One-Hit-Point Wonder: Difference between revisions

* [[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.

** ''[[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]]s in ''<nowiki>[[Prinny: Can I Really Be The Hero?]]</nowiki>'' have only one hit point. But you'll have a [[We Have Reserves|lot of them.]]

* 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]].

* ''[[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.

* ''[[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.

* ''[[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.

* 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.

** 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.

[[Category:Video Game Difficulty Tropes]]

[[Category:Older Than Print]]