The Ever-Annoying Player Character Death

by Rumikoholic

I realize that death is a part of life - yada-yada - and that the death of a beloved player character (PC) should make the player hate the villain even more… But, I tend to focus more on the actual characters than the rehashed plotlines and generally boring mini-games, anyway… So, what happens when the only reason you’re playing a character disappears? Game over, baby!

Sure, there were plenty of PC deaths that actually improved my enjoyment of a game- the demise of the whiny, lame, oh-so-saccharine Aeris comes to mind. Generally, however, the writers like to focus on the more loveable members of the group…

I mean, whose idea was it to replace Dekkar and Tia with the 80-year old Guy and slutty Selan in Lufia 2? And what was the point of having Keifer from Dragon Warrior 7 run off to join a band of gypsies if they were just going to replace him with a (lesser) female replica? His great-great granddaughter..?

I guess it would probably work better if the writers had bothered to explain things more clearly, but Tia just wandered off one day and two seconds later, Selan was knocked-up and married. I won’t even get into Keifer tossing his stuff through the portal one day without so much as a little bit of warning. Of course, Dekkar got a building dropped on his head…

I realize that most of them were explained to some degree. Tia felt bad because she wanted to stay and protect the love of her life, rather than running off to the castle to wait for his return. Bad Tia! And, Keifer wanted to escape his royal life because it brought him all kinds of misery. But what would be the point of him abandoning his friends, who gave him what little sense of freedom he had? Especially since he knew that the world was constantly expanding and he’d have plenty of places to go after their adventure came to a close. Not to mention the fact that he got them started adventuring in the first place and was their main source of motivation to get as far as they’d gotten. Still, Aeris did die to save the world, and that’s a good thing!

I guess PC deaths aren’t a completely bad thing. They’re just delicate situations that should be handled with more tact than a character randomly wandering out into the street and getting hit by a bus. All I’m asking is the game designers put as much effort into killing a great character as they do in making them great to begin with.