7 Save Points That Tried to Kill You 

Even better, if you die to a bed in the nether, it says “player died to intentional game design”

I offer to the council, for your consideration, the "I quicksaved in Skyrim the very moment I stepped on a fire rune".

Succubus: "You broke free of my spell!" Me: "... I mean, if questioning my memory is the only weakness of your spell, you pretty much broke your spell yourself..."

Fun Fact: In Undertale, your game actually does save after you win the Lemon Bread fight.

The crystal bug dying and becoming a save crystal makes me think that the crystal bug you find wasn't pretending to be a save crystal. The save crystal you use elsewhere are just dead crystal bugs....

Just realised something- when you fade to black on that bench in Hollow Knight, you hear squishy noises that you usually hear when enemies die, and when you get back to that room all the evil bugs are dead. Implying that your player character, the Knight, murdered all the other bugs while stuck to that bench, hence why they were only tied up in the web, not killed. What a tiny badass

I actually do know a great example, the last save point in Parasite Eve. After the final boss battle against the Ultimate Being, it slowly chases you throughout the ship you just set to self-destruct, and will automatically kill you if it manages to catch you. At one point during this slow chase, you find a save phone, so you think it's a good idea to use if after the final boss fight. The problem is, it's actually a trap, because using the phone will give the Ultimate Being enough time to catch up to you and kill you.

10:13 Note: You CAN make a respawn point in the Nether because of Respawn Anchors.

Fun Fact: In the sticky bench save point room, the room before it has some dreamnailable corpse that says the bench is a trap. Doesn’t help you necessarily but it’s a fun precaution

The final bonfire in Dark Souls at least has different language as a clue - rather than asking you if you want to light the fire, it asks if you want to "link flame," which is something you've been building towards for the duration of the game.

"This webbed world is an arachnophobe's worst nightmare" Correction, deepnest is a nightmare in general

Little nitpick: In Dark Souls, if you haven't beaten some of the optional bosses, entering Gwyn's room already deprives you of going back for them, because if you don't touch the bonfire and just try to leave the Kiln instead, you get the Dark Lord ending.

Immediately thought of the last save point in indie frustrate-‘em-up “I Wanna Be The Guy”. After an auto-scrolling spike tower, you’re tempted to shoot the save point to activate it. After firing the bullet, you realize the save point says “EVIL” instead of “SAVE”… CONGRATULATIONS! You’ve activated the Save Point Mimic that is now very quickly coming for your face!

There is at least one NPC in ffxii that talks about how save crystals do have restorative properties for everyone, and people in-universe apparently regularly use gate crystals for transportation! I always liked that, it makes the mechanics feel more integrated with the world.

An early scrapped idea in Dark Souls was a "bonfire mimic". It's exactly what you think it might be and is horrifying.

4:00 I'm going to be completely honest this is so wholesome-

Best thing about the Hollow Knight one: count how many of those acolytes there are. Also, it feels cruel to have Ellen narrate the spider one.

More than one person has brought up the possibility of bonfire mimics to From Software, they responded by saying that would be cruel even by their standards.

0:38 ah yes, spoilers in minecraft

Even more meta than the one in Chrono Trigger is the save point when you're trying to recruit Yuffie in FF7. You're told not to take your eyes off her, but it turn out that even extends to the text window that pops up when you try to save. Somehow she's able to hide behind the window and vanish, implying that the save message itself actually exists in the setting.

Hey.. hey Luke... I gotta apologize before hand... but if the Crystal bug turns into a save point after you defeat it... instead of thinking did this bug evolve to look like a save point... maybe all save points are actually dead crystal bugs...?

The crystals in the Final Fantasy series have pretty much always been an actual thing for the people of those worlds. So yeah it seems like some entity evolved alongside humans as some weird parasite on the save stones.

The symphony of the night one was actually scary to me as a kid. Most memorable boss fight in the game for me since it was so unexpected

OMG!!! I was the inspiration for this list?!? 🥺 Wow, thank you Outside Xtra! Truly made my day & lifted my spirits hearing you shout me out. You're my heroes, love all of you guys at OX!! 💚💜

I remember getting to a save point in Alien Isolation. Just as Ripley was inserting the card, the Xenomorph slowly walked through the door next to me...I was afraid to go back to that save, but it just ended up spawning somewhere else🤷‍♂️

The bonfire at ash lake would have been a far better example in dark souls because as soon as Gwyn dies the game ends if you rest or try to leave regardless, and the one in ash lake if you rest at it forces you to climb a giant spire of tightrope like branches, mushroom folk, and curse spewing basilisks, and if you make it out you still have to reach the bonfire in the bottom of blighttown So I guess it's less of a kill you and more of a make your run hell for the next hour as you try to escape.

Problem with trying to avoid the bench in Distant Village in Hollow Knight is that it's mandatory for the completion of the game, since a Dreamer (Hera the Beast) reside in the Beast's den. And to go to the Beast's den, you need to let her spider monsters capture you.

Me playing Chrono Trigger: "Ooh, a save point! Finally I can use a tent, Magus's Castle is hard." The party: *pulls out weapons* Me: *visible confusion*

The darksouls one isn't really right since you're forced to end the game one way or another once you kill Gwyn. Ash Lake is far more devious in that if you haven't unlocked the warp ability you're forced to go back to the swamp on foot, or the Dukes Archive bonfire that you're forced to after the mandatory death, or the Painting bonfire

You can make a spawn point in the nether, they're called Respawn anchors.... Additionally, Respawn anchors in the real world also explode.

3:40 I almost beat him but my computer died

3:54 those arent ghosts,they're much scarier...

How about Alan Wake? In that game, safe zones are denoted by lamplights, little circles where enemies chasing you despawn and you can just catch your breath, while also being auto-save points. Remedy makes you comforted and instinctively drawn towards these small life-boats...but then, in the middle of a hectic chase through the woods by a darkness-possessed townsfolk you hear the sound of a breaking lightbulb and realize that your life boat just sank while you were swimming towards it.

"Weirdly-flirty demon" She's a succubus. It'd be weirder if she wasn't flirty.

3:45 glad I hadn't had any cannabis before I watched this.

4:15 On my first playthrough I fell for it and survived with 3Hp bc Lemon Bread was pretty hard

Also I'm pretty sure the Distant Villagers (those who tell you to sit & rest) can't be dreamnailed, which is very creepy when you're used to using the Dream Nail on everything

There are actually two examples in Chrono Trigger, the second happens in Magus' castle. When chasing down Magus' second in command Ozzie there's a point where by stepping on the wrong spot on the floor, he sends you into a pit with some treasure chests and four save points. Rarely one will turn out to be an actual save point, one will always randomly be the teleport back to the start of the last room and the rest split into enemies that can only be harmed by elemental attacks.

4:43 actually it autosaves right after the battle

To be fair in Dark Souls, you know this will be the final boss and though I will forgive not reading the text before sitting down, it's not really intended as a NG+ trap. In Dark Souls 2 on the other hand, the Saltfort bonfire at Sinners' Rise, is just set up to be unsafe for you and the same goes for the one before it in Strid's cell. Granted unlike the other games, you can farm enemies till they stop spawning. (unless you use bonfire ascetic) Though that's a chore, over possibly taking damage every time you do the boss run.

Ah, I remember my first time in the Distant Village with those creeps. Just a little thought, that scene becomes even worse if you already have the dream nail and go down into the lower web-cocoon, because in that case you find two extra clues to tell you you're in for a bad time: 1. You find a big stash of bug corpses in the lower cocoon, piled up and forgotten like some grim version of a trash bin. Terrifying on its own considering this can give you the idea that the only people still alive here ARE the murderers in this case, but it gets worse. 2. If you decide to use the Dream Nail (an object that can help you read the minds of people, even corpses and can help you step into the plane of dreams) you only get them saying stuff like "...lies..." "...they lied..." "...don't stay..." "...not friends..." "...run..." and if I remember correctly "...don't sit..." My personal first experience was sans Dream Nail but I got spooked the same. I walked in, they were like "Boy howdy, why don't you sit down?" I was all like "Yeeeeeeeah how 'bout no?" and checked the other web cocoons, found the corpses and was like "Yup, these guys are killers...and I HAVE to sit down, right?...........right......."

I nearly died to the Crystal Bug. I was hobbling through that dungeon, nearly out of resources, and we almost didn’t make it. There’s a special place in heck for the programmer who thought that would be “fun”.

The beds in Minecraft also advance time to the start of the day. Except there's no night or day in the nether, so the bed explodes from the paradox. Making it a logic bomb that takes the bomb part literally.

I'm surprised that Jedi Fallen Order's infamous save didn't make it. It seems calm, then you are transported to a flashback, then you kill a vision of your teacher (BREAKING YOUR LIGHTSABER BTW) and then all of a sudden a few bits later, Zombies are summoned and you can't fight them off!!!

When I saw Minecraft pop up, I definitely thought it was going to be the instance that has since been patched out of the game. Now, when you try to save a game when monsters are nearby, you get a message that you can't sleep because monsters are nearby. In a previous version, after you fade to sleep, suddenly, you're being attacked by skeletons. Then you have to frantically switch to your sword to fend them off. To this day, my wife and I switch to our swords when laying down. 😅

What about the save point in "I Wanna Be the Guy" just before the final boss? This game is super hard and crashes often, even a fake error box appears and crushes you if you're not careful. Save points are the only way to ensure you don't have to do entire levels again. This one moves towards you slowly. Bear in mind, a single hit in the game kills you instantly, so it's shocking when the save point approaches you when you're not expecting it, so you need to kill it by shooting it three times, returning it to a normal save point.

I feel like FFXII deserves more off a mention here, because it triple layers the trick pretty well - the first crystal bug you come across is Green, ,and tagged as a "restoration Crystal", implying that they'll give you a restore before the upcoming boss fight, but won't let you save - but it's still the first one of those you've seen and might be a little suspicious. The second one is this Blue save crystal, far enough away in the game that you've stopped worrying about the concept, and the game 'gets' you again, because this one actually is something you've interacted with dozens of times before, with the only sus thing being the oddly empty room. the last one is again, fare enough along in the game that you've stopped being able to worry about every single crystal you find, and this one is right in the middle of a hasty, fairly high level area, looks like and orange warp and is exactly where you'd expect to find the warp crystal for the area (because it then becomes one), in its own little tiny save screen zone, exactly as you'd expect to find one. FFXII plays this trick on your three times, but each time it's a deeper layer of deception, so it manages to make the trick work, and doesn't outstay its welcome either. Easily the best executed example of this trick I've seen. Special mention: Crystalbugs are recorded and noted in the game as being a highly evolved and specialised strain of Mimic, not unlike the chest mimics that you find all over the place, so it really makes them feel like a little (lethal) part of the world space ^.^

14:06 Speaking from experience; yes. Being on fire is no fun. It hurts a lot.

12:27 Can we talk about how Gwyn's swing missed you since your character was slightly hunched over from your zwei's first attack? That's such a cool and precise hitbox to miss you like that.

Making Ellen do the Hollow Knight Deepnest bit is evil, Oxtra. Evil. I hope she did the VO without footage.

2:27 ori and the will of the wisps: hold my beer

I humbly present OneShot's false ending bed. The Entity, the seemingly antagonistic force throughout the game, who has been trying to destroy the world, offers you and Niko, the protagonist, a bed for Niko to sleep in. They promise that the game will end, and that Niko will get to go home. It doesn't. You get stuck in a cutscene until you find a file in you OneShot folder to progress the game and restore the Sun lightbulb. Granted the Entity doesn't actively try to kill Niko, but it's sort of close.

Random idea for a video: Systems in games that are just needlessly and surprisingly complex. Like the flower system in animal crossing that uses literal 3 gene genetics to determine the color of the flowers.

I Wanna Be The Guy, anyone? On "Impossible" difficulty, there's only one save point in the entire game, it's right before the final boss fight, and it's actually a trap that kills you, sending you right back to the very beginning of the game.

The Amalgamation that was disguised as a Save point scared the hell out of be when I first got to the True Lab, regardless, I never went down there again.

1:12 you need to sit in the bench to get one of the dreamers for all endings that are not the god home ending if I’m remember

When I heard the Final Fantasy's Ivalice music I thought the next one would be Riovanes Castle in Final Fantasy Tactics where you can get locked into a REALLY difficult 1v1 fight if you overwrite your only save. So many souls lost to that little trap....

Just had to mention the infamous ‘Cherry Popper’ GTA save point glitch. It didn’t really try to kill you intentionally, but it certainly did kill lots of save files.

12:22 the pling pling plong song is a work of art

If I remember correctly the game called changed has a couple of false save points that are actually some of the games monsters, which is especially infuriating when you've just got through a long chase sequence or puzzle and want to save, but then have to do it all again when you get close and trigger them

Halo 2 on Legendary: seeing the words 'Checkpoint reached' appear, then immediately getting sniped by a Jackal, then respawning, then getting sniped by a Jackal.

When I saw they were gonna talk about Chrono Trigger, I thought they were gonna mention that room in Magus' Castle with the 4 savepoints, of which 2 attack you, 1 teleports you back and only 1 is an actual savepoint.

Neat analysis & list video! Thanks for uploading!

That "wait, I beg of you-- ahhhhhhhhhh!" got me good. 😂😂😂

Deepnest in Hollow Knight is actual hell. The first time I played I had no idea what was coming... the combination of the scuttly music and then the spiders on my 55" screen... good god, it's a wonder I didn't set fire to the whole house!

There are a few bonfires throughout the whole dark souls series where enemies come at you almost immediately after you stop resting. I would of put that on the list rather than the last bonfire

Bug Fables' save points are crystals, yellow for saving and healing and blue for just saving. The final chapter takes place in the extremely creepy Dead Lands, where one massive Dead Lander is constantly looking down on you, and if it spots you, it drops a smaller Dead Lander on you. There's no save crystals throughout the trek to the village. When you're almost at the next part of the dungeon, a red crystal shows up. If you hit it, you're healed, but the huge Dead Lander is attracted to the sound and turns its gaze on you. The Dead Landers are really tough enemies so it's not a fun surprise if you don't already know.

as a bonus to Undertale- usually whenever you encounter an enemy, your player will stop and be shocked before the battle begins. but in the true lab, 1 of the enemies is actually you shock-bubble. very sneaky

Also Hollow Knight: The bench occupied by Crystal Guardian, although I guess you could say you're the one initiating the killing there.

In Deaths Gambit Afterlife, as a servant of Death, because he brought you back to life, you rest at death statues. However, there is one area of the game called Journeys End (which is ironiclly found mid way trough the game) that has death statues that actually try to kill you when you try to rest at them

The list concept reminded me of a Master System game - Desert Speedtrap. I didn't exactly expect such an old (and probably obscure) game to appear on the list, but ah well :-) (Desert Speedtrap was basically a Road Runner platformer, with seed dishes being health pickups/checkpoints. Said dishes could have 1, 2 or 3 servings of seeds, and each serving healed 1 of your 4 hit points, and some turned into checkpoints went empty - except some of the single-servings were actually poison, so *hurt* you for a hit point. Early on the poison servings were easy to avoid by only eating the multi-serving dishes, but in later levels the dishes frequently only had a single serving, so you had to guess (or memorise) the good ones...)

For those who don’t know, you CAN avoid the webbed bench. All you have to do is just climb the wall to the right and in the ceiling should be an opening.

for Chrono Trigger, I would've said the save point in Magus's Lair, where you have to literally fight a bunch of save points

In Fear & Hunger, a difficult horror roguelike rpg, there are only 2 places in the entire game that consistently allow you to save. One is near the end of the game. The other is a bed that can be found a few floors in. When you use the bed, you have a 50% chance of being attacked by the Crow Mauler. Not only is he one of the most powerful enemies in the game, but he also has an instakill attack.

I forgot all about the spider bench in Hollowknight (almost assuredly because my brain subconsciously scrubbed that nightmare), my first thought was actually the bench where you have to fight the Crystal Guardian before you can rest, putting you in a boss fight when all you wanted was a heal and a checkpoint after an hour long trek up the dungeon

Actually, you can make a respawn point in the nether using the Respawn Anchor, Crafted simply using crying obsidian and glowstone blocks, and activated by glowstone blocks.

That succubus death scream... I mean they do call it the "little death" for a reason

In regards to Final Fantasy XII: There are actually _three_ Crystalbugs in the game: One in the Walk of Revelation in the Stilshrine of Miriam. One in the Acolyte's Burden area of the Sochen Cave Palace. One in the Succor Midst Sorrow area of the Nabreus Deadlands. This last one is by far the strongest and turns into the Deadlands Gate Crystal. Also, there's an area somewhat ironically called the Path of Hidden Blessing in the Ridorana Cataract that contains a save crystal...at the end of a short line of very powerful hidden traps. If you don't have the Libra Technick, a Bangle equipped, the Float spell, or the Winged Boots or Steel Poleyns accessories, and stumble into one or more of these hidden traps, you'll have a Game Over before you ever have the chance to be "blessed".

Love this list. Wasn't the one from Chrono Trigger I was thinking of though(had forgotten about the sewer one), I was thinking of the fake save points in Magus' Castle that you can fight. Possibly why you fight the save crystal later in FFXII, reusing their old ideas?

I remember there was a save point that tried to kill you in "I Wanna Be The Guy" which made sense, everything wants to kill you in that game.

There is a few bonefires in DS2 Scholar of the First Sin, where after lighting them, you are exploded and a giant rooty head emerges from the ground. The explosion doesn’t do any damage sure, but I’d say it meets the requirement of “tried” to kill you.

Chrono Trigger *also* has save point look-alikes that attack you in full-on monster battles, in the basement of Magus's Castle.

"vile version of a pantry" is my newest favourite phrase

6:48 You suck, succubus! The joke was right there

Chrono Trigger also had save points in Magus's castle that were enemies. It was in the really annoying section with Ozzy dropping you into pits.

11:50 or maybe, just maybe, all save crystals are actually the lifeless corpse of a slain crystal bug?

I think my favorite part of the bed explosion is the death message. "Playername was killed by [Intentional Game Design]".

The other example from Chrono Trigger is an optional enemy that you can fight in Magus' Castle if you fail at some of the puzzles. Called '???' or just 'Save Point', it's a relatively weak enemy (provided that you use magic regularly) that gives a decent amount of experience and money for the point in the game where you fight them, but it still actively tries to kill you so it counts.

About Dark Souls: You can't do anything other than ending the game after you got into the last room.

In the first Bravely Default game, there was an Adventurer in red who would save your game in dungeons and also sell you items. She's also the hardest boss in the game.

in minecraft, they did add a respawn anchor, which im surprised you didnt bring up. its the opposite of the bed, explodes in overworld, but is a save-point in the nether

The Minecraft one is even worse when you look at the death message, which outright states you were killed by "intentional game design".

one of the absolute greatest of these of all time happens in parasite eve. allow me to explain. ***PARASITE EVE ENDING SPOILERS*** after beating what you might think is the "final boss", you will find yourself on a ship, with a small room you can enter that gives you access to yout stored inventory and other supplies, as well as a save point (in parasite eve, save points are telephones.) when you step back outside, a scene plays and everyone is shocked to discover there is another, much worse, actual final boss to deal with. what follows is an epic 4 phase boss fight which can be quite challenging if you are not prepared. after finally defeating the boss, it is STILL not dead, and begins limping toward you. the player is forced to run away, deeper into the ship, trying to navigate hallways they have never seen before in search of SOMETHING that will let you finish off the boss. when you first run away, you will pass through the room with the save point again. 99% of players will REALLY want to save, so that they don't have to do that entire boss gauntlet again. however, if you try to use the phone, it will be out of order. not only that, but the time it takes while you are stuck in the animation picking up the phone and trying to call virtually guarantees that the boss will grab you and instantly kill you, forcing you to go back to your last manual save and start the entire boss gauntlet again from the beginning. one of the most tense ending sequences in video game history.

In Dark Souls 2 Aldia does something similar. He doesn't try to kill you in game (that comes later) but you're liable to get a heart attack from Aldia popping out of various Bonfires throughout the later part of the game. I know I panicked hard when he did it in the Dragon Aerie. My Bonfires are supposed to safe!

with the one in hollow knight, try dreamnailing the corpses in another room, they say things such as 'they lied' and also you cant dreamnail the guys who want you to sit on the bench because they arent really alive

"Minecraft" *Stares at bed* _''Are you really my friend?''_

Another entry from Chrono Trigger: In Magus' Castle there is a room you can fall into that has 4 save points glimmers. 1 is an actual save point, 1 will warp you out of the room, and the other 2...well, they'll just split into 3 and attack you. Worse still, they respawn and randomize each time you fall into the room, so they'll be getting you over...and over...and over... At least they drop the party-healing Lapis item.

Damn, I was expecting the one from Dead Space where you save and instantly get jumped after leaving the menu 😤

There's a Save Point in Sphinx and the Cursed Mummy mid-game that prevents you from advancing in the story if you save there. It's next to a door to the next puzzle. If you save at that specific totem, the door will shut. Forever. The only way to reopen the door is to start all over.

Bug Fables' Giants' Lair has a red version of the save crystals that, while healing you, also alerts the giant eye with its noise