I was just reminded of an odd circumstance, where one can achieve what is supposed to be a victory condition, but still lose.

Take Chrono Trigger on the SNES. There's a minigame involving kicking back little baddies while hitting a button on occasion to avoid your friend getting made extra crispy.

Under the right circumstances, you can knock back all the baddies out of the room which is the win condition, but still lose because the circumstances of the timing left you with not enough time to actually claim the victory.

Another such circumstance I recall is during the Warioware games, where after clearing a microgame, there were often ways which you could lose, such as hurling yourself offscreen.

I'm sure there's other games and stories, and I'd like to hear about them.

Double kills in many action games.

For example, in Mega Man 1, when you kill a boss, you are frozen in place for a moment, but enemy projectiles are still active and can hurt you.. I believe this happens in some of the Touhou games as well. Hence, it is possible to kill the boss, but die anyway, at which point you lose a life and have to try again. (Incidentally, in the Wily Wars version of MM1, it is no longer possible to lose after killing the boss.)

In Mega Man 2, in the Wily Stage 1 boss fight, it is quite possible to fall off and die after landing the final blow on the boss; that counts as a failure, again.

I remember this happening to me in Shovel Knight, but the game let me proceed as though I had won the battle.

Also, in Sonic Mania, there is (or at least was) a bug with the Chemical Plant Act 2 boss; even after winning, the game could still kill or softlock you.

Yeah, that's what I'm looking for, and not desperation/last breath attacks that just happen to knock your block off. Thanks!

Reminds me of the final fight in Baldur's Gate 2 - Throne of Bhaal. Friend of mine actually died some split seconds after the boss fell (party wipe...). The game actually crashed after showing the first epilogue screen. He was devastated, but we did the fight again and even had most of the party alive and got the proper ending. Took us all night...

Man, that sounds like an uphill climb. Glad you guys still had the resolve to still clear it.

Prince of Persia Warrior Within - went through a difficult sequence only to get to the end and kill the final enemy in a way that sent me careening off the edge to my death right before I could save. -_-;

chess. you either do a checkmate and win, or don't in which case it's a draw.

Age of Empires 3 a couple of days ago: you are supposed to destroy a certain command post (building) before the timer runs out. I destroyed it at the exact time the timer ran out: I could see that building crumbling down, destroyed, yet the protagonist started complaining how we didn't manage to destroy the enemy building (in time).

Anyway, didn't matter much, just reloaded an earlier savegame and just were a bit faster that time.

Not quite as accidental or bug-like as other exemples, but I'm amongst those who defeated the evil baddie in Wastelands without managing to escape its exploding lair in time. Well played, jamed bond. Anyway, party wiped, good ending but bad ending, and, due to Wasteland's save system, no second chance. I would have had to replay the whole game from the start to get a better ending (and maybe some post-end free roaming, not sure).

Actually, in all seriousness, there is a situation that can arise in chess. You're winning, it's the opponent's turn, and the opponent isn't in check. However, your opponent has no legal move due to the rule that any otherwise legal move would put them in check. Even though you might be so close to winning, and your opponent is out of moves, the game is still considered to be a draw.

(If one changed the rules so that moving into check were not forbidden, then the same situation would likely be considered a win, unless you don't update the checkmate rule to account for this.)

One other weird example, though a bit different than the ones mentioned before: In Final Fantasy 5, there is one special battle where the game keeps you from dying; even if you reach 0 HP, you remain alive. However, it turns out that you can lose the fight if you somehow die without taking damage; for example, if you use an ability that makes you explode. Turns out that the game still lets you continue, and that this is in fact a good strategy if you are speedrunning the game (saves time by skipping the fight), or if you just don't feel like sitting through this fight (it's in the middle of a lengthy (for that game) cutscene segment and after a real boss fight).

I think that's what timmy010 meant.

Also it's what happened to me two days ago, in WH40k Regicide.

My most memorable time was the second time I beat the end boss in the original Spelunky. A door appears which you go through to win the game. I accidentally selected a bomb from my inventory so I tried to deselect it but accidentally lit the fuse instead. So I tried to throw the bomb but accidentally glued it to myself instead. So I just quickly went into the door, and just as the whole "congratulations, you win" sequence was starting there was an explosion. Turns out it didn't end up counting as a win :p

Hah! Classic. Spelunky Classic is rife with that kind of serendipity. Those timers which count in microunits instead of proper timing intervals are always interestingly bad.

Well, there is the Kaizo trap made famous by a certain Super Mario World romhack. Basically, what happens is that, when you reach the goal of a level, Mario will do a victory animation in which he walks forward and then exits the level. However, if the level designer put a pit or lava there, you will die.

Now, it's one thing if that trap is put in by the developers, but it is also possible for it to happen by accident. For example, if you hit the goal from below (possible in some levels), you could end up falling to your doom.

In classic Sonic the Hedgehog games, if you lure an enemy to the end of the level, it is possible to be hit and killed after you have hit the sign post. At this point, you die, lose a life, and (except in Sonic 1) the score countdown will stop.

Notice the "except in Sonic 1" bit? Well, if you are playing Sonic the Hedgehog 1, the score countdown will continue. If you just lost your last life, "GAME OVER" will appear glitched during the score countdown, and there might be enough time for the score countdown to finish before the game takes you back to the title or continue screen; if this happens, the game will let you continue to the next level anyway. Note that you will have 0 lives, and if you die, the lives counter (an 8-bit unsigned integer) will underflow and become 255.

Incidentally, that reminds me of another situation that can happen in the original Super Mario Bros. (and in SMB2 Japan). Since your lives are represented as an 8-bit signed integer, if you manage to get 128 or more lives, the lives counter will become negative; if you then die, you will game over despite having gained a huge number of 1-ups. Oops!