Press X to Not Die: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

Also known as a Quick Time Event.

Similar to but distinct from [[Action Commands]] (these happen during cutscenes, while those occur during gameplay), and third cousin once removed to [[But Thou Must!]].

 

 

 

{{examples}}

== Action Adventure ==

* ''[[The Bourne Series|The Bourne Conspiracy]]'' randomizes which buttons you need to press each time, to prevent you from just memorizing them. Get even one wrong, and you're usually sent straight to the Mission Failed screen.

*** Or for the smaller enemies, you get to watch Isaac brutally kill them with his bare hands like a frantic, terrified, space mechanic. Worth letting them grab you once just to see it.

* ''[[Prince of Persia]]: Warrior Within'' has button-mashing sequences during the boss fights. You only take some damage when you lose, though... which is good, because [[The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard|winning them with normal human dexterity is provably impossible]].

** The final boss fight against Venom was terrible for this for two reasons. 1. You had to replay the last part of the fight before getting back to it. 2. The button response time was so ridiculous you had to have memorized it, meaning you had to die to it once, resulting in "Y! FUCK! * replay boss* Y! B! FUCK!" etc.

** An even more forgiving version appears in ''[[Spider-Man: Web of Shadows]]'', where they're only used at the very end of boss battles (so you know when to expect them), keep the same sequences, and if you fail, you just restart the button sequence.

** Another unique example is where {{spoiler|The true final boss's Final form has these along with your own as a form of Counter QTE's.}}

* Although God of War has mainly Action Commands, it does occasionally have Quick Time Events as well.

*** A better example of this trope is what happens right after {{spoiler|1=you pretend to surrender. A cutscene begins where Zeus comes down to finish you off, beginning one of the few mid-cutscene QTEs.}}

*** In ''Chains of Olympus'', a QTE is made of {{spoiler|''[[Shoo the Dog|Kratos pushing his daughter away]]'', so that, when it emerged that he could not remain with her or be reunited with her again, he could muster the strength to leave her.}}

** That said, the Wiimote sometimes has trouble registering which direction you're swinging it, especially left or right, which makes some fights (the Shamans in particular) a rough time.

** But nowhere is this more important than with the ''[[Mini Boss]]'' of the level the Shamans appear in, [[Death Blade]]. Failing his prompt results in ''instant death''. And despite what it says on the screen, doing the prompt right as it appears also counts as a failure. You have to use very specific timing.

** ''MUA2'' for WiiS2 uses them for every boss fight.

 

== Adventure ==

** As for the ones that do have penalties, they usually result in the player character's death.

* ''[[Fahrenheit (2005 video game)]]'' is about 75-80% this trope. Irritating if you're one of those that tries to watch the action at the same time as the button prompts.

** However, during the first playthrough, it's absolutely IMPOSSIBLE to see them coming, so a new player will have to continue many, many times. Not to mention the many instances where this overlaps with [[Action Commands]] during bossfights, where it's more like "Press X to avoid being hit [[For Massive Damage]]" - unfortunately, the reaction time on quite a few of them, such as Jeanne's missiles in {{spoiler|Chapter XIV}}, is equally unforgiving, so you will probably fail quite frequently on bosses until you have them all memorized.

** Incidentally, the second cutscene QTE requires you to time a press of the shoot button (under default assignments) to fling a part of a building at a boss. Mistiming or missing the press altogether results in the player being blown up and instant-killed. The shoot button on the Xbox 360? "X".

 

== Fighting ==

* The combat in ''Dragon Ball Z: Ultimate Tenkaichi'' consists almost exclusively of these. There are very few things a player can do to another player that won't start a small minigame.

* Most [[Naruto]] games are victim of this. In the most recent Ultimate Ninja Storm 2, if you're doing a battle that's important to the plot, you will not only just have to press one button. You will have to press one button, mash one button, input a series of buttons, and many more things that involve buttons.

* The very first ''[[Soul Series]]'' game, ''Soul Edge'' had these for endings: if you didn't do...something at a certain point, you'd almost always get a bad ending. The later games didn't do this.

*** Rock's ending cleverly plays with this - arguably, the ending where you ''don't'' press the buttons is "better" than the one where you do.

*** In fact, many characters get a better ending by not inputting the command, making it more of a guessing game at times.

 

== First-Person Shooters ==

** The final level of the game has {{spoiler|Solomon shoot Monte before aiming his handgun at the player}}: if the player misses the QTE then {{spoiler|Solomon fires and kills Blackburn}}, but if the player pulls off the QTE then {{spoiler|it's empty}} and {{spoiler|Blackburn handcuffs Solomon to himself so as to choke him with his own arm wrapped around his neck}}; there's a QTE or two more after that as they brawl on a car before finally succeeding at the last QTE has {{spoiler|Blackburn bashing Solomon unconscious with a brick to the head}}.

* ''[[Zero Punctuation|Clive Barker's]] [[Clive Barker's Jericho|"Clive Barker's Jericho"]] [[Department of Redundancy Department|by Clive Barker]]'' has them, with the tiny black button indicators being almost invisible against [[Real Is Brown|brown environments]].

** Actually, the Xbox360 version has each button being colored the same as (and appearing in the same position relative to the controller layout!) as the corresponding button on the controller, making the colorful buttons very very visible against the mostly brown (with [[Gorn|generous slatherings of red]]) environments.

* ''[[Crysis (series)|Crysis]] 2'' features Quick Time Events in some cutscenes. Fortunately the time window for pressing them is very generous, and the buttons you're required to press always correspond to the actions your character is trying to perform on screen (i.e. pressing the jump button to jump up to a helicopter). Furthermore, due to the way cutscenes are woven into the game, the player is always able to continue looking around with the mouse, so you'll pretty much always have your hands on the controls ready to Press X.

* ''[[Far Cry]] 2'' has a ''literal'' version of this trope. If your health drops below 20%, it will continue to fall until you die, unless you push the "restore health" button, which results in the character patching up a serious wound to bring you back to 40% health. If you don't push the button, or you're continually interrupted while trying to heal, then you die.

* ''[[Modern Warfare]] 1'' had a very annoying recurring 'Press V not to die' (or the right thumbstick/R3 button, for those of you playing the game on consoles) in which you need to melee a dog that is attacking you, but you only get roughly a quarter of a second to press it. Too early, you die, too late, you die. Oh, and did I mention that the default melee button is 'V'; just far enough from WASD to be hard to press without looking. By which time you have died from a dog to the throat.

*** In the mission "Takedown", you have to press the stance button (B on the X360) or else you'll get shot straight in the head while in the passenger seat of the vehicle. There is a good chance you won't know you can even do this the first time around, even with Soap screaming to get down.

*** A similar event happens later on, which uses the trope by name (though paraphrased). When walking through a field, Bouncing Betty mines spring up, the game goes into super-slow-motion, and text appears:

** Similarly, the "Throw back grenade" button, which although '''great''' if you get it right, it was very common to get it wrong and lob the grenade into the nearest wall, whereupon it bounced back at you, eliciting a cry of "[[Oh Crap|Oh]] [[Curse Cut Short|Sh-]]"

** The dogs are coupled with fanatic Japanese soldiers using bayonets instead of biting you in ''[[Call of Duty]]: World at War''. They're actually possibly to consistently defeat without dying, however.

*** The animation for killing them when you're down is a [[Crowning Moment of Awesome]], and you are invisible to other enemies in the mean time, so sometimes... yeah.

** Hell, in the first ''[[Call of Duty]]'' game, this happens during the intro of the Soviet campaign. You are packed in a boat with other Russian soldiers making your way across the Volga River while German planes and artillery attack the boats. You can't move, but you can look around. And you can crouch. And you should, or you'll get hit and killed by a strafing German plane. All before you can even get off the boat.

** Don't forget ''[[Call of Duty: Black Ops|Call of Duty Black Ops]]'', in the level "SOG" an NVA soldier will jump on you and you have to tap the "use" button really fast. If you succeed, you [[Pineapple Surprise|remove the pins from the grenades on his belt and push him away before he explodes]]. Many others too, such as press X (or V in PC) to open parachute, to accelerate the car, etc.

* ''[[F.E.A.R.]] 2'' got some flak for its use of these. Press X to stop an abomination eating your face, press X to wrestle an angry man with a mustache, {{spoiler|press X to avoid death by ghost rape}}.....

* Done occasionally for key moments in ''[[Red Steel]] 2''. Surprisingly, for a Wii game, these tend to eschew motion controls for more conventional "button and a direction" moves.

* Shows up in ''[[Metro 2033 (video game)|Metro 2033]]'', both in-game and during the cutscenes. In-game, it happens when you're about to get mauled by a mutant and need to shove it away and carve it's face off with a big knife. During cutscenes, it's often needed to avoid falling to your death from flooring/ladders collapsing.

 

== Hack and Slash ==

* ''[[Ninja Blade]]'' has a few of these; a mini-boss as early as the second mission pulled out a cutscene that involved one of these about once a minute. In a surprisingly obvious move to reduce frustration, when you actually die in one of these sequences, it rewinds the sequence a bit and gives you an opportunity to retry from there rather than giving you a [[Game Over]].

* The 2012 ''[[Ninja Gaiden]] 3'' game has a lot of quick-time events.

 

== MMORPG ==

 

== Party ==

** It does give you some warning in advance so you know it's not just a cinematic, plus intentionally failing Action Time to get yourself moved is actually a viable strategy.

* <s>A ''lot''</s> The grand majority of ''[[Wario Ware]]'' microgames consist in essence of a single QTE.

 

== Platformers ==

* ''[[Distorted Travesty]]'' has its share of 'PRESS A/X NOT TO DIE!' moments in one level, while parodying the whole idea of quick time events and bashing game makers who use these. The main characters (who are gamers) react as though quick time events are the worst possible thing that could happen in the game, to the point that they put the main adventure on hold in order to kill the source of the events ASAP.

** ''[[Mega Man Battle Network]] 4'', specifically the [[One Game for the Price of Two|Red Sun]] version, had this in the lead-up to the fight against SearchMan; he was in the Undernet, and when you go there to look for him he snipes at you every few seconds. When he takes aim, a crosshair appears over MegaMan, followed by an arrow determining which direction to press to dodge the shot.

* In a series that's been otherwise free of them, ''[[Metroid|Metroid Prime 3: Corruption]]'' introduces one in the form of "Phazon overload," which you have to burn off by frantic mashing of the firing button. Not doing so fast enough earns you a [[Nonstandard Game Over]]. The first and last time it happens, it's a Press A To Not Die; in all other instances it takes the form of an [[Action Command]]. Usually overload works in your favor as it's basically a free Hypermode, but it can be overdone to cruel effect on the hardest difficulty setting.

** In ''Other M'', they adapted this trope for use beyond a specific mechanic like Phazon corruption, instead working it into parts of normal gameplay for the first and, so far, only time in Metroid's history. In other words, being [[Genre Savvy]] won't save you if you fail to mash the control pad when the action slows down.

** In ''Sonic and the Black Knight'', you gain followers (who may give you goodies as well) by pressing the right button/button combinations shown on screen before the meter depletes. Rather arbitrary, but mercifully, screwing up won't kill you, making this more of a "Press X To Make Friends" thing.

** ''[[Sonic Colors]]'' simplifies these to sections where you simply press A a few times (and are told that your button-pressing is [[Memetic Mutation|Good! Great! Awesome! Outstanding! Amazing!]]).

* The first ''[[Dark Cloud]]'' employs a unique version in its mini-boss battles: It warns you ahead of time that you're about to enter a quick-time event, then the buttons you need to press scroll by the bottom of the screen in an interface reminiscent of ''[[Guitar Hero]]'' or ''[[Dance Dance Revolution]]''.

* ''[[Final Fantasy VI]]'' sometimes throws directional choices at you during what looks like a travel cutscene. Failing won't kill you, but it'll stick you with more battles.

* ''[[Final Fantasy VIII]]'' had a couple, too, where you had to move Squall just the right way to get to safety or rescue Rinoa, and it wasn't immediately obvious in either case that you COULD move yourself, much less that you had to. Made particularly frustrating in the one where you have to move Squall to safety; there are two ways to go, and it's not immediately obvious which was the right one. Pick wrong? Game over. Of course, [[Guide Dang It|the official strategy guide clearly states which way to go.]]

* In ''[[Final Fantasy IX]]'', your team splits up into 4 pairs, each headed for different elemental temples. In the one temple you actually get to play (the rest are taken care of automatically), you have to press "X" to get past a trap. It's really easy, and other than the boss, it's the only obstacle in the temple.

** Apart from it being the triangle button, [[Bonus Boss]] Sephiroth applies this horrifyingly literally - his reaction event requires you to press triangle to not end up hit multiple times with [[BFS|seventeen feet of sword]], and he frequently does this ''right after'' [[Oh Crap|Descend, Heartless Angel]], a move that puts Sora on one life with no mana. Miss the triangle? You have to start again.

* ''Mario And Luigi, Bowser's Inside Story'' has two QTEs as well. First is when you fight {{spoiler|the Dark Star}} in Bowser's body, defeating it causes it to do a [[Taking You with Me]] in which you have to Mash A and B so Mario and Luigi escape, {{spoiler|the aforementioned trope is averted because the Dark Star survives as well}}. Second, as your chasing {{spoiler|Dark Bowser up Peach's Castle}}, he pauses to get into a psudeo Beam War with Bowser, using their fire breath. The player has to Mash X to (assumingly) Not Die. Also happens again at the very end just before the final boss fight proper, although that one doesn't require the player's input as it is a stylized entrance to the battle.

 

== Shoot 'em Ups ==

** {{spoiler|On the PC version, you are asked to 'Tilt the Mouse'.}}

** However there are several actual events, like avoiding falling into a very deep or poisoned pit, escaping from a vine, or shaking one of the crazier inmates off you.

** ''Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker'', meanwhile, has quite a few, with only one not rewinding to earlier in the cutscene if a cue is missed. That one being at the end of the (quite lengthy) "Infiltrate the Underground Base" mission, with the reward for success being a keycard for use in the next mission, and the reward for failure being an immediate cut to Snake getting surrounded by the armed guards he's fighting off (which will happen anyways, at the end of the day).

** ''Metal Gear Solid'', ''Metal Gear Solid 2'' and ''Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker'' also have these [[Incredibly Lame Pun|done horribly wrong]]; as in, [[Button Mashing|Mash]] X Until Your Fingers Fall Off To Not Die. At least ''MGS1'' gave an opt-out {{spoiler|leading to an [[Multiple Endings|alternate ending]]}}.

*** Also in 4, several cutscenes had L1 or X pop up in the corners of the screen for an optional Snake's eye view or Flashback sequence. Not a QTE in the Press X to Not Die sense, but close enough.

*** Same in 3, pressing R1 on opportune moments switched to Snake's POV, which could then be moved around. This was used a few times to help advance gameplay ( {{spoiler|The Sorrow gives you the opening code for the cell during the torture scene R1 section}}) but it's best reserved to admiring [[Absolute Cleavage|EVA's]] physique as the default viewpoint in her introduction.

 

== Survival Horror ==

* ''[[House of the Dead]] 4'' has countless "shake the gun to not die" moments.

* ''[[Resident Evil]] [[Resident Evil 4|4]]'' is chock full of them, often resulting in player death if you don't pull it off in time. It may be the [[Trope Codifier]], as the game's success led to an explosion in QTE's among other games. While many previous games used this trope, RE4 arguably had the most memorable and cinematic uses up to that point in time. It also included [[Cutscene Boss|an entire fight/ informative cutscene]] that consisted of nothing but QTE's. Luckily for people who dislike QTE's, you get to fight the enemy in question later on in a more conventional way.

* ''[[Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles|The Umbrella Chronicles]]'' and ''[[Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles|The Darkside Chronicles]]'' have QTEs. Cutscenes that have a QTE start with a quick white fade-in and play a tense theme when the danger you have to avoid appears. They also are used in boss battles to dodge an incoming attack.

* In ''[[Silent Hill Origins]]'', almost all of the monsters have a special attack that does [[For Massive Damage|extra harm]] to Travis should you mess up the quick time event. It's only instantly fatal in the case of one enemy (the Ariels, when they hang from the ceiling), but it's still annoying.

 

* ''[[Gears of War]] 2'' multiplayer. If you have a lancer and an enemy tries to chainsaw you from the front, and you do not ''immediately'' begin hammering Y, X, B, or A, you will die. Often you'll die anyways - it's usually a question of who starts hammering first, and since you need to use your finger rather than your thumb to get maximum speed, this is often a tricky situation.

* ''[[Lost Planet]] 2'' has three instances of this. Interestingly, you have to die at least '''FOUR''' times for [[One Hundred Percent Completion|100%]].

* ''[[Mass Effect 2]]'' has an interesting subversion of this where the X that you need to press causes Shepard to perform actions that affect his/her [[Karma Meter|karma]] rather than killing him/her. They are also up on the screen longer to allow some thought to be put into it. Not that it matters for most gamers. Since you get [[No Points for Neutrality]], they'll hammer it the instant it comes up. It's basically [[Video Game Cruelty Potential|Press X To Be A Jerk Ass]] or [[Video Game Caring Potential|Press X To Be A Nice Guy]].

*** Subverted when {{spoiler|Tali commits suicide}} and a paragon interrupt pops up to save her. Even if you make it, she still dies.

** It also has a literal example of this trope in the multiplayer. When incapacitated but not dead, a downed player must tap a button to keep themselves alive before the associated timer ends.

 

== Other ==

* The ''[[Mighty Morphin Power Rangers]]'' game on the Sega CD was constructed around the trope. All you did in the game was tap the buttons on the screen while watching a random mishmash of action scenes from the series in the background.

* Despite ''[[Shenmue]]'' being ''[[Trope Codifier|the origin]]'' of the term "Quick Time Event", there was one notable [[Inverted Trope|inversion]] in ''Shenmue II''. A barber tried to intimidate the player character into making a wrong move by holding a razor to his neck during what looked like a routine haircut. If the player followed the normal Quick Time Event prompt, the scene ended in failure; the trick was to ''[[Just Ignore It|ignore]]'' [[Just Ignore It|the button prompt]] and [[Press X to Die|not press anything.]]

* The Wii version of ''[[Pirates of the Caribbean]]'', being a [[The Problem with Licensed Games|licensed game]], is fairly awful, and includes a lot of these. The required ones, fortunately, just start again if you miss a button (or Wiimote waggle), but lots of sidequest ones become [[Lost Forever]] if failed.

* This appears in the licensed game for the 2007 ''[[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles]]'' film. Losing all your health results in your character falling on one knee. Here you have to repeatedly hit the button that shows up onscreen to save him. If you're playing in a level where the Turtle is solo, this helps him slowly get back up - once he does, his health is restored. If it's a level where the other Turtles are in reserve, one appears when your Turtle falls and starts to help him up. Once successful, he replaces the injured Turtle in battle. Doing nothing in either case causes the afflicted Turtle to collapse and die, to reappear at the last checkpoint.

** Interestingly, there is a point in the game where your character is ''supposed'' to be knocked out, for plot purposes. He falls and you get the cue to button-mash, but he collapses anyway and the screen fades to black for some relevant voice-overs.

* In the ''[[Jurassic Park]]'' mini-game in ''Universal Studios Theme Park Adventures'', the player gets to shoot at a T-Rex! When the dinosaur gives up, a small cutscene will play with the driver having a hard time passing through some rough terrain. Then, all of the sudden, a huge (L) or (R) appears on-screen. If you don't press the button at the right time (which seems to be 1 frame long), you'll merely stay momentarily incapacitated.

* Quite a few laserdisc games are built around this. ''[[Dragon's Lair]]'' (both of them, as mentioned above), Space Ace, Road Blaster, [[Super Don Quixote]], [[Badlands]]'', and ''Esh's Aurunmilla'' all fall under this, with Road Blaster being the only one to actually require you to aim at times.

* ''[[Sewer Shark]]'' on the Sega CD has one of the most patently unfair examples: In one cutscene your player character commands you to fire your gatling gun...and the game expects you to hit the fire button exactly then, with no button prompt or any other indication for actual interactivity. And if you don't fire on his mark, it's an instant Game Over and you have to start all over.

 

* The picture caption wasn't the only time [http://www.cracked.com/article_16196_the-7-commandments-all-video-games-should-obey_p3.html Cracked.com addressed this issue.]

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Older Than the NES]]

[[Category:Video Game Tropes]]