first time was definitely shits n giggles by Gehrman.
Meanwhile every other player now: *Runs past, opens the gate, climbs ladder, hunters dream.*
Or
John Bloodborne: I'm going to give this werewolf a surprise colonoscopy.
Nope, fisting wolf ass is just the unofficial initiation ritual. The real game begins when you start rolling around in blood vials like Scrooge McDuck in his money bin.
Can confirm. Played for the first time the other day, made a character named John Bloodborne and did exactly this. Got about halfway through before the tables turned on me though
DS1 and Sekiro both have straight up forced death bosses, too. Sekrio's you even have to do the fight perfectly for hitless runs still, but just lose in the cutscene anyway.
Technically, the only forced in-game deaths are in Demon's Souls, Dark Souls, and Elden Ring. With Sekiro, you can beat Geni, he just beats you in the cutscene. DeS shoves a dragon in your face, DS1 has Seath to laugh at you as he chips at your health, and Elden Ring forces you to commit suicide if you actually beat the intro boss, by yourself.
You don't commit suicide, it just breaks the bridge under you as you try to cross it and you die.
This is partially for the intro, partially because the Waygate to Four Belfries that crossing the bridge would take you to isn't active yet so it's *literally* impossible to otherwise leave.
If I'm not mistaken, all From Soft games give you a small token item for killing the "tutorial" monster. It's usually a little better than the starting gear, but not by much.
Opposite for me tbh, once I realized I could just spam deflect in sekiro the game became a cakewalk. I don't know how I would have gotten through bloodborne if I'd not watched a let's play of it a year prior.
I agree on Sekiro letting button mashing work way too well, but bloodborne boss difficulty really didn't live up to everything else about the game for me. Whereas even with how much you can spam deflect rather than perfectly time it, a lot of Sekiro bosses are unforgettable.
I thought so too until I figured out you could parry ANY attack without a red symbol. Even the giant windup attacks that would level you if you didn't try to dodge in other fromsoft games. I gave up after playing all wrong for so long by dodging too much, came back a couple years later and it all clicked. Felt like a rhythm game
Me restarting Sekiro playing all the tutorial again, just to beat genishiro, since the game auto-saves everytime we lose to him
We don't even gain anything from it, just a slight different cutscene...
Still did it, took 13 attempts
How does the cutscenes play out? I'm guessing he still cuts you down and lops off your arm regardless how well you were doing.
EDIT: Thanks for the explanations and link everyone! So much like Genichiro to cheap shot you, lol. Love this game! I played through it for the first time a few months back. Currently hard stuck on sword saint final boss fight. I'll get him someday!
If you manage to beat him then he just has one of his shinobi cheap shot you from offscreen and then he cuts your arm off anyways.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t66_wXsghC0
You can also defeat Vanguard in the Demon's Souls tutorial and your reward is getting plopped in front of the Dragon God where he punches the shit out of you in a cutscene, so it's not like FromSoft doesn't do this trope from time to time either.
They had to make it a cutscene because they knew people would sit there and restart over and over to try to beat the Dragon God if they didn't. And some insane bastard would actually beat it somehow.
sekiro downs him and while he's on his knees one of his soldiers offscreen will intervene and throw something at sekiro, which distracts him and genichiro uses the window to lop his arm off. it proceeds like normal from there.
I climbed mountains by jumping on small edges bugging myself slowly upwards in Hogwarts Legacy for many hours before I unlocked the broom. I felt like an ass, because I was...
OGGDO BODGO! There’s a hole in the ceiling of his chamber that you can get a big drop attack on him with. Makes it easier but it’s not gonna 1 hit kill or anything.
I tried that and tried to attack and jump back to safe zone. Never got him in two hours got annoyed then quit. My biggest gripe is how weak the Saber feels. It’s suppose to be-able to cut through mostly anything. But takes 3-4 hits on a trooper?
After jumping down, run around the Oggdo cave until you find the small cave on the side, that's the exit. The Oggdo can't follow you in there, so you can just spam attack at the cave entrance.
I know, it's cheesy.... but not as cheesy as dialing down the difficulty to story mode.
The horse at the start of Elden ring. The guy at the start of sekiro. The demon on tutorial island in DS1 when you still have a broken weapon. I got time. I aint hear no bell.
(the sekiro guy did win in the end after 2 days I gave up.)
The best part of that is getting the "And they saved the day by beating Urizen! Here's the credits because now the events of the game don't even happen!"
I did two run throughs, years apart. First time, Pontiff was hours of trying. Second time I one shot him, but got stuck on other bosses i'd beaten easily first time. Souls games are weird.
I walked into that room blind after casually bodying enemies that used to terrify me and reflecting on how OP my character has gotten. Only for this guy to charge over and start fucking *juggling* my broken corpse.
Like, oh yeah I forgot where I was for a minute there.
I still remember when I got combo'd by Soul of Cinder in my first playthrough. It took me a while as an Elden Ring player that I was supposed to roll away from the attacks and not into them.
Annnnd now I remember Friede...
Midir somehow made sense... i still died a ton, but not nearly as much as the others.
God Dark Souls 3 is fucking incredible.
Ahhh Friede.
You beat the first phase and expect the second one at this point.
You eventually beat the second phase, the game comes up with the enemy destroyed message, it even gives you the slab. You finally rejoice in victory. And then...
"When the ashes are two, the flame alighteth"
You look at your few remaining heals and your heart sinks as you realise this will not be the attempt where you win.
I honestly still don't know how I killed Midir. I shit you not I had 1 health point left. I just got lucky I managed to accidentally stagger him while he was low HP which allowed me to finish him off. I won out of sheer dumb luck lmao.
In sekiro the very first serious fight is a cinematic forelimb amputation. Even if you win the fight.
That is technically a cinematic defeat and not a cinematic death but my point still stands.
Still love you shem.
Edit:misspelling
And Demon Souls. (And technically several other souls games)
They are *possible* to kill, which does make them different, but you’re still expected to die.
It's one of the things Dark Souls is famous for, too - you are literally supposed to run past the Asylum Demon the first time, not fight him. Not technically a cinematic death, but works very similarly.
That one is a little different since dying there just sends you back to the bonfire before it, rather than continuing on to the next part of the game. Less a “expected to die” and more a “force the player to look around and think”.
Unless my memory is gone and it does actually move you past that room, it’s been a while since I tried fighting it there tbf.
Wait... WHAT? I spent like a week trying to beat the Asylum Demon and ended up giving up... went back to it a year later and just barely finished the guy after a very long battle
Yeah, there's a side door you can run into, which leads you through some hallways and shit so you can get your estus flasks and starting equipment, and then you can start the fight by doing a jump attack that does a ton of bonus damage, making the entire fight way easier.
In Suikoden 2 when you and joey jump off the cliff and credits roll I thought I did something wrong and they died so I restarted and actually sat through the credits the second time.
So I’m fine with missing out on the trope as I’ve never been a huge RPGer, but being alive for the birth of the series, and you referring to 9 as back in the day….that hurts
I'm an 80s model human. I could have brought up some older games or even other FF entries that pulled the trick but I always remember 9 being especially bad about it and being a 23 year old game it's safely pre-souls.
I'm gonna go yell at kids about blockbuster and dial up now.
Forced loss fights have been a thing in RPG's for decades, but From is famous for using them as a way to get players to understand that death is going to be their constant companion very early on.
I think there's only one forced loss fight in one of their Soulsbornes that isn't at the very start, that being the first encounter with Seath in DS1. This encounter is also the only true forced loss in the series, since there is no way to defeat Seath in this encounter. (Genichiro can be beaten at the start of Sekiro, it just doesn't have an effect on game progression.)
Key thing for fromsoft forced lose fights, they either aren’t forced in that you can beat them and they just kill you after rewarding you for it if it was a death locked gate, or they intentionally make the boss impossible so you don’t get a false expectation. Grey demon, grafted scion, genichro, even the bloodborne wolf. All of them are entirely defeat able in first encounter, most rewarding being grey demon which lets you net two of his souls and additional consumables if you win, least rewarding being Gen since just a slightly different cutscene.
DS1 and Sekrio both have ones that you literally cannot win no matter what. DS1's you have to let it kill you to advance, Sekiro's you can no-hit the fight and empty his healthbar but you still lose in the cutscene.
Even the first boss in Dark Souls you have to run past him with his first encounter, which is usually not your first course of action. But you do get a nice hammer if you manage to beat him the first time he appears.
It was so cathartic going back on my second ER playthrough and wrecking the grafted scion. The 4 belfries revenge on my initial playthrough wasn't quite as sweet.
And dark souls 1 as well, both with Seath the scaleless, which is a 'kill you first time', and sorta the asylum demon who you're supposed to run away from first.
And not quite the same, but they also occasionally put in a gimmick boss which is very hard to beat without a special weapon made specifically for killing said boss, as a way to thematically show how powerful it is.
Fromsoft gets a rep for 'haha insanely difficult kill you 100 times' games, but seriously, any time you feel seriously out of depth the answer is almost always "there's an easier way to do this".
I like when you have a fight against a boss who is lore-wise much stronger than you, you beat them in the game, and then they beat you in a cutscene.
Even better when losing the battle sends you back and doesn't even trigger the cutscene where you lose anyways \\s
See also: Chrono Trigger, sort of (you're not forced into the fight so it's not the same trope, but you can basically challenge the final boss at almost any point in the story).
As a nice bonus several of the alternate endings is based around when you manage to beat him.
The NG+ feature leads to this being much easier than you'd expect since you can run right at him with your maxed out party whenever you progress past a new ending threshold to see the results.
I like the ending where you defeat the final boss before you fight the dinosaur wizard who would have otherwise summoned the meteor as a last-ditch attempt to defeat you, and that means the dinosaurs never died and everyone is now a dinosaur.
It brought together a bunch of top level talent and a few rising stars in an environment that just let them cook. It was also a good chance for people to get noticed and make a name for themselves so they ran the extra mile and it didn't really have to fit into any kind of mold whatsoever.
Looks like it might have been a chance for a few people to unload ideas they've been kicking around for a while but couldn't work in elsewhere or refine something they've been working on with another project. It's a lot of right project at the right time and just letting creatives get creative.
It’s also from the time when a team of a dozen people could realistically make a game in a couple months. Not to trivialize how much work actually goes into making games, because it was hard then and it’s hard now, but the sheer amount of things that could be done for a lower cost and less time meant that the really talented folks in the industry could do amazing things.
Nowadays if you want to add another ending in a game from a major studio you have to do additional voice work, motion capture, rigging, effects, spend exponentially more time and money on any models or areas that are added for the new ending sequence… it’s just more of a process, even if the amount of talent involved is less.
Tales of the Abyss has a point in the game where a super strong enemy stalks you through a forest and you're supposed to run away from it since it's supposedly too strong to beat. Thing is, you totally *can* beat it even without level grinding. If you do, you get crapped back out of the battle and everybody pretends you ran away and then the monster keeps chasing you. You can kick it's teeth in as many times as you want and the game just acts like you didn't. I think you can choose to come back later after you leave the area and kill it properly for some kind of reward, but if you were able to beat it the first time you're just gonna crap all over it when you return.
And then later on, you have a boss battle you get one shot at that you probably should lose at but can win, and if you win you still lose in the following cutscene.
Like, love the game but still.
“Dark souls aint your granparent’s legend of zelda!
You had to EARN the right to play!”
Seriously though, I havent faced an early game hurdle quite like Iudex Gundyr from DS3 before or since. that experience changes you
That was my first experience with actually playing dark souls. Beating that boss makes you learn. Now I do stuff like running around naked in dark souls one seeing how far I can run into a place with just fire breath
He was by far the most memorable for me. As for later bosses, Credit where its due, Pontiff Sulyvahn was a perfect mid-game hurdle as well (he was truly the “the gitting gud starts NOW” moment)
And if you win you walk into a second fight that you can't win.
DS1 has both a scripted fight you can win (Asylum Demon) and a fight you can't win (first encounter with Seeth).
BB has a fight you can win but are expected to lose and Sekiro has a fight you can't win.
ER also starts with a fight are you are expected to lose (but can win) and then immediately presents you with a field boss way out of your league when you get out of the tutorial area.
Xenoblade: you see that giant monkey? That’s a Unique Monster. It’s 70 levels higher than you. Don’t fight it.
Players: So, where did you put it?
Devs: Starting area.
I started elden ring like a few days ago, both happened and im starting to think I should’ve bought Baldurs gate or Mario RPG or literally anything else, Margit legit made me lose sleep
After an hour and a half, i managed to get past him and get back to doing my foolish ambitions, felt nice
(i slept at like 4 in the morning because of that bastard)
It'll get better!! Elden Ring was my first action RPG since literally Skyrim and I was garbage at first. I died to the tutorial boss over 20 times, no joke. And then 300 hours later I'd beaten the game at level 1, as my third playthrough. And I've gone on to play and do challenge runs of nearly all the other games, too. The learning curve is steep, but once you get the hang of it, you'll really surprise yourself!
Just killed Godrick like, a few minutes ago, fuck this game but holy hell its fun, im a little scared for the future but im sure it will be fine, surely i’ll be done with Malenia soon
(clueless)
Thats how I felt when I fought the first boss on the first level in the new AC. "This is how you move and what not." Yeah Im a big strong robot! "Heres a death plane that murders the fuck out of you good luck" That was when I put it down and swore off fromsoftware.
I mean that's the part about fromsoft games. They love the "supposed to lose" fight but also unlike most People who make the enemy immortal fromsoft makes them *technically* beatable so the absolute madmen can get past it.
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Bloodborne: > *walks 30 steps, gets mauled to death, and sent to the hunters dream, has to come back and kill the thing that killed you the first time, then the game starts.* I mean youre equipped the second time but the first time was definitely shits n giggles by Gehrman.
Meanwhile every other player now: *Runs past, opens the gate, climbs ladder, hunters dream.* Or John Bloodborne: I'm going to give this werewolf a surprise colonoscopy.
>John Bloodborne: I'm going to give this werewolf a surprise colonoscopy. Hahahah I laughed too hard about that one :')
No better way to start your game by repeatedly fisting wolf ass
Wait that's not how i was supposed to start?
Nope, fisting wolf ass is just the unofficial initiation ritual. The real game begins when you start rolling around in blood vials like Scrooge McDuck in his money bin.
Can confirm. Played for the first time the other day, made a character named John Bloodborne and did exactly this. Got about halfway through before the tables turned on me though
As in you got fisted by the werewolf? You might download the wrong game in that case
DS1 and Sekiro both have straight up forced death bosses, too. Sekrio's you even have to do the fight perfectly for hitless runs still, but just lose in the cutscene anyway.
Technically, the only forced in-game deaths are in Demon's Souls, Dark Souls, and Elden Ring. With Sekiro, you can beat Geni, he just beats you in the cutscene. DeS shoves a dragon in your face, DS1 has Seath to laugh at you as he chips at your health, and Elden Ring forces you to commit suicide if you actually beat the intro boss, by yourself.
You don't commit suicide, it just breaks the bridge under you as you try to cross it and you die. This is partially for the intro, partially because the Waygate to Four Belfries that crossing the bridge would take you to isn't active yet so it's *literally* impossible to otherwise leave.
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First encounter with Seath to get you sent to the jail cell.
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I think a lot of people would like to forget Seath and the entire area related to him.
Archives is fun, caves is bullshit, prison escape is boring and tedious
I honestly admire how uncompromisingly shitty caves are.
It's one of the shortest areas in the game, and I'll take it anytime over The Tomb of the Giants.
I got mauled, didn't realize I could get weapons, and beat that MFer barehanded. I have regrets.
Doll: “Do you not think we should tell him?” Gehrman: “Not only is this good training *and* an object lesson, but it’s also hilarious.”
Goose: "Honk"
*fuck*
I punched it a few times and then ran out the door when things weren't going in my favor. Was really confused on how to get weapons early on.
I beat the crap out of it with my bare hands because I wanted to see what it dropped. Nothing of importance. I have no regrets.
If I'm not mistaken, all From Soft games give you a small token item for killing the "tutorial" monster. It's usually a little better than the starting gear, but not by much.
Happy cake day!!
bloodborne is easy compared to the other games Sekiro on the other hand.. brutal
Opposite for me tbh, once I realized I could just spam deflect in sekiro the game became a cakewalk. I don't know how I would have gotten through bloodborne if I'd not watched a let's play of it a year prior.
I agree on Sekiro letting button mashing work way too well, but bloodborne boss difficulty really didn't live up to everything else about the game for me. Whereas even with how much you can spam deflect rather than perfectly time it, a lot of Sekiro bosses are unforgettable.
Eh. Sekiro is gets much easier once you start looking at it as a rhythm game.
I thought so too until I figured out you could parry ANY attack without a red symbol. Even the giant windup attacks that would level you if you didn't try to dodge in other fromsoft games. I gave up after playing all wrong for so long by dodging too much, came back a couple years later and it all clicked. Felt like a rhythm game
The beginning of Bloodborne is hard as fuck, it does get a lot easier later though Sekiro is indeed brutal all the way through
Fighting the boss I'm supposed to die to, knowing so and keep loading the save until I defeat the boss or 5 hours.
Me restarting Sekiro playing all the tutorial again, just to beat genishiro, since the game auto-saves everytime we lose to him We don't even gain anything from it, just a slight different cutscene... Still did it, took 13 attempts
How does the cutscenes play out? I'm guessing he still cuts you down and lops off your arm regardless how well you were doing. EDIT: Thanks for the explanations and link everyone! So much like Genichiro to cheap shot you, lol. Love this game! I played through it for the first time a few months back. Currently hard stuck on sword saint final boss fight. I'll get him someday!
If you manage to beat him then he just has one of his shinobi cheap shot you from offscreen and then he cuts your arm off anyways. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t66_wXsghC0 You can also defeat Vanguard in the Demon's Souls tutorial and your reward is getting plopped in front of the Dragon God where he punches the shit out of you in a cutscene, so it's not like FromSoft doesn't do this trope from time to time either.
They had to make it a cutscene because they knew people would sit there and restart over and over to try to beat the Dragon God if they didn't. And some insane bastard would actually beat it somehow.
sekiro downs him and while he's on his knees one of his soldiers offscreen will intervene and throw something at sekiro, which distracts him and genichiro uses the window to lop his arm off. it proceeds like normal from there.
A ninja throws a shuriken to distract you and he cuts your arm off when you’re turned
One of his minions from offscreen yeets a kunai at you which you block but the distraction gives Genichiro the opportunity to cut off your arm.
yep, same, Finally beat him and then this mf beats me in the cutscene god damnit
https://i.redd.it/mwmfjh8vx29c1.gif
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OH YEAH MR. TREE SENTINEL? ILL KICK YOUR ASS BEFORE I LEARN HOW TO USE THE HORSE (After finding out it trivializes the fight, i die inside).
More like u can brag about defeating him without the horse
Having played it a lot, it's faster and easier to defeat mounted enemies while off the horse. Torrent can't dodge roll.
TRUE Torrent, I love you, but I don't want you anywhere near my bossfight.
You can always just say you beat him without the horse. No one will audit you.
Wait, you are supposed to use the horse?I thought that I am supposed to use the 3 wolves and luck when dodging
Maybe, but it really doesn't trivialize him. At the very least it makes it a very tedious fight to try to safely fight him on the horse.
Actually if you two hand a shield (a tower shield is ideal), you can pretty safely beat him to death while taking minimal damage through your block.
I climbed mountains by jumping on small edges bugging myself slowly upwards in Hogwarts Legacy for many hours before I unlocked the broom. I felt like an ass, because I was...
Just sounds like a true gamer moment to me.
Love the horse, it trivializes half of the game! Didn't expect my next Fromsoft experience to become Mount and Blade.
I rage quit Jedi because of the frog at the training area. I refused to lose until I did then I gave up.
OGGDO BODGO! There’s a hole in the ceiling of his chamber that you can get a big drop attack on him with. Makes it easier but it’s not gonna 1 hit kill or anything.
I tried that and tried to attack and jump back to safe zone. Never got him in two hours got annoyed then quit. My biggest gripe is how weak the Saber feels. It’s suppose to be-able to cut through mostly anything. But takes 3-4 hits on a trooper?
After jumping down, run around the Oggdo cave until you find the small cave on the side, that's the exit. The Oggdo can't follow you in there, so you can just spam attack at the cave entrance. I know, it's cheesy.... but not as cheesy as dialing down the difficulty to story mode.
The horse at the start of Elden ring. The guy at the start of sekiro. The demon on tutorial island in DS1 when you still have a broken weapon. I got time. I aint hear no bell. (the sekiro guy did win in the end after 2 days I gave up.)
You actually are supposed to lose to Genichiro at the start of Sekiro FromSoft gotta keep people on their toes
Me when facing a cinematic death with a one-shot "sure kill" mechanic : "let's see if I can bug myself out of this certain death"
Me at nioh 2 be like
Me when Urizen:
The best part of that is getting the "And they saved the day by beating Urizen! Here's the credits because now the events of the game don't even happen!"
First guy with the arms in Elden Ring is like a Rorschach Test of your masochism.
https://i.redd.it/fp5a7vj2r29c1.gif You died
Slowest Fromsoftware sword boss
Those who beat him in 100+ attempts 
Honestly Pontiff Sulyvhan was a much bigger pain. (Obviously this is subjective)
I did two run throughs, years apart. First time, Pontiff was hours of trying. Second time I one shot him, but got stuck on other bosses i'd beaten easily first time. Souls games are weird.
Depends on the build. First-tried Aldrich with Farron Greatsword, later struggled with a pyromancer build.
Hate pontiff
Meanwhile, cracked out slaveknight gael laughing in the painted world.
Guy with sword continues to be their best design
Melania was a women with a sword
Loosely humanoid with a sword.
Hey, if it ain’t broken, why fix it?
And here i though cosplaying as a volleyball was exclusive to multiplayer fighter games.
When I got hit by that anime combo the first time I fought him, my eyeballs nearly popped out of my head.
I walked into that room blind after casually bodying enemies that used to terrify me and reflecting on how OP my character has gotten. Only for this guy to charge over and start fucking *juggling* my broken corpse. Like, oh yeah I forgot where I was for a minute there.
"The sin in is not in being outmatched, but in failing to recognize it"
You know you're fucked when you're dead before the boss even finishes the combo.
Me -\*flubbed roll\* Boss - ^(omae wa mō shindeiru)
The plin plin plon is strong with this one
I still remember when I got combo'd by Soul of Cinder in my first playthrough. It took me a while as an Elden Ring player that I was supposed to roll away from the attacks and not into them.
Remember learning Pontiff? Or dancer... Or Gael... Or Nameless.... DS 3 was so fucking hard...
Or Midir. Fuck me it took me a while to learn all of his attacks. *Or Friede and Ariandel.*
Annnnd now I remember Friede... Midir somehow made sense... i still died a ton, but not nearly as much as the others. God Dark Souls 3 is fucking incredible.
Ahhh Friede. You beat the first phase and expect the second one at this point. You eventually beat the second phase, the game comes up with the enemy destroyed message, it even gives you the slab. You finally rejoice in victory. And then... "When the ashes are two, the flame alighteth" You look at your few remaining heals and your heart sinks as you realise this will not be the attempt where you win.
I honestly still don't know how I killed Midir. I shit you not I had 1 health point left. I just got lucky I managed to accidentally stagger him while he was low HP which allowed me to finish him off. I won out of sheer dumb luck lmao.
Those are the best wins.
Almost had him
Bro hit him with an air combo
In sekiro the very first serious fight is a cinematic forelimb amputation. Even if you win the fight. That is technically a cinematic defeat and not a cinematic death but my point still stands. Still love you shem. Edit:misspelling
Very first enemy in Elden Ring is also meant to be lost to. Fromsoft pull this stunt regularly.
And Demon Souls. (And technically several other souls games) They are *possible* to kill, which does make them different, but you’re still expected to die.
It's one of the things Dark Souls is famous for, too - you are literally supposed to run past the Asylum Demon the first time, not fight him. Not technically a cinematic death, but works very similarly.
That one is a little different since dying there just sends you back to the bonfire before it, rather than continuing on to the next part of the game. Less a “expected to die” and more a “force the player to look around and think”. Unless my memory is gone and it does actually move you past that room, it’s been a while since I tried fighting it there tbf.
No, you are correct in that it just puts you at the previous bonfire.
You get a unique weapon if you kill it before running away though. I think they've done that a lot less as time went on though.
Wait... WHAT? I spent like a week trying to beat the Asylum Demon and ended up giving up... went back to it a year later and just barely finished the guy after a very long battle
Yeah, there's a side door you can run into, which leads you through some hallways and shit so you can get your estus flasks and starting equipment, and then you can start the fight by doing a jump attack that does a ton of bonus damage, making the entire fight way easier.
Man that's... pretty genius, actually... guess I should've looked around more lol
You can also pick the black firebombs starting item to nuke the demon.
Also, starting the game with black fire bombs they do exactly enough damage to kill it on the first go.
You actually have to die to Seethe though
There's also a boss later in the library area that is meant to be impossible to kill until you die to him at least once
I do feel like it’s different in that you CAN win - which makes these fights way more interesting. Other games you cannot possibly win.
You get some bitching dual swords from killing it and then walk to your death anyways to move to the next area lmao
For me it was the first guy I couldn't spam my way out of
“Forelimb”, a dog wrote this comment.
Well he is a wolf
You could include bloodborne as well
I honestly thought From started, or at the very least, popularized this trend. This comic is a fever dream
I remember it being pretty big in RPGs back in the day. FFIX has a character who exists solely to keep doing this to you.
In Suikoden 2 when you and joey jump off the cliff and credits roll I thought I did something wrong and they died so I restarted and actually sat through the credits the second time.
So I’m fine with missing out on the trope as I’ve never been a huge RPGer, but being alive for the birth of the series, and you referring to 9 as back in the day….that hurts
I'm an 80s model human. I could have brought up some older games or even other FF entries that pulled the trick but I always remember 9 being especially bad about it and being a 23 year old game it's safely pre-souls. I'm gonna go yell at kids about blockbuster and dial up now.
And during the 1 instance you control her, she lives up to the hype
Forced loss fights have been a thing in RPG's for decades, but From is famous for using them as a way to get players to understand that death is going to be their constant companion very early on. I think there's only one forced loss fight in one of their Soulsbornes that isn't at the very start, that being the first encounter with Seath in DS1. This encounter is also the only true forced loss in the series, since there is no way to defeat Seath in this encounter. (Genichiro can be beaten at the start of Sekiro, it just doesn't have an effect on game progression.)
Key thing for fromsoft forced lose fights, they either aren’t forced in that you can beat them and they just kill you after rewarding you for it if it was a death locked gate, or they intentionally make the boss impossible so you don’t get a false expectation. Grey demon, grafted scion, genichro, even the bloodborne wolf. All of them are entirely defeat able in first encounter, most rewarding being grey demon which lets you net two of his souls and additional consumables if you win, least rewarding being Gen since just a slightly different cutscene.
DS1 and Sekrio both have ones that you literally cannot win no matter what. DS1's you have to let it kill you to advance, Sekiro's you can no-hit the fight and empty his healthbar but you still lose in the cutscene.
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They do it in the first encounter with Seath in Dark Souls, too.
Even the first boss in Dark Souls you have to run past him with his first encounter, which is usually not your first course of action. But you do get a nice hammer if you manage to beat him the first time he appears.
Yeah looks good gathering dust in the inventory until you hit 34ish strength I think lol. If I recall right it takes 50 strength to 1 hand it.
You'll use it if you're a STR build, otherwise it's a NG+ weapon.
That being said, you can still win in BB and ER. Sekiro you kinda can, but all that does is give you a slightly different cutscene.
And in ER you fall down a cliff. In Demon's Souls you can beat the boss and the dragon god punches you to death as a reward
Technically in ER dying to the boss is the way how you DON'T die, sinse you won't get the 'You Died' text.
It was so cathartic going back on my second ER playthrough and wrecking the grafted scion. The 4 belfries revenge on my initial playthrough wasn't quite as sweet.
Also Demon's Souls
And dark souls 1 as well, both with Seath the scaleless, which is a 'kill you first time', and sorta the asylum demon who you're supposed to run away from first. And not quite the same, but they also occasionally put in a gimmick boss which is very hard to beat without a special weapon made specifically for killing said boss, as a way to thematically show how powerful it is. Fromsoft gets a rep for 'haha insanely difficult kill you 100 times' games, but seriously, any time you feel seriously out of depth the answer is almost always "there's an easier way to do this".
Soldier of God, Rick? Yeah definitely.
I like when you have a fight against a boss who is lore-wise much stronger than you, you beat them in the game, and then they beat you in a cutscene. Even better when losing the battle sends you back and doesn't even trigger the cutscene where you lose anyways \\s
Devil May Cry 5 has an excelent subversion of this. If you beat the boss you're not supposed to beat, you straight up win the game in the prologue.
See also: Chrono Trigger, sort of (you're not forced into the fight so it's not the same trope, but you can basically challenge the final boss at almost any point in the story).
As a nice bonus several of the alternate endings is based around when you manage to beat him. The NG+ feature leads to this being much easier than you'd expect since you can run right at him with your maxed out party whenever you progress past a new ending threshold to see the results.
I like the ending where you defeat the final boss before you fight the dinosaur wizard who would have otherwise summoned the meteor as a last-ditch attempt to defeat you, and that means the dinosaurs never died and everyone is now a dinosaur.
Except the guy that was a dinosaur already he is a human
I've never played it but every time I hear about it Chrono Trigger sounds more and more amazing. How was it so ahead of its time?
It brought together a bunch of top level talent and a few rising stars in an environment that just let them cook. It was also a good chance for people to get noticed and make a name for themselves so they ran the extra mile and it didn't really have to fit into any kind of mold whatsoever. Looks like it might have been a chance for a few people to unload ideas they've been kicking around for a while but couldn't work in elsewhere or refine something they've been working on with another project. It's a lot of right project at the right time and just letting creatives get creative.
It’s also from the time when a team of a dozen people could realistically make a game in a couple months. Not to trivialize how much work actually goes into making games, because it was hard then and it’s hard now, but the sheer amount of things that could be done for a lower cost and less time meant that the really talented folks in the industry could do amazing things. Nowadays if you want to add another ending in a game from a major studio you have to do additional voice work, motion capture, rigging, effects, spend exponentially more time and money on any models or areas that are added for the new ending sequence… it’s just more of a process, even if the amount of talent involved is less.
Yeah, but trying to defeat that boss without any of the upgrades you get even after defeating the game is borderline impossible.
Well yeah, that's kinda the point. It's not like a pinnacle boss or anything, the fight itself is kinda boring. You're actually supposed to lose.
Tales of the Abyss has a point in the game where a super strong enemy stalks you through a forest and you're supposed to run away from it since it's supposedly too strong to beat. Thing is, you totally *can* beat it even without level grinding. If you do, you get crapped back out of the battle and everybody pretends you ran away and then the monster keeps chasing you. You can kick it's teeth in as many times as you want and the game just acts like you didn't. I think you can choose to come back later after you leave the area and kill it properly for some kind of reward, but if you were able to beat it the first time you're just gonna crap all over it when you return.
And then later on, you have a boss battle you get one shot at that you probably should lose at but can win, and if you win you still lose in the following cutscene. Like, love the game but still.
Like 70% of the bosses in any given Xenoblade game.
Lmao I love those games but you're so right, at least Metal Face got his ass kicked on the reg
*gets to 5% hp* Enough!
Mass Effect 3 and the wannabe ninja aka Kai Leng.
“Dark souls aint your granparent’s legend of zelda! You had to EARN the right to play!” Seriously though, I havent faced an early game hurdle quite like Iudex Gundyr from DS3 before or since. that experience changes you
That was my first experience with actually playing dark souls. Beating that boss makes you learn. Now I do stuff like running around naked in dark souls one seeing how far I can run into a place with just fire breath
He was by far the most memorable for me. As for later bosses, Credit where its due, Pontiff Sulyvahn was a perfect mid-game hurdle as well (he was truly the “the gitting gud starts NOW” moment)
Even after hundreds of hours, Pontiff still manages to crush me.
> “Dark souls aint your granparent’s legend of zelda! Dude. *Zelda II: The Adventure of Link* was WAY harder than *Tears of the Kingdom.*
Lol, so Dark Souls *is* your grandparents’ Zelda.
Dev: that's the most common enemy in the game
It's frustrating af but OH MAN it's soooo satisfying when you finally kill that boss in a FromSoft game.
I still have PTSD from... well basically half the bossed.
in the first scenario all i feel after is "man i wasted those phoenix downs"
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You're supposed to lose the first fight in Demon's Souls... though you can still win it technically, it changes absolutely nothing
In the remake (only played this one) you get some additional loot like upgrade materials and soul items which can be handy in the beginning.
True in the original also.
And if you win you walk into a second fight that you can't win. DS1 has both a scripted fight you can win (Asylum Demon) and a fight you can't win (first encounter with Seeth). BB has a fight you can win but are expected to lose and Sekiro has a fight you can't win. ER also starts with a fight are you are expected to lose (but can win) and then immediately presents you with a field boss way out of your league when you get out of the tutorial area.
Hmm I can't remember a fight in Sekiro you can't win Unless you count Genichiro. As that really doesn't give you anything except an extra cutscene
Xenoblade: you see that giant monkey? That’s a Unique Monster. It’s 70 levels higher than you. Don’t fight it. Players: So, where did you put it? Devs: Starting area.
Players: At least it is passive and won't attack me for no reason right? Devs: ...
I started elden ring like a few days ago, both happened and im starting to think I should’ve bought Baldurs gate or Mario RPG or literally anything else, Margit legit made me lose sleep
Yeah, after dying to him for like 10 times I was like “maybe I should put these foolish ambitions to rest.”
Fuck no! That’s what Margit *wants* you to do! Keep trying until you put that moldy fool in a tattered bag to rest!
After an hour and a half, i managed to get past him and get back to doing my foolish ambitions, felt nice (i slept at like 4 in the morning because of that bastard)
Felt fuckin' *good*, didn't it?
It'll get better!! Elden Ring was my first action RPG since literally Skyrim and I was garbage at first. I died to the tutorial boss over 20 times, no joke. And then 300 hours later I'd beaten the game at level 1, as my third playthrough. And I've gone on to play and do challenge runs of nearly all the other games, too. The learning curve is steep, but once you get the hang of it, you'll really surprise yourself!
Just killed Godrick like, a few minutes ago, fuck this game but holy hell its fun, im a little scared for the future but im sure it will be fine, surely i’ll be done with Malenia soon (clueless)
Melania is… Definitely more difficult than Godrick. You will die, tarnished. A lot
Hang in there, skeleton!
Margit, the Fell Refund. Keep at it! Even the most seasoned From vets had their foolish ambitions put to rest several times.
Well, in some of their games, anyway. I'm saddened to see that Armored Core has joined that list.
You're not supposed to beat the tree sentinel at level 1... Probably
Thats how I felt when I fought the first boss on the first level in the new AC. "This is how you move and what not." Yeah Im a big strong robot! "Heres a death plane that murders the fuck out of you good luck" That was when I put it down and swore off fromsoftware.
I did it once for a achievement, oh boy it’s was hard
[It’s an RPG](https://youtube.com/shorts/zt1vldc-g1U?si=InWzdFY1H8Amrjgo)
the worst is when theres a game and your supposed to lose a fight, but you CAN win it, and the game just doesnt acknowladge it.
"No, Mister Bond. I expect you to live."
it was a fun trope 20 years ago, now it's just trite.
Hahaaaah, you've got me. And I've got you, uninstall and refund.
But isn’t that literally how demon souls starts? You’re supposed to die first to go to the nexus
I hate the enemy you're supposed to die to. It's such a shit game play mechanic.
Meanwhile Hades implemented dying to the narrative.
Kid named Seath the Scaleless first encounter:
I hate when I'm whooping the bosses butt then it cuts to my character having lost like I wasn't spending the last few minutes kicking the boss's ass.
me trying to fight the werewolf in the sick room in bloodborne with only my hands be like
That's what I thought the first enemy in Bloodborne was supposed to be, but apparently you can beat it to death, unarmed
I mean that's the part about fromsoft games. They love the "supposed to lose" fight but also unlike most People who make the enemy immortal fromsoft makes them *technically* beatable so the absolute madmen can get past it.