Nigh Invulnerability/Video Games

Examples of in  include:


 * Touhou Project: The main protagonist, Reimu, has a Spell Card called Fantasy Heaven, which makes her completely impossible to touch. It's even implied by secondary character Kirisame Marisa that the best strategy against this ability is simply to run away. However, Reimu rarely, if ever, uses this Spell Card, and it only appears twice in the series: in Imperishable Night, where it's essentially an unlockable bonus boss (you have to dodge all her attacks within a time limit) and Scarlet Weather Rhapsody, where it's probably the most powerful Spell Card in the game. In SWR's update, Hisoutensoku, it's turned into a One-Hit K.O. move, as the damage it deals is several times a character's lifebar. However, it's rarely if ever actually used as the restrictions are rather ludicrous: Reimu has to first invoke the Spell Card, and then hit the opponent with melee-damage seven times within a time limit. While this SEEMS simple enough, Reimu's melee combat ability is only just barely adequate, and the game places high emphasis on dodging and evasion. Any reasonably able player would be able to avoid getting hit incredibly easily. It has been stated by both Marisa and Word of God that Reimu was born with this ability, and it's one that she never has to use. The implications are that being intangible is simply a natural state of being for her, and that she holds back on purpose. That's right, if she wanted to, she could defeat ANY boss ANY time without getting hit ONCE. However, that wouldn't make for a very fun game, so she's almost always in a tangible state.
 * Some bosses would probably be able to retaliate. For example, Yukari could adjust the border of illusion and reality to put her back on the reality side.
 * A long time ago, when she was still a citizen of the moon, Eirin made the Hourai Elixer, which makes the drinker absolutely immortal by effectively removing their death. Kaguya and her "rival" Mokou (and possibly Eirin herself) are the only characters known to have drank it, and as a result haved lived for almost two millenia (and counting) and are impossible to kill. When fighting the latter, a character with the explicit ability to kill anything wasn't able to kill her, and in the end she only stops fighting because of the pain (she instantly regenerates all damage, but it still hurts).
 * To quote, "The first time one takes it, one cannot become an adult. Take it twice, and even the pain of sickness will be gone. Take it three times, and your fate is sealed."
 * Many, perhaps most of the cast fits the trope (however, since the fighting they do is simply a game, many literal god characters are very easy to beat). Nearly every listed variation of this trope is in the series, including a literal made of air example in Suika, who can turn into a heavy mist.
 * Minor subversion: Zasalamel in Soul Calibur 3 perfected the art of reincarnation, thus allowing him to die and resurrect multiple times throughout history, retaining all of the skills and knowledge he amassed before then. The subversion is that, instead of being a boon like he thought it would be, it quickly turned into a horrible curse, as his newfound power deprived him of a peaceful death, and the literal sinking feeling that his soul was damned to hell just a little more with every death and revival, and since that revelation he sought the game's MacGuffin to try and undo his hubris.
 * Absolute Virtue from Final Fantasy XI is a type of Bonus Boss that has the ability to regenerate instantly, and will do so constantly. It also hits like a semi running over a tin can, will cast the most damaging spells in the entire game (often instantly and repeatedly), and possesses all the Eleventh Hour Superpowers of most job classes in the game. Oh, and it can summon baby dragons. Repeatedly. That cast devastating Area of Effect spells. And blow up. The only way the playerbase has ever beaten this mob is through a exploit, or more recently, a Zerg Rush, both of which were patched quite a while ago. And this thing has been around for years. Maybe the developers just wanted an unbeatable monster, and won't admit it. And now we have Pandemonium Warden, which at first almost took a day to defeat (they gave up), but was finally beaten by Apathy, an endgame group. The reason this is astonishing isn't simply the win, but the fact Square actually approves of the win and didn't patch Pandemonium Warden. They seem to be comfortable with only AV giving them a stiffy.
 * The developers finally released a video of them killing Absolute Virtue themselves, in response to no one figuring out the tricks. The trick? When the player uses their own Eleventh Hour Superpowers it blocks Absolute Virtue from using his (making it a battle of wits—the party has to block him from using powers such as Mighty Strikes (every attack is a critical hit) or Benediction (heals user to 100%)). In practice, however, this trick doesn't seem to actually work, leaving AV pretty much undefeated...
 * Both (AV and Pandemonium Warden) have been beaten solo by a guy named Gradius0. Then again, here he might be nigh invulnerable himself.
 * On your first playthrough of Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow, all the bosses cannot die unless you draw a specific Magic seal. It gets difficult on the 5th Seal especially against ; draw the seal wrong and you have to deal more damage before you get the opportunity to try again.
 * However in Julius Mode the Bosses die without you having to draw the seal.
 * In the standard game, Julius tells Soma he kills them before they can regenerate.
 * Ganon from The Legend of Zelda definitely counts. He has been killed (each time more painfully and unbelievably than the last) and he still manages to come back even stronger despite being killed over 9 times! Though this is probably because of his Triforce of Power, which gives him strength in the same way Link's and Zelda's pieces give and/or represent, respectively, their courage and wisdom.
 * The Continuity Snarl that is the Zelda timeline makes reconciling each of Ganon's appearances rather difficult, but it is explicitly known that the one from Ocarina of Time is the same being as the ones from The Wind Waker and Twilight Princess. Previous Word of God has also stated that Ocarina's Ganon reappears in A Link to The Past and the original The Legend of Zelda, but the stories of those games contradict each other on a number of points.
 * It is actually somewhat explained in "Skyward Sword".
 * Chance, The Mole and Final Boss of Syphon Filter 2, wears a special advanced full body armor suit that is not only Immune to Bullets, but also apparently to even the shockwave of grenade explosions at impact, and its weight doesn't seem to slow him down, either. His Achilles' Heel? The spinning helicopter tail rotor.
 * In Star Ocean the Second Story the Big Bad and his minions cannot be damaged unless you gain the Sword of Plot Advancement,.
 * In Devil May Cry 3, the Dullahans have Made Of Diamond shields that can only be penetrated by a hard-to-pull-off attack. The Döppelganger is a shadow-entity that is invincible outside of the light, and Dante's acquisition of it makes it invincible even in light, i.e. fully invincible. It probably would laugh at the idea that Good Is Dumb. Boss Vergil in his Devil Trigger state is also invincible, in addition to regenerating any damage he might have sustained in human form. Just-timed usage of Royal Guard also makes Dante invincible to any attack; Perhaps predictably, the cutscenes never show him touching it.
 * Dante does use it in the boss fights against him in Devil May Cry 4, though thankfully he doesn't do it all the time or the game would be Unwinnable.
 * In Devil May Cry 3, Dante before the first level is impaled several times. Cutscene Dante hardly needs Royal Guard.
 * Cutscene Dante definitely doesn't need Royal Guard. He gets impaled at least once in each game minus the second (it's usually several times each game) so it's almost a Running Gag.
 * In Romancing SaGa the boss Soulgutter cannot die since it has no soul, it can only be resealed. However it can still feel pain, so deal 30,000 damage to it and it will reseal itself to escape pain.
 * In Planescape: Torment, it is The Nameless One's defining characteristic that he can't stay dead. As a plot point, every time he dies . In gameplay terms, it means the game doesn't end when he dies - the player just sees TNO wake up in the closest morgue, and the game continues as before (for gameplay reasons, and Handwaved in-game, the amnesia doesn't kick in on these deaths). Only a being of godlike power can kill the Nameless One and make it stick, though it's hinted cremation could do the trick as well. The Nameless One also doesn't age, and the total age sum of his lives is likely counted in millennia.
 * Archimonde has this in the final mission of Warcraft 3 where the objective is not to kill him but merely to stall his advance for half an hour. Oddly, while his armor is Made Of Diamond, he still takes 1 damage per hit and thus can theoretically be killed by massing archers (though he has an Ankh of Reincarnation and thus must be killed twice).
 * The Gnosis in the Xenosaga series is the 'Made of Air' variety as the only way to combat them is to hit them when they making a phase transference to fire their energy weapons, or use of the Hilbert Effect to force them into Real Space from Imaginary Space.
 * Also, Albedo is Cursed with Awesome in
 * Saya, in Saya no Uta.
 * Dark Samus from the Metroid Prime subseries posses extreme regenerative power, mainly since "her" (technically its genderless) body essentially consists of pure Phazon. In Metroid Prime 2, Samus fights her multiple times, and after every fight she explodes into a cloud of Phazon particles, only to reassemble herself later. According to one scan of her, only a complete atomic disruption can kill her for good. . She is finally killed in Metroid Prime 3 when
 * Many episodes of Final Fantasy feature enemies with likely powers. Though, about all of the main villains show the ability to survive incredible damage...
 * The most famous example is the Cactuars. They're incredibly speedy, so they attack often, and they are agile, making attacks on them rarely connect. To make things worse, they use 1000 Needles, which does 1000 damage exactly and will kill any character whose HP is not above 1000.
 * And then, of course, there's the various souped-up versions of the Cactuars, some of which have attacks like 10,000 Needles or other special abilities. Oh, and many Cactuars will simply escape from the battle if you don't finish 'em off quickly.
 * In Final Fantasy IV, Golbez regenerates from a mere hand all but the DS remake. A Core unit of the Giant of Bab-il regenerates unless its support unit is destroyed. Zeromus just plain can't be hurt unless one with a pure soul uses the dark crystal on him. Among fandom even Yang and Cid are considered Made of Diamond as they respectively survive the explosion of a giant cannon while standing in it and jumping down some miles, with dynamite attached to him and hitting the ground nice and fast.
 * In Final Fantasy V, a few late-game enemies (and one boss trio) will automatically revive from KO within a single turn (with full HP) unless/until the player is able to land a finishing blow to the whole group simultaneously.
 * Also, for some reason, no one could kill Exdeath until he lost control of the Void.
 * In Final Fantasy VI, The Guardian in Vector is impossible to defeat. All your attacks do no damage. The reels for an absolutely unavoidable instant death attack against all enemies won't line up against him. If they do, he dies, but its adventure map sprite isn't removed, so you do not pass either way. The only way to destroy it is to wait for it to load a battle program, when it starts attacking and stops being invulnerable.
 * There is also Chupon/Typhon in the Colosseum. He is winnable against, but chances are that he'll just Snort your only character out of battle and that counts as a loss, so usually you do not defeat him. He has no special damage resistances, still.
 * In Final Fantasy X both main villains, Seymour and Sin, are able to shrug off death. Seymore sticks around as some freaky ghost, increasing in power with every death. Sin just comes back in a few years due to the method of his death also being his method of Resurrection.
 * In Final Fantasy Tactics, the Lucavi possess people with the use of ancient gemstones. They are rumored to keep reappearing throughout Ivalice's history and wreaking havoc. They also have ridiculous amounts of strength and HP. How the hero is going to stop them for good doesn't even occur to him. The problem is apparently solved when the stones
 * The comic-book-genre-based MMORPG City of Heroes includes the Made Of Diamond, Made Of Air (sort of), and Regeneration variants all as power sets for melee fighter player characters, as "Invulnerability", "Super Reflexes", and "Regeneration" respectively, as well as the "Willpower" set which combines elements of all three. In addition, some powers can create a state of intangibility, in which the affected character can neither affect nor be affected by anything.
 * In the background story, the setting's main hero Statesman was directly hit with a tactical nuclear warhead by the Soviet Union. It wasn't enough to kill him (but it was enough to put him in a hospital for awhile).
 * In the science fiction MMORPG EVE Online, players are known in-game as pod pilots, named for the biostatic capsules or "pods" they use to control their ships (allowing them to replace bridge crews). A side benefit of quicker reflexes is that capsuleers are virtually immortal - whenever their pods are destroyed, a clone of theirs wakes up immediately at a cloning facility. Clones have a limited memory capacity, and if a player doesn't update his clone properly, he may lose some skills. In fiction, capsuleers may also be killed outside of their pods, or if their clone malfunctions and doesn't activate (the latter is the assumed fate of deleted characters), but as far as game mechanics go, capsuleers are immortal.
 * The infamous "Cardboard Immortality" trick from the Mega Man Battle Network games requires only three components (a Wood-element Style Change, the Under Shirt status/Navi Customizer Program, and a Grass Panel or nine) and combines constant regeneration with the ability to survive an otherwise lethal hit with one hit point. The only way to combat this is to alter the stage. Fortunately for anyone facing this setup, Grass Panels get burned away by Fire attacks (doing double damage in the process), which Wood-element enemies take double damage from.
 * Was weakened in later games by making the rate of health regeneration decrease as your got lower on HP. At one HP, it takes a few seconds to regenerate a single point of HP.
 * Final Fantasy Tactics Advance has Llednar Twem. For all your encounters with him except for the last, he's protected by a special law that makes any and all attacks against him useless.
 * If you're a Fire Emblem villain (or The Dragon to the villain) you're made of Diamond to anyone that isn't wielding the legendary weapon of this game. Those that aren't made of diamond by an ability are made of Diamond by having RIDICULOUS Stats.
 * A special mention goes to Dheginsea. He embodied this trope three times over:
 * 1) Blessed by a goddess—even legendary weapons don't work unless they have also been blessed by a goddess.
 * 2) Amazing regeneration—there are very few ways for a single character to do more damage in a single turn than he recovers (in a game with about 50 playable characters).
 * 3) His stats are among the highest of any boss in the series. A good portion of this is already devoted to defense.
 * The demon morph Super Mode in Painkiller has invincibility to everything except falling to death and the final boss's attacks.
 * The Blind Rage Super Mode from Scarface the World Is Yours gives Tony invincibility.
 * This is a large part of the premise for Soul Reaver, the main character is a ghoul that lives in the spirit realm and can construct a body in the material realm, if that body is destroyed (even when atomized) it just sends him back into the spectral realm. If mooks in the spectral realm "kill" him, his soul drifts around before settling in the heart of the underworld, where he regains his strength and starts again. It is said explicitly several times over the series that he is completely indestructible and that even the local god is unable to do more than play mind games with him or contain him.
 * In the final stage of Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood, the party splits up into two teams. Each one ends up fighting a boss with ridiculously powerful shields at one point. When Knuckles' team faces the Gizoid Centurions, you have to survive two or three turns against them and their shields before you get a cut scene of them losing; then Sonic's team seeks out some inactive Centurions and Tails studies them to understand how the shields work and is able to jam them, allowing Knux and crew to fight them for real. After that, Sonic's crew encounters Prefect Charyb underwater, where he has a humongous advantage (plus you can't use POW Moves. After three turns, you get another cut scene, and action switches to Knuckles' team. After beating Prefect Scylla, Knuckles is able to reach the drainage switch for the room the others are in, allowing Sonic to fight Charyb for real.
 * Paper Mario has Bowser and Tubba Blubba. Bowser uses the Star Rod to get diamond defense that prevents all damage and status effects until the defense is taken down by the Star Spirits' power. Tubba Blubba's method . Oddly enough, it might have made sense if Tubba Blubba . Granted,, but , and if , there would be nothing to stop Tubba Blubba from *or* deadlocking Mario's quest.
 * Bowser is absolutely ridiculous even without the Star Rod. Throughout his long villainous career, he's survived lava, bottomless pits, more lava (this time getting his skin boiled off and keeping on going without it), being thrown through a star, and being smashed by an asteroid into a black hole. He always gets back up in time for the next game.
 * Also, the Armored Harriors from the second game. The only way to damage these hard-heads is to knock one into the other.
 * Clive Barker's Jericho has Hanne Lichthammer, who, it seems, cannot be harmed (or, at the very least, cannot be killed) by bullets. It only takes Church's blood magic to trap her, and even then.
 * Dead Space has the Hunter, a Necromorph who can regenerate any lost body parts and is damn near impossible to kill..
 * Dead Space 2 has another Hunter-esque Necromorph. It's called the Ubermorph. If any name pretty much guarantees "impossible to kill" this Necromorph has it.
 * The Necromorph in general: although they are relatively easy to kill by dismemberment, they can reanimate any dead tissue, including dead Necromorph, so its only a matter of time before the remains are re-infected and come back as undead giblets and body parts trying to kill you again...and again and again and again...
 * Metal Gear games might have one here or there, most notably Fortune (whose "luck" means bullets cannot hit her and grenades are all duds) and The Sorrow (who are all still dead, and you can't exactly shoot a ghost). Not to mention Vamp, whose already potent regeneration abilities were enhanced with Nanomachines.
 * Also Snake, not just gameplay-wise anymore:
 * Prototype's Alex Mercer has a potent Regeneration ability, he can also consume people and monsters (although those must be weakened first) to regain health, he can grow shields and armor from his own body mass, and he even.
 * Even without the eating people to gain health thing, instory he's pretty much indestructable. If the game were closer to it's story, there wouldn't be a healthbar because you wouldn't need it.
 * The health bar mechanic is justified through incredible Fridge Brilliance:
 * One of the powerful creatures in Devil Survivor for DS, the Immortal Lord of the Demons is not only incredibly strong, but also the first time protagonists meet him he's virtually immortal (duh), but also starts the first round by attacking everyone and sucking life of every creature he hit. Since it's impossible to kill him, heroes are forced to run for their lives or retreat immediately.
 * He is however, according to the legends, vulnerable to
 * The GMan in Half Life. The only characters who were able to stop him at all only temporarily restrained him, and even that didn't last long.
 * The House of the Dead 4 has Temperance, a morbidly obese, several-stories-tall zombie whose lifebar doesn't drain.
 * In many rail shooters with a Take Cover mechanic, the cover/shield your character can hide behind will withstand pretty much everything the enemy can throw at it, even superweapons of mass destruction.
 * The Tank in both Left 4 Dead games. He has the most health out of all infected, ranging in the thousands, but on Expert, he has the same properties as steel since Tanks in Expert get 8000 health points. Shoving him does nothing and he doesn't even stumble from a Grenade Launcher shot or from explosive ammo (oddly, exploding propane tanks or oxygen tanks make him stumble). His sheer strength alone can launch survivors across the street or off a rooftop and he also has the ability to send cars flying your way. If you play on Expert, the Tank can down you in a single hit, even if you're at 100% health! A Tank will go down but you need a lot of firepower and your friends have to concentrate their fire on the Tank to bring it down quickly, otherwise you're in for a losing battle. However, most players will try to set it on fire and keep outrunning the Tank until he burns to death.
 * The Reapers in Mass Effect 1. They can be killed, but they are ridiculously powerful and their defenses nearly impenetrable. At the end of the first game, one Reaper is destroyed, but it takes nearly an entire fleet down with it. And it wasn't even trying to fight back.
 * To be fair, Sovereign was being backed by a fleet of Geth, and most of the trouble came from them. Sovereign wasn't even paying attention to the other fleet until they started massing on him. But yeah, even then he destroyed ships like he was swatting away flies.
 * And from the image at the end of Mass Effect 2 we've got over 200 more coming in for the finale.
 * Mass Effect 3 clarifies exactly what it takes to kill a Reaper: three of the human alliance's largest warships can match a single Reaper, while it takes four to have a decent chance of killing it. The Reaper armada vastly outnumbers said largest warship. One of the smaller Reapers takes an entire fleet repeatedly Attacking Its Weakpoint to finally go down. The Reapers are taking casualties in the war... just not very many, and not nearly enough.
 * Lord British in the Ultima series. He is nearly impossible to kill (if not outright impossible), and even the Armageddon spell, which destroys every person and object in the entire world does not affect him. Usually, the only way to kill him involves either creative exploits or (in one instance) an Easter Egg.
 * In The Last Remnant, The Conqueror is a prime example of this trope. In the many times the heroes face him, they can't even touch him . By the time you get to the end of the game
 * Nyx from Persona 3 is a strong example. First of all, the Nyx Avatar has to be fought and defeated in 14 different forms. (Which is not sufficient to kill it) Then after doing that, the protagonist must face Nyx in a scripted battle and throw his life away to stop her. ("Stop", not "kill." All the attack does is prevent  from reaching Nyx and unleashing her destructive power.)
 * Isaac and Garet in Golden Sun: Dark Dawn. When they join you as a Guest Star Party Member, their attack and defense are so high that everything monsters throw at them, including the first boss, is nothing more than Scratch Damage and they have abilities that will pretty much annihilate everything that looks at them funny. Isaac and Garet's stats cannot be viewed, but they DO have their HP lowered when they are hit. However, since their HP is around 500 points and every attack does around 1 to 5 points of damage to them, killing them off would take forever. This is all justified since they literally saved the world 30 years prior and still retain all the training they had done from then to after.
 * The Archdemon of Dragon Age Origins uses the strategy.  The Grey Wardens are needed because they are the only ones that can get past this Nigh Invulnerability
 * The Soulless of Lusternia are virtually indestructible, which is very bad news for everyone else. Big Good Estarra could theoretically kill them, but it would necessitate destroying the multiverse - which is the very threat presented by the Soulless. Bonus points for each Soulless being a different flavour of nigh invulnerable: Illith is The Juggernaut, Crazen is The Blob, Muud has a Healing Factor, Zenos is an Intangible Man and Kethuru is, uh, all of them.
 * WARIO. In Wario Land 2 and 3, nothing can kill him. In fact, he has to get hit in order to take on hilarious different forms so he can solve puzzles in the third one.
 * Prince Laharl from Disgaea is the son of the overlord, and it shows. His reaction to Gordon firing a raygun at maximum power in the novels? "It tickles." Etna also claimed that 5 shots from a rocket launcher, 4 missiles at point-blank distance and 3 X-ray beam cannons did absolutely nothing to him. However, he can still be injured by high-powered and magic-imbued weapons.
 * In the games Laharl is Made of Diamond, easily shaking of physical abuse from Flonne and Etna, even heavy abuse after a few hours nap, without a single scratch and talking like he did not even feel pain.
 * An example of Cutscene Power to the Max, considering that his defense stat is only average gameplay wise.
 * This makes it all the more confusing when . The game even points it out to you.
 * In Pokemon, the ability Wonder Guard causes a Pokemon to take no damage from attacks that it is not normally weak to from its typing. Spiritomb and Sableye have no weaknesses, so if they obtain Wonder Guard they cannot be hit by ordinary attacks. (However, Sableye can only legitimately get Wonder Guard in the third generation; in later games they can only obtain the ability by cheating, since Skill Swap, used to swap Abilities between two Pokemon, deliberately cannot swap Wonder Guard.)
 * In Black and White, the ability Sturdy causes a Pokemon to survive any attack with at least 1 HP if it is at full health. The Pokemon Shedinja has a maximum of 1 HP, therefore if it obtains Sturdy, which it can do legitimately, it cannot be KOed by ordinary attacks.
 * In Tales of Vesperia, Estelle has a spell that temporarily grants Made Of Diamond status. She also has an ability that, when equipped, has a chance of making all buffs, including this one, last until the end of battle. This combo (removed from the Play Station 3 version) is a rather easy Game Breaker to put together, particularly useful in extremely long battles.
 * Quake offered you the occasional Pentagram of Protection, which made you invulnerable for 60 seconds. In later games, they changed it to the shield of protection as the game Jumped the Shark, so they wouldn't be seen as offering not just Witchcraft, but Witchcraft-as-Good-Thing, to the kiddies.
 * The Beast from In Famous 2. To the extent that it can survive a direct hit from a nuclear missile.
 * Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's Portable: The Gears of Destiny
 * The Materials are revealed to have kept the regenerative abilities of the Darkness of the Book of Darkness, able to reconstruct their physical forms out of nothing given enough time.
 * The Unbreakable Darkness meanwhile, is as unbreakable as her name suggests. She's both regenerative and is made of diamond. To give an idea, Amita manages to blast her at point blank range with a Desperation Attack that, according to the Wolkenritter, exceeded the Triple Breaker attack used near the end of A's to completely destroy the physical body of the Darkness of the Book of Darkness. It didn't even put a scratch on her, despite the fact that she was at around 10% of her full strength. In the end, the were only able to stop her by.
 * Bryce Boltzmann, the protagonist of Never Dead is Cursed with Immortality. In his case, he is literally indestructible. Dismemberment and Decapitation are mere inconveniences to him, and he can even use them both to his advantage.
 * Bryce Boltzmann, the protagonist of Never Dead is Cursed with Immortality. In his case, he is literally indestructible. Dismemberment and Decapitation are mere inconveniences to him, and he can even use them both to his advantage.