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{{trope}}
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{{quote|''"It's like you touch the top of the building, you die, you touch the ceiling, you die, you touch the floor, you die, too far to the right, you die, too far to the left, you die, you die, you die, you die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, '''die'''!!"''|''[[The Angry Video Game Nerd]]'' on ''[[Silver Surfer (video game)|Silver Surfer]]'' for the [[Nintendo Entertainment System|NES]]}}
A character who dies from a single hit or other incident of damage. Needless to say, [[Contractual Boss Immunity|this rarely applies to bosses,]] unless they are of the [[Zero Effort Boss|Zero-Effort variety]]. In older video games, this was frequently true of ''the protagonist''; nowadays, the [[Player Character]] is usually only a
As mentioned above, this is more common in older games (especially the Golden Age of Arcade Games), and part of what makes a game [[Nintendo Hard]]. Modern tactical shooters also use this feature as well, even if [[Instant Death Bullet]] itself also grates on the "realism" bit.
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{{examples}}
* Most sidescrolling ''[[Super Mario Bros.]]'' games did this. Unless Mario gained a powerup, he died with one hit. ''[[Super Mario Bros. 2]]'' is an exception, with a life meter, but it's a [[Dolled-Up Installment]]. The 3D games added a true life meter.
** ''[[Super Mario Galaxy]]'' does this in its daredevil runs, where Mario's [[Life Meter]] has only one hit point. This is usually reserved for a repeat of a completed boss battle.
** The final star in ''[[Super Mario Galaxy 2]]'' takes a level that was ''already'' [[Nintendo Hard]] with three hitpoints and three check-points, and throws in a Daredevil Comet ''and removes the checkpoints''. It borders on being [[Platform Hell]].
* While not a Mario offshoot, ''[[Commander Keen]]'' was designed with Mario in mind, and the title character is just as vulnerable. One hit and the Defender of Earth is dead. Ditto ''Dangerous Dave'', another early John Romero game.
* ''[[Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story]]'', while not showing one health, does this when the [[Glass Cannon]] type Daredevil Boots are equipped as an item. You have doubled attack, but one hit kills you outright. This is essentially a downgrade of ''[[Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga]]'''s "Great Force" item, which doubled your attack power but halved your defense. (A
* Hexers can become this in [[Etrian Odyssey]], if you try to maximize the damage for their Revenge
* In ''[[Ultima Underworld]] II'', Krilner the Coward is a character who only has 1 hit point. You can confirm this by casting a certain spell on him to read his statistics.
* As quoted above, ''[[Silver Surfer (video game)|Silver Surfer]]'', exacerbated by the fact that [[Deadly Walls|touching walls will kill you]]. Made even more annoying by the fact that one of the Silver Surfer's superpowers is being [[Nigh Invulnerable]]!
** [[Everything Is Trying to Kill You|The rubber ducky will kill you.]]
* The ''[[Pokémon]]'' Shedinja is a unique example of this in a game that doesn't usually use it and from a series that typically isn't Nintendo Hard. While lifebars do exist in-game, Shedinja only ever has a single hit point, making its own life bar rather pointless. It's kept from being a [[Joke Character|novelty Pokémon]] by its ability, "Wonder Guard", which protects it from all damage that isn't super effective. Nonetheless, the first attack that damages it defeats it outright (see [[The Law of Diminishing Defensive Effort]]). It's also completely vulnerable to indirect damage (including damage from things like [[Standard Status Effects]], recoil, weather, Spikes)... really anything but regular damage. Still, it gives Shedinja the odd honor of being not so useful in the standard metagame (due to the popularity of entry hazard Stealth Rock), yet fairly useful in the Ubers metagame, where few Pokémon even carry anything to KO it.
** Plus, any powerful Pokémon with a Focus Sash or Focus Band can survive a would-be fatal hit with exactly 1 HP. With enough luck, a powerful enough Pokémon can sweep through an entire opponent's team with just 1 HP. Blaziken and Heracross are the most known for this, gaining a bonus on an attack called Reversal that hits harder the lower your life is.
** Some tactics turn a 1 HP Pokémon into KO-ing machines. Like [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ye7b3bOQ6lY Magikarp], or a Level 1 [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPdwIpvsv-8 Rattata]. No opponent worth his salt will fall for it, but it's still funny to see Level 1 Rattata banned from tournaments. Now that Sturdy acts as a Focus Sash, people now run a level 1 Aron with Sturdy, Endeavor, and a Shell Bell in a sandstorm. Sturdy prevents Aron from going down in one hit. Endeavor takes the foe's HP to equal the user's. Shell Bell restores 1/8th of the damage dealt by the holder's attack, so when Aron uses Endeavor it will heal up to full health so Sturdy will work again. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJxvmtCwAZY Shown in this video.]
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** ''[[Gauntlet (1985 video game)]]'' (Atari Games) and Dragon Buster (Namco) were among the first arcade games to have a [[Life Meter]] system (though in the former, your health was displayed numerically, rather than as a bar, although the latter had both). Later, ''[[Rampage]]'' had a [[Life Meter]] as well.
** In ''Crazy Climber'', a falling object doesn't kill you if both hands have a secure grip. (It dislodges one hand.)
** Some games allowed you to take two (or more) hits before dying. Usually, the first hit destroys your shields/armor/whatever, and the second kills you. Arcade games of this type include ''Toy Pop'', ''[[Ghosts 'n Goblins
** Some classic arcade games let you command multiple ships at once, or [[Combining Mecha|join ships into a more powerful ship]]. Each ship was a
** The arcade version of ''[[Rolling Thunder]]'' has a life gauge with eight hit points, but it's nothing more than a cruel joke. A single touch by an enemy will reduce the player's life gauge by four points, while enemy bullets and laser traps will kill him instantly. So in reality, the player only has two hit points. The NES port and the sequel had a more honest representation of the player's health, while in the Genesis-exclusive ''Rolling Thunder 3'', the player actually has three hit points on the Normal difficulty (allowing him to survive at least one enemy bullet per life).
* ''[[Bushido Blade]]'' is that rare [[Fighting Game]] where both you and your opponent are a
** Talking about fighting game examples... [[SNK vs. Capcom|SvC Match of the Millenium]] had this as a minigame.
** ''Karate Champ'' on the [[Nintendo Entertainment System]] also has this, in order to keep things more realistic... except it's the '''match''' or '''round''' that is over when you hit or get hit by the opponent... but '''not the opponent''' himself.
* The original ''Way of the Exploding Fist'' had this too, but it was emulating traditional martial arts tournament style, where any telling blow ended the round with a point for the striking opponent.
* Most games in the ''[[Rainbow Six]]'' series use a variation. It only takes one solid hit to incapacitate a
* ''[[Operation Flashpoint]]'' also plays this one in a similar way; as a result, there's not even a health bar.
** However, not every hit is always fatal: depending on where the player is hit, it may make him unable to stand up and run normally (if hit on the legs) or render the aimpoint extremely wobbly (if the arms are no longer healthy).
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* The "Heaven or Hell" difficulty in ''[[Devil May Cry]] 3'' grants this quality to every single character - Dante and all of his enemies. Yes, even the bosses. What makes it tricky is that Dante can die from taking damage off environmental obstacles, which of course do nothing to enemies. And then there are some enemies which need to be struck at a weak point, whereas Dante has no such advantage.
** "Hell or Hell" mode in the fourth game plays this the traditional way, although to compensate for it, you get a stock of 3 [[Auto Revive]] items to help you that are replenished whenever you reach a checkpoint.
* Most early ''[[Bomberman]]'' games made the titular hero a
** What makes this funny is that he could be one-shotted by bumping into ''balloons'', [[Everything Is Trying to Kill You|of all things]] (Granted they are cute monster balloons, but still...), making his case very obscure.
** "Standard" mode in ''Act Zero'' plays like this, with the added condition of only giving the player one life to go with it. Should you get hit by any bomb blast (including [[Hoist by His Own Petard|your own]]) without a shield, your game is over (made extra-frustrating because the single-player mode is ''very'' long, and the player is not provided with any continues or [[Save Point|save points]] of any
* A late mission in ''[[Zone of the Enders]]'' sees Jehuty's AI Ada infected with a virus. While in this condition, any kind of damage will instantly destroy Jehuty, forcing the player to resort to sniping enemies from afar or risk a game over.
* The Eric Chahi game ''[[Another World (video game)|Another World]]'' (known as ''Out Of This World'' in US) [[Nintendo Hard|worked this way]]. Some combat elements, such as the blaster pistol capable of creating blaster shields, made it rather complicated to get through certain firefights, almost qualifying it as a [[Puzzle Game]]. The unsuspecting player is in for a surprise if he tries to run past the worms crawling on the ground in the first area.
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** Lampshaded in the [[Fan Sequel]] ''I Wanna Be The Fangame'', where the Kid is brought into a ''[[Pokémon]]'' battle screen, and his [[Life Meter]] starts at 1/1.
* Speaking of ''[[Castlevania]]'', ''[[Haunted Castle (video game)|Haunted Castle]]'' version M on default settings comes close; two hits from a skeleton's bone throwing attack will kill you.
** There is also a way of becoming a
*** The advantage of this mode is that while Up + B will usually throw a skeleton bone, randomly it will throw a big skeleton bone. Anything it comes into contact with - mook, boss, whatever - gets a guaranteed 9999 damage, thus turning ''them'' into One Hitpoint Wonders.
** ''[[Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia]]'' has the death ring, an accessory which grants a massive attack boost, but turns Shanoa into a
* ''[[Final Fantasy VI]]'' actually plays this trope the other way around at one point. About halfway through the game, you will be controlling one character on a small island. The random battles consist of two monster types that have a single hit point each. On top of that, they start the battle with a [[Standard Status Effects|HP Sap effect]], meaning they often die before anyone gets a turn. They're almost completely useless for anything but decursing an item that requires you fight 255 battles with it equipped, but you can steal Elixirs or Megalixirs from them if you're fast enough.
** They do have one extremely useful benefit; if Gau ever ran into them in the Veldt (where almost every enemy in the game would reappear), he could imitate them. If Strago was in the party when Gau did so, he could learn a couple [[Game Breaker]] spells (like Mighty Guard, which made boss battles a complete joke).
** However, it's also possible to be afflicted with Zombie status on that same island (there's a formation of monsters in the desert that doesn't belong to this trope). Since Zombie makes your character uncontrollable, and you'll only have ''that one character'' at the time, you're potentially a
** The monsters, should they get a chance to hit you, do about average damage for this point in the game. So despite the lameness of their HP stat and their Seizure status, they can pose a challenge for a Level 1 character.
* In the NES version of ''Dragon's Lair'', the player actually has a life bar, but most hazards in the game kill him instantly, such as touching a stationary, ordinary door. In fact, the ONLY two enemies in the game that do not spell instant death are the bats and the skulls. Why did they bother?
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* In ''[[Mega Man Battle Network]] 5'', Megaman can keep corrupting himself with Dark Chips (Each use of them subtracts 1 of his max Hit Points) until he becomes a ''literal'' One Hit Point Wonder. Though the enormous firepower of Dark Chips is enough to say the same about most enemies, if not bosses.
* In the ''Delta Force'' games, you can only take one, maybe two shots if you have armor. However, the enemies also can't take more than 1 high-powered shot, even to limbs (which is more realistic than other games, if you think about it), and they tend to be uninteligent, relatively stationary, and terrible shots.
* The [[Shoot
** Averted with the onset of a ''two'' hit wonder: a boxy-carrier. One hit causes it to crack open and fall apart, revealing a small and nimble warship.
** It is justified/handwaved by the plot: The Alien Empire for which the hero works has enough resources to build countless [[We Have Reserves|living ships]] but is lacking decent ''pilots'', so the pilots are teleported from ship to ship and can [[Life Meter|sustain]] the teleportations.
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* The very first ''[[Grand Theft Auto]]'' game had anything that was harmful kill you in one hit. Body Armor let you survive up to 3 bullets though.
* Similar to the ''Devil May Cry'' example above, ''Winback'' featured an unlockable "Sudden Death Mode" wherein a single bullet was all it took to send you or any enemy to an early grave. Amusingly, this led to encounters with simple guards becoming white-knuckle standoffs, while most boss characters wound up on the floor before they even finished taunting you.
* On the last level in ''Combat School'', you have a life bar, but everything in the level (being shot, touching an enemy, touching something on fire, etc.) kills you instantly. Except the final boss, whose hits aren't
* The ninja in ''[http://www.thewayoftheninja.org/ N: The Way of the Ninja]'' is about as flimsy as wet cardboard - there's an X-Box Live achievement which requires you die 2,000 times in the single-player mode. It's easier than it sounds.
* [[True Final Boss|One More Extra Stages]] in ''[[Dance Dance Revolution]]'' force you to play with the "Sudden Death" modifier; if you get one Good, Bad, Miss, or NG, you instantly fail the song. The same applies to ''Dance ManiaX'' 's Extra Stages. DDR's Oni/Challenge mode is like this as well, but you get three chances to screw up, and you get a chance back after clearing certain songs.
** Normal Extra Stages in ''[[Dance Dance Revolution]] X'' could be anywhere from this to a four-hit-point-wonder. oh, and let's not forget you have to pick a specific song as your "final stage" and get a specific grade on it on a specific difficulty to get one. Considering some of the songs are loaded with [[Fake Difficulty]] (Pluto on the CS version being a major offender - stops are less predictable than CHAOS from DDR SuperNova), you're kinda screwed.
** ''[[Pop'n
** ''[[Beatmania|Beatmania IIDX]]''. Hazard Mode. Break your combo? FAIL. Get a poor from hitting a key one too many times? FAIL.
* The titular [[Butt Monkey
** That's only if you played it on Hard Mode. Easy Mode allows you four hit points. Doesn't make the game any easier.
* Original edition of Knights of the Sky, WWI-style air combat sim from 1992, had 1 HP planes (including yours, of course). To be honest, their real counterparts were not much more durable either.
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** Not to mention that to run the game faster, enemies are circumscribed by their hitboxes to simplify collision detection, so you had to compensate for invisible death-squares around every bad guy. The game even calls this "F.A.S.T. technology" and brags about it in the instructions.
* ''[[Bubble Bobble]]'' series. Even [[Everything Trying to Kill You|wind-up-toys can kill you]]. Keep in mind that ''Rainbow Islands'' and ''Parasol Stars'' ditch the bubble dragons for human protagonists. ''Who also die when they touch anything.'' This carries on when the bubble dragons return for ''Symphony'' and ''Memories'', both made in 1994-95. And in ''Symphony'', when [[And Your Reward Is Clothes|the characters turn back into humans, they can still die easily.]]
** To access any secrets, [[No Damage Run
* Another [[Harder Than Hard]] mode example - ''[[Rocket Knight Adventures]]''' hardest difficulty setting starts you off with one life, no continues, and everything kills you in one hit. Take any damage at all, and it's an instant [[Game Over]].
* [[Bullet Hell]] games, such as ''[[Ikaruga]]'' or ''[[Touhou]]'', will kill the player if a single bullet touches their hitbox. It helps that [[Hitbox Dissonance|the hitbox is significantly smaller than the sprite]].
** Although you typically have several lives in the conventional ''Touhou'' games (starting with at least three), in the [[First-Person Snapshooter]] games ''Shoot the Bullet'' and ''Double Spoiler'', one hit will end the
* Similarly to Super Mario, ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog]]'' is a
** Having multiple rings, unfortunately, is no more effective in terms of protecting Sonic than is having only one ring.
*** However, [[Sonic the Hedgehog Triple Trouble|in some]] [[Sonic Unleashed|games]], the number of rings does matter.
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** Jogurt was largely a [[Self-Imposed Challenge]], though successfully defeating an enemy with him awards you with the Jogurt ring, which doesn't do anything but change the sprite of another character into Jogurt.
** It should be noted, Jogurt has 7 movement, which is higher than most characters. Still, since you can't boost any of his stats nor level past 1 (other than by equipping Rings... leaving him still doing effectively 1 damage), he's still the most useless character. Unless you want to work super hard to earn lots of Jogurt Rings to sell for 'unlimited' chump change (less than earned from the defeated enemies...).
* ''[[Gaiares]]'', at least until you get a shield, then your a 6-or-so-hit-point-wonder. unless you die on the final stage, which has no such shield item, which is one of the reasons why that stage (which is ONLY a boss fight) is [[That One Boss/Shoot
* All the ''[[Glider]]'' games would make you lose a glider if you hit almost anything that wasn't a prize. Having aluminum foil in ''Glider PRO'' would [[Body Armor as Hit Points|shield you to some extent]], but foil wasn't a guaranteed find and would be hard or literally impossible to keep.
* In ''[[Gradius]]'', if you don't have a force field, the only things your plane can touch without blowing up are power-ups.
* [[Bubsy]], though not in the sequel. [[The Many Deaths of You|At least every death gives you a different death animation]].
* Genzo from ''[[Hammerin' Harry|Daiku no Gensan]]'' in the original arcade game and ''Hammerin' Hero''. In most of the other games, he does, in fact, have a health bar of some sort... but in those games, he's down in one hit unless he has a hard hat to absorb it.
* ''[[Metal Slug]]'' characters die in one hit from bullets, melee weapons, or getting run over by a tank. Unless you pick one particular character in ''Metal Slug 6.''
* If [[Harder Than Hard]] mode examples count, player aircraft in the ''[[Ace Combat]]'' go down with just one missile hit when played on the highest difficulty (except in ''X: Skies of Deception'' where a high enough defence allows you to get away with 90+ , maybe 80+ % damage taken... not that many planes are both that survivable and still good dogfighters). Enemy aircraft, on the other hand, remain just as durable as on normal difficulty.
* The infamously [[Nintendo Hard]] Flash game ''Owata'' (aka ''[[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|The Life-Ending Adventure]]'') features a 1HPW with a [[Punny Name]] ("Owata" sounds like "Owatta", which basically means "it's over"). You will not be able to get to the end without [[Trial and Error Gameplay]] and/or a guide.
* ''[[Adventure Island]]'' does this. Even though you have what looks like a [[Life Meter]], it's actually the timer. One hit kills you. Tripping on rocks also decreases the meter. Averted in ''[[Adventure Island]]: [[Wii Ware|the Beginning]]'', in which taking hits knocks time off the meter.
* ''[[
* ''[[GoldenEye 007 (1997 video game)|GoldenEye]]'' had this as an optional game mode in multiplayer, aptly named "[[Licence to Kill]]."
** It also has Scaramanga's gun (from ''[[The Man with the Golden Gun]]''), which is a weapon that basically turns the entire world into One Hit Point Wonders, because it instantly kills anything it hits. If you know your Bond, you'll know this is because Scaramanga was such a good shot, he never needed to shoot anyone twice. In the game, even shooting someone in the foot with it will instantly kill them, but the gun has only one bullet. There's also a golden PP7, which acts like the golden gun, but with 7 bullets.
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* In the ''[[Deadly Rooms of Death]]'' series, the player and everybody else has one hit point, with the exception of very large enemies that [[Asteroids Monster|shrink when you hit them]] (snakes and the rock giant). In addition, some enemies can't be killed with any of your own weapons. Added to this that it is a turn based tactical game with tiny turns, to the point of being a puzzle game, and it was designed by a bunch of total sadists, the series is one of the hardest around. DROD RPG uses HP for the player and the monsters, and employs deterministic statistic-based combat mechanics, which also cause a need for difficult strategizing.
* In ''[[System Shock]] 2'', if you play on Impossible difficulty as an OSA operative, you start with 10HP... which is coincidentally the exact amount of damage done by the very first enemy you encounter, a pathetically weak (on any other difficulty) pipe-wielding parasite zombie. While there are enemies that deal less damage, the fact that you're a one-hit-kill at the very ''start'' of the game means that the Impossible OSA path definitely qualifies for this trope.
* ''[[Jumper (video game)|Jumper]]'' series takes this trope, uses it, loves it, becomes one with it. It also does the same with [[Malevolent Architecture]] and becomes many times harder because of the most evil game mechanic known to
* ''[[Iji]]'' has the Sudden Death sectors, which are [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin]]. Oh, and you have to complete them to unlock one of the game's secrets.
** You can still survive being shot with machinegun fire and hyper pulse. The good news is that enemies has the same health as you, even bosses.
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*** In ''[[Donkey Kong Country Returns]]'', {{spoiler|there is a Mirror Mode where Diddy Kong doesn't appear at all and Donkey Kong only has one heart instead of the normal two hearts.}}
**** Also played straight in the same game's [[Unexpected Gameplay Change|rocket and minecart sections]]. If you're on the minecart or rocket and you get hit ''once'' - you instantly lose a life regardless of your heart meter. [[Nintendo Hard|Of course, you can expect that to happen if you're not careful.]]
* An interesting example is the game ''My Hero'' for the arcade and Sega Master System. While during the level the titular hero as well as the [[
* The freeware game ''[[Mondo Agency]]'' is a rare modern 3D example.
* ''Alex Kidd''. One hit from something and he turns into a ghost, floating to the top of the screen waving his arms with a humorous "mwoop mwoop mwoop" sound. The [[Narm]] almost stops you from being pissed off at being killed from one hit by making you laugh.
* ''[[Dizzy (series)|Dizzy]]'' in the first three games of the series. (In the second game, ''Treasure Island Dizzy'', you only had one life, too. The fourth game, ''Magicland Dizzy'', added a [[Life Meter]], but some of the hazards - in most games including [[Super Drowning Skills|water]] - remained instantly fatal.)
* [[Konami]]'s ''Jackal''. Apparently being hit by a single bullet will destroy a jeep, every time.
* [[Crash Bandicoot]] ''lives'' ([[
* The freeware platformer ''Poyo'' by Lazrael plays this completely straight, but balances it out because the stages are all pretty short.
* The [[Harder Than Hard|Shigurui difficulty level]] in ''[[Muramasa: The Demon Blade]]'' turns your character into this. Although to balance it out, any time you're not in a bossfight, [[Death Is a Slap on The Wrist]] and as long as you have at least 1 sword intact, you can block pretty much any attack and not die from it. You can also do it in midair during some attacks, making it seem that the character is casually shrugging off an attack that should've killed'em several times over.
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* [[Sly Cooper]] was another example of this, even though you could get up to two horseshoes to withstand additional hits. The sequels actually gave you a health bar, though.
* ''[[Kingdom Hearts II]]'''s gummi ship minigame has one of these. Your reward for getting 100% completion on all levels is the Crown/G gummi piece, which, when equipped, starts you off in "berserk mode". The catch is that you become the embodiment of that trope.
** In ''358/2 Days'', equipping the Extreme ring sets your HP to one, but gives you infinite use of [[Limit Break
** re:Coded has an unlockable cheat that makes ''everyone'' into an example of this trope.
* ''[[Battle Kid: Fortress of Peril]]'', as a natural consequence of being heavily inspired by ''[[I Wanna Be the Guy]]''.
* The classic Atari videogame ''[[Star Raiders]]'', the ship goes down in one hit from an asteroid or enemy photon. Fortunately the ship's energy can retain a shield which changes hits from fatal to merely damaging some key component of your ship (at easier levels, there's a chance it won't even hurt). The shield itself is a damageable component, so you are at least two photons away from death.
* Almost every enemy in the ''[[Time Crisis]]'' series can be killed with one shot anywhere, including the finger.
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* ''[[Chocobo's Dungeon|Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo's Dungeon]]'' has optional mind zones where both you and monster's max hp are dropped to 1. The latter stages are even worse since it only your max hp which is set to 1 while the enemies have more HP than you.
* Probably the [[Ur Example]] of this trope in video gaming was the 1961 game ''Spacewar!'' which was created for the PDP-1 computer, and which had its players dueling each other while maneuvering in the gravity well of a star. If you got hit with a missile from the other guy or hit the star, you were dead. There is only one PDP-1 still in existence, though the game has been ported to numerous platforms ever since.
* The arcade machine in the cantina segment of ''[[
* ''[[Grabbed By the Ghoulies]]'' gives you a life bar at all times, but will change the number of hit points you start with on a room-by-room basis, and several rooms give you only 1. Usually however, these rooms will come without a prescribed challenge besides reaching the open door on the other side, with only a small number of low-level enemies to evade if any at all. [[Nintendo Hard|Not always, though.]]
** There is also a [[Poison Mushroom|trick power-up]] that temporarily reduces your health to 1. It will return to its previous total in a few seconds if you can survive.
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* In the ''[[DJMAX]] Portable'' series, as well as ''DJMAX Trilogy'', some missions have you clearing a song or set of songs without missing a single note; instead of allowing you to continue having failed the mission, the game simply throws you an instant [[Game Over]]. There's also one particular mission in ''DJMAX Portable 2'', "Just 1%", where getting a MAX 1% (the lowest judgment you can get from hitting a note) is an instant game over as well. ''DJMAX Portable 3'' offers modifiers called "1 BREAK: GAME OVER" and "1%: GAME OVER", which have the same effects.
* In ''[[Galactic Civilizations]] II'', it is possible to design a ship armed to the teeth but with just one HP. This is accomplished by using the cargo hull as the base. This is usually done out of desperation in the early stages of the game in order to fight off a much stronger enemy (like the Dread Lords) until you can research bigger and stronger hull types. The ship usually ''will'' be destroyed but may deal significant damage to the enemy. Combine a few of these in a fleet, and you got yourself a disposable armada. Granted, the costs are higher than those of smaller ships, but desperate times call for desperate measures. Also, putting defenses on these is usually pointless, unless you can put more defenses than the enemy has firepower.
* Non-video game example: In the 4th edition of ''[[Dungeons
** In the earlier games, it was quite possible for a first-level player character to be this. [[Squishy Wizard|First-level magic users were especially prone to being this]] due to having the smallest hit dice in the game and their inability to equip any armor, leading to a tendency to die if an enemy so much as ''looked'' at them funny. This was partially fixed in version 3.5 with the rule that all characters get their maximum hit die roll at first level.
* Duncan died in one hit from anything in the first ''[[Dark Castle]]''. ''Beyond Dark Castle'' combine the level timer with a [[Life Meter]] to allow Duncan to survive some hits at the expense of time.
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* In the puzzle game ''[[Chip's Challenge]]'', any enemy and obstacle can kill you upon contact, making the levels harder than [[Nintendo Hard|they already are]].
* In ''[[Video Game/Killer 7|Killer 7]]'', every enemy in [[Harder Than Hard|Killer8 mode]] can kill the Smiths in one hit (except, luckily, most of the bosses, probably because of [[Puzzle Boss|the different ways they're fought]]).
* ''[[Meat Boy]]'' is this
* ''[[Tiny Toon Adventures]]'' does this in the NES game, and other games often make you a one hit point wonder in hard mode, such as in ''Buster Busts Loose'' for the SNES and ''Babs' Big Break'' for the [[Game Boy]],
* ''[[Rygar]]'' had one-hit deaths in the arcade version, though the NES version had a life meter.
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* The ''[[Choujin Sentai Jetman]]'' [[Licensed Game]] has two secret difficulty levels that reduce the life meter to one.
* In ''[[Amagon]]'', Amagon can't take a hit without dying. When he transforms into Megagon, he gains a life bar.
* The Chaos Inoculation keystone passive skill in ''Path of Exile'' grants immunity to chaos damage but reduces maximum HP to 1 no matter what bonuses to max HP form other sources the character may get. A hefty energy shield becomes mandatory to survive with this passive, but chaos damage can be so painful to deal with due to how hard it is to build resistance to it and how it bypasses every form of defense to directly reduce HP (especially frustrating for energy shield users) that it can be worth the risk.
* The boss Ado in ''[[Kirby]]'s Dream Land 3'' collapses after she runs out of paintings and takes a single hit from Kirby - even an attack that doesn't work on other bosses.
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[[Category:
▲[[Category:Video Game Difficulty Tropes]]
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