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{{trope}}
{{quote|''"You'll be having a really good time...and then all of a sudden this boss will kick your fucking nuts out through your nose."''|'''Noah Antwiler''' of [[The Spoony Experiment]] on ''[[
Due to this, they usually appear early on, but can appear from early to early-mid game. They definitely shouldn't appear late. And it's not really [[That One Boss]] so much as it's very brutally drilling into you how to play: like a boss in a beat-em-up designed to very easily beat anyone who thinks they can button mash through the game.
[[Sister Trope]] to [[Early Bird Boss]], a version of a "Wake
Compare with [[That One Boss]], though this trope is specifically for bosses that appear early in the game and are merely a sample of the rest of the game's challenges. Also compare with [[Disappointing Last Level]]. Contrast with [[Warmup Boss]], a first boss that frequently is impossible (or at least very difficult) to lose to. See also [[Hopeless Boss Fight]] and [[Final Boss Preview]]. Compare [[Skill Gate Characters]], which are PvP characters/factions/whatever that serve a similar purpose in separating newbies from the experienced.
{{examples}}▼
Not to be confused with [[Bad Boss|an employer who calls you at ungodly hours in the morning.]]
▲{{examples}}
== Action ==
* Waka in ''[[Okami]]'', because before that, you can just hack n' slash your enemies to bits close-range. Not Waka: he [[Throwing Your Sword Always Works|throws his sword(s)]] at you repeatedly, and you have to deflect them back at him with some skill to beat him.
** The Spider Queen may come as a nasty surprise to new players as well, especially since she can stomp on you.
* The ''[[Devil May Cry]]'' series featured some nasty first bosses, including the [[Giant Spider|Phantom]] in the first game and Cerberus in the third.
* ''[[No More Heroes]]'': So you just got dropped into the game a few minutes ago, the controls on the High/Low thing are still shaky, and most of the Mooks you've fought have made you wonder what the blocking and emergency evading are for. You've probably only charged your Beam Katana manually once or twice so far, in safety after clearing a room. Then you fight Death Metal, who seems to block everything that isn't a counter hit, has a metric crapload of HP, and attacks with huge combos that burn through your
** The real wake up call comes when you battle the notorious {{spoiler|Shinobu}}, the first boss where you have to carefully dodge, chase and wait for an opening. And demonstrates that bosses can pull out ''really'' strong attacks when they [[Turns Red|turn red]]. (The attack isn't a [[One-Hit Kill]], but if you've taken any damage you're still going to die.)
** The last "Wake
** Then we get to ''Desperate Struggle''. The very first thing that happens? A ranking match against Rank 51. On Sweet, it's a tutorial fight. Anything more difficult? "Welcome to the game. Now die."
** If Skelter Helter didn't mess you up for the tutorial, then the 50th ranked assassin, Nathan Copeland, most definitely will. If you haven't learned how to evade attacks, say hello to a rocket to the face. If you haven't learned to dodge when danger signs flash, say hello to a metal fist in the face. Plus, his arena becomes more and more dangerous as the fight drags on, forcing you to get used to being ''very'' attentive to your surroundings. Not to mention that blocking his attacks will, once again, burn through your battery like nothing else.
* Murai in the Xbox version of ''[[Ninja Gaiden]]'' is the boss for the "tutorial level". If the mooks haven't taught you anything yet, then Murai will teach you not to button mash wildly or he'll block and counter with a throw. So you might think turtling works - [[Superman (
** Alma also makes an appearance to just start smacking you down when you thought the game was done throwing curve balls at you. Doku, the Zeppelin Boss, your evil twin, and the second fight with Murai all qualify as re-wake up call bosses, to make sure you aren't falling asleep yet.
** In Black, the game just rubs it in your face. So you finally beat the game? Good job, now go beat these three new ''HARDER'' difficulties!
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** ''[[Sin and Punishment 2]]'' has Orion Tsang, the Stage 1 penultimate boss, who puts the "Punishment" in "Sin and Punishment" and shows you that the Nebulox battles are going to require some serious practice. For most of the battle, he shields himself so you can't damage him (in fact it's very easy to time him out the first several times).
** Also, Hibaru Yaju, third of the Nebulox. She's tough mainly because she's the first boss that actually requires melee attacks to fight. For a lot of players, this is the first time they have to seriously use their melee attacks for something other than deflecting projectiles.
* The first few minutes of ''[[Prototype (
* Souther, the second boss in ''[[Streets of Rage]]'', who swipes at you with his [[Wolverine Claws|Freddy Krueger glove]] with RIDICULOUS speed and who can't be jump kicked.
* ''[[Streets of Rage]] 2'' has Jet, the stage 2 boss, who is hard to defeat unless you spam jump attacks.
** Notably, Souther and Jet reappear TOGETHER in a later stage, making them a twofer.
* The first boss in ''[[Streets of Rage]] 3'' is [[That One Boss|Shiva]] from ''[[Streets of Rage]] 2''. Oh yeah, and the difficulty [[Nintendo Hard|only goes up from there.]]
* If you haven't gotten proficient with ''[[
* The massive fire-breathing boss Bi Xie in ''[[Dynasty Warriors]]: Strikeforce'' is not only a Wakeup Call boss for the game, it's arguably a Wakeup Call boss for the entire ''series''. It's not too hard once you know what to do, but if you go in expecting to do the classic ''Dynasty Warriors'' mindless hacking and slashing, you're probably in for an unpleasant surprise. Even if you're reasonably capable of handling Lu Bu, Zhang Liao and Diao Chan as they go in and out of Fury mode and gang up on you, as well as the [[Goddamned Bats|swarm of tigers]] that first greets you when you enter the area, AND finally the giant boss itself - it's actually very easy to ''time out'' if you don't accomplish all this quickly enough.
** The Qiaos tend to be this in other entries, simply due to the fact they are ridiculously fast compared to the most commonly encountered Notable Generals and juggle like crazy. Enraged Qiaos are even worse, but thankfully are rarely encountered in the core game. (They're more of a threat in the randomly generated empire building modes of XL and Empires.) Depending on which game, the worse of the Qiaos will change, since their movesets change a little every game. Huang Zhong may also count from 4 onwards, as while his guards engage you he will flee and spam his arrow shot special.
** Gan Ning is notable for being a wake-up call boss AND being the Buttmonkey. After a certain stage, usually around the fourth for any Shu or Wu character, the CPU begins to use his musou far more frequently. For any who don't play this series, he does a quick dash with his sword held to the side, and it does the most damage in a single hit of any in the game. Most other musous are multi-hit crowd clearers, that do incremental damage and if you are juggled can sometimes be escaped from, but not this one. It fires off instantly, there is NO WAY to block it unless you were already performing your own, and if it lasts long enough he can drive around back and run you over a second time while you're still recovering. Once it touches you, the damage is already done, and it's immense, even on max-stat characters on EASY. In contrast, his normal attacks are almost all telegraphed and easily blockable. Essentially, if you always stay behind him he is one of the easiest to take down, but the battle can turn against you without warning. Depending on character merely being touched can do anywhere from 25%-60% damage to someone using no items.
* ''[[
* Theseus may seem like normal boss fair for ''[[God of War (
* ''[[Bayonetta]]'' has Jeanne. Even in her earliest appearance she's a [[Perfect Play AI]], so needless to say if you haven't got the hang of dodging (and therefore [[Bullet Time|Witch Time]]) yet, she '''will''' hand you your ass on a silver platter.
** And that's on Normal mode. On Hard mode she starts attacking from a distance by summoning [[Giant Foot of Stomping|Giant Feet and Fists Of Stomping]] without any warning and sometimes repeatedly, so you can't let your guard down for even a second. In [[Harder Than Hard|Non-Stop Infinite Climax]] she is even more GFS-happy ''and'' you can't use Witch Time! So basically, in each difficulty, she makes sure to be a
* Bahamut, in ''[[Lord of Arcana]]''. As the third boss he is much more difficult then both the previous and next boss. Not only does he have a [[One-Hit Kill|one hit kill]] attack (notably, the at this point infamous "[[Final Fantasy
** Notably, unlike the last two bosses in which the game outright tells you that they have destructible parts, Bahamut's hint can essentially be summed up as "Megaflare hits the center of the stage". The game also does nothing to inform you that Bahamut's wings are destructible, but most players might be able to guess that. His tail, on the other hand, is not so obvious, taking significantly less damage then the rest of him and almost encouraging you to avoid it. Bahamut is also the first boss in which player's might find that, to their horror, enemy bosses can, and will, flee the battle if it goes bad for them. Most players don't have the resources to even attempt to fight Bahamut again, and the mission does not end once Bahamut has fled. Instead, he appears somewhere else on the map. Most players will probably restart their PSP's and try again later to avoid losing all their healing items.
*** And to further compound problems, unlike the last two bosses who were quite effectively crippled when their destructible parts were destroyed, Bahamut goes on to prove that [[I Am Not Left-Handed|he can continue to fight without half of his tail and shredded wings]] with no real loss in fighting prowess.
* ''[[Touhou]]'' usually does this for stage 4 bosses, but special mention goes to Parsee Mizuhashi, the second boss of ''Subterranean Animism'', who very quickly establishes that the bosses in this game are significantly harder than usual. Parsee has both shots that chase you around the playing field and a doppelganger attack; tactics normally reserved for late-game bosses. And the game's bosses do not get any easier from here...
* Good old Sakit from [[La
* Atlas from [[Astro Boy Omega Factor]]. Attempts to go charging in, lasers blazing (like a first-time player might have done until now), will get you killed before you know what the heck happened. Atlas has jet-dashing punches, and a nastier version of Astro's Arm Cannon that takes up nearly the entire
== Action-Adventure Game ==
* ''[[The Legend of Zelda (
** The early morning receptionist for ''[[The Legend of Zelda:
** ''[[Skyward Sword]]'' introduces you to [[Big Bad]] Ghirahim as the boss of the first dungeon. Up until then, you can get by OK just by flailing your sword around at most enemies. If you do that against Ghirahim, he will utterly destroy you. And [[The Computer Shall Taunt You|talk smack at you]] for playing like crap.
* ''[[Donkey Kong Country]] 2'''s 2nd boss, Krazy Kleever is probably this. He starts out fairly simply, shooting a couple fireballs at you and slowly chasing you down a line of hooks, but after you hit him three times, he sinks into the lava, faking death for about half a second before he bursts out, lunges at you, and proceeds to chase you across the hooks (now at several vertical levels) at a much quicker pace. Oh, yeah, and now he ''flies''. Not [[That One Boss]] (especially not compared to, say, K. Rool himself), but still dangerous enough to cost you a few lives the first time you fight him.
* Elite Krotera, the first boss of ''[[Iji]]'' can easily wipe the floor with you. He's got powerful weapons, and the floor sprouts turrets that can eat through your armor like candy. {{spoiler|On the plus side, he's a [[Skippable Boss]].}} As the [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLzLxfe4Rrk#t=5m56s the creator's speedrun video] shows, however, with the right skill loadout you can kill him before he can get off a single attack. It's fun to watch.
* Wendy O. Koopa from ''[[
* The first boss of Conker's Bad Fur Day, Haybot, may qualify as well. At first, it seems like the characters (Conker assisted by Franky the pitchfork, in this case), simply have to hit the hay-covered robot three times while dodging its attacks. But then the boss breaks the floors out of rage and all of them fall into a sewer basement where the battle turns into a nasty [[Didn't Need Those Anyway]] scenario. The boss loses parts of its body as Conker and Franky continue pressing the red button behind its body, which in turn can only be done after luring the boss into water (after, in turn, luring the boss's missiles into some pipes to break them). When Haybot is complete, it attacks by squashing the characters with both hands. When one of those hands is gone, it attacks by seizing them and then throwing them away. With both hands gone, it squashed again the characters, but with its own metallic base. With the rest of the body gone, the boss is simply defeated, but then our [[Anti-Hero]] has to escape from there before it's too late.
* The first miniboss of ''[[Henry Hatsworth in
== Puzzle ==
* In ''[[Puzzle Quest Challenge of the Warlords]]'', most of the enemies you face can be defeated within a rematch or two (or on intentionally tough [[
* Lady D in ''[[Henry Hatsworth in
* ''Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine'' has Frankly, the ''second'' opponent in the game. To newer players that aren't used to chaining yet, Frankly's stacking pattern is punishing, as uninterrupted, he will constantly get chains that will rain blocks on the player's side. The game only gets harder from there.
* The [[Squick|Immoral Beast]] in ''[[Catherine]]'' is the second boss of the game, but it ''will'' take a player off guard. It is surprisingly fast, has a move that [[Interface Screw|reverses the controls]], and, more or less, is the first time a player really has to think on their feet. Making a wrong move can easily spell doom. Not [[It Got Worse|only]] that, but there are [[Spikes of Doom|trap blocks]], which one can easily forget about and get skewered by.
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== Role Playing Game ==
* A quintessential RPG example is Brock from ''[[
** The remakes fixed it by allowing a Mankey (Fighting) to be caught early on in Route 3, which can deal super effective damage against Rock types.
** [[
** Heck, pick up Chimchar in Diamond/Pearl and try to beat Mars the first time. Unless you deliberately overlevel Chimchar, her Purugly ''will'' wipe your party.
** Gold/Silver had Falkner. Up until this point, you've probably curbstomped every trainer you've fought. Your Rival? The Sprout Tower? Those are easy. If you picked Chikorita as your starter, its got a natural disadvantage against his Flying-types. Picked Totodile, nobody has an advantage. Picked Cyndaquil? Mud Slap can destroy you with a single hit.
*** If Mud-Slap can fall your Cyndaquil in one hit, you must be training your Pokemon wrong. The most powerful move Falkner can bring on you is Gust. With same-type attack bonus, this move has a base power of 60. Mud-Slap does not gain same-type attack bonus, and even with damage bonus, the base power is only 40. Even Tackle has a base power of 52.5 with same-type attack bonus. The Tackle will kill you before the Mud-Slap can. Remember that all types mentioned (Normal, Ground, Flying) were classified as physical attacks in Gen 2.
*** [[The Dev Team Thinks of Everything]]: In the the house next to the Pokemon Center in that same town, a person will ask you to trade a Bellsprout (Very easy to find in the field just before the town) for his Onix (Rock/Ground). Guess which type is super-effective against birds?
*** Falkner serves this role ''again,'' but in a different way, in ''[[Updated Rerelease|HeartGold]]'' [[Updated Rerelease|and]] ''[[Updated Rerelease|SoulSilver]]'''. This time, he serves as an alarm clock for veterans re-playing the game who expect everything to be the same. Up until Falkner there have been a few changes from the originals, but when you reach him and realize his Pidgeotto took a level
** Ruby/Sapphire has Roxanne. If you picked Mudkip, you'll be fine. Torchic, on the other hand, will be destroyed instantly, and Treecko, despite the type advantage, won't fare much better. For starters, Roxanne's Nosepass is a pure rock type, instead of a dual Rock/Ground, so your damage is only doubled. Doubling is still good, but the only grass move you'll probably have at this point is Absorb, which is pretty weak, and Nosepass has better stats than Treecko. Fortunately, you can pick up some water and grass types before this gym, and trade for a Fighting type Makuhita, or you can evolve your starter and stand a better chance.
** Miror B. from ''[[Pokémon Colosseum]]'' is annoying, but his Ludicolo squad lacks any real offensive power or levels to be a real threat. The second and third bosses, however, are both ready to prepare you for the game in their own way:
*** Cipher Peon Skrub will tank with Clamperl and Wynaut (the latter of which will return fire like the [[Game Breaker]] it is) while thrashing your team with Geodude's Magnitude and his Shadow Hitmontop. You can't rely on pure power to overcome Clamperl or Wynaut, because if you do Geodude and Hitmontop will make you suffer. Hitmontop in particular is the first time in the game where an opponent's Shadow Pokemon can really wreck your team, forcing you to play strategically, ''especially'' if you plan on enduring attacks while trying to Snag it.
*** And if you didn't get the memo from Skrub...one dungeon later, [[That One Boss|Dakim]] will really bitchslap you awake. His Earthquake+Protect combo will decimate an unprepared team, and that's nothing compared to the [[Oh Crap]] when the player realizes he has a ''[[The Corruption|Shadow]]'' '''''[[Olympus Mons|Entei]]'''''. Dakim teaches players the following: First, that since every battle in ''Colosseum'' is a double battle, you need to keep an eye on both your [[Mons]]. Second, that bosses will use actual strategies against you, and you'll need to do the same or get used to whiting out. And third, that enemy Shadow Pokemon are '''really dangerous''' and that you stand a legitimate chance of them fainting (either from recoil due to Shadow Rush, or as collateral from the nature of double battles) before they are Snagged.
* So, I see you bought ''[[
** Another example may be the very first boss in the tutorial level, which follows a level with very weak enemies that don't look too menacing and who are stopped in their tracks by your shield. Then comes this towering ball of muscles with a giant axe, huge range, broad swings and the strength to crush you and your shield in one hit. And did I mention it takes about one hundred hits to kill? And, if you do manage to kill it (chances are you won't even touch it) you are then taken to another area which culminates with you getting punched to death by a monster five times bigger than the boss before. And then the game feels the need to cut down your HP to half till you beat another boss.
** And then there's Phalanx, the first true boss of the game. He covers himself with shielded mooks, which are only vulnerable to fire and magic (both of which you'd only have if you started as a mage or a noble) unless you attack them from behind, which is fiendishly hard to do, and if you're a physical attack character, this means you're going to need to use some of the items you picked up in the level, or you'll just be engaging in futility. Oh, and you can't level up until AFTER this battle, so if you used up all those fire bombs and turpentine you'd gathered through the level, save yourself a headache and start over, because those shielded mooks will own you, since in addition to the dozen that cling to the boss, there's a dozen more roaming the area, ready to make you a pincushion with their spears. Oh, and they have ranged attacks. [[Harder Than Hard|Nobody ever said this game is easy.]]
* How about ''[[
* For the above's sequel, ''[[
** So, you breezed through Mr. Passion without too much trouble. Well, congrats. A couple chapters later, however, you're gonna meet the Jealous Bass, a tough [[Flunky Boss]] who works with his flunkies to hit Lucas and Boney multiple times per turn. Without finding the right combination of items and Lucas' limited [[Psychic Powers|PSI]], you'll get stomped.
* Castoth, the first boss of ''[[Illusion of Gaia]]'', is frequently cited as one of the game's most difficult. This continues the trend set by predecessor ''Soul Blazer'', which features a nasty first boss that becomes the [[Bonus Boss]] in ''Illusion of Gaia''.
** Castoth isn't really that difficult by ''Illusion of Gaia's'' boss
* ''[[
* The second battle with Scarmiglione in the DS remake of ''[[
* ''[[
* ''[[
** An even more egregious example is Black Waltz 1, only a couple of fights after Plant Brain. He begins the fight by summoning an ally... and you have to fight the pair of them ''alone''. Fortunately, you should be close to Trance at that point...
* ''[[
** The ''fourth'' scripted battle, the Dorter Slums, is a Wake Up-Call ''Battle''. This is the first battle where your enemy has a specialized setup, with a knight, two black mages (which, if you're unlucky, will take advantage of the rain and use Bolt), and at least 4 archers, one of them at the highest point of the stage (though oddly enough, one of them is unarmed). This battle tends to be a wall for many new players, and seems like it's telling you that future battles won't be messing around, either. And they don't ease up.
** There's also Wiegraf, early in Chapter 1. Granted you did get to see his Holy Sword attacks demonstrated by Agrias in the prologue, but he's the first encounter you have with an enemy who can use abilities that the main character cannot learn, no matter what. The battle also serves as a [[Chekhov's Gun]] in this respect, since he becomes [[That One Boss]] later in the game by being incredibly tough, one on one, and a [[Sequential Boss]] to boot.
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** There's an earlier Wake Up Call Battle, though it's more for the naive or the reckless: Algus (Argath in the remake)'s rescue. If you choose to save him, he becomes almost suicidally reckless, and if he falls it's game over. The best option here if to callously disregard Argath's situation and choose to kill all the enemies, at which point he becomes almost ridiculously cautious, running from battles as much as possible, but making you a jerkass in the process.
** FFT has a nice few of these. If you're underleveled and don't know what you're doing - (e.g. just rushing through the required battles with the starting classes or without any good abilities) you can easily get killed during your first battle at Dorter. Knights coming at you from the front, with Black Mages backing them up and firing AoE spells at your party, while a pair of Archers are stationed up at the top of a building that's several stories high and takes about three turns to climb. And your party is at the bottom, just at the edge of their attack range - which means your ''[[Squishy Wizard]]'' (if you brought one) can be on the ground very quickly if you deployed him/her in the wrong place.
* ''[[
* ''[[
** Aster Protoflorian exists to make sure that the player ''gets'' the new battle system, EVERY. SINGLE. FACET OF IT. Don't bother or know how to take advantage of elemental weaknesses? You die. Don't optimize class roles to boost chain bonuses? You die. Don't know how to switch classes on the fly for sticky situations? You die. Don't believe that buffs are necessary? You '''''DIE'''''. This boss is so unforgiving while enforcing the nuances of XIII's battle system that to some players it approaches [[That One Boss]] territory.
** Odin is the choke point of a lot of people playing ''[[
** Earlier than that, though, is the warmech in Lake Bresha. He is there to teach you how to Paradigm Shift (''FFXIII'''s main combat wrinkle, basically shifting character roles on the fly to cope with that situation). He teaches you Paradigm Shifting by ''killing you dead'' if you do it wrong. He's not nearly as brutal about it as Aster Protoflorian above, though.
** When you arrive to chapter 12, ground up from all the sidequesting in chapter 11, it looks like all the enemies you encounter are
* ''[[Lost Odyssey]]'': First real "boss" is just a kind of gryphon-thing, which really isn't very
* Mistwalker seems to ''love'' this trope, as the same thing is true of their other game, ''[[Blue Dragon]]''. The first real boss is a dinosaur/dragon thing. If you've gotten the hang of combat and are sufficiently leveled, it's not too hard, but if you're not ready for it, it will absolutely ''slaughter'' you without compunction or remorse.
* ''[[Suikoden I]]'':
** Almost everyone agrees that the Zombie Dragon wasn't just a hard boss for the level, it's a really hard boss in general. [[The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard|It attacks your whole team at once, does a large amount of damage, and has a lot of health]]. If anyone in your team dies, or if you don't distribute potions, gem (and odds are, at this point, you don't).
** Similarly, the fight against Sylph is going to knock you good if you can't coordinate your party, as they're the first of only a handful of multi-part bosses where all enemies are of roughly equal strength, rather than being a [[Flunky Boss]]. While you're focusing on one, the others can easily sneak in behind and attack your back-row characters
This is especially true if you elect to fight Sylph before the events at the Tower of Salvation, as you will not have many of the advanced techs needed for such a complicated fight, such as Raine's mid-range and advanced healing arts.
* ''[[Secret of Mana]]'',
** You literally [[Foregone Victory|cannot lose]] against the first boss and the second is a piece of cake too. And then there's Spiky Tiger. Ow. Spiky is considered by many players to be one of the toughest bosses in the game. This is probably due to his ability to inflict the burning status on your characters (paralyzed and taking continuous damage) as well as knocking them out with a hard-to-avoid physical attack. He also regularly jumps to the raised platforms on the sides where he can only be hit with the two ranged weapons you
** When you first get to the ice country, you'll encounter a mid-boss, Boreal Face. The wake up call here is that once you obtained magic, most bosses were about spamming it until it died. Boreal Face however as an absurdly high magic defense, and the most you can do against it with magic is 20-30 HP and it has around 1100HP. By the time you absolutely run out of MP for attack spells, Boreal Face will have over half of its HP left.
* ''[[Seiken Densetsu 3]]''
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** Before that is the furnace demon Genova. It has considerable spell firepower and two resilient mooks helping it. It can easily overwhelm a novice, but if you know how to control your fighters and bought power-up items in Byzel beforehand, it'll be a cakewalk.
** And even before that there's a pair of Machine Golems. These will [[That One Attack|quickly teach]] you that direct damage spells are not the [[Game Breaker]] they were in [[Secret of Mana|the previous game]].
* The first battle with Mid-Boss in ''[[Disgaea
* ''[[Diablo (
* ''[[Diablo (
** Good luck taking down Blood Raven if you're a melee fighter. In fact, given her speed, powerful ranged attacks and the minions she calls up periodically to harass you, good luck period.
** Duriel. So you're a ranged class and you've been running away shooting over your shoulder all the time, eh? You think you can kite or outrange every single monster in the game, eh? You think that hit points are useless because nothing comes close to you, eh? You think if you ever come close to dying you can always run away, eh? And the game would never put you in an inescapable sardine can with a boss that will charge you for an instant kill if you get too far away and has an unresistable slow aura? Ha!
** As of v1.13 at least, Duriel no longer uses charge, but his (un)Holy Freeze aura pretty much makes you hardly able to retaliate effectively as he dices up your character in short order.
* In ''[[
** And then there's 2300 A.D. which is a whole Wake Up Call ''Area'' telling you "No, you can't just bash A to win".
** And again once you reach 12,000 BC. Heck, there's a whole ''series'' of "Wake
* ''Final Fantasy Legend II'' (aka ''[[
** Gen-Bu from ''[[SaGa]] I'' was likewise a sudden jump in difficulty. And it was possible to save to the game's single save slot after triggering him, and just before fighting him, rendering your game borderline [[Unwinnable]].
* The Mark VIII Salamander at the beginning of ''[[Rogue Galaxy]]'' has three stages to break through, and your party members force you to fight solo for the final phase. Hope you stopped to buy extra [[Healing Potion|healing potions]].
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** Similarly, at max level (70 in ''The Burning Crusade'', 80 in ''Wrath of the Lich King'', and 85 in ''Cataclysm''), characters may begin entering heroic dungeons, which are powered up versions of the standard ones, as well as raid dungeons intended for 10 or 25 players (the original game had 40-man raids). These are significantly more difficult than normal dungeons in terms of the level of gear needed to survive, the skill and coordination required of players, and often the challenge of getting a group together in the first place. Also, raid dungeons lock players into a particular "instance" of that dungeon for a period ranging from 3 days to a week, making consistent and prompt attendance essential. The result of this is that new players who have never tried to tackle endgame content face a brutal learning curve, especially if they can't get into a guild that's been raiding for a long time and can train them. In the original ''[[World of Warcraft]]'', this dungeon was Molten Core; Karazhan served the function in ''The Burning Crusade'', and Naxxramas is the ''Wrath of the Lich King'' equivalent, although Blizzard has made a conscious attempt to lower the bar to raiding by making the latter relatively easy.
*** Speaking of Naxxramas, the second boss of the Construct Quarter Grobbulus definitely qualifies, since players will often elect to face him early in the dungeon. Although previous bosses are designed to be beaten through sheer power, Grobbulus lays deadly patches of poison gas where he stands and summons additional mooks throughout the encounter, necessitating strategic movement and co-ordination. Gluth and Thaddius serve to drive Grobbulus's point home (although many guilds will elect to fight Gluth and Thaddius close to the end).
** Almost every starting zone also offers a "Wake
** Sunwell Plateau could be described as an entire wake up call ''dungeon'' , but specifically the first two bosses, Kalecgos and Brutallus, who were both significantly harder than Illidan (the final boss of the dungeon before SWP,) forced a large number of players to learn to play or go home. Countless guilds maybe scraped a Kalecgos kill or two but failed to make so much as a proverbial dent in Brutallus, causing them to give up (or perhaps even just break up entirely.) M'uru had a similar effect on the guilds that made it to him.
** A late expansion example would be the trio of dungeons released in "Fall of the Lich King", at a point where everyone got used to breezing through dungeons even on heroic difficulty on autopilot. Many of the bosses could be considered this, depending on how long it takes for the player to realize that they have to ''pay attention this time''. The Devourer of Souls would be the first, often catching players off guard when he uses a new attack at low health, a wandering beam that swiftly kills anyone standing in it, as well as making people kill themselves with his [[Synchronization|mirrored soul spell]]. All of the bosses in Pit of Saron count to some extent as well.
*** The abominations, Festergut and Rotface, are this for Icecrown Citadel. The former is a DPS race that requires the party members with the spores to stand in the right place to spread them to the rest of the raid to avoid a wipe when he uses Pungent Blight. The latter requires players who get Mutated Infection to kite the slimes on them to the person with the large slime without running into anyone else's slime on the way, in order to control the rate at which large, explosive slimes form. In both of these, all the players have to know what they're doing in order to survive, and many Icecrown Citadel raids do not get further than these two.
** One of the most notorious examples came pre-expansion in the form of Blackwing Lair. The very first encounter is Razorgore the Untamed, the second hardest boss in the instance. Note ''encounter'', not simply first boss. Razorgore requires an unbelievable amount of guild coordination and several good tanks that can reliably hold off multiple enemies at once. If you manage to beat Razorgore, the very next room is home to Vaelastrasz the Corrupt, the hardest boss in the instance (including Nefarian). Vael requires so much fire resistance that he makes Ragnaros look like a cigarette lighter in comparison, and you only have a very limited amount of time to kill him, requiring the raid to do a huge amount of damage. Blackwing Lair was a notorious guild killer back in the day. Even with
*** Razorgore becomes difficult for a different reason with a high level group. He has less than 500,000 HP (about what most heroic WOTLK 5-man bosses have and what Cataclysm 5-man trash mobs have), and is easy to kill, but many groups will try to kill him before destroying the eggs, leading to a wipe when he casts an instant-death spell on the entire raid upon dying. This serves as proof that players can't simply zerg their way though old raids.
** Every boss in the early instances of cataclsym ''will'' kill you in one hit if you don't obey their mechanics, this is meant to re-temper players after wrath content was made easy by the accessability of gear.
*** Corla is probably the best example, as if you don't manage the stacking debuff, either one of your party members will turn into a drakonid and get mind controlled, or one of the cultists will, leading to a wipe.
* In a similar fashion, ''[[Guild Wars]]'' features Wake Up Call Missions. Probably the most [[Egregious]] example is Zen Daijun from ''Factions''. Minister Cho's estate was virtually a tutorial. When you get to Zen Daijun and face a whole HORDE of [[Body Horror|the Afflicted]] AND that horrible Miasma which spreads degenerations around your entire party (particularly bad if you're using henchmen, who don't know well enough to not stand in close formation and keep reinfecting each other) AND [[Escort Mission|you have to bodyguard 2 (admittedly very high level) NPCs]]... prepare to die.
* Caruban, the very first boss of ''[[
** In the sequel, Elfin serves as a combination of this and [[Beef Gate]]. She is designed to be easy enough if you are at least level 9 and have four art blocks, but difficult to impossible otherwise.
* Amorphes from ''[[Avalon Code]]'' will force you to see the monster description, or you won't be able to beat him.
* In ''[[City of Heroes]]'', Frostfire, the first elite boss players have the opportunity to face, fits this trope perfetly. He's fairly trivial compared to most later elite bosses, let alone archvillains, but he's much harder than anything new players have seen before him. On top of that, many veteran players avoid [[Scrappy Level|the Hollows]], denying new players a source of advice.
** Part of what gives Frostfire his infamy is that most players (particularly new players) go about the fight all wrong. Generally, players running through the Hollows content try to put together a full team of 8 to take him down. This means that the final room containing the man himself also contains 20-30 mooks, and the icy terrain makes pulling them away nearly impossible. With a team of two or three, however, the final room is much emptier, and it's far easier to grab him alone.
* ''[[Vampire: The Masquerade Redemption]]'' (a ''Videogame/Diablo'' clone set in the ''[[
* ''[[Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines|Vampire: the Masquerade - Bloodlines]]'' features Bishop Vick, who you can fight very early on. Most of your boss fights up to now have been with melee fighters in areas with lots of cover to hide or disappear behind. Vick, on the other hand, is incredibly fast, wields a shotgun that he's very good with, and even if you run behind the scant cover, he can see through your invisibility power. He's a pushover if you wait to fight him until you've become more powerful, but he will absolutely shred a low-level character, and there's no warning given that he's going to be so hard.
* The Hellhound at the end of Act I of ''[[The Witcher]]'' is one of these. The player can be easily stunned by it while it's pack of barghests chomp away at leisure, even with strong Group attack skills. One good blast of Aard can set up a one-shot kill, a feat impossible with later bosses. The battle also shows that some allies can be unkillable in battle. It also shows just how helpful alchemy is, as the right oils and potions can make the boss a walk in the park.
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* The ''[[Tales of Vesperia]]'' fandom has nicknamed Gattuso, a large wolf and the third boss of the game, the "noob killer." It attacks quickly and ruthlessly, tosses the party around the battlefield like rag dolls, can poison with one of its attacks, and can charge from one end of the field to the other in two seconds flat. To add insult to injury, this was the boss of the 360 version's demo, meaning its brutality was several people's first experience with the game. Also, right after the battle, [[Adorably Precocious Child]] Karol goes "What the heck? It barely put up a fight!", infuriating many new players.
** Zagi can also be this on Very Hard and Unknown. This gives you a taste of what the harder bosses in the game are like. It's ridiculous to level up in the castle without using equipment from the last game you played, meaning that you will most likely not gain very many levels, if any, before the boss battle. For a first boss, Zagi is tough, being fast, with annoying artes, and with Yuri being alone... until miss Princess steps in to help. She can heal, but, her AI is infuriating for most players, with her tendency to run up and attack, only healing when someone is about to die if they take one more hit. In higher difficulties, her running up to attack = instant death to the Princess. She's also slow as hell, so don't expect her to be able to get away from Zagi if he chases her. This battle teaches you how to "hit and run", and use Free Run though.
* The first boss in ''[[Shin Megami Tensei]]: [[
** Bishamon, one of the Four Devas, can also count. Not only is his fight the second with Rangda enemies (which Repel Physical, making Atsuro and Izuna completely useless), his Hassohappa (which can deal 1000+ damage to the entire party) makes it almost impossible to approach him unless you at least Null Phys. Not to mention he has (respawning) allies that can heal his massive HP stores (making Hassohappa hit worse). While most battles so far were almost all affairs where you mostly attack and exploit weaknesses, this one puts emphasis on defense using passive abilities.
** The fight against Beldr, in addition to being [[That One Boss]], is the first "Bel" enemy you face and warns you that the others will also require specialized tactics to beat.
** The first battle against other tamers teaches players the value of AUTO skills.
* ''[[Mabinogi (
** If you try to take Alby Dungeon Normal, you'll face the Giant Spider. While the enemies before this generally do single-digit damage even to raw newbies, the Giant Spider can kill you in two or three hits if you're not familiar with defensive
* [[Dragon Age]] 's first "Red" (Boss) enemy is the Ogre. Up until this point, you've had some tough, but winnable battles, mostly against mooks, where some relatively simple tactics will generally win the fight. The Ogre, though. . . hooh boy. . .
** The entrance to the tower is a Wake Up Call Level, too. You're running headlong into a trap fanged by a fireball-using Emissary and several archers. That teaches you to get in smart, fast, and take down the enemy before you get taken down.
** The first boss in ''Awakening'', The Withered, gives you a taste of being on the receiving end of the new high end talents available in the expansion. The moment you see all the damage dealt to him being reduced to zero thanks to "Carapace" is the moment you realize that the new abilities are not to be taken lightly.
* ''[[Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden]]'' has the [[Ghost Dad]]. The first few bosses in the game were relatively easy to dispatch, and this boss, being a spectral [[Bill Cosby]], doesn't seem like it would be any different until you actually fight it. Among his tricks are lowering your speed (giving him more turns), increasing his own power (which is already fairly high to begin with), and worst of all, inflicting the whole party with multiple random status ailments all at once. And he uses that last attack quite liberally and it's even worse considering that there isn't a whole lot you can do about status ailments this early in the game. If you don't come into the fight prepared, he will wipe the floor with you.
* ''[[Vagrant Story]]'' doesn't feature a single ''easy'' boss, but at least the first few don't require much skill beyond picking the right weapon type and not standing right in front of them when they try to hit you. Then, after around 3 hours of gameplay, you finally escape the first dungeon and reach the above-ground part of the city. Including the first ''human'' boss - a priest general - two screens away from the dungeon gate. For the first time, you're ''really'' going to need those armor spells, reaction abilities and risk-reducing potions.
* You can breeze through the first half on ''[[Atelier Annie]]'' quite easily by buying your raw materials instead of gathering and by ignoring jobs with attribute requirements. But then assignment 5 has you fighting a not-insignificant monster. If you've neglected to raise your exploration level, you're in trouble two ways. First, the monster will clobber you and you'll need either some level grinding or bomb items to win. Second, just beating him isn't enough for the Gold Medal- to get that, you must grind for a certain rare drop, trade it to an NPC for a specific weapon, find an item that makes a particular Supplement (which isn't even available unless your exploration level is at least 20), and then enchant the weapon with the right attribute using the supplement. Not ''too'' hard if you know it's coming, but if you don't, kiss the [[Golden Ending]] goodbye.
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** The second game has the Kraken, which has [[Cognizant Limbs|eight strong legs]], a pair of even stronger arms that can strike units at a distance, and the head itself, which has high HP and a bubble attack that ignores defense. To make matters worse, you have limited movement and of the two (three if you promoted Kiwi) flying units you can have at this point, Peter is the only one who can consistently and immediately do some damage.
*** The boss after that is Taros, an iron giant that can only be harmed by Bowie if he's {{spoiler|equipped with the Achilles Sword.}} He can take a beating, deliver heavy damage to one unit with regular attacks or multiple targets with Bolt spells, and like every other boss, gets two turns to attack.
** Before ''Shining Force'', there was ''[[Shining in
* ''[[Breath of Fire IV]]'' has Ymechaf, which is encountered roughly a quarter through the game. His attacks are fairly powerful, but his defense is sky high. In short, the boss is the game's way of telling you "You're gonna wanna learn some of that combo magic."
* The ''[[
** Although unfittingly placed, the endgame of can be considered a wake up call because anything but a well-planned team of high leveled, well-geared characters will get utterly slaughtered where as the rest of the game presented (relatively) little trouble.
* ''[[Secret of Evermore]]'' has two bosses that will make you realize that yes, you do need to learn a bit more about this game's combat system if you want to reach the ending. The first is Salabog, the [[Stock Ness Monster|massive sea serpent]] in [[Prehistoria]]. He has 2000 HP (compare to the previous boss's 600), he spawns mooks that can hurt you by touching you (they're made of FIRE), and he only emerges to spring an attack on you and to make more mooks. If you haven't learned how to use charged spear attacks, or haven't leveled your spear up enough to throw it at all, you're gonna be in for a long, painful, and ultimately futile battle.
** The second is the Verminator, one of the later bosses of the medieval times world. This guy sits on a pile of crates, and will never come down, making him the first boss that you encounter which cannot be affected by regular attacks. He relentlessly uses status effect spells and attack spells on you, and, again, if you're no good with spear throwing, you're gonna die, since you'll run out of attack spells well before you get anywhere near killing him. You need to not only be very good with your spear, but also good with alchemy so you can cure the status afflictions he causes and protect against his attack spells. If, through some miracle, you've made it this far without learning about charged attacks, you're never going to win. The fact that he's placed at the end of [[Scrappy Level|the forest maze]], and the fact that the inn and save point are so easily missed, add to the aggravation.
* Number 9 in ''[[Parasite Eve|Parasite Eve 2]]'' serves as a
* ''[[Persona 3]]'' gives us the Change Relic around 20% into the game. Up until now, any enemy that isn't easily pummeled to death by exploiting [[Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors]] is handled with little trouble by exploiting the party heal of the Cadenza spell. Change Relic has no elemental weakness, and its wind magic can hit every party member for a good chunk of HP, or just hit one target for a potential [[One-Hit Kill]]. Then there's Poison Mist, which poisons your entire party, putting you on a very fast clock if it hits early. This is the point at which savvy players realize that sometimes, there's no substitute for good old-fashioned [[Level Grinding]].
** Hard as that is, though, Change Relic is actually a blessing in disguise. There's a checkpoint immediately before it which takes you back to dungeon lobby, so dying loses you five minutes of gameplay, tops. If you're stubborn and don't get the message there, however, the game punishes you with [[Dual Boss|Emperor and Empress]] shortly thereafter. They're not especially difficult if you're adequately leveled and prepared, but they'll destroy you if you're not. And there's a series of lengthy cutscenes between them and the most recent save point.
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** The Rampage Drive in is among the first four bosses in the game, and it is totally immune to physical attacks and also resists fire. To make matters worse, it has a very powerful physical attack that can wipe you out in one shot even if you're at full health, as well as an electric spell that hits the whole party (and one of the three starting party members is very susceptible to electricity).
* In [[Resonance of Fate]], the first real boss "Tar Man" Will destroy your team repeatedly, until you pretty much master the combat system and learn that not every move needs to be a "Hero Action." Even then, he has a lot of armor and requires multiple death-defying passes to take down. To top it off he will regenerate his health (but not his armor, thankfully) if you don't kill him fast enough.
* The Marid King in ''[[
* ''[[Cla Dun]]: This is an RPG!'' doesn't have very many boss encounters, and most enemies can be dealt with through basic attacks. However, when you reach the last floor of the Monster House, you'll have to deal with a fire knight, who has an incredibly powerful [[Flaming Sword]] attack and has a shield that greatly reduces damage from frontal attacks. If you haven't been making good use of your Magic Circles and [[Upgrade Artifact
* In ''[[Inazuma Eleven]]'' things will go very smoothly up until you meet Mikage Sennō Junior High (Brain Washing Junior High in the english anime dub). Unlike your previous opponents, MSJH have much better defensive and ball-keeping stats than your vanilla footballers, and their Killer Techniques, especially those used to steal and keep the ball are much stronger than most of your team's. It doesn't help that they won't lose any TP during the first half, which basically guarantees that they'll have drained poor Raimon Eleven's energies, unless the player brings enough items to sustain the characters. Worst of all, MSJH have the tendency to play very defensively after scoring a goal (something that is reflected in an episode of the anime).
* Dragon Quest games can be hard, and often pack a Wake-Up-Call Boss to let you know that.
** [[
** [[
** [[Dragon Quest IX]] has the Wight Knight. Did you recruit any allies at Patty's Place beforehand?
* In [[Dungeon Fighter Online]] the lightning Knoll is the first boss that legitimately can give you trouble. It's the first boss that posses powerful ranged attacks and it's moves can hit for a ton of damage. They also usually multihit, resulting in you failing a quest. Course he's easy relative to the later bosses.
* In ''[[
** ''[[Golden Sun: Dark Dawn
** The original [[
* Qudamah the Jackal can be this for [[Two Worlds]] II players, as he's very easy to run into by accident while exploring and completing quests in the first act of the game and is considerably stronger than anything else you fought so far. The quest leading up to him is extra deceptive in that it makes you go after a bunch of weak Varns in a mine, lulling you in a false sense of security only to then throw this unholy canine-faced terror at you without warning. Hope you didn't saviring weapon such as Rynex-R's [[Limit Break|Thunder]] [[Game Breaker|Sword]].
* The early levels in ''[[Bangai-O]]'' have fairly simple bosses that shouldn't give you too much trouble (especially since [[Goldfish Poop Gang|Sabu]] is fought in the first four). Then, you get to [[The Dragon|8]][[The Unintelligible|6]], level 8's boss. She uses reflective lasers like Mami's, forcing you to use EX attacks and keep your distance more effectively in battle.
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* The Capra Demon in ''[[Dark Souls]]'' is the first taste of just how ''unforgiving'' the game is to the player.
* In the Dark Spire, most of the early bosses range from only a bit harder than normal fights to actually easier than normal fights. Then you hit the first boss with a breath weapon. It can nearly OHKO your party. Then the second one CAN OHKO most of your party and the third can OHKO all of it. All of these are designed to teach you the importance of the Cast Quickly command. If you don't use it, you will die.
* ''[[
* ''[[Magical Vacation|Magical Starsign]]'' has the first encounter with Master Chard. It's a long fight, so you'll have to get used to party members gaining and losing advantage based on the planet orbits and day/night cycle; next, he has a devastating all-party hit which is telegraphed several turns in advance, teaching you how to prepare for and recover from battle-defining boss abilities; and his HP pool is so massive that you are almost guaranteed to run out of MP, forcing the player to appreciate strategic item use, which is a must when it comes to surviving difficult encounters in this game.
* [[Hercules (
* Al Gore from ''[[South Park|South Park: The Stick of Truth]]'', who picks a fight with you when you un-friend him. Up to this point, most fights aren't especially challenging, but this is the first that truly requires the player to think of a strategy. While the boss himself isn't all-too powerful (so long as you block the Global Warming attack, which causes the Sleep condition if it hits) he summons three Secret Service agents on his second turn, who are ''ludicrously'' powerful on both offense and defense, while forming a wall that ''completely'' protects Gore from melee attacks. While this Boss fight is technically optional, not doing it causes him to send spam mail almost constantly, which becomes rather annoying quickly.
== Simulation Game ==
* To some extent, the enemy ace squadron encountered in the player's first trip to the Round Table in ''[[Ace Combat]] Zero'' counts. They're the first major aerial enemies you face and can be quite difficult to take down in starter fighters. With more advanced birds, they are a good deal less [[Chasing Your Tail|tedious]]. Most of the ace squadrons across the series, in fact, qualify.
* The first three missions in [[Mechwarrior]] 3 are relatively easy with the toughest enemy you face being a suit identical to yours, that being a 55-ton Bushwhacker. Then mission 4 comes up and pits you against the first heavy mech of the game, a 70-ton Orion. Due to the fact that the Bushwhacker is not really a great mech and the rather weak weaponry you have this early in the game, if you have not mastered the art of "legging" (shooting out the leg of a mech to take it down quickly), the Orion will most likely tear you apart.
* ''[[Armored Core]]'':
** ''
** ''6'' has not one but two. A PCA Heavy Combat Helicopter at the end of the tutorial serves to make the player aware that this game isn't a mindless spamming experience and check whether the player's been paying attention to the instructions and hints given up to that point. Balteus at the end of the first chapter further checks that the player didn't just get this far on beginner's luck.
== Sports Game ==
* The Dallas Mavericks and Minnesota Timberwolves, the FIRST TWO TEAMS YOU FACE in NBA Jam, qualify as these. In both the original and the tournament edition, the Mavericks are one of the fastest and most efficient shooting teams in the game; Jamal Mashburn (or Mike Iuzzolino) can easily make players' lives a living hell. The T'Wolves can slip up a careless player in the Tournament Edition due to the fact that Christian Laettner and Chuck Person sink 90% of their shots to end a quarter.
** When you get to the Charlotte Hornets, the game pretty much tells you: "welcome to Hell." Larry Johnson and Alonzo Mourning are both [[Lightning Bruiser
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