THE MC DIES! GAME OVER.

I never seen it besides Persona 3, and in that game it made sense because the MC was the only character (and best character) you controlled. Interestingly enough, instant death spells do not work on the MC.

As for a regular RPG I'm not really sure, just seems needlessly restrictive, but I'd need a playable example to give my full thoughts.

I've never enjoyed it for the above reasons. I'd rather lose because I fucked up and just plain lost instead of having the magical character who explodes and kills everybody when his HP hits zero. Make enemies more dangerous by being able to kill the party instead of one character who has a nuke in his guts that detonates when he dies.

I hate games with this. And sometimes I don't even know it works that way and put my awesome main character into battle and then he dies. And then I restart the game and have my main character be a medic or a sniper so he doesn't go into battle as much.

It's very annoying when you have an awesome character that you'd really like to have in a fight but can't use him because if he dies then the game is over.

I can excuse this a bit more in games where every death is a permadeath though. Actually I guess I'm completely for this in a game where every death is permadeath. Because being without a main character... Well... I suppose games with permadeath probably are better without main characters...

Yeah, I hate that. Especially when they also pull an FF13 and decide to use attacks that pretty much instantly kill a character with full health. All they need to do is target the main (or just attack them right when you're trying to go heal) and all the work in battle you've done is gone. If you can revive people, it really doesn't make sense seeing as how you have the other person available to bring you back up. I've never liked the mechanic.

Actually, I don't like perma-death either, because I have to wonder if I let too many people die or not, and if the later game would even be possible if I have all those characters die, or if the story would be negatively effected because I had the wrong person die.

post=142865
I've never enjoyed it for the above reasons. I'd rather lose because I fucked up and just plain lost instead of having the magical character who explodes and kills everybody when his HP hits zero. Make enemies more dangerous by being able to kill the party instead of one character who has a nuke in his guts that detonates when he dies.

Hilarious: with the Bomb status effect (deals current HP damage to the entire party when hit with a physical attack) in SMT: Strange Journey, this can happen.

Also, re: "makes sense if the leader dies," I don't know about Persona 3 but in Persona 4 the MC is the leader. He's the one who innately has the summoning power (without requiring an OVERCOME THE FACADE speech), the one who discovers the tv world, the one who leads them inside to fight, the one who gets the swords, the smart one, the one that comforts everybody, the one that always gets along... considering this is a group of plain ol' teenagers (that are actually plain ol' teenagers), it makes a lot of sense that if the only stoic one falls, the rest freak out and GAME OVER.

(Mechanics-wise I agree it's "meh," but... it makes sense. In FFXIII? Naaaaaaaaah.)

EDIT: Actually, mechanics-wise in SMT games it's not that horrible (both from looking at how they work and from personal experience). 1) They're either LEAD THE TEENS or SUMMON DEMONS (except for DDS but is that still a GO if Serph dies?), so it makes sense for the setting, 2) the MC is almost always the strongest and has the highest level and you can alter resistances for an area with equipment easily, 3) the Defend command tends to be powerful/important in SMT games. If your leader's looking bad, Defend while he gets some healing. =0

There will always be the freak accidents, but I think that - in terms of setting - works in something like Persona 4.

Artificial difficulty.

In many SMT games this generally makes sense for plot reasons, but in Persona games it doesn't make any sense at all and I wish they would remove it.

post=142894
If the main-character dies and it is game-over then any other character that dies should be dead permanently. If this isn't the case (because the game has a storyline that isn't branching enough to allow characters to die, which is the case with most story-focused, traditional RPGs) then all characters should be revivable, including the main-character. What applies to the MC should apply to all other characters too.

Consistency is the important thing here.

I understand what you're saying, but it's not necessarily that the leader is dead that causes the game over. It's because the leader is dead and that causes great confusion/turmoil in the other characters (the "general falls on the battlefield" example), or that they require the leader as a reason to exist/be present (pokemon/SMT1-4).

Oddly enough, Fire Emblem has permanent deaths but story characters (basically any Lords in the party) simple sit out the rest of the battles. If the main Lord falls... I don't remember. Somebody help?

Fire Emblem does this. It definitely makes the games Nintendo-Hard, but I've always thought it makes a good gameplay device that encourages the player to think extra-strategically. You play the game as a tactician, and it treats you as such. I always liked that.

All it does is force you to keep your weak characters in the back and make them stomp on weakened enemies. If thats tactical idk dude. FFT had an interesting bit where if a character dies, (this all from memory so excuse me if I'm wrong) there was like a number of turns before s/he would dissapear forever (enough time to phoenix down, but if you just wanted to sacrifice a pawn for the sake of finishing the battle quickly, then that option is there). If Ramza dies the game was over (I think) but at least Ramza isn't a pegasus knight MADE OUT OF GLASS.