One of my favourite moments inBaldur’s Gate 3came courtesy of Karlach. During a tough battle in the Bhaalist’s temple, we looked done for. Gale did some early damage, but the glass cannon that he is, soon fell by the wayside. Next there was Shadowheart, whose healing spells limited her area control ability, but kept my Tav and Karlach at full strength. Then, wearily, my Tav faded too. It was Karlach against the world. But it’s the sort of moment other RPGs steal from you, with no real rhyme or reason.
Thanks to her rage and her exploding trident, she was able to tackle two groups at once, while Shadowheart and Tav staying in the fight for so long meant there were indeed two groups, not just one all swarming her. Bloodied and battered, Karlach slashed through the remaining minions, then put the boss to the sword (or trident) while hot viscera rained down through her screams of triumph. The bulky barbarian had but a sliver of health left, but it was enough for a miracle.
Protagonist Death In RPGs Shouldn’t Be Beholden To Logic
Persona 5doesn’t allow for these sorts of stories. Someone else in your party might have an especially effective attack or win big on RNG to strike the killing blow, but inPersona, it’s no Joker no party - figuratively and a different kind of figuratively. While you select three teammates by your side, Joker is always the focus. If he dies, the battle is over, even if the other three are at full strength, and it’s the single most annoying element of party-based RPGs.
This is not a case of Baldur’s Gate 3 versus Persona 5. They are just two of my favourite games on either side of the ideological divide. Protagonist death is like fall damage, weapon degradation, or fast travel. Each game picks a side and sticks to it. Either your protagonist is the key avenue for player immersion, and thus they must focus on keeping them alive at all costs, or it’s all for one and one for all, so as long as there is breath in someone in your party’s body, the fight will rage on.
For the record, my thoughts on this are: protagonist death is bad, fall damage is bad,weapon degradation is bad, butno fast travel works in most games designed for no fast travel.
Games where protagonist death means insta-death may argue this is more immersive. While Baldur’s Gate 3 has specific mechanics for bringing the dead back to life, you’re not ‘supposed’ to die in most other games. On a gameplay level, battles may be designed with the idea that you will fail again and again until you ‘git gud’, but in the canon, you slay everything in your path with no questions asked. Protagonist death supports this canon - every failure did not happen.
If I Can Save Them, Why Can’t They Save Me?
But then, unless the game has companion permadeath likeFire Emblem, what happens is your allies fall in battle (knocked out) and then are perfectly healthy for the next one. Protagonist death claims to operate on logic in a world where death is a game over screen, and everything starts back right as rain each time you die, while death does not afflict those you travel with at all.
Protagonist death is not a deal breaker for me. Currently, my game of the year is a party-based Japanese RPG with protagonist death (Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth), while second place is a party-based Japanese RPG without protagonist death (Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth).Dragon’s Dogma 2, another party-based Japanese RPG, sits behind this pair at the moment after ten hours or so of play, but with your ‘party’ there just pawns, it gets a pass on protagonist death as you basically don’t have a party at all.
Partly it’s a convenience issue. It’s annoying when you have the upper hand in a fight just for a couple of quick attacks to leave Joker or Ichiban or whoever dead and the battle null and void, when you have Ann and Ryuji and Makoto and Chitose and Tomizawa and Adechi primed and ready to carry on without you. But I also don’t understand it from a narrative point of view - a core theme in many party-based RPGs is that we’re all in it together, and if your teammates think fighting on is useless without you but you’re happy to carry on without them, it establishes a firm lack of equality between the pair of you.
Protagonist death is not spoken about like other game design divides, but it seems even more important.Everyone has an opinion on whether or not the swords should break in Zelda. But there’s never this debate over whether the game should restart when the main character dies, even with others by their side. If this then is the first blow struck in the discourse, let it be a winning one - protagonist death sucks.
Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth
WHERE TO PLAY
Final Fantasy Rebirth is the second part of the FF7 Remake project. It continues the story of Cloud Strife, a former SOLDIER turned mercenary who joins Avalanche, a group of eco-terrorists seeking to save the planet from the malevolent Sephiroth. As the party pushes out of Midgar, leaving the Shinra Corporation devastated, where will their paths take them?
