The music intensifies as all other sound becomes a damp whisper. A single gunshot is fired and a beloved character slowly falls to the ground while their comrades yell out in shock. What an emotional scene! Or at least, it would be if it weren’t for the fact that the character in question already received about a thousand bullet wounds earlier in a gameplay segment.

This is a problem that plagues many gaming narratives. Story is often governed by a very different set of rules than gameplay, resulting in some very awkward and even comical moments in what should be distressing scenes. Because of the interactive nature of games, it’s difficult to avoid these pitfalls. Yet, some games manage to handle it a cut above the rest.

Permanent character death by player action is one way to drive the point home. Of course, not all games can support this variable approach to storytelling, but the ones that do have proved quite effective.

Consider the suicide mission found in Mass Effect 2. Every party member’s life hangs in the balance. A single wrong decision on your part means you have to watch them die. To make things even more panic-inducing, that means you won’t just miss them in the final portion of the game, but also its save-importing sequel, Mass Effect 3. The fact that it can happen to anybody and that it’s your own fault gives it a sense of weight not commonly found in the medium.

But permanent death (or “permadeath“) is controversial. Even Fire Emblem, a series known for its consistent use of this idea for over 20 years finally added the option to turn it off for the first time ever in its Japan-only remake of the series’ Super Famicom debut last year. This decision was not made lightly, however, as an Iwata Asks column revealed it involved four months of heated debate between Nintendo and Intelligent Systems.

Giving the option to remove the feature may have made the game more accessible to beginners, but there’s a reason project manager Masahiro Higuchi stated, “…this would make the game cease to be Fire Emblem.” It’s about more than losing a playable character and a few lines of disposable dialogue.

My own experience in 2005′s Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance showed me that permadeath can change the entire tone of a mission. By keeping Jill (a defected soldier from the enemy side) alive, you’ll eventually come in contact with an enemy general named Shiharam who just so happens to be Jill’s father. Had Jill not been alive and kicking, I wouldn’t have witnessed her emotional turmoil at the situation or the danger of her father convincing her to rejoin the opposing army (yes, that can actually happen if you’re not careful). So the death of Jill, or any Fire Emblem character for that matter, carries not only the weight of losing their personality and strategic advantages, but also potentially missing out on a far more personal context to certain scenarios.

I’m not saying that scripted deaths are never the answer. In fact, the threat of character death by player action can actually enhance the effect of a scripted death. It may sound crazy, but stay with me.

I don’t think I’ve ever felt as down after a scripted death as I have after one featured in SEGA’s tactical gem, Valkyria Chronicles. Don’t worry, I won’t spoil the details. VC’s handling of death was so effective because of the way the game trained my brain beforehand through the aforementioned use of permadeath.

Much like Fire Emblem, every single one of your soldiers in Valkyria Chronicles is a unique character with their own personality, appearance, abilities, and backstory rather than the empty shells you’ll often find in games like Final Fantasy Tactics. As you use a character, their bio will gradually fill in allowing you to get to know them. And to really tug at your heart strings, the game makes excellent use of its visual style if a character dies. With their last breath they say their final words as the watercolor is removed from the scene, leaving only the pencil sketch of their now lifeless body behind.

It’s enough to make you want to save every last soldier in your squad. This teaches you two things: Death is a constant danger and by playing well you can keep all your troops from dying. But the latter is a total lie. At some point the game will remind you that this is a war and not everybody is coming home. This reminder comes in the form of a scripted death that turns your former feeling of control into a sense of powerlessness.

The fragile mortality of your soldiers up to this point makes the scripted event feel all to real. The only difference is that this time, like many things in life, it can’t be prevented. It was at this point I had to stop playing for the night. I needed some time.

Another powerful portrayal of death is found in letting the player control a character’s final moments. While probably not the first game to do it, the earliest example of this I can recall is Final Fantasy VII‘s PSP prequel, Crisis Core. By having the player actually interact with a completely hopeless situation, it portrayed death in a far more effective way than any cutscene could have hoped to. Since then, I’ve still only played a small handful of games that used this method including Naruto SUNS 2 and Halo: Reach (though neither executed it nearly as well).

Games have the ability to approach death in ways that simply aren’t possibly in other mediums. While the examples that take full advantage of this are few and far between, it’s my sincere hope that this will be something that helps set gaming’s narrative capabilities apart in the years to come.

"A Dramatic Recreation of Golfin' for Brains"

On a very special twentieth episode of Barrel Roll, A Video Game Podcast, we are joined by special guest Dalibor “Dali” Dimovski, co-founder of Sidequesting.com to talk about video games and video game related topics.

First and foremost is what we’ve been playing, which ranges from Sega’s new Wii title “Let’s Tap” and “Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance”, to a comparison of the Wii and 360 versions of “Tiger Woods 10″. Which version wins out? The one that is most fun! Also Rhythm Heaven and Mega Man Star Force 3 demos have been played by Jesse.

We are proud to have the new Kirby Krackle single “Ring Capacity” to play for you in the break. For details on how to get your copy of this awesome new song about Green Lantern by the World’s First Comic Book Rock Band, go to their site.

The news is dominated by crazy talk. Nintendo’s Demo Play, Final Fantasy Tactics coming to the PSN, the possibility of a “Day of the Tentacle” sequel and much more.

In everybody’s favorite segment, “Let’s Talk About Stuff”, we have a rousing discussion of Prototype VS InFamous VS Red Faction: Guerrilla. Lucas has played all three and gives us the low down on all three of these groovy hip new open world games.

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"Archer vs. Shark... need I say more?"

Something about commanding units over a miniature landscape in a turn based fashion gets me very excited. In my younger days, I even created multiple tabletop games. I think my earliest attempt involved moving Star Wars action figures around on a paper grid I had spread across the floor. Those basic ideas evolved into a game where both units and customizable elevation were squares of paper placed on a gridded poster board. One of the games I was working on actually used figures made of bakeable clay with their stats carved into the bottom of the base. Yes, I am a nerd.

But when I found that there was a genre of videogames that could do all the math and pleasing aesthetics for me, I was in heaven. Final Fantasy Tactics really helped instill a love for strategy RPGs withing me. From there I moved on to games like Front Mission 3, which gripped me even more. But nothing could prepare me for that fateful day when I would discover Disgaea.

Disgaea is a game that places comedy both in its story and in its gameplay. The game stars Laharl, the prince of the netherworld, whose father is said to have died from choking on a pastry. Laharl, with the remaining vassals that chose to stick around, set out on their mission to reclaim the throne. His enemies will try to use his weaknesses, such as “optimism” and “hot women”, to take him down. The game likes to break the fourth wall a lot, poking fun at the genre in the process. Shortly in the story, one of the characters is given the nickname “Mid-Boss” which then, much to his dismay, is used instead of his real name for the rest of the game.

The chapter progression is pretty straightforward. You always start in your castle which acts as your home base for buying and selling items, going to the hospital, and other between mission activities. After approaching a portal, you will see a list of chapters, each containing a list of single episodes that are unlocked one after the other. Each of these episodes is its own battle map. You can replay any of these episodes as many times as you want, though story segments will only be seen the first time and unique bosses will be replaced with high level enemies. So far, so normal.

A first glance at the start of a battle would make you think of any given SRPG, but this is where that convention ends. You set up all your characters’ movements and actions in a single phase. At any point during this phase, you can choose to execute the actions you’ve set up thus far. You can cancel an action as long as it hasn’t already been executed. This leads to some interesting possibilities. For example, you can have one out-of-range character walk up to a Cleric, have the Cleric execute an action of healing them, then cancel that characters movement and move them somewhere completely different. This is just the beginning.

Another feature on the battlefield is throwing. A character can pick up another character. A third character can pick up the stack of two. I could go on. Once you have thrown somebody, that counts as an action just as attacking would, but it can be a good way to cover a lot of distance really fast. You can also throw enemies, even into each other for some interesting results.

The level cap in Disgaea is 9999. If that wasn’t ridiculous enough for you then it’s time to talk about “transmigration”. After meeting some requirements, a character can choose to go back to level 1 and choose a different job class while they’re at it. The advantage of this is that their “base stats” will be higher. All leveling is based on this. If a level 15 character transmigrates and increases their base stats, by the time they get back to level 15 they will be far more powerful. Transmigration allows for exponential stat increase. To add to this, each job has several better versions, so it’s usually good to wait until you have unlocked the next job in a series to increase your base stats even further. The more enemies that specific unit has killed, the more “mana” they will have. The more mana they spend on their transmigration, the better their inheritance rating for their stats and abilities will be.

Any job class can equip anything. There are 2 systems in place to inhibit your equipment decisions. The first is “weapon proficiency”. The lower your weapon proficiency, the slower the weapon type will level up with use. Leveling up weapon types grants new abilities. The second is “aptitude”. Every stat’s aptitude is a percentage. This directly affects the equipment you use. If your attack aptitude is 100% and you equip a sword with 50 attack power, your character will have 50 more attack points. If your attack aptitude is 50% and you equip the same sword, you would only gain 25 attack points. So even though you CAN give anything to anybody, it’s not necessarily a good idea.

The special abilities all have levels of their own. Much like weapon proficiency, the more you use them, the better they will be. This is especially noticeable with magic attacks. The more you use a specific magic attack, the more area variations there will be to choose from. With each new variation, you will be able to hit more squares at once, but more SP (think MP) will be used. It’s these immediate benefits that make leveling up so incredibly addicting.

Another interesting feature is the “Item World”. The Item World consists of sets of 10 randomly generated maps to be played at a time. These maps exist inside your items. Because of this, you can’t take the item you’re entering with you. For every set of 10 floors that’s cleared, you will level up the item. This isn’t restricted to weapons and armor either. If you want to level up a stick of mint gum, more power to you.

The main story of Disgaea can be beaten in a reasonable amount of time. But there are plenty of things to do after the fact. The game has many endings and a new game+ mode. Even more interesting, though, is the extra maps that can be unlocked with exponentially harder enemies. While the end boss of the main story is only around level 90, there are optional bosses around level 6,000. This is indeed a game you could put a lot of hours into.

I have only shared the tip of the iceberg as far as the level of complexity contained within the game, but a nice thing about Disgaea is that you don’t need to take advantage of every one of its features to enjoy it. You can play it as you would a normal SRPG, or you can be like me and plan out leveling charts on paper. It’s up to you! Either way, if you love strategy and utter insanity, Disgaea just might be the game for you.