Characters that die a lot

[something]

Apologies if this is "one of those threads" that gets brought up all the time in gaming forums, I haven't been an avid gamer since the N64 era and visited gaming forums only sparingly back then.

But a thought came to me while waiting for Paletweb to get one last request of mine in stock, so I can buy some stuff, including one or two of the Touhou games. Basically, I mused over how many times I've gotten poor Reimu murdered while playing those games.

Then I started wondering about what (playable) console/pc game character has been killed the most, taking into account three or four criteria:

1) How many games the character has been playable in.
2) How long said games have been out.
3) How common/normal deaths are in the game.
4) How difficult the game is.

Again, playable characters, mind you. And main character types, no Zerglings from Starcraft or Dragoons from Civilization II or what have you. In fact, rts/tbs strategy games in general probably don't apply, but go ahead if you can think of a good rationale.

And though I talk about "most", don't get hung up over being the first to say "Mario!" or trying to crunch the numbers. Niche interests are cool as well, like me thinking about poor Reimu. Most deaths for RPGs? Shooters? Puzzle games [er... 'the player' in Tetris? I kid :sd: ]? Platformers? FPS? Hentai games? XD Break it down however you want. If everyone responds with the same 1-2 obvious choices, it'll be no fun, so be creative, or something.

Edit: Oh by the way, don't worry about strict definitions of "death". "Pikachu fainted!" still counts as a death. Immortals being reincarnated still counts as a death, and so on.

[jojo_home]

I think Mario has to be the winner. Why else do you continue to build up and maintain 99 men in every game, just so you can continue after falling into some damn pit for the 250th time?

Link also has a good history of dying too. I know in some of the games they count how many times you continued after dying, and I drummed up a ridiculous number.

[Lumberjack]

Edit: Oh by the way, don't worry about strict definitions of "death". "Pikachu fainted!" still counts as a death.

Well, in that case, Little Mac from Punch-Out! "died" a lot while I played that game. For some reason, Mike Tyson kept handing my ass to me over and over again. I think I only beat him once and, even then, it was by a decision.

He's only been in a couple of games, but I must have played them through hundreds of times a piece. They still have high replay value for me...even 20 or so years later.


Edit: I tried to be a little creative in my answer. MegaMan and the guys from Contra were the initial characters that came to mind.

[ADC]

Well, in that case, Little Mac from Punch-Out! "died" a lot while I played that game. For some reason, Mike Tyson kept handing my ass to me over and over again. I think I only beat him once and, even then, it was by a decision.
Is it possible to KO Tyson? I thought the only way to win was by decision. Of course, while I've done it several times, it's always been by decision. Glass Joe he ain't.

[Lumberjack]

Well, in that case, Little Mac from Punch-Out! "died" a lot while I played that game. For some reason, Mike Tyson kept handing my ass to me over and over again. I think I only beat him once and, even then, it was by a decision.
Is it possible to KO Tyson? I thought the only way to win was by decision. Of course, while I've done it several times, it's always been by decision. Glass Joe he ain't.
Really??

I didn't know that. I can't count how many hours I've spent trying to knock him out. :D

[Lego]

I was always a personal fan of "Johnny" the hapless guard from the Metal Gear Solid series. As for someone who dies the most via video game, I'd have to go with Ganon.

[something]

I was always a personal fan of "Johnny" the hapless guard from the Metal Gear Solid series. As for someone who dies the most via video game, I'd have to go with Ganon.
"Then I started wondering about what (playable) console/pc game character..."
"Again, playable characters, mind you."

=P

[Kinomoto_Shinji]

The main characters from the Metal Slug series. All you do in that game is die, die, die, and when you think you got the patterns down....die some more! :>

[Shibi]

upon further consideration, perhaps Mega Man wouldn't be a good choice due to the differences in character continuities

[Mateo_home]

The characters in the Fire Emblem series seem to die a lot. That is if you reset and start the chapter over. But then again, that probably only counts as one.

So how about everyone in Mortal Kombat. They're always getting "finished" from fatalities. Especially like Scorpion, Liu Kang, Shang Tsung, I could go on.

[ADC]

The characters in the Fire Emblem series seem to die a lot. That is if you reset and start the chapter over. But then again, that probably only counts as one.
But there are a few who die just as a matter of course, with no real chance of survival unless you just leave them in reserve. Pegasus Knights, for example. If you can usher one through the entire game, active in every battle and gaining experience the whole time, I'd bet they get seriously powerful and damn near untouchable. But you'd have to be a better gamer than I, who can only keep them alive by giving them nothing to do.

[broodwars]

The characters in the Fire Emblem series seem to die a lot. That is if you reset and start the chapter over. But then again, that probably only counts as one.
But there are a few who die just as a matter of course, with no real chance of survival unless you just leave them in reserve. Pegasus Knights, for example. If you can usher one through the entire game, active in every battle and gaining experience the whole time, I'd bet they get seriously powerful and damn near untouchable. But you'd have to be a better gamer than I, who can only keep them alive by giving them nothing to do.

Well, I've played 3 Fire Emblems (both NA GBA ones and the GameCube one), and pretty much the secret to bringing Pegasus Knights to God-hood is pretty much that: you raise their levels pretty much by keeping them out of harm's way and using them to finish off enemies. Once they're in the 10+ levels range, you can pretty much use them to take on any soldier normally aside from those carrying axes or bows (although I like to use my Pegasus Knights to fly up to stray archers and take them out before they can really start harassing me).

Actually, given that Pegasus Knights count as Cavalry units in Path of Radiance, Pegasus Knights are really good for flying up to an enemy; damaging/killing him; and then flying to a nearby square enemy units can't reach.

Once Pegasus Knights get into the really high/promotion-caliber levels, they are damn near untouchable except by Wyvern Riders and snipers. Pity their strength traditionally only goes to about 1/2-3/5 of the strength of a Wyvern Rider, because Pegasus Knights are damn near useless against anything remotely armored.

EDIT: by the way, shouldn't this topic be about NON-playable characters who die a lot? Really, if you suck as a gamer ANY character you can control could have death counts in the hundreds of thousands.

[something]

EDIT: by the way, shouldn't this topic be about NON-playable characters who die a lot?
Er... no. No it should not. That would be a completely different topic with no connection to this one at all. Actually, the connection is that it would almost be the opposite >_>

Really, if you suck as a gamer ANY character you can control could have death counts in the hundreds of thousands.
Sure, but one gamer sucking at one game isn't really relevant. It's about games that... well games that fit the criteria I specifically laid out in the very first post. There are just a lot of games where dying is "normal", and frequent. Couple that with many similar sequels, and widespread popularity (relative to genre and such o fcourse), and overall difficulty, and it's pretty easy to see what I'm asking. Like my Touhou example. Death death deathhhhhh, even for the best. It's normal to die a lot in Touhou games. One hit kill, and it's easy to get caught up trying the same level over and over and over... And with Reimu being playable in all but one of the games, and the games being popular *, well, she's going to die a lot.

* Relatively speaking, of course.

[ADC]

I guess my problem is that practically the first thing I did in Sacred Stones was get Vanessa killed trying to save whatshisface on the other side of the mountains or something. I immediately reset and got her through safely, but that battle gave me two new units who were much more useful than she (whatshisface, whatshisface senior), and I just ran with it.

Come to it, the most useful thing about whatshisface senior was that I could send him to get slaughtered by Joshua so I could have whatshername show off a little thigh to get him into the party. Joshua wasn't nearly as awesome as the Path of Radiance Myrmidon chick (Mia?), but he served his purpose.

After a while, I stopped getting fussed about FE people dying. Boyd made it to the last battle and served nobly as cannon fodder; what higher honor is there?

[Zorak]

When playing Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth, as Jack Walters, I've probably died more times in that game than any other. What a hard game!

In Silent Hill 2, Maria dies pretty frequently.

[HitokiriShadow]

For me, I'd go with Mega Man X, particularly for the first game. I couldn't begin to count how many times that poor robot/cyborg/whatever bit the dust. I died several hundred times just trying to beat Sigma in the first game (which I've never beaten; I gave up after about two days and finally decided to turn off my PS2; to date, X4 is the only one I've actually beaten).

I can't think of any one else that comes anywhere close. I mainly play RPGs and I don't die much in those. Well, at least not game overs. I guess many characters have lost consciousness/"died" but its hard to keep track of how often that happens to any specific characters. And I'm positive that none of them come close to X's genocidal level of deaths.

[ADC]

I've recalled another frequent buyer, and that's Angelo in Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Curséd King. This is a problem because he's the cleric, he has all the restorative magic. I put him at the end of the line because, in normal DQ fashion, the last person in the order gets attacked least, but he's just too wimpy to survive. It's the most frustrating thing.

Clerics. I tell ya. :sigh: None of my White Mages have ever had that problem.

[Damo]

Don't know about anybody esle but Lara Croft in TR:Anniversary, I must have killed her 100s of time plummeting to my death miss-timing a jump slide or swing, combat was easy, walking around was hard. I gave up on the game some time back. :sd:

[Garasharp K7]

Kratos in the Hades level in God of War. Revolving platforms + spinning blades = lots and lots of death. Not to mention numerous uncouth epithets and utterances of frustration hurled at the tv from me.
That level is aptly named indeed.

Then there's Vic Viper in Gradius III, and again in Gradius V. To be honest, you could count all the Gradius and Salamander games, but those two are the hardest.

[Suwako Moriya]

For me, I'd go with Mega Man X, particularly for the first game.

<snip>

I can't think of any one else that comes anywhere close.

Well there's always Megaman himself. You know with the terrible control of the first and seventh game. Not to mention some unforgiving jumps and so forth. Granted over time I became a bit more used to how things worked, but still back in the day it was especially uh fun.

[LimePie]

Aerith. :P

[martod]

Don't know about anybody esle but Lara Croft in TR:Anniversary, I must have killed her 100s of time plummeting to my death miss-timing a jump slide or swing, combat was easy, walking around was hard. I gave up on the game some time back.


Lara Croft was the first character that came to mind. Some of the environmental puzzles are just mean. Plus, there's a lot of times where I'll try to die after a checkpoint because it gives me full health without using a pack. Yes, Tomb Raider Anniversary is a game in which the best way to get healthy is to die. :sd:

[joelgundam01]

For a more recent title, Dante from Devil May Cry 3. I don't know how many times he died, while I was trying to defeat that game.

For an older title, E.T. for the Atari 2600 (Worst game ever!). I don't how many times I tried to kill that cartridge. :D

[HitokiriShadow]

For me, I'd go with Mega Man X, particularly for the first game.

<snip>

I can't think of any one else that comes anywhere close.

Well there's always Megaman himself. You know with the terrible control of the first and seventh game. Not to mention some unforgiving jumps and so forth. Granted over time I became a bit more used to how things worked, but still back in the day it was especially uh fun.

Yes, but I never played much of the regular Mega Man games. And I seemed to fare better with the ones I played (mainly 7-9) or just gave up much sooner.

[Damo]

Don't know about anybody esle but Lara Croft in TR:Anniversary, I must have killed her 100s of time plummeting to my death miss-timing a jump slide or swing, combat was easy, walking around was hard. I gave up on the game some time back.


Lara Croft was the first character that came to mind. Some of the environmental puzzles are just mean. Plus, there's a lot of times where I'll try to die after a checkpoint because it gives me full health without using a pack. Yes, Tomb Raider Anniversary is a game in which the best way to get healthy is to die. :sd:
Yeah, I played it like that too, as long as I could go without using a health pack. I also thought Lara was a lot more fragile in Anniversary not surviving same height jumps/falls that she would have survived in Legned.