Permanently Missable Content in Action-Adventure.
- ANNO: Mutationem: The rooftops of Noctis City are a One-Time Dungeon, so any item container left behind won't obtainable until New Game Plus. There are also various NPCs holding unique conversations that'll be permanently missable after progressing past certain points.
- Beyond Good & Evil:
- The final animal that you need to photograph is a Space Whale hidden in an asteroid you need to shoot while on your way from Hillys to the moon. If you get to the moon without destroying the asteroid and photographing the space whale, you lose the photo of the space whale forever, because your space engine stops working once you reach the moon.
- The Sarcophagus DomZ are fought exactly four times during the course of the game, and they don't respawn. The first time is in the intro, before you even have a camera. If you miss them the second and third times they spawn, they still appear once more — but only during the final boss battle. Which you can't save after (there's no Playable Epilogue), so the cool prize you get for getting all the animals (a catalogue of all your animal photographs) is totally useless.
- If you don't get Pey'j's boots while in the factory, you have no way of knowing the code on the boot's underside that gives you access to the secret spaceship Pey'j built with Jade's father. Without it you have no way of getting to the moon, and thus cannot fight the final boss or complete the game.
- In Brave Fencer Musashi, a longevity berry can be missed if you didn't talk to the mayor after saving Steamwood. You won't receive the berry from the mayor after Chapter 2 preventing you from getting max hp.
- Castlevania series:
- Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow has the Chaos Ring, which increases your MP regeneration rate so much that it effectively gives you unlimited magic. To get it, you need to possess every soul in the game, including one-of-a-kind boss souls. This wouldn't be so bad (as said bosses are guaranteed to drop their souls), but if you use these unique souls to synthesize more powerful weapons, the Chaos Ring cannot be collected. Thank God for New Game Plus (synthesize for the weapon(s), or get the ring first before the weapons)...
- The same ring is a pain in Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow, but for a different reason. You can't miss a boss soul in Dawn, but in Aria, there's exactly one you can miss — and it's easy to do. You must destroy Legion's entire shell before killing him if you want his soul. Again, New Game Plus is your best recourse if you miss it.
- Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin has the same item, and the same problem. To get the ring, you must complete all of Eric's quests. However, many of them require you to gather specific items of which there are only one in the game. Thankfully, there is a new game + option. There's also the ability to buy items from other players via Wifi. It's telling that you are more likely to find a store selling thick glasses, amanita mushrooms and nun's clothing than a store selling the best weapons and armor in the game.
- Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia maintains the dubious tradition! This time you're collecting glyphs (basically the same as souls), and two of them come from bosses. The Globus glyph can be grabbed from a regular enemy later, but if you fail to grab Acerbatus in the battle with Albus, you'll never get another shot.
- In Circle of the Moon, there's a secret item crush accessed by using the DSS technique with no subweapon equipped and at least 100 Hearts in reserve. Since you can't unequip subweapons after the first time you pick one up, this technique is easily lost forever. Combined with the other requirements, it's also Awesome, but Impractical.
- Symphony of the Night:
- Richter Belmont has an obscure Item Crush ability that can only be used while he has no sub-weapon which covers his whip in flames. He had the same Item Crush in the previous game, Rondo of Blood, but unlike that title, there is no way to drop a sub-weapon in Symphony due to the RPG-like nature of the game. (One death and it's Game Over.) Fortunately, it's not nearly as great as the Rondo version this time around, so there's no real reason to keep it, especially since the sub-weapon Item Crushes are much more useful.
- A few bestiary entries are permanently missable: The bestiary entry for the Mudman, if you kill the Lesser Demon (boss) without waiting for him to summon a Mudman. While the Lesser Demon becomes a Degraded Boss later on, those only summon more Lesser Demons and nothing else.
- Richter's entry, if you save him without hitting him at least once.
- On a lesser scale, the Wargs are only present at the start of the game, and vanish forever from the area later. They're extremely hard to miss, though.
- Cave Story contains numerous easily missable one-shots, many of which are required in order to reach the secret hell level, which leads to the game's best ending. The worst of these moments: if you don't search the corners of a certain room before triggering a cutscene, or search it after the boss fight and before your air supply runs out, the tow rope, Curly Brace and the ability to obtain the best ending are lost forever in one fell swoop. You'd naturally assume that you would want to save Professor Booster when he falls to the bottom of a pit in the Labyrinth. However, if you do that, two items necessary to get the best ending (and one necessary to save Curly's life) are lost. Also, a little bit after that, there's a rest point that can easily be missed, as you are flying past it in a high-pressure stream of water. Even if you followed all of the other steps, if you don't go into that room, sleep in the bed, read the computer monitor, read the bookshelf, read the computer monitor again, talk to Curly, then talk to her again and choose to take her with you, she will die and you'll miss out on the best ending. Cave Story 3D extended the ledge you need to jump on to make it to the Cabin, however, so it's easier to reach. However, it only gets worse from here: you need to find a hole in the ground in one of the last levels (however, you do need to move past it to advance at one point), and you find out about a mushroom that cures amnesia. To find said mushroom, you have to remember a door near the very beginning of the game that's very possible to look over completely, go through a somewhat confusing questionnaire, make sure the thing you just got is useless, and then you have to fight the mushroom you feed to Curly to cure her amnesia. After you feed it to her, you have to talk to her so that she'll give you the Iron Bond. Then, once you beat the Undead Core, as you flee the falling island, you have to enter the shed that, in all other scenarios, would be locked, and then jump down the pit in the floor. Better hope you saved.
- Harry Potter:
- The PS version of Philosopher's Stone is downright brutal to anyone trying to get 100% completion. Certain wizard cards can only be obtained by getting a perfect score on a certain minigame. But you have to try again and again until you get the card, without stopping, or else the door locks itself as you exit. So much for that card, eh? Luckily, the PS version of Chamber of Secrets averts this entirely by letting you go back to places once you lose access to them. But in the case of the Knockback Jinx upgrade in Chamber of Secrets, it can only be obtained near the end of the game, but go too far and it's lost forever, AND you can't get 100% completion. Ironically, when you get the upgrade, a speech glitch occurs.
- This is also true of the PC version of Philosopher's Stone; treasure chests containing certain cards or other items are available only at certain times and cannot be recovered later. This version of the game primarily had this as a symptom of its extreme linearity; the game progressed one-way in levels, and you couldn't go back to previous levels (in many cases, you couldn't even go back one room within the same level) leaving absolutely no margin for error regarding things like house points or wizard cards. The cards you care about; the points don't even do anything in-game (finishing with fewer points than Slytherin and they'd end up being disqualified). Chamber of Secrets was much more forgiving in this regard, as it allowed you to replay any spell challenges for more house points or to obtain wizard cards, and essentially had much of the game take place in a massive hub, where most wizard cards were in the hub itself. Quidditch matches were also replayable to increase house points gained, and any time you went through an area you couldn't go back to, any wizard cards you missed went into shopkeeper circulation, allowing you to purchase them at your leisure.
- Hollow Knight: Nothing necessary for 100% Completion can be missed, but some minor interactions certainly can.
- When you first encounter Zote the Mighty, he's in the process of being chewed on by the Vengefly King. If you don't save him prior to obtaining the Mantis Claw, he will die, and you'll miss out on all later interactions with him, plus the Grey Prince Zote boss fight.
- Millibelle's Bank is only available until you deposit 2500 geo, upon which she steals the money and runs away to the City of Tears. You can get your money back by finding her and smacking her around, but the bank remains gone.
- The Lifeblood Room in the Abyss can only be entered to retrieve the Lifeblood Core within. There's also an Arcane Egg, but if you don't grab it before the charm, it's lost forever.
- You can only interact with some NPCs before certain checkpoints, after which they are overcome with the Infection. Myla will become infected after the player finds the Crystal Heart, and the Mossy Vagabonds will die to the infection after the Infected Crossroads are triggered.
- Grimmchild and Carefree Melody are mutually exclusive, as they are each earned by completing one of the two endings for the Grimm Troupe DLC.
- The Kingsoul charm will be permanently lost upon completion of the Birthplace area, as it will transform into the Void Heart.
- The cutscene in the City of Tears with Hornet in Fountain Square is missable if you kill a Dreamer or visit the rooms outside the Sentinal Hornet and Markoth fights. This is easy to do as players can go to Deepnest and/or Crystal Peaks and explore there before even going near the Fountain Square. Many players have even stated they never saw this cutscene while playing.
- The Qurriel encounters can be missed if the Knight does certain actions to cause him to move to a different place. The most commonly missed encounter is when Qurriel is in the Fungal Wastes near the Mantis Village. He only spawns there after you go into the room with the Mantis Lords and go back out of it. He leaves if the Knight goes to Deepnest, the City of Tears, or defeats the Mantis Lords. Considering the first thing most players would do is fight the Mantis Lords, this encounter is more often than not missed.
- Nightmare King Grimm's entry in the Hunter's Journal can be missed if you decide to banish the Grimm Troupe. Fighting him in Godhome won't unlock the entry. This isn't that big of a problem since it isn't required for the Hunter's Mark or the achievement.
- You cannot access the first ending (Hollow Knight) after you have the Void Heart, as the final stage of the Final Boss fight is replaced by the sequence of events that lead into the second and third endings. Both the first and the second endings count for the same achievement and menu skin unlock, so it is still possible to get all ending-related achievements on one save file.
- Meeting the requirement for the "Delicate Flower" ending prevents accessing the "Embrace the Void" ending. Both of those endings give the same achievement and unlock the same menu skin, so no rewards are missed aside from the different cutscene.
- Not only can you not revisit the first two continents of Illusion of Gaia after you've left them, but you can miss some of the collectible red gems just by mildly progressing through the game a few steps — they just aren't there any more!
- Also, one of the red jewels is accessible only in the first town, which isn't that bad except that it's randomly generated, and even then, still hidden making it a pain to find. If you're lucky, you may only have to enter and leave the seaside cave where you meet your friends a few times. Often, however, you have to do it close to 100 times before the fisherman appears at the other end of the dock with the bottle (containing the Red Jewel). The game comes with a walkthrough, but it doesn't specify that this is random — if he doesn't spawn in the right place, you'd likely assume that you already missed your chance.
- And this doesn't even begin to describe the rare and easy-to-miss herbs. There are only a small number of them in the whole game, and you naturally use them when you get low on health. Don't. You'll need them to fight the Superboss.
- La-Mulana:
- You are given only one shot at obtaining either of the two whip upgrades. The upgrade in the Inferno Cavern can be sealed off by two rising stone pillars, and the entrance to the upgrade in the Tower of the Goddess permanently seals off behind you once you enter it. Additionally, the penultimate area, the Shrine of the Mother, will disappear forever along with any items you missed in there (most notably the final life upgrade) after all eight bosses are defeated.
- The Life Jewel in the Dimensional Corridor can be easily made not Lost Forever, but difficult to get to if you defeated the miniboss before you went up to the Life Jewel's location. It's possible, but very difficult to do, to get it after killing the miniboss, but it requires using the knockback from the enemies. Also, the Angel Shield (in the Dimensional Corridor, again) can be lost forever if you only have 1-2 minibosses left.
- Hell Temple is also permanently sealed off if you screw up the unlocking process, which is quite easy to do. Given the general nature of Hell Temple, though, this is probably something of an act of mercy.
- Averted in the WiiWare remake. There is one NPC in the game who can reset some of the puzzles if you screw them up after you beat the boss of the Dimensional Corridor.
- The game's "normal mode" is forever lost if you read the "don't read this tablet again" tablet in the Mausoleum of the Giants twice, which permanently triggers hard mode.
- The Legend of Zelda games are by and large aversions of this trope — series creator Shigeru Miyamoto has actually said in an interview that he always tries to avoid Permanently Missable Content and Unwinnable scenarios in his games. The following games have exceptions, however:
- In the original The Legend of Zelda, a couple of old men would give you your choice of either a Heart Container or a Red Potion. If you choose the Potion, the Heart Container becomes Lost Forever. Similarly, the Nintendo Hard second quest has rooms in certain dungeons that require you to leave 50 Rupees or one of your Heart Containers to proceed. If you don't have the cash, one of your Hearts is gone for good.
- Zelda II: The Adventure of Link: There are some experience bags and a one-up doll that can be missed because they're in palaces, which become inaccessible after you collect the palace's item, defeat its boss, and restore its crystal (which causes the palace to crumble). Additionally, these goodies only appear once; once you've collected them, they won't appear again unless you revert to an earlier save file. However, not possible with dungeon items, despite multiple rumors.
- The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past: The compass and map found in the dungeons can be passed up rather easily. With all of the main dungeons, a completionist can come back to claim them even after defeating the boss of the dungeon (even though they only have any kind of effect in that dungeon). However, for some reason, the doors to Hyrule Castle will permanently lock themselves up at a certain point, sealing the mapnote therein away forever. If you reenter the sewer section using the headstone in the far upper left corner of the graveyard in an attempt to check whether or not you have them it doesn't even show that you have the big key, a required item. So on top of being potentially lost forever, you may never know if you've got it.
- The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening:
- The DX version on the Game Boy Color has 12 photos to collect throughout the game. Three of these are during the short time that you are with Marin. Go to the cliff face at the extreme lower left grid space on the map for one, fall down the well 5 spaces above that space, and go to the Rooster statue in town. There is also another missable photo where you need to approach a gate to a castle (from the outside) after you start the quest to invade that castle but before you finish the quest, since the gate is opened by a switch so the photo is gone. (If you complete the quest without opening the gate, it is still lost forever because the NPC will not check on your "progress" due to it already being over.) There is also a cave not far from the castle that is only visitable with the flying rooster, which will leave you after it's no longer quest-important.
- If you steal from the shop in Mabe Village, aside from getting killed by the shopkeeper if you come back, your name gets lost forever; the game renames you to "THIEF". Furthermore, while dying to the shopkeeper will let you re-enter the shop after dying, this will lock you out of the extended ending since it requires zero deaths. You need both the shovel and the bow, which are found only in the shop, so if you steal one without having bought the other you can't get it. Oh, and one of the photos added in DX is of you sneaking past the shopkeeper, which means you have to steal something (thus losing your name) if you want a full photo album.
- A Moblin in a cave by the beach will swap any item of your choice with his boomerang. If you give him an item which you can later re-acquire (such as your shield, bombs or Magic Dust) you will be one slot short, meaning you'll have to permanently give up on one of your items to finish the game. This is no longer the case in the Nintendo Switch remake where each item has its own item slot, including the Boomerang, as well as you being able to repurchase the traded item from the Moblin.
- The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time has a few glitches that render some content permanently missable under certain circumstances:
- Due to a programming error involving Event Flags, once you've acquired the Poacher's Saw in adult Link's Chain of Deals trading sequence, a Deku Nut carrying capacity upgrade available as child Link in the Lost Woods will become permanently unobtainable if you haven't gotten it yet. Since going for the Biggoron Sword is the first thing many savvy players do upon becoming adult Link, this made 100% Completion impossible for many. This glitch is fixed in the Nintendo 3DS remake.
- It is also possible to render the Piece of Heart obtained by Dampé's "Heart-Pounding Gravedigging Tour" minigame permanently lost if the player leaves the Graveyard without grabbing it after Dampé digs it up.
- The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask: Before reaching the Clock Tower you'll come across a treasure chest that contains 10 Deku Nuts. While this is extremely minor, it is the only thing in the entire game (minus Rupees) due to the game's time travel mechanic being introduced after this.
- The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker: Although the game doesn't have any material permanently missable items, if you want to achieve 100% Completion on your figurine collection, you need to take a pictograph of everyone alive within the game; enemy, ally, NPC and boss alike. This is alleviated somewhat by the New Game Plus and the Boss Rush near Ganon's Tower near the end of the game, but it's difficult to get a photo op of certain subjects (like a random Rito NPC that inexplicably disappears after a plot event), so they can eventually become Lost Forever anyway. The Video Game Remake for Wii U averted this for a while thanks to Miiverse, from which you could receive pictographs (from players worldwide) of the missable targets; but in late 2017, Miiverse itself was shut down.
- The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap:
- The game has the Light Arrows, which can only be found if the player "kinfuses" with a seemingly random, arbitrary person to unlock a teleporter that leads to a location later in the game, where they must save an NPC named Gregal from an evil spirit by using the Gust Jar, who will then give you the arrows once he has fully recovered much later in the game. Otherwise, by the time you can reach said location normally, Gregal is dead and the item is lost. There are also a handful of kinfusions that are lost if you progress too far into the game. Especially irksome since some of them become unavailable as a result of other kinfusions, meaning they have to be done in the right order too.
- When the player fuses kinstones with Eenie, the Goron seen in Lon Lon Ranch that was digging a wall will have enough strength to access the Goron Cave. Later on in the game, Link can find caves dedicated to the Mole Mitts. Certain caves have walls that have kinstone fusions, which can cause more Gorons to show up. If the player finds all 6, they can get an Empty Bottle. If the player beats the game, they can fuse kinstones with one of the Gorons to make Biggoron appear, which can eventually lead to you getting the Mirror Shield. Due to a glitch in the European version, should said player ask to fuse kinstones but cancel it afterward, Eenie will never fuse with you again, causing you to lose everything in this quest.
- The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess:
- You must collect the wooden Ordon Shield before Midna will take you back into the Twilight-covered Faron Woods. Should the shield get burned up by fire, you can only replace it with the plain Wooden Shield from shops, which is functionally identical but lacks the Ordon Shield's unique goat-horns design.
- Two of Oocco's letters can be accidentally skipped if, respectively, you use the warp feature in the first dungeon, and you don't use it before completing the sixth one.
- The final Hidden Skill (The Great Spin Attack)—even though this is zig-zagged in the context that you have to actively choose to decline this skill. Upon rejecting this skill, the Hero's Shade will start spazzing out on you before he eventually ejects you from his realm. After which you will never again be able to interact with either the Golden Wolf (who has vanished) or that specific Howling Stone for the remainder of the game.
- The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword has minor examples in the form of Silver Rupees (worth 100 Green Rupees each, though there's plenty of ways to earn cash):
- There are 3 Silver Rupees hidden within the "nostrils" of the shark-shaped Pirate Stronghold, which require the Beetle to reach. However, once you complete the stronghold and open up its mouth, the nostrils will have moved much higher up and be out of the Beetle's range, meaning that you will never be able to reach the Rupees anytime after that point.
- In the room in Sky Keep based on Fire Sanctuary, there's a Silver Rupee in an alcove near the room's upper level, also requiring the Beetle to reach. You can't return to Sky Keep once finishing it, so the loot is lost if you don't grab it while exploring.
- The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild:
- You can use a Link amiibo to summon Epona into the game as a mount. However, like every other horse in the game, she can be killed in combat. While horses can be revived by the Great Horse Fairy, you can only bring back horses that you've registered at the stables, so if you summon Epona and let her get killed before registering her at the stable, you won't be able to use her at all for the rest of that playthrough.
- Another two examples are the Kite Shield and Forest Dweller's Sword. These aren't one offs, but they're found in only two or three non-respawning chests in the entire game, so losing or breaking all of them will make it impossible for you to find/keep another one.
- There is a feature where enemies will eventually upgrade to stronger versions of themselves when you kill them enough times. Because their equipment also upgrades, it's possible to lose out on certain weapons to fill out the Compendium, particularly with the Lynels, whose equipment is unique to them. Thankfully, you can buy any missing images for your Compendium from an NPC; you are only missing out on the chance to use or take photos of those weapons yourself.
- You can also permanently lose the Thunder Helm
and Champion's Tunic by having a full armor inventory when you speak to Riju or Impa respectively. For other non-sellable armour pieces (like the Zora Armour and Zora Greaves), the Non-Player Characters who give it to you have special dialogue that tells you to come back once your inventory is freed up. Granted, it's pretty hard to max out your armor inventory and requires buying certain pieces multiple times, but this means an unlucky or particularly dye/toys/amiibo obsessed player could lose either or both of these before realizing they're meant to be mandatory collectibles. Made a bit worse with the addition of DLC/amiibo armour pieces. The full armour inventory is two slots shy of being able to hold one copy of every armour piece in the game, so the player needs to choose two pieces to forgo.
- In The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Kilton runs a new service where any photos of monsters can be used to create statues. Photos that are in the Compendium but not the album don't count; while most bosses can be refought, one of them can only be fought four times (Master Kohga) while three can only be fought once (Moragia, Sludge Like, and the Seized Construct). If the player doesn't take a picture of them or deletes said picture from the album, they can no longer obtain that boss's statue.
- Metroid:
- Metroid Prime Trilogy:
- Metroid Prime: Many of the scans in the game become unavailable after a certain point. The two most notable examples are anything on the wrecked ship at the game's beginning, and the Ice Shriekbats (fixed in the PAL version), the one type of enemy that doesn't respawn (and that has the tendency to kamikaze into you, just to raise the frustration factor). In addition, all bosses must be scanned during the fight — you won't get the chance again. That said, the Hard level allows some missable enemies to be found in other places other than their original rooms (from which they vanish after a certain point).
- Metroid Prime 2: Echoes continues this dubious tradition. A particularly nasty scan is the Ing Webtrap, a special door lock that appears during only one fight; you have to take your attention off the enemy to even notice it. Also, the major bosses all have multiple scans; Chykka, Quadraxis, and Emperor Ing have five missable scans in their battles. Even Samus's ship is a missable scan — the scan data changes as repairs progress.
- Metroid Prime 3: Corruption changes none of this. And hey, look! Another limited-scan Shriekbat! At least that game allows you to carry over your scans into a New Game Plus so you have another shot. There's also your three fellow bounty hunters (before they get corrupted, that is). You get a total of two attempts at scanning Ghor, and a single shot at scanning the other two. Naturally, the only time you can scan all three other hunters at the same time is during the first Timed Mission, and if you flub this chance, then your options are to either reload your game or soldier on through for the next playthrough. Last, but far from least, there are also missable scans on the final planet. The fun part: You take damage over time, so if you play on harder settings and are struggling as is, you don't really have the time to scan everything.
- Metroid Prime: Hunters there is a type of voldrum that is missable. It only shows up in one room, and is the only type of voldrum that does not respawn when you reenter the room. There's also the fact that it looks almost exactly the same as every other voldrum in the game.
- The three console games feature the ability to keep your logs with the New Game Plus in the eponymous compilation on the Wii, easing considerably the frustration over losing accidentally any ephemeral lore or creature.
- Metroid: Other M keeps this trope running in the franchise. At one point in Sector 2, there is an area with a Missile Tank, which is behind a pillar. Unless you have a guide, chances are you'll miss it. Wouldn't be so bad except that the area suddenly succumbs to an avalanche after you solve the puzzle. This avalanche covers the entire area and you can never go back and get the items you missed, even after you beat the game. In at least some versions of the game, this is addressed. Going into the avalanche-ruined room and looking up in first-person mode in the postgame will reveal a grapple buoy that can be used to get up to the missed missile tank. Naturally, there's no indication to look up at all.
- Metroid Prime Trilogy:
- Ōkami
- In order to achieve 100% Completion, you must find and feed every animal (or cluster thereof) in Nippon. Of the hundred or so animals that litter the game, one is missable, which is found during a one-time trip 100 years into the past. If you forgot to feed that one dog, you won't get another chance.
- Any clover in the Moon Cave, Oni Island, The Emperor's Palace or through the Spirit Gate, although their only rewards are Praise.
- The unripened fruit on the sapling in North Ryoshima must be gotten with the help of the archer who will permanently leave the area after a certain point. It only contains Praise though, making it effectively just another clover.
- Fire and Ice Doom Mirrors inhabit one specific room in the one-time-visit Emperor's Palace. Unlike their Wind and Earth counterparts they are optional battles, so if you prefer to avoid demon scrolls then these bestiary entries are Lost Forever. Thankfully they can be gotten in the New Game Plus.
- Thankfully averted with the Fishing minigame. If you progress far enough, the Agata forest fishing spot becomes unavailable, but it is replaced by a new fishing spot near the Imperial Palace in Sei-an City, which contains the same species of fish.
- Ōkamiden is much less forgiving than its predecessor, since it's not just praise that can be missed. Most dungeons are playable only once, and inside them are sheets that are part of the collection of Issun's Masterpieces. Completing the dungeons without grabbing these sheets will render them permanently lost.
- Secret of Evermore has a number of dungeons or NPCs become unavailable after certain events, which can render certain items missable after a while. Most of them are consumables, but some are items that are limited in quantity like Call Beads (unless you count any of several Good Bad Bugs) and the alchemic ingredient Dry Ice (unless you believe the unconfirmed rumor of a hidden merchant in Omnipota). A number of charms can be missed or traded away in Nobilia, and while you get a second chance to get them back for 300 coins a pop in Gothica, once you defeat a certain boss the merchants selling them vanish and the items are no longer accessible.
- In the NTSC version of Sphinx and the Cursed Mummy, one of the monsters necessary for the Collection Sidequest, the Smiling Burble, can easily become Lost Forever. It only appears twice: The first time, it's part of a Multi-Mook Melee that you can't replay, although three of them appear at once. The second time, it's in a tiny nook in one portion of a late-game dungeon, and if defeated, the monster that appears there does not respawn. If you don't catch it during one of these appearances, you won't be able to, and thus can't get 100% Completion. The PAL version, however, has the monster in the late dungeon respawn.
- In Tail Concerto, you are advised not to save on your main file by the time you complete the game, and if you load it up, it's easy to understand why. On a clear game save, Waffle will refuse to go outside of Porto due to it being his day off, meaning any left over photo pieces are lost forever.
- One of the most fun side quests in Terranigma is expanding the towns, but watch out! If you vote for the conservative candidate in Loire, the town will never progress to the next stage. And if you lie to Bell about his girlfriend, he'll never invent the telephone and Freedom will be left in the dark ages. To make things even worse, not upgrading those towns means that Nirlake and Suncoast will never be able to progress, either!
- In it you can also lose the town of Neotokio after you revive Beruga, potentially costing you... well not much really, just a Majirock and an Easter egg.
- Furthermore, there are two islands in the game (Polynesia and Mu), which only appear if you've completed two entirely optional and missable side-areas in the first chapter of the game. If you never completed said area's objectives before the game's first chapter is finished, the islands will never appear on the World Map, and whatever items and treasures were waiting for you on said islands will never be accessible.
- The Tower of Druaga is really evil about this. Guide Dang It! if you don't know how to get the treasure on a floor (while paying mind to the time limit), but if you don't you might not be able to get some later, necessary treasure.
- Yakuza 0 has a minor but potentially annoying example: if you don't pick the black box at the end of the substory "Miracle in Maharaja", you'll miss the Encounter Finder for Kiryu. It is not required for 100% Completion, but it's a nonetheless valuable accessory; it makes finding Mr. Shakedown much easier, and thus makes it a lot quicker to gain money from him.
