History Main / GetOnTheBoat

* ''VideoGame/VandalHearts 2'' has this without the boat. [[spoiler: The last thing to happen before the TimeSkip is the hero, after being forced to kill a possessed [[ReasonableAuthorityFigure Lord Kossimo]], having to jump through a closed window and fall into the river below to avoid being arrested and executed.]]

* ''VideoGame/DivinityOriginalSinII'': Act I ends with your allies capturing the LivingShip the Lady Vengeance to escape [[TheAlcatraz Fort Joy]]. She transports you to the location of each new Act (including via an ExtradimensionalEmergencyExit after Act III), marking a PointOfNoReturn each time. She can also be freely visited throughout Act but the first and contains several useful features.

** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI'' has ferries that serve as boats. In the UpdatedRerelease for the GBA, you fight a BonusBoss on the ferry route in the World of Ruin if certain conditions are met.

* ''VideoGame/WildArms1'' had a lengthy FetchQuest required to convince the merchant ship ''Sweet Candy'' to carry you to where you needed to go. This included the female lead pretending to marry the ship's captain to appease the gods of the sea and fighting off the GoldfishPoopGang. It eventually gets destroyed by a BonusBoss and is ironically fixed for your use by the Captain's rival.

** Thus far, the only main-sequence games in which this is {{averted}} are ''VideoGame/PokemonXAndY'', which has no boats to board or populated islands to visit.

* In ''VideoGame/EarthBound'', you can take a ferry which gets ambushed by [[spoiler:the Kraken]].

** And Mr. Briney's boat serves as Ye Boat for the [[VideoGame/PokemonRubyAndSapphire Hoenn region games]] (requiring first one FetchQuest to access the boat at all, and another to get to what should ostensibly be the ''first'' destination you could reach had it not railroaded you to the plot).

* Being based on an {{RPG}}, ''Anime/{{Pokemon}}'' uses boats for inter-region transport quite a bit, though there's only been one sinking (the episode "Pokémon Shipwreck", naturally). Notably, during most of the Orange Islands arc, the heroes use Ash's young Lapras to travel between destinations.

** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIX'' has a boat where nothing extraordinary happens. It acts just like an airship, only confined to water. In fact it is retrofitted into the party's first GlobalAirship because of how reliable it is. From there it survives all the way to the end of the game (even after your party replaces it with another CoolShip). The trope is initially subverted when the party leaves the first continent originally using underground tunnels. They don't GetOnTheBoat itself until the 3rd disc.

* ''VideoGame/LunarTheSilverStar'': Alex and his friends GetOnTheBoat to Meribia after acquiring a sea chart for a captain who lost it to a reclusive witch. In the original game, Luna doesn't join Alex on the boat, but she does in the [[UpdatedRerelease remake]] ''Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete.''

** The sequel had two GetOnTheBoat arcs -- the first required you to save Piers, who'd been WronglyAccused of thievery, so you could use his boat. The second involved upgrading the boat into the GlobalAirship [[spoiler:once you're reunited with the first game's party. What happened to ''their'' ship is never explained]].

* The entire plot of ''Theatre/PericlesPrinceOfTyre'' revolves around an improbable number of shipwrecks as characters travel from place to place. While not directly related to GetOnTheBoat as a [[VideogameTropes Videogame Trope]], it shows that the device is still OlderThanSteam.

!!Examples

* You have control of the boat in ''VideoGame/BreathOfFireIII'' as well.

* This is a staple of the ''VideoGame/{{Ys}}'' games, though they tend to ''start'' with Adol getting on the boat rather than making it a mid-game rite of passage.

* Common in the ''VideoGame/PhantasyStar'' series, although given the sci-fi fantasy setting the "boat" is as likely to be a hovercraft, ground-based tank or sandcrawler that serves effectively the same purpose, although you still get RandomEncounters.
** In ''VideoGame/PhantasyStarIII'', your [[TransformingMecha cyborg party member Wren]] becomes this when you find the right parts. He can also turn into a submarine, which is only needed to access one undersea dungeon.

* Music/PDQBach's ''The Abduction of Figaro'': At the end of first act of the opera, the protagonists set sail, and immediately their ship is seen sinking in the mother-loving sea.

* ''Webcomic/RPGWorld'' parodied this, as with every other RPG trope.

* ''VideoGame/VandalHearts 2'' has this without the boat. [[spoiler: The last thing to happen before the TimeSkip is the hero, after being forced to kill a possessed [[ReasonableAuthorityFigure Lord Kossimo]], having to jump through a closed window and fall into the river below to avoid being arrested.]]

%%* ''VideoGame/VandalHearts''
* ''VideoGame/VandalHearts 2'' has this without the boat. [[spoiler: The last thing to happen before the TimeSkip is the hero, after being forced to kill a possessed [[ReasonableAuthorityFigure Lord Kossimo]], has to jump through a closed window and fall into the river below to avoid being arrested.]]

* ''VideoGame/VandalHearts 2'' has this without the boat. [[spoiler:The hero, in fact, flings himself through a closed window into the water.]]

** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyX'' had two boats; both of them got to their destination, you explored the inside of the boats instead of having control over them, you couldn't get back on because of the game's linearity, and while the first one was attacked by Sin, the second one was uneventful.
** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyV'' has two as well: one is the pirate ship that Faris uses, which you lose fairly early on. Later there's the fire-powered ship, which is your main mode of transport until you get the GlobalAirship.

* ''VideoGame/RuneScape'' has quite a few fixed boat routes: Al-Kharid or Taverley to Daemonheim. Port Sarim to Karamja, Entrana, or the Void Knight Outpost.[[labelnote:*]]With another boat ride for good measure if you actually want to participate in the Void Knight activity.[[/labelnote]] Port Phasmatys to Braindeath Island, Dragontooth Island, or Mos Le'Harmless. And so on.

* Done in every game in the ''VideoGame/DragonQuest'' series, starting with ''VideoGame/DragonQuestII''. In the first game, the kingdom of Alefgard was [[LawOfCartographicalElegance completely surrounded by water]]. This subversion is [[HandWave transparently justified]] in that the [=DragonLord's=] castle is within seeing distance of your own. You just have to do a ''lot'' of traveling on foot to get there.

* ''[[VideoGame/BaldursGate Baldur's Gate 2]]'' has the player take a ship to the magical asylum of Spellhold. On the way back, the player [[spoiler:has a choice between taking a portal to the Underdark or taking a ship back to the mainland; the ship, however, will be captured by Githyanki and sunk.]]