Curb Stomp Battle/Video Games

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Ouch.

Video Game Cruelty Potential isn't just a term for needless violence. Sometimes, it's also about battles one-sided enough to make you wonder if they even qualify as such. Pretty much any video game that allows you to level up yourself or your team gives you this option. Here are some examples.

  • Quite possible to pull off in the Total War series. Gathering an elite army and using proper tactics can result in armies losing fewer than ten soldiers while slaughtering thousands.
  • One of the absolute joys of the Yakuza series is how you can turn every random encounter into this.
  • In Pokémon Gold, Silver, Crystal, and their remakes, Lance makes one of his Dragonite Hyper Beam a man at point blank range, and apparently full force. ..Ouch. He survives, though. And yet Lance can't Hyper Beam a few doors for you.
    • Brock was this to many first-timers in Pokémon Red and Blue, where he has a type advantage (defensively) against nearly ALL of the Pokémon you can catch up to that point. The battle can be very difficult if one chose Charmander.
      • Even moreso in Yellow, due to your starter being Pikachu, and again, most of the Pokémon you can find at that point don't have moves effective against Brock. The only way you can actually have an advantage is if you catch a Nidoran or Mankey, which learn a fighting type move after some Level Grinding.
    • In the competitive game, this is called a 6-0.
    • Pokémon Black and White have N versus Alder. N utterly wastes Alder with his legendary Pokemon, in one of the biggest Oh Crap moments in the series.
    • It's possible to skip around certain trainers when going through the game in, and when traveling back through those areas, sometimes a player will forget which trainers they've jumped around. When they see you and challenge you, it sometimes results in a battle where you have a Level 85 Charizard against their Level 6 Pidgey.
      • Hell, it's possible to do this to Youngster Joey. Who's top percentage now?!
    • Now you've probably heard of the FEAR strategy. You may have heard of the SABER strategy, but it's entirely possible to sweep a team of legendaries with a Smeargle and Magikarp.
  • In Heavy Rain any of the fights can become this, but one stands out above the rest.
  • The Boss Rush rematch against Metal Man in Mega Man 2. Hit him once (in Normal mode) with his own weapon that you got from beating him earlier. Laugh.
  • This seems to happen alot to poor ol' Ragna in BlazBlue against Hazama / Terumi. Every single time he goes against him in the story, he almost always ends up sliced up and on the ground. Even when Ragna activates his Azure Grimoire / is in Unlimited mode which is pretty much BlazBlue's idea of God mode, Hazama can still win effortlessly against him according to the story. Even if you play the Arcade mode as Ragna and beat Hazama at the end, perfect him, AND Astral Finish him, the following cutscene just has him 'thanking' you for the "warm up". The worst part? Hazama himself has an Unlimited mode, made even stronger with his Nox Nyctores, Ouroboros.
  • In BioShock (series), Andrew Ryan initiates sort of a forced, suicidal Curbstomp Battle by uttering that fun little hypnotic phrase...
    • With a golf club, for heaven's sake.
      • First time players might find themselves on the receiving end of one when trying to fight a big daddy early on in the game with conventional tactics. The opposite is true when one learns to set up a line of several electrical tripwires and enrage the big daddy which charges through them and suffers a curb stomp battle without even a shot fired from the player.
  • The final battle of Super Metroid sees Samus failing miserably against an overpowered Mother Brain, who has gone One-Winged Angel, until the now-grown Metroid hatchling that got kidnapped by Ridley at the very start of the game saves her life in a Heroic Sacrifice that grants Samus the Hyper Beam, with which she proceeds to go completely Mama Bear on Mother Brain.
    • A similar thing happens in Metroid Fusion, where Samus is curbstomped by an Omega Metroid due to her lack of an Ice Beam, but the SA-X "sacrifices" itself to save her and she regains the Ice Beam as a result.
    • Toward the end of Metroid Zero Mission, Samus is stripped of her Powered Armor and has to flee from Space Pirates that can knock off a full tank with every hit. Then she gets a new suit and it's the Pirates who get the curbstomping.
  • After a Hopeless Boss Fight, Ryu awakens a new dragon form, goes berserk and vaporizes the boss in 2 rounds at the end of Breath of Fire IV's second act.
  • In Heavenly Sword after Nariko ascends to godhood a battle ensues in which she eradicates an entire army without being touched. A close examination reveals that she even evaporates people via proximity, without attacking at all.
  • If an intrepid player maxes out Iji's Tasen Handling and nearly maxes her Cracking skills, she can put together a Nuke before the end of Sector 5 (4 if you're really dedicated). Rather than pour shotgun shells into Asha's face, all she has to do is pull out this bad boy, wait for him to fully materialize onscreen, and pull the trigger once. Unfortunately, when he comes back he can dodge those, too.

Asha: Wh- how in the- how did you get a NUKE!? HHH! I'LL GET YOU FOR THIS, HUMAN!

Eli: It'll be the Seven Hour War all over again... Except this time, we won't last seven minutes!

    • Played around with in this Civil Protection movie.
    • Four vortigaunts vs. approximately one million antlions. The antlions lose. Badly.
    • Gordon Freeman, theoretical physicist, vs. a dimension-spanning army of slavemasters. Those bastards already had no chance... and then his gravity gun gets supercharged.
  • Kuzuki Vs Saber in Fate/stay night is a crushing defeat for Saber, who has NO idea what is going on while being effortlessly pummeled and having her neck ripped apart before being slammed into a wall at about 120 miles an hour. To be fair, nobody had the slightest idea that a high school teacher would have such amazing fighting prowess. And he knows perfectly well it wouldn't work a second time. A little later in the route, Berserker is utterly crushed by Gilgamesh, though it's noted that if he HAD managed to close the gap between them, he would have won instantly. He almost does manage to do it except Gilgamesh cheats and has Enkidu, chains for snaring divine opponents such as Berserker and Lancer and even Rider (both Medusa and Iskander).
  • In Super Scribblenauts, pitting Death against virtually anyone causes their death with a single touch. This includes God. Also, creating a Black Hole will destroy everything within seconds.
  • In Prototype, you can have literal curb stomp battles with human enemies. There is a move aptly called Curb Stomp, which will surely kill the poor bastard beneath your heel. One of the consume animations does it automatically.
    • Prototype also has the distinction of having not only curb stomp battles, but "curb stomp and then ride your enemy's body like a skateboard made of human gore" battles.
    • Prototype could be described as a "Open World Curb Stomp Sandbox" game that also has a storyline.
    • Prototype is a game where every single human enemy is killed with a single hit, and the protagonist can take dozens of missiles and tank shells to the face before he starts worrying about his health. Most fights are curb stomp battles.
  • Ace Combat 04 has quite a few battles like this early on in lore, such as the destruction of the "Invincible" Aegir Fleet in harbor. It seems that ISAF was rather good at choosing its counterattacks against Erusea, both for tactical and strategic reasons -- namely, keeping morale up while still influencing the overall outcome of the war.
  • Mass Effect has a few. Sovereign versus any normal ship, for example, or the geth versus Eden Prime. Another example would be on Feros, if you fail to talk Ethan Jeong down from purging the colony, he tries to draw on you. It ends badly. On lower difficulties, it is possible to create a highly amusing one on Noveria, by killing Kaira Stirling and Alestia Iallis within seconds of their respective villainous monologues:

Kaira Stirling: I don't need a gun to break your legs. *BLAM
Alestia Iallis: I was ordered to eliminate you, should the opportunity arise, and here you are, trapped in this lab. Weapons free! *BLAM

Soldier over intercom: Shepard's tearing us apart.

    • It is also implied that nearly every galactic invasion and genocide by the Reapers has fit this trope. Justified by the fact that the Reapers begin the invasion when species are advanced enough but WELL below the Reapers' power allowing them to steamroll over the galaxy.
      • And because the Reapers would come right the fuck outta nowhere to attack the center of civilization with overwhelming force. Never underestimate the element of surprise.
      • In other words, they wipe out the political, military, and transportation center for entire galaxy before anybody even knows what has happened.
    • The recent debut trailer for Mass Effect 3 indicates that while the humans of Earth (and presumably the rest of the species of the galaxy) are putting up a valiant effort against the Reapers, it's pretty one-sided.
    • One beautiful moment partway through Mass Effect 3 has the heroes, in desperation to distract a Reaper on Tuchanka, summon the largest Thresher Maw in existence, the legendary Kalros, to attack the Reaper. Kalros proceeds to kill the Reaper in less than five minutes, much to the surprise of everyone involved.
    • Seems to have happened when the Krogans were exposed to the advanced technology of other races. The Salarians were only able to stop them with the Genophage. Anytime the end of the Genophage is brought up there's always a few people showing their fear of the Krogans coming back.
    • Near the end of Mass Effect 3, a task force of about two battalions, including Shepard, is running to a teleportation beam that will take them to the Citadel. Harbinger, the oldest and most powerful Reaper of them all, decides to come down himself to halt the task force. What results is one of the most utterly one-sided asskickings in the entire series, with Harbinger annihilating nearly the entire task force in a single minute. Shepard, despite being caught in the blast, bleeding to death, and the pain s/he's in, keeps on going. Considering, that Reaper beam weapons are accelerated molten metal, that One-Hit Kill Dreadnoughts surviving on foot is Beyond the Impossible.
  • Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater has Naked Snake be epically badass every time you control him, knocking out guards with his CQC skills, only to be completely curbstomped by the Boss every time he has to do hand-to-hand with her. Slight aversion, as the player hardly expects there to be a great big confrontation with her. That is saved for the last boss fight.
    • That and you're fighting with the woman who's considered the mother of America's special forces. She TRAINED you. It takes a while for the student to beat the teacher.
  • Brutally subverted in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, when Meryls entire Task Force surrounds Ocelot's single patrol boat to arrest him. Out gunned by 1 to 100, with several patrol boats and helicopters circling him, Ocelot doesn't think of surrendering, so Meryl orders to open fire. But because Ocelot already got control of the Doomsday device, absolutely nothing happens and the attackers' entire equipment array shuts down. Cut off from their emotion control system, the soldiers break down with shell shock and then Ocelot turns everything into a Curb Stomp Battle in his own favor.
  • In a cutscene in Command & Conquer Generals a battalion of US Crusader tank face off against GLA Scorpion tanks, the result all the GLA tanks get obliterated while the US tanks suffer 0 casualties. Then another column of GLA tanks come in only to be bombarded by Raptors.
  • Depending on the player's skill, pretty much every video game ever has the potential to be this.
    • In more ways than one. If you're teh 1337 pwnzer, you win effortlessly. If you suck, well, you get stomped to the curb.
  • In Baldur's Gate II, battles involving Jon Irenicus can be summed up by whether or not the main character is fighting against him during the battle. If not, well...
  • In the Final Fantasy Tactics remake War of the Lions, there is a new battle where you play as Delita and you are required to protect Ovelia from a Northern Sky ambush. The enemy is a Knight, Archer, and Black Mage, all level 8. You are level 25 and have special sword skills that deal high damage at long range in an instant, and an ally that can cast all status buffs in one spell. Do the math.
  • The final boss battle in The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask can be this, if you have the Fierce Diety mask. In fact, every boss battle in the game is this when the player uses the Fierce Diety mask. That is the reason why the Fierce Diety mask can only be used during boss battles.
  • Certain parts of Dragon Age pit you against "Grunt" versions of the Darkspawn you have been fighting throughout the game. Unless you haven't been improving your characters' stats at all during the entire game for some reason, everyone in your party will be able to kill them with one hit. Actually, by that point in the game, any enemy that isn't "Elite" or "Boss" rank will probably be utterly trivial to defeat.
    • The reason for this is, the Darkspawn are called "The Darkspawn Horde" for a reason. They have simply massive numbers, and killing a few dozen is a trivial victory when they have tens of thousands. They can outnumber you, to the point you start getting tired, start running out of poultices/healing spells, and/or the healer can get ganged up on, if there are simply too many darkspawn around you. That's the whole tactic; they have an army. You only have a few heroes and a few guards to fight them with. Most of the guards die, leaving just your heroes against their army, a few of their elites, and a huge freaking dragon.
  • The final battle of Fallout 3. On one side, we have the Enclave with an advantage in numbers and equipment. On the other side, we have the Brotherhood of Steel, having an advantage in training. Now this will be a lively bat- oh wait, the Brotherhood has a 200-year old, radically anti-communist Humongous Mecha, which also conveniently believes that the Enclave are communists.
  • In Fallout: New Vegas, if the Courier manages to recruit all of the major factions to their cause (only possible in the NCR or Wild Card endings) and fortify all NCR positions, the final battle against the Legion becomes this.
  • The first battle of Mother 3 pits a Mole Cricket against your two low-level characters. It's easy, albeit not quite Curb Stomp easy. Later in the game, you find the Mole Cricket again, who challenges your higher-leveled team of four. The Mole Cricket has a higher Speed stat the second time, but all that means is that he gets to hit you once for Scratch Damage; all his other stats are the same, so he's unlikely to get even a second hit.
    • Some of the harder boss fights in Earthbound become pretty one sided if you use a multi-bottle rocket.
  • The final showdown against Rodrigo Borgia in Assassin's Creed II is very much this, considering that Ezio has over 20 years of experience as an Assassin and Rodrigo is a fat old man. It's even more one-sided (and literal) when the two decide to bare-knuckle brawl, especially if Ezio bought the Metal Cestus.
  • Cubia's first appearance in the original .hack// games is this. Kite manages to beat Skeith, who melts into a puddle of goo. Earthquakes start happening, weird, blue tree-like things start sprouting up in two lines heading directly for Kite, the goo begins bubbling furiously, and then there's a gigantic explosion. When the dust settles, Cubia's floating in the sky, completely dwarfing Kite. Kite can only numbly look on as Cubia prepares a huge attack. Cubia then unleashes a literal Mighty Roar that causes inverted colors and sends Kite flying away like a ragdoll. The only reason Kite survived that encounter was because of Helba's interference (again).
  • In .Hack//G.U. Haseo's first fight with Tri-Edge. Events in order:
    • Haseo spots Tri-Edge. Using his twin-blades, Haseo unleashes a barrage of attacks while Tri-Edge, with no effort blocks all of them with ONE HAND
    • Seeing the attacks having no effect, Haseo jumps back and takes out his broad sword. Charging at Tri-Edge again, unleashes a heavy blow with broad sword, only to be sent HALF WAY across the room from Tri-Edge barely tapping him.
    • With Haseo crouched down on the floor, amazed at Tri-Edge's power, Tri-Edge slowly walks towards Haseo, withdrawing his twin-blades. With another attempt at getting revenge, Haseo takes out his scythe and upon delivering the blow to Tri-Edge, it is completely shattered by Tri-Edge who doesn't even lift a finger to do it.
    • Shocked at what just happened, Haseo looks at his hands in horror because his scythe just completely shattered. At the last second, Haseo looks up at Tri-Edge who was still slowly approaching Haseo. Tri-Edge then grabs Haseo's face and unleashes a blast sending Haseo across the room--again.
    • Haseo could only look on in horror as Tri-Edge charged his attack. Moments later, Tri-Edge unleashed Data Drain, destroying Haseo and reducing him from level 133 to level 1.
  • The tutorial boss in Demon's Souls is designed to kill you in one hit. If an experienced player manages to beat him against all odds, a huge dragon (one of the final bosses) will punch him to death in a cutscene.
  • Lucien, during the While Guthix Sleeps quest in RuneScape. When you last saw him, he was a hooded stranger asking you to steal an artifact for him, and you had the option of doing so or, after meeting the guardians of said artifact, killing him, and he is extremely weak (level 14, in contrast, most players on that quest would be at least 60+). You learn in While Guthix Sleeps that he has apparently become a lot more powerful, and so assemble a group eight of the world's greatest fighters, a few of which you have gotten to know in previous quests. When Lucien spots you sneaking around in disguise, he attacks you, and the eight teleport in to fight him and save you. Only two survive, and barely escape alive.
    • Not to mention those two only survived because they didn't directly attack Lucien. They just stood behind and fought some of his troops.
    • Lucien of all people comes on the receiving end in Rituals of the Mahjarrat when the Dragonkin enter the scene.
    • All player characters in RuneScape have the potential to do this, they basically have unlimited potential and can end up over a hundred times stronger than the average citizen.
    • Dragon claws can do this to players and npcs alike, hitting 4 times, quickly, and quite hard.
  • The Three Amigos of Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep are on the receiving end of a hopeless curb-stomp battle against the Big Bad Xehanort and The Dragon Vanitas in their cinematic final battle, in one of the most sad moments of the game.
  • Made famous for doing this, Sephiroth will kill you on the first move of his battle in Kingdom Hearts II if you are a low level or unprepared.
    • In fact, if you defeat Sephiroth, you will likely be pummeled to within an inch of your life. Take note of that, because in the following cutscene Sephiroth is casually brushing off his shoulder pauldron, not even tired.
    • Also, Sephiroth curb stomps Cloud for the majority of their battle in Advent Children, even while not taking the battle that seriously.
    • Unfortunately for him, Sephiroth has also been on the receiving end of a CSB in the end of Final Fantasy VII: all he can do is attack for 95% of your remaining health (never enough to kill you), and Cloud will terminate him with a single Omnislash.
  • Speaking of Final Fantasy, here are a few highlights of CSBs:
    • A Fission Mailed at the beginning of Final Fantasy II. Engaging a battle with in a battle with black knights unless you're over trained early on in Palamecia will also result in them killing the party easily and quickly.
    • Final Fantasy IV has the battle between Cecil and Kain early on in the story.
    • The Boss in Mooks Clothing on the triangle-shaped island in Final Fantasy VI can easily be this, if you don't have Gau or don't know to use Rhodox, which simply turns the tables completely.
    • Any time Knights of the Round are summoned in Final Fantasy VII
    • In Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII any mission labeled "Very Easy" is expected to have Zack able to crush any opposition in five hits or less.
    • Final Fantasy VIII deserves some mention. If you went to the trouble to get the Infinity+1 Sword, get some Aura magic and junction Ultima to Squall's HP and Flare to Squall's Attack, Squall can actually one-shot the final boss with his most powerful Limit Break.
      • Also happen in story as the team's attempt to assassinate Edea fails misably when she stops Irvine's bullet, and one-shot Squall with her Ice Strike.
    • Final Fantasy IX has Kuja destroy a frickin' planet! Also, any time an eidolon is summoned in FMV. And whenever you face Beatrix.
    • Final Fantasy X has Sin routinely flattening entire villages with minimal effort. Then there's the Crusaders (who are the closest thing Spira has to a formal military) fighting Sin in the Operation Mi'ihen cutscene. Hundreds of professionally trained soldiers are hitting Sin with everything they've got. Sin nonchalantly shrugs it off and wipes out 85-90% of their forces with a single attack.
  • The US Marine's invasion of Qurac in Call of Duty 4 was this. They utterly steamrolled Khaled Al-Asad's Army and were able to reach the capital city within days, and take the city in hours. Unfortunately for them, Al-Asad had a Plan B.
    • Taken even further in Modern Warfare 2. As their final act of revenge, Soap and Price tear through hundreds of Gen. Shepherd's Shadow Company troops and eventually kill Shepherd himself. As a testament of just how the two killed everyone so fast...

Oxide: Disciple Nine, your entire rear guard just flatlined!
Disciple Nine: That's impossible, we just-
Gen. Shepherd: It's Price.

  • In Victoria 2, having an Infamy rating above 25 without an army large enough to take on several great powers at once causes the AI to gang up and initiate one of these on the Player.
  • In Marathon, Durandal is attacked by an alien 'Battle Group' for the purposes of destruction and reverse-engineering. Little did they know that Durandal had so improved the alien's technology that he could fire their weapons at approximately twice their standard range. He still loses, but not before inflicting a massive amount of damage on the Battle Group. He even mentions that the alien's High Command has already changed its curriculum; all generals will now be taught The Humbling of Battle Group Seven at Lh'owon.
  • The Spider-Man 2 adaptation had this for taking down Mysterio. He clearly charges up three stages of health bar...and you go through all of them with one punch to his fishbowl head. (Now THAT is a glass jaw.) Of course, since Mysterio is an unenhanced human being whose super powers are limited to being good with special effects, that he can be owned by someone able to use a car as an impromptu throwing weapon isn't much of a surprise.
  • About five seconds into Soul Nomad and The World Eaters, your ditz companion suggests that you attack one of the titanic, godlike titular World Eaters immediately, completely bypassing the Sorting Algorithm of Evil. It kills your entire party in one hit the instant you step into its Instant Death Radius. (The player also has the option to unleash their Super-Powered Evil Side for a curb stomp battle in the other direction, but this leads to a non-standard game over.)
  • Inazuma Eleven: Teikoku match in the first game. Then Gemimi, Epsilon, and Genesis in 2. However, you are the one being stomped, not them. The story some time force you to be stomped even harder with 0-18 or so.
  • Chrono Trigger can easily have this if you go to Lavos too early. Also, you're supposed to lose the first fight with the Golem. And the fight with Lavos in the Ocean Palace.
  • In the FPS/RPG Strife, most boss fights after The Programmer fall under this trope. Until Spectres erupt from their bodies.
  • In City of Heroes, it is possible, even easy, to make a character that can do this to huge amounts of enemies, even Archvillains (though that can be more time-consuming to put together). A more apt example occurs in the first mission of Mender Ramiel's story arc. Ramiel hands you a crystal and tells you to observe your future self. The mission is populated by a swath of high-powered echoes of various Hero- and Archvillain class enemies, at full power, any one of them easily a match for a team of players. They never stand a chance (unless you get hit with the bug wherein your Incarnate powers take a minute to activate when you enter the mission. Then it gets reverse back on you)
  • In Adventure Quest Worlds, your hero and Zhoom spend half of the Sandsea saga finding a Djinn that can help them defeat Tibicenas, the Chaos Lord of that particular storyline. But when the heroes face Tibicenas in the Djinn Realm and the Djinn in question, Saahir, steps forward to throw down with him? Saahir doesn't even last five seconds.
  • Sindel versus Nightwolf, Cyber Sub-Zero, Smoke, Kitana, Jax, Jade, Johnny Cage, Sonya Blade, Stryker, and Kabal in Mortal Kombat 9's Story Mode. She defeats all of them in rapid succession, and is only stopped when Nightwolf pulls a Heroic Sacrifice; only Johnny and Sonya survive.
  • God of War. Know why the Greek gods don't exist anymore? The Walking Apocalypse known as Kratos. Once he gets his hands on someone, it never ends well for them.
  • Yggdrasill will likely pull one on you in the Tower of Salvation in Tales of Symphonia. Frequently with one move.
    • Arguably, the fight before that against Kratos will make your team eat dirt if you are unprepared and have to deal with scrappy AI as your teammates. Up against Judgement and Level 3 attacks, speed casting, with an injured team from the previous boss battle? The life bottle count will probably rapidly fall, and you haven't even gotten to the Hopeless Boss Fight yet. Funny that if you lose, you won't Game Over, but you're still pitted against the next boss.
  • Perfect Chaos vs the Egg Carrier. Chaos goes zap. Egg Carrier goes boom.
  • Beat Hazard gives you an achievement for destroying a boss ship before it can even fire its guns.
  • The final boss battle in Rune Factory 2 turns into this if you cast Dragon Break as soon as possible, freezing the dragon in place while you wale on him, and repeating the process the moment he Turns Red.
  • In Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean, your party comes up against the Empire stooge Fadroh. Who curbstomps who depends upon whether or not Fadroh buffs himself up with the Orb of Magical Offense, which makes him obscenely powerful.
  • This is how the early months of Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds will go, the Martians crushing the humans, with the Martians scout machine alone taking out 3 or 4 armored lorries on its own. This is balanced by the Martians' need to build comm centres, giving mankind time to build up and bring out the big guns.
  • It is possible to do this in any of the modern wrestling games if skilled enough, taking out your opponent by beating him to within an inch of his life while taking no noticeable damage yourself.
  • Glass Joe, from Punch-Out!!, can be knocked out in one properly-timed hit to the gut, or several to the jaw, all while he fails to retaliate properly. It is quite amusing.
  • The Shin Getter Event in Super Robot Wars Alpha 1, where Shin Getter appears and Stoner Sunshines Bardiel out of existence and letting Touji live in the process.
  • ZODIAC Virgo delivers a pretty nasty one to the Phoenix in RefleX, killing the pilot. Unfortunatly for Virgo it was revealed in that moment that the Phoenix was an ZODIAC as well, ZODIAC Ophiuchus. Virgo did'nt stand a chance in the following curb stomping.
  • Common in Galactic Civilizations. Especially if your opponent went for multiple smaller ships, while you're rocking a Nigh Invulnerable battleship. On a less enjoyable hand, the Dread Lords can crush pretty much any planetary population with ten men, and their constructors have more guns than most battleships.
  • In EverQuest and other MMORPG's the nature of the persistent world and the constantly escalating power curve of players and equipment means that formerly top end raid zones become fodder for the more powerful and experienced players. To the point where you can One-Man-Army entire armies and old world gods such as Cazic Thule, Innoruuk, Tunare, etc.
  • If you've got two or more Ages on your opponent in Rise of Nations, said opponent is not going to enjoy the experience. Tanks and bombers rather neatly trump musketeers, it has to be said.
  • One of the coolest parts of Bangai-O is that most of the boss battles can be turned into this (for the best results, go ahead and fight Sabu). On the flipside, the harder bosses can do the same for players that aren't used to fighting them.
  • Umineko no Naku Koro ni:
    • In EP5, Bernkastel introduces Canon Sue and new furniture to kill Beatrice, further her own plans, and royally screw with the status quo. Eventually, Battler and Beato's furniture decide that they are having none of this. Epic smackdown ensues.
    • Also, Featherine delivers this straight to Lambdadelta in EP8.
  • Several times in the Breath of Fire series, the more memorable being:
    • Agni vs. Tyr in Breath of Fire I: As Agni, the player's attack does the max allowed damage, while Tyr does pretty much negligible damage. Add that this dragon form merges the whole party into one being, and the whole battle is reduced to hit the attack button repeatedly, healing with items that one time you may get low on health.
    • The Bad End final boss in Breath of Fire IV, you as the Infini Dragon vs. your former party. The character in question has full-life regeneration each round and a technique that reduces the target's HP to 1.
    • Anything that crosses Fou-lu's path in IV is also asking for a magnificient curb-stomping. Not for nothing he's the God Emperor.
    • Getting into a fight with any of the Boss in Mook Clothing in any game with a low-leveled party is practically this. Most notable against Berserker and ArchMage; the former will slaughter anything with his basic melee attack, while the latter will not be happy with just curb-stomping you, but will ressurect the party just to keep doing it ad-infinitum.
  • Captain Beard Jr. in Strider, the "final boss" of the third stage who goes down without even a chance to fight back.
  • Echigoya from Tenchu, an untrained merchant with a slow-loading one-bullet gun and 80 points of life (lowest for a boss). Tenchu: Fatal Shadows also has Tatsukichi, a geisha with almost no HP, who moves very slowly and after a 5-seconds start-up animation.
  • Necrodeus from Kirby Mass Attack deliberately kirb-stomps Kirby to the point of almost killing him by murdering almost every one of the ten Kirbys he split him into and leaving only one smaller version of himself alive to literally follow his heart and almost get finished off later. At the start of the game.
  • Id from Xenogears: seven years before the beginning of the game proper, Solaris sent him to crush the Nation of Elru: Id did not defeat Elru by himself: he wiped out the whole country. Later, he turns his fury against his former employers, and obliterate the heavily guarded capital of the world's most advanced nation in minutes
  • Do not piss off the superpowers in Tropico, or you will find out how long your 30 man army can hold them off.
  • Dante's enemies are all curbstomp battles waiting to happen.
  • In the first Lunar game, it looks like Alex and company have won. Ghaleon is dead and they are about to save Luna. Then it turns out that Luna has had her memories as Althena reawakened and she's turned evil, and the "Ghaleon" that was defeated was really an illusion. The real Ghaleon appears and proceeds to beat the living crap out of everybody.
  • Knights of the Old Republic has some pretty great curb stomp potential for highly leveled characters. It is especially hilarious when you visit the Sith Academy on Korriban and the bratty Sith-in-training spend all of their time threatening to kill you and blabbering on about how great they are. They honestly don't stand a chance against the playable party, which includes a Blood Knight mercenary, a veteran solider, an Ax Crazy assassin droid, three highly-trained Jedi, and ex-Darth Revan.
  • The first time Matt encounters Lance in Epic Battle Fantasy 5, the whole party gets rammed and defeated instantly by Neon Valkyrie before the battle even starts.
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