Image: Nintendo LifeFalling. It hurts, right? We’ve all tripped up over nothing while walking and scraped our knees, or tripped up the stairs and landed face-first. It’s not fun. It’s embarrassing, it's painful, and it stands as a persistent reminder that I am the most clumsy of human beings. There’s a reason we can't jump off of buildings and cliffs and live to tell the tale – we’re just flesh and bone. That’s what video games are here for, then. They allow us to do the impossible, the unthinkable, and the absolutely ridiculous consequence-free, for the most part. Jumping off of platforms and high places is completely normal, and you don’t need to be good at parkour to do it.Subscribe to Nintendo Life on YouTube809kWatch on YouTube Except you still can’t jump off of buildings and mountains and land safely. I can get torched and squashed by a Gleeok in Tears of the Kingdom and live to tell the tale, but falling off a high cliff might kill me? What’s the point? Well, in comes Xenoblade Chronicles X, a game where I can literally launch myself from the top of Blade Tower in NLA or Mount Edge Peak in Oblivia and land without so much as a hair out of place. Now, I can truly live my dreams of looking cool as I leap from the top of a skyscraper and land effortlessly with one fist on the ground. Who needs to defeat giant Ciniculas? Image: Nintendo Life Lots of people talk about video games as escapism, as a way of getting away from the world. I use them for that reason sometimes, too, so it tickles me that realism is so often valued. Graphics that are uncannily close to real-life, motion capture, the idea that I might break a leg if I fall from one of the Deku Tree’s branches. Zelda’s not exactly the picture of realism, but you get the idea. I acknowledge that it might be a bit weird if, in Red Dead Redemption, John Marston and his horse could fall off a cliff and survive – there’s a time and a place for it. But I’m also obsessed with the space jump in Xenoblade Chronicles X and think every video game should have it. I clearly don’t respect the balance. My huge, death-defying jumps across the planet of Mira do have a sound narrative purpose, something I’m not going to go into here because of spoilers. We’re talking leaps thousands of feet high with no consequence other than a brief stagger. Who cares about realism when you look this good jumping? Not me, because it’s so damn fun. Just look at that landing. — Image: Nintendo Life Think about The Witcher 3 for a second. Set in a world inspired by Slavic mythology, filled with terrifying monsters, yet Geralt, the titular Witcher [Nice. - Ed.] who has undergone years and years of training and conditioning to be an extremely powerful fighter, could die from simply falling a couple of metres. That’s apparently been fixed in the next-gen version, so maybe Geralt will be invincible on the Switch 2. Fall damage is inconsistent across video games, and it sort of has to be. Imagine playing Super Mario Odyssey and Mario just outright dying because he jumped off the top of a New Donk City skyscraper. It’d be odd, right? Because this is a bright and colourful platformer where exploration and movement is king. Instead, he’s briefly stunned either on the spot or by getting stuck in sand. Side note: I love this description of why Mario can survive big falls in Odyssey, which explains why he takes damage in Super Mario 64 and not in the latest 3D adventure. There’s the solution, then – space. Image: Nintendo Life Fall damage is present in all three other Xenoblade games, and it at least makes a bit of sense there. Is it annoying? A little bit! But then, whose fault is it when I keep jumping off of large structures and expecting to survive? Although, again, if Rex can survive multiple attacks from Jin and Malos – who both have pretty dangerous weapons – what is a mere 'big jump' to him? Who cares about realism when you look this good jumping? Am I just bitter because I’ve done multiple sky dives in Tears of the Kingdom and not pulled out my paraglider at the last minute, resulting in Link’s untimely death? Maybe – and look, I don’t think Link should be able to survive a one-thousand-foot drop. But there are other times where I’ve ragdolled mountains and taken just a bit too much damage that has ultimately led me to my death. Just imagine how rubbish it would be to have fall damage in Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow or a Kirby game. Kirby is literally a living marshmallow, so of course he doesn’t take damage from big falls. It’s part of why it’s so fun to control him. Those are pretty fantastical examples, but I do think that the desire for realism gets in the way of fun sometimes. If Shulk can essentially kill God and Link can take out Ganondorf with just a stick, why can’t they survive a 20-foot jump? Image: Nintendo Life Sometimes, despite all of my philosophising and losing myself in the weeds of the narrative, I just want to have fun. It’s cool that Xenoblade Chronicles X has a reason for being able to jump from and survive such ludicrous heights, but ultimately, how much more uninviting and unexciting would exploring the world of Mira be without that space jump? Now come on, don’t tell me you haven’t dreamt of space jumping and careening to the ground from great heights in GTA or Pokémon Legends: Arceus… Let us know what you think of all of that pesky fall damage in the comments.