SNK Boss: Difference between revisions

In some fighting games, the [[Final Boss]] is a unique opponent in both design ''and'' ability (such as a [[Kaiju|30-foot]] [[Eldritch Abomination]]) that is [[Purposefully Overpowered]] and only appears in single-player/non-competitive game modes; it's slightly more sensible that such a boss would have those high-powered attacks rather than a human-sized villain. [[Bragging Rights Reward|It can also feel pretty good for a player]] who manages to use an otherwise-mortal [[Badass]] to [[Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?|beat the crap out of a godlike monster]].

 

 

[[Trope Namer|Takes its name]] from the company [[SNK]], which seems to ''love'' making bosses like this and having each successive one [[Up to Eleven|top the last]]. This is also a case of [[Follow the Leader]], especially with [[Guilty Gear|Arc]] [[Blaz Blue|System]] [[Fist of the North Star|Works]].

* This being SNK, the ''[[King of Fighters]]'' series had loads and loads of these:

** ''The'' SNK boss by which all others are defined is Rugal Bernstein from ''[[King of Fighters|The King of Fighters '94]]''. His first form is cake, but once round 2 starts and [[The Coats Are Off|that tux comes off]], pray:<br /><br />He uses a variation of Geese Howard's Reppuken and Wolfgang Krauser's Kaiser Wave that go through all other projectiles and have priority over everything. Also, he has his own move called Genocide Cutter which he uses with reckless abandon. It can shave off 40 to 70 percent of your lifebar, depending on whether the computer wants it to be so. He's easily-hit with most Jump Kicks, but they do so little damage that even this go-to attack won't win easily.

** '''96'' had two bosses in a row with [[Barrier Maiden|Chizuru]] and [[Blow You Away|Goenitz]] and there's also a Boss Team.<br /><br />Goenitz is difficult to hit, let alone beat. If the computer [[AI Roulette|felt like it]], Goenitz could be ''completely unbeatable by any means.'' He has a wind barrier, the Yonokaze, which can come out directly in front of your character, can't be rolled through and blocks all projectiles. It could also appear anywhere between you and Goenitz, meaning that rushing towards him or approaching him just increases the chance of you strucking yourself against this invincible pillar of wind. The only thing capable of breaking it was Leona's rushing slash kick.<br /><br />Also, if somehow Yonokaze spawns exactly in front of Goenitz, [[Incredibly Lame Pun|you will get winded up]]. Oh, and if the AI goes into a loop and does it repeatedly (its downtime isn't NEARLY enough to give you an opening to attack), then nothing you can do will have any effect whatsoever.

** '''97'' had [[Brainwashed and Crazy|Orochi Iori (or Leona)]], [[Quirky Miniboss Squad|the Orochi Team]], and then [[Orochi]] himself, all in a row.<br /><br />Orochi has Mu Ni Kaerou (Return to Nothingness), a screen-filler attack: it basically turns him into an open [[Raiders of the Lost Ark|Ark of the Covenant]]. Block it, and you will take unusually high damage for a blocked attack. Don't block it, and you're gone. However, unlike the other bosses on the list, Orochi's AI was poor. Had it been at the level of the previous bosses, combined with vicious priority attacks, Orochi would have been near unbeatable.

** Krizalid was the boss in '''99''.<br /><br />He had a pansy first form like Rugal, with a 2-hit projectile that would win over your projectiles. In round 2, he burns off the coat, and starts spamming a Tornado Kick attack, the Typhoon Rage, which has priority over everything, and Lethal Impact, which looks like an axe kick, but can hit high, overhead OR low as a command throw, OR counterthrow! In short, projectiles and throws are the only things that one move could not counter... and he sometimes spammed it if you closed in on him. His supers, at max level, do '''90 percent of your health bar'''!

** Clone Zero in '''00'' had a screen-filling super that did 60+ percent damage and could easily Guard Break your characters with his Cutter Arts, which did multiple hits whether it was the special or super version.

** And, finally, we come to Igniz.<br /><br />Fireballs with absolute priority, cheap whip attacks which have ridiculously long range and could lead to infinites which he ''will'' use if he ever feels like it, can ''cancel'' ALL of his moves (except [[Super Move|DMs]]) into EVERYTHING (including a DM) and has a super called Brutal God Project where he rushes you, pins you in the corner, whips you, hits you with the edges of his cape, does one of his own supers within this super, and finally engulfs you in a ball of energy, the whole combo doing roughly '''''[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vk_PxKL_1q4 80 PERCENT DAMAGE!!!]'''''.<br /><br />He also earns one point for Overkill: most multi-hit attacks are interrupted when the target is knocked out (or they continue, but the victim falls) but for Igniz, if you are with only 1 HP and are struck with his Brutal God Project... you will take the whole attack until he allows you to give your KO scream. It's [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfsbPqvD5Jk possible to defeat him], but you have to play his own game for that. Whatever the case, Lord have mercy if you attempt to beat him at Level 8 difficulty.

** To conclude the NESTS saga, we have ''2002'', which has, by far, the cheapest version of Rugal to date: [[One-Hit Kill]] [[Combos]] by the dozen, the return of Reppuken, '''3''' Kaiser Wave variants (the last of which is unblockable and the first of which comes out faster than the speed of light), a 3-hit Genocide Cutter...<br /><br />To make up for it, his [[Desperation Move|MAX2]] is a series of Kaiser Waves which are horribly inaccurate. Unfortunately, it STILL does a sickening amount of damage. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQ7yG9oI-FI&feature=channel_page And in the unlikely event you Dodge Roll in front of Rugal when he's charging a Kaiser Wave, it'll STILL hit you while he's charging!]<br /><br />And if that wasn't enough, there's a [[Game Breaking Bug]] with the Kaiser Wave. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fxoulcPogc&feature=channel_page If he happens to release it at just the right moment that you come out of the Dodge Roll, it hovers. FOREVER.] So basically he would have this one ball of energy floating behind his ass (or in front of his crotch, if you managed to switch sides) until he launches another Kaiser Wave (HSDM included), or grabs you (supers included, but check out what happens when you do his Gigantic Pressure) It's like Benimaru's hovering lightning ball HSDM, but '''evil''', never ending and guarateed OHKO.

** Magaki from ''XI'' seems to be SNK's way of saying "we gave up trying to think of ways to mess with you, so here's a boss that throws more projectiles than a bleeding ''[[Touhou]]'' character... ''''''while you have no grazing option''''".<br /><br />He ''loves'' [[Beam Spam|abusing his fireballs]], to the point where there will be [[Bullet Hell|lots of them flying everywhere]] including ones that disappear halfway and reappear behind you. Then there are also the large, semi-invisible ones that move in an arc towards you. Said fireballs also happen to be 100% invincible, [[The Juggernaut|moving nonstop]] and crushing all projectiles, even super ones.<br /><br />Then his [[This Is Your Premise on Drugs|psychedelic pink full screen-filler attack that will hurt your eyes the first few times]] (you'll get used to it). It's hard as hell to even get close to him, and if you do, he'll probably just throw you right back with his little frontal explosion whenever he feels like it.

** ''XII'' had no proper boss character, despite rumors, but ''XIII'' gives us two: Saiki and Dark Ash.<br /><br />Saiki is the leader of Those From The Past. Before the fight begins, he changes into a naked red demon with a blacked out face. He is an amazing block whore (except against some projectiles) and counters any and everything thrown at him by abusing projectiles that freeze you solid, stabbing you in the chest, freezing time, and pummeling you. He also has a super version of this move that sucks you in if you're too close and instantly stuns you. And of course, he wouldn't be a proper SNK boss without a screen filling attack, which just so happens to be his [[Neo MAX]]. A [[Neo MAX]] that disregards the rules and lets him do it with only 1 meter. He's also got some moves involving dark flames, too, which is a grab in ranged form. And just after you beat him, and you think it can't get any worse...<br /><br />Then you fight [[Super-Powered Evil Side|Evil Ash]], the [[True Final Boss]]. The fight takes place in a completely white void and Ash is completely covered in black flames. If you think this is only a powered-up Ash, you're wrong. This is Ash fused with Saiki with the projectile spam of Goenitz, the AI of Rugal, and a screen filling super that would make Orochi himself proud. SNK pretty much lost their minds when it came down to the difficulty of Dark Ash.<br /><br />He has regular Ash and Saiki's movesets combined, but their rage-inducing properties are worse than you can imagine from the explanation alone. Unlike Saiki, who at least lets up on the fireballs, Evil Ash's fireballs have no recovery, and according to a movelist found out by hacking him in the PC leak of the Arcade version, they do not require charging either. That's right, all the CPU inputs is Back, Forward+Punch at super fast speeds. His AI is also psychic and he counters everything you do with a Flash Kick. Then he walks away and goes right back to spamming. By far the most infuriating part about him is that he has not one, but '''TWO''' [[Neo MA Xes]]. One of them is Saiki's screen-filler attack with no delay, and the other is Ash's normal command grab [[Neo MAX]]...followed up by Germinal. You heard right - he adds on damage to an already damaging [[Neo MAX]], AND disables your specials in the process.<br /><br />There are some weaknesses, though: said screen filler doesn't do too much damage to guard and, in spite of his supers, he cannot Max Cancel like a normal player... [[Tempting Fate|which is a blessing]]. Also, for some reason, neither Dark Ash nor Saiki seem to properly counter Mr. Karate's Shoran Kyaku rushing command grab - even at the hardest level, they ''always'' fall for it and take the damage to the face, which makes them disarmingly easy to beat for anyone maining Mr. Karate, especially since Shoran Kyaku can be spammed due to Mr. Karate always landing exactly within range to do it again immediately. The same is true for Vice's Splash command grab, which is slightly less accurate and more unsafe... but neither boss punishes a miss unless they feel like it, which is (thankfully) very rarely. Have fun!

** ''The King of Fighters R2'', for the Neo Geo Pocket Color, has Rugal as its final SNK Boss. His moveset and AI are almost the same as in 98.

{{quote|''"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! I BROKE YOU!!!"''}}

** It should be noted that for several ''KOF'' games, if the player opts to use a continue, the player can choose from several power boosts, including reducing your enemy to 1/3 of his health. The maddening side effect of choosing this option is that your enemy recovers a little bit of health after every win. Combine this with the chance you may not be able to inflict more than a few pixels of damage on these bosses, and voila: ''Your enemy starts each round with more health than the previous round.''<br /><br />Also, bear in mind that most SNK bosses (Starting from Geese Howard in Fatal Fury) are, in some degree, susceptible to trips, throws or certain fancy attacks. (Leona and Goenitz, Lucky Glauber and Rugal, to name a few)

** In the first game, he was armed with a projectile that could cut off a third of your health, has incredible priority, and a counter-throw he could use against ''any attack he chose'' (even when you were simply jumping at him he could grab you out of the air with said counter-throw), setting the boundaries to be later broken by Rugal. Fortunately for the player, he suffered from the same bug as all other players: he's vulnerable for the first frame of standing up.

** In ''Real Bout Special'', Geese returns as the game's [[True Final Boss]] only if you have a high enough score after beating Krauser. This incarnation, commonly known as ''Nightmare Geese'' to fans (And later [[Sure Why Not|officially christened that]]), really IS a nightmare (Figuratively and literally, since the battle is hinted to be one big nightmare).<br /><br />Not only do his Reppukens have absolute priority, but he can fire ''2 Shippukens'' and '''2 Double Shippukens''' (that's 4 Shippukens!) in the air! He's so broken that most of his [[Combos]] do 100% damage! This version introduced the claw version of his Raising/Raging Storm, which did a ridiculous amount of block damage, and he also has a newly super-powered version of his Thunder Break super from ''Real Bout'' ... which is now unblockable while jumping and hits at random places across the arena, even hitting the extra lanes! Worse still, lose to him once and it's [[Game Over]].

* In ''[[Art of Fighting]]'' Mr. Big and Mr. Karate were hard enough. [[Canon Immigrant|Geese Howard]] in ''Art of Fighting 2'' made things worse.<br /><br />Mr. Karate is extremely susceptible to jump kicks, and can be beaten pretty easily by just repeatedly doing these off the wall. The problem is getting to him in the first place - even at the lowest difficulty, Mr. Big is ridiculously hard.<br /><br />Mr. Big can be easily crushed by jump kicks as well, just keep hitting uptoward and kick at the same time, you will jump kick him to death easily. In contrast, Mr. Big in ''Art of Fighting 2'' is a complete joke.

* And then came ''[[SNK vs. Capcom SVC Chaos]]''. If SNK Bosses in general are considered to be The Syndrome, then this game is to be considered '''The SNK Boss Epidemic'''. Starring, but not limited to: [[Original Generation|Serious]] [[Art of Fighting|Mr. Karate]], [[Street Fighter Alpha|Shin Akuma]], [[Athena (video game)|Athena]] and [[Ghosts 'n Goblins (series)|Red Arremer]].

** ''Warriors Rage (PS)'': Main boss Oboro has no body you can attack, since you fight his giant levitating weapons instead. Those weapons are the only "character" in game which takes full advantage of 3D space flying here and there and attacking from various directions - while their own hitboxes (which you should attack to damage Oboro) are almost nonexistent.

** ''[[Samurai Shodown]] 5'' and its mid boss Sankuro carry on the proud tradition of SNK Boss cheapness: First off his takes way less damage from attacks, plus his special attacks involve calling in annoying helpers (the sliding girl isn't so bad, but the guy coming down from the sky does a sick amount of damage, and the grabbing guy from behind is usually coupled with a healing move that restores almost a quarter of Sankuro's life bar). Add to it that his super is apparently an instant kill. Add to it the fact that Sankuro is only the MID-BOSS... yeah, ''Samurai Shodown'' has a bunch of SNK bosses.<br /><br />Once you damage the final boss Gaoh enough, he goes to an invincible demon armor mode and will charge at you constantly like a rhino, and you have to wait until the mode ends.<br /><br />And then, rounding out the previous two examples is Yumeji, Gaoh's [[The Dragon|Dragon]]. [[Ambiguous Gender|He/she]] is essentially Bust Mode Ukyo on steroids. He/she has a [[BFS|nodachi]] that can take off 3/4ths of his/her opponent's health bar in a single strike and an inescapable multi-hitting trap move that is almost as damaging, but much harder to avoid. And if that's not enough... he/she has the ability to [[Ditto Fighter|transform into the other fighters]] and [[Mega Manning|use their signature moves]].

** And in ''6''? Demon Gaoh, who's a bit of a [[Giant Space Flea From Nowhere]], is the unplayable final boss you fight AFTER beating one of the above. He has several of Gaoh's more annoying moves, a fire explosion sweep that's really hard to get around, can bounce you off a wall and combo from it, has a Super move that all-out destroys your weapon and is invulnerable, a rediculously fast charging super meter, and will not drop/break his own weapon no matter what you hit him with.

** ''Samurai Shodown Sen'' has sub-boss Drago, whose weapon is a rifle. This game goes for a slightly more realistic level of swordplay than the rest of the series (no wind fireballs here) so this is significant. His fighting style basically consists of backflipping out of your range, then raining destruction upon you for a crazy amount of time before he finally has to stop and reload.<br /><br />Subverted by Golba, the final boss, who fights with a generic rapier attacks and seemingly ''lacks special moves''.

** The original ''[[Street Fighter]]'' had Sagat as the final boss, who was not only the most powerful iteration of Sagat in the series, but also capable of knocking off more than half your life bar in one hit. And to top it all, all the now-standard [[Fighting Game]] special moves like [[Kamehame Hadouken|Hadoukens]] and such were considered secrets at the time, with very few knowing of their existence, let alone the exact command to do them. And even then, Sagat could stuff fireballs and hurricane kicks cold. No tick damage, no knockback.

** The original ''[[Street Fighter]] II'' had all four Devas as potential SNK Bosses.<br /><br />Balrog / M. Bison (Boxer) loves his Dash Punch. ''A lot.'' So much so that if you beat him once he gets pissed in Round 2 and does a barrage of instantly charged Dash Punches and Uppers. '''26 times in a row'''. Afterward he waits and does other normals...for all of about 3 seconds. '''Then he resumes'''. Your only option here is to low block and die. Not ''or'' die. '''AND''' die. Because the frames of his Dash Punch never give you an opportunity to strike. If you have less than 25% life, you are FUCKED. End of discussion.<br /><br />Vega / Balrog (Claw) likes to jump on the cage in his stage all the damn time. A special mechanic was even built in to his stage so if you played as him on that stage, you could do it too. In ''Super'', however, the move is no longer available to the player, but the CPU can still do this.<br /><br />Sagat returns from ''[[Street Fighter (video game)|Street Fighter]]'', with some new moves under his belt. Not that it matters because all he does is spam Tiger Shots all day. And if you jump at him he will do a psychic Tiger Uppercut. The AI in Champion Edition, strangely, never uses the Tiger Knee. Hyper Fighting fixed this, so now he will occasionally do a Tiger Knee up close...then tick throw you for the win.<br /><br />M. Bison / Vega (Dictator) is this type of boss in the sense that there is absolutely no way you can predict what he will do. His AI pattern is completely randomized and will surprise you at every turn with a high-priority attack via command-reading. Thinking of doing a fireball? Head Stomp. Shoryuken? He'll Scissor Kick you right out of it. Hurricane Kick? Psycho Crusher.<br />Akuma/Gouki from ''Super [[Street Fighter]] II Turbo'' was this type of boss in his first appearance; he could teleport, was fast, did massive amounts of damage and could shoot two fireballs in mid-air. Furthermore, the secret playable version of Akuma/Gouki was less powerful than the boss version, though still so [[Game Breaker|broken]] that he's always been banned from [[Tournament Play]].

** ''[[Street Fighter Alpha]] 3'' had M. Bison, whose Psycho Crusher attack is quite different between normal and boss versions in that it was huge and if not blocked did incomprehensibly high damage, and his teleport has 0 lag. The only way to hit him is to counter all of his attacks, which requires mind-boggling amounts of skill. Also, you can't continue if you lose to him.

** Gill from ''[[Street Fighter III]]'' is incredibly hard to beat in one sitting. Projectile attacks that are much stronger than any of the main characters, a pair of special attacks that ate up screen real estate (and most characters' life bars, even when blocking), and the ability to ''fully revive himself after being knocked down'' make him a particularly controller throw-worthy boss.<br /><br />On top of that, while you only have access to one of your [[Limit Break|Super Arts]] at a time, Gill can use all three of his. Just about the only upside is that during Resurrection, Gill is wide open, and a single hit stops the attack (although he also has a force field, so getting to him isn't easy) - so it's pretty likely he won't get back ''all'' his health. In addition, Resurrection shuts off Gill's Super Meter, so it can only happen once a round, for what it's worth.<br /><br />It should also be said that if you happen to knock Gill out of Seraphic Wing or Meteor Strike (the former is more likely), he will ''keep'' his entire super bar. Thus, if he doesn't whip out another super (which has a very slim chance of happening), defeating him will initiate his usage of Resurrection. Luckily, [[Anti-Frustration Features|if you continue a set amount of times in]] ''3rd Strike'' [[Anti-Frustration Features|the CPU's difficulty will be bumped down a level]], which eases a bit of the pain of fighting Gill. You can tell whether or not the difficulty will be lowered if [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06oR0R9e-9s Gill starts using his taunt (read: "laughing his ass off at you")], which is something he ''never'' does regularly.

** ''Super SFIV'' takes it up a notch.<br /><br />Seth starts using special attacks he copied off the other characters as early as ''Round 1''. If you survive that, Round 2 unlocks his super and ultra moves. [[The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard|And he can pull off ultra moves twice in a row straight, with no recovery time]]. It's practically a [[Luck-Based Mission]]. However, if he has Ultra 2 he will always use it as soon as he gets up, no matter where you are. Be thankful Capcom did that. And when you finally get to play as him, he takes '''twice the normal amount of damage!''' Yes, his defense is the lowest in the game.<br /><br />And if you fulfill the conditions necessary to fight Akuma after beating Seth, you fight '''Shin Akuma''', who is Akuma in his 7th color palette (purple gi, darker red hair, reddish skin, basically Alpha Shin Akuma). Yes, [[He's Back]], and more infuriating than before. He has 1000 HP and stun (same as Ryu), has his double air fireballs (normally an EX move) as a normal move, has an invincible teleport, and not only does his regular Raging Demon go faster and double the range it normally goes, but the Ultra version goes even '''faster''', and across the entire screen. His Ultra 2 also hits on the very first frame, making it near impossible to dodge at close range.<br /><br />Likewise, fulfilling Gouken's conditions gives you Shin Gouken, which is Gouken wearing his 7th color palette, making him look like the way Sheng Long was depicted (all grey gi). Many of his Specials now have armor break properties, and his Hadokens (including Ultra 2) are already charged to the max level. If you get hit by his Hadoken in a corner, blocked or not you WILL be trapped in the corner as he spams more Hadokens, safely chipping lots of life from you or outright taking away half your life in Hadoken combos if God forbid he tagged you unblocked. His Sengokugoshoha (the dashing palm attack) is also MUCH faster and has more invincibility. He may not be the worst boss ever, but you can't sleep on him as previously implied.

* As well as their [[Capcom vs. Whatever]] series:

** ''[[X Men Children of the Atom]]'' had the Juggernaut and Magneto.<br /><br />Juggernaut hits like hell and took a few blows to remember he had a hit stun. Just to put into perspective for people who didn't get it about Juggernaut. Many people argue that he is harder than Magneto, and with reason: In this game, he is a LITERAL JUGGERNAUT. If you wanted to die fast, you just needed to make your Full-special-bar-super-duper-stringy-combo. Juggernaut will take his time to do a full charged attack just because he won't flinch, no matter what. This works for hilarious effect if he starts using his Bum Rush while you are spamming him with Optical Blast at the farthest distance possible; He will PLOW THROUGH THE BEAM and will reach you with enough momentum to cause massive damage.<br /><br />Magneto's AI is complete bullshit and seeks to royally piss you off at the worst possible time. He has a projectile which has absolute priority, can fly well beyond your character's reach (except if you're using Storm or Sentinel), and has a move which sends four magnetic orbs that ''home in'' on you and keep you stunned in the air if they connect. To top it all off, he has ''two'' super moves, a trait which no other character has. One of them sends a bunch of rocks flying at you, while the other sends a bunch of energy pillars that cancel all projectiles. Also, Boss Magneto's X-Bar fills up automatically without him actually having to do anything, and will go from empty to full in the span of about 5 seconds, allowing him to use his super-moves all he wants. And he has an energy shield!

 

* [[Gundam vs. Series|Gundam Vs Gundam NEXT]] had [[Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny|Kira Yamato in Strike Freedom]] (In EX Stage final, where you have to in single player not only obtain a certain amount of points but also not die at all) whom first attacks you in Strike Freedom Form, Then in his Meteor where he gets a set of new moves and an annoying powerful attack that will smash most 1000 class mechs before losing the meteor and enters permanent SEED mode, which mean he can [[Beam Spam|HIMAT burst to his heart's content]]. He was available in the next update but lacked the Meteor ability and can only go into SEED mode for a limited time. Some people thought he was worse than Devil Gundam, at least he stood still.<br /><br />Also, his normal attacks are not to be sneezed at, his charge shot is pretty much dyname's sniper beam upgraded to hit you instantly and if you get caught in his melee, he will deliver an 5x Issen followed by Dragoon spam. This becomes painful when you fight against Destiny as well who has level 8 AI to back it up and denies your precious charge shot attacks.

* [[Power Stone]] has Valgas. Aside from the fact that beating him may require several tries with difficulty set to 1 (with a maximum of ''[[Serial Escalation|eight]]''), what makes him so cheap is that not only his grab can make you lose ''two'' Power Stones at once, but said stones also tend to ''bounce out of your reach '''and''' right next to him'', with him usually entering his [[Super Mode]] while you're still getting back up. The fact his [[One-Winged Angel]] is actually ''[[Clipped-Wing Angel|weaker]]'' than him [[Anticlimax Boss|(with obvious results:]] "Final Valgas" can be easily beaten ''at the first try'') shouldn't surprise anyone.

* ''[[Darkstalkers]]: The Night Warriors'' has Pyron, an [[Energy Being]] made out of fire who will put ''you'' on fire very quickly. He's fast and when combined with his [[Teleport Spam|teleport]] can make him very difficult to catch, plus he deals very high damage and has a projectile that takes up a large portion of the screen. When he became playable in the next game he actually didn't lose many of his tools, however.

** ''[[Guilty Gear]] XX'' has I-No, whose boss version has a CPU-only (until ''Accent Core'') move called Megalomania in which the background goes black, a bunch of warning signs appear as I-No sprouts wings, and she fires off a shitload of weird heart-shaped balls that detect movement and rape your health bar if you are unlucky enough to get hit (around 70-80% damage, depending on the version and how many of them hit).<br /><br />Also, when fighting Dizzy in Story Mode or in Gold Mode, she gains a new super as well, called Hikari no Tsubasa (Wings of Light), where she [[Fan Service|suddenly becomes naked]] [[Oh Crap|while laser beams sprout out from her body]]. This super has 3 versions, one of which is an Instant Kill (in all versions before Accent Core, the screen pops up as SLASH, but in Accent Core it's DESTROYED). Whichever version you get depends on what distance you're at when she enters the crouch stance. If you're very far away, she will attempt to trap you in an inescapable ray of light from underneath as she fires out a circular laser (think Justice's Imperial Ray on steroids). If you're about mid-screen she'll do the circular laser, but it will randomly slow down and speed up. If you're unfortunate enough to be close to her, you get the Instant Kill version where she fills the entire screen with lasers that cannot be blocked.<br /><br />There's also Gold and Black modes for individual characters, and are a ''great'' way to artificially increase the difficulty when fighting the CPU. Black Mode grants unlimited super meter, and Gold Mode's bonuses vary based on the character who's in Gold Mode; for example, Gold Johnny's [[Iaijutsu Practitioner|Mist Finer]] ''becomes a [[One-Hit Kill]] if it connects''. Both modes also appear in Story Mode, disguised in the normal palette for the character.

** The final Mission of ''[[Guilty Gear]] XX Reload'' features a half-health Ky versus a [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NQyyS8W1Fo&feature=related Gold, Infinite Tension, EX Sol with regeneration]. Yeah, that's a fun one.

** There's also Kliff Undersn. First, his foward+Heavy Slash takes off a good 2/3rd of your health bar. Secondly, Zugaisai now hits 26 times and takes off half of a health bar. Every attack with his sword does an unreasonable amount of damage. Oh, and there's a mission where you fight him as a half health Eddie. Yep, one Zugaisai is all it takes.

* Arc System Works, the people who made the ''[[Guilty Gear]]'' games also demonstrate their penchant for adding ridiculously cheap bosses into other fighters as well in ''[[Dragon Ball]] Z: Supersonic Warriors 2'', where you can fight superpowered versions of Cell, Broly and Goku in the Maniac difficulty Maximum mode. They all move twice as fast as anyone else, take half damage from all attacks, do double the damage of their normal counterparts, have infinite ki and possess special attacks that would make their anime counterparts stare at them slackjawed with drool dribbling out.<br /><br />Cell can summon tons of ki orbs around him that turn into ridiculously fast lasers that home in, has energy balls that never stop and spams a superpowered warp Kamehameha.<br /><br />Broly uses the huge ki sphere attack 5 times in a row(one is a super in normal conditions) which each one doing as much damage as a single one would normally do, and can fill half the screen with energy blasts faster than most characters can shoot one.<br /><br />Goku has an oversized Kamehameha bigger and faster than Super Saiyan 3's and can fire two different, seemingly endless streams of ki blasts...one comes in the size of most special attacks with each individual blast and both are homing. He can also use an unblockable grab move across the entire length of the screen. You can only thank the programmers for being merciful enough to not let the AI realize they don't have to charge their ki and only having to fight them one at a time.

* ''[[Blaz Blue]]'', also from Arc System avoids this somewhat as both bosses (Hakumen and Nu-13) are considered generally balanced. However, they (as well as two other characters, Rachel and Ragna) have "Unlimited" versions which fit this trope to a tee, with the exception that they can be unlocked and played.<br /><br />''Unlimited Hakumen's'' damage output and speed are increased to the stats that he has when in Mugen mode, and his super meter gain is sped up to 3-4 times the normal speed. He is the penultimate boss in most character's Arcade Modes.<br /><br />''Unlimited Nu's'' drive attacks summon two swords at once instead of one, her Legacy Edge summons out more swords from the gate, her Calamity Sword fires 4 swords instead of one, and she has super-meter auto-gain. She is the final boss in most characters' Arcade Modes. She comes back in ''Continuum Shift'' as Unlimited Lambda, with everything stated above and more now that Lambda has more moves at her disposal.<br /><br />''Unlimited Rachel'' can do Sword Iris without the Lobelias as a requirement, and both it and its super version go in either two ways: one summons four in a row in front of her, and the other one is a delayed strike in which the second lightning bolt tracks the opponent. Her strikers also last longer and she has super meter auto-gain. She is the final boss in Nu's Arcade Mode.<br /><br />A quick mention must be given that the end of almost everyones arcade mode you have to beat Unlimited Nu. The exception being the two boss characters of the game. On the [[PlayStation 3]] version, the earlier bosses give you bronze trophies. Unlimited Rachel gives a Silver Trophy when you defeat her, and she lives up to the challenge. If you do really well though, you can fight Unlimited Ragna as a [[Bonus Boss]] who will give you a gold trophy. Speaking of which...<br /><br />The worst of them all is ''Unlimited Ragna'', who is always in Blood Kain, is faster, and stronger. And he also has super meter auto-gain as well as his drive moves healing him even more than usual. And '''Triple Health!''' He is the [[True Final Boss]] of ''Calamity Trigger's'' Arcade Mode and the final boss for Hazama/Terumi's Arcade Mode in ''Continuum Shift''.<br /><br />In the console version's Story Mode, whenever a opponent needs to be more boss-like for story purposes, the game simply gives them an unlimited super bar.

** The PSP version and 2010 DLC for the [[PlayStation 3]] and 360 versions have Unlimited versions of ''everyone else!''<br /><br />''Unlimited Jin'' has enhanced Drive attacks that summon up more ice pillars. His normal specials are now the EX versions and ''all'' of them freeze you. On top of that, his D Ice Sword fires 3 at once, and his Icecar now has bouncing properties, meaning you can juggle after them now. And his Ice Wave super now fires 2 at once and his Ice Arrow super keeps you in the air longer while he recovers at the same rate.<br /><br />''Unlimited Noel'' is faster, can fire all 3 versions of her Optic Barrel in succession, fires 3 missiles if the gun hits with Fenrir, fires 5 missiles without bullets with Thor, and her Chain Revolver moves can now be done more times.<br /><br />''Unlimited Taokaka'' has faster Drive attacks, can chain any move into any other move, and her "This is for the tuna!" super now does [[Fist of the North Star|100 hits]]. Also her Hexa-Edge can now be done in the air.<br /><br />''Unlimited Tager'' gets wheels installed in his boots, allowing him to run at super fucking fast speeds and able to go across the screen in 30 frames. He also has autoguard against all mid and high attacks while he's running, and his Genesic Emerald Tager Buster sucks you in hyper-fast when magnetized. Speaking of which, his magnetism now lasts for 30 seconds instead of 7. '''THE POWER OF SCIENCE!'''<br /><br />''Unlimited Litchi'' has enhanced versions of her Three Dragons move that move farther and deal multiple hits, and her All Green now makes 3 energy geysers appear.<br /><br />''Unlimited Arakune'' can now run, is really fast in the air, and when the opponent is cursed he now summons 3 of every bug.<br /><br />''Unlimited Bang'' has 20 Nails instead of 12, can now autoguard '''everything''' with his Drive attacks, and can use his B and C shuriken the same way as his A and D shurikens. All of his special moves except his nails now add to his Fu-Rin-Ka-Zan meter, and his command throws add 4 symbols instantly, as well as the ground version teleporting him a short distance to reach the opponent. And his Heavenly Phoenix goes across the screen. He's basically ''Continuum Shift'' Bang but with benefits.<br /><br />''Unlimited Carl'' becomes slower and takes a LOT more damage, but in exchange Nirvana becomes hyper fast, does not drain health when under Carl's control, and has enhanced attacks.

* The upgrade to the console version of ''Continuum Shift'' changed every Unlimited character from Calamity Trigger. And Continuum Shift Extend also adds even more movesets to these already horrible characters (seen [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aF6_wI3_w-w here]).<br /><br />''Unlimited Ragna'' no longer has triple health, but he still has his godly movement speed and his other attributes. To make matters worse, any attack that involves his sword now drains health like his D moves. He also has a new followup to Dead Spike to make it more useful, which can be easily comboed after his Hell's Fang followup for massive damage. But none of that compares to the worst part about him - ''he can do Devoured By Darkness without meter''. Extend gives him a Distortion drive where he launches towards the enemy in an attempt to grab them [[For Massive Damage]]. He is the final boss in Jin's and Hazama's Arcade Modes.<br /><br />''Unlimited Jin'' is pretty much the same except with the new freezing system, certain moves can freeze multiple times, some as much as '''10'''. His Arrows of Ice super now has a Yukikaze followup afterward, and speaking of Yukikaze it now comes out regardless of whether it countered something or not. Extend allows him to use his Ice Arrow distortion (plus the auto-Yukikaze) mid-air.<br /><br />''Unlimited Noel'' now has the old versions of her supers as regular moves, and Thor shoots the normal spray of bullets before the 5 missiles. Extend gives her a new distortion where she dashes on her opponent, and if she hits, she'll blow them up.<br /><br />''Unlimited Rachel'' fires out 3 Lobelias from her cannon instead of just 1. She also has her old Sword Iris back from before which goes in a random pattern. And her Tempest Dahlia now fires out even deadlier objects than before and does not depend on the Silpheed gauge. Extend gives her a homing Sword Iris-esque distortion that doesn't consume her Lobelias at all.<br /><br />''Unlimited Taokaka'' now has a new special and two new supers. One of them summons a bunch of Kaka kittens to stampede upon the opponent, and the other throws a series of objects at the opponent. All of her attacks that can be charged are now unblockable when fully charged, and do an insane amount of damage. Her projectile-throwing moves throw 3 objects at the same time, and the bowling ball she throws with the C version of the move doesn't disappear until it goes offscreen and can combo opponent endlessly if it hits a grounded opponent. Her Drive attacks have a much slower startup and thus are much harder to combo and can't be aimed to as many directions but they move much faster once they actually begin and if they connect, do absolutely ridiculous amounts of damage and can kill any character in 2-4 hits. Extend gives her yet another distortion where a Kaka kitten will bring a bomb and try to stay close to the opponent until the bomb goes off.<br /><br />''Unlimited Tager'' is the same, but Gadget Finger no longer requires the opponent to be knocked down. His drive attacks and 6A can also be charged, and his Astral Heat is now performed with 1D, as well as his super which is 1C. His super-fast magnetic projectile now consumes only half of his magnetic gauge instead of all of them. Extend gives him a [[Megaton Punch]] as a new super.<br /><br />''Unlimited Litchi'' is a unique case, as her play style is completely changed. Her teleports and stuff from ''Calamity Trigger'' are still here, but she now has a new Chi Gauge instead of using 6B to charge up her moves. Extend allows her to use her Chi attack Distortion at close range rather than at a distance. She can also parry with 1D.<br /><br />''Unlimited Arakune'' has a new super move which summons a bag of insects. If the opponent hits it, small red bugs pour out of it, and if the opponent touches any of them, they are instantly killed (complete with an amusing 5-second snippet at the end of the normal Astral Finish theme, which fittingly enough is the part which says "until the world is covered in Azure"). Also, that new Fever Mode gauge he has is now a thing of the past, as he now curses instantly like old Arakune. Extend gives him a stronger version of his crawling special move as a distortion.<br /><br />''Unlimited Bang'' borrows the 3-hit command combo and teleport from Chipp Zanuff. He now also has a multi-hit aerial auto-combo as a new super.<br /><br />''Unlimited Carl'' is exactly the same as before. Extend gives him one of Relius' supers.<br /><br />''Unlimited Hakumen'' is completely different from before in that he has ''actual changes''. All of his specials now cost only 1 magatama (not his supers), Enma can be canceled, the dash preceeding it works much like wavedashes in [[Tekken]] in that just inputting the motion causes Hakumen to dash, it can be done repeatedly, pressing A at a precise time gives performs a better version of Enma which is faster and can be jump cancelled and neither it or Enma itself cost any magatama to perform, all of his counters end in Yukikaze or Tsubaki, his actual Yukikaze comes out instantly like Jin's, and as a bonus his version is both invincible and unblockable during execution unlike Jin's which is only unblockable, and his Shippu now does multiple hits and stuns the opponent for a long time if they block it, leaving them open for Yukikaze if you have the meter to spare. Extend gives him a new all-kick autocombo super.<br /><br />''Unlimited Lambda'' is another unique case in that technically it isn't Lambda. When you attempt selecting her Unlimited form, you'll find that it's none other than '''Nu'''. That's right, the bitch is back, and worse than ever. She is exactly the same as original Unlimited Nu, except with the added moves from Lambda and more cancel fun. Although it sounds lame, it actually makes her cheaper than before. Extend gives her a new autocombo super.<br /><br />''Unlimited Tsubaki'' is now the new ''Calamity Trigger'' Unlimited Hakumen. She has literally no changes except that she now has a Quick Charge function like Order-Sol (her technical predecessor) and charges her Install quicker. Extend gives her a diving attack as a new super.<br /><br />''Unlimited Hazama'' is about 3 times as fast as he is normally is and has super meter auto-gain, as expected. What isn't expected is that he has a green force field around him that, if you get caught in it, drains your health and adds it to his. Extend also gives him a new Distortion where he grabs then flings his opponent all over the screen with his Ouroboros. He is the final boss for most characters in ''Continuum Shift''. The console version changes him up a bit in that all of his specials which require a certain move to be performed before it no longer require it, he has a new kicking move (a weaker version of Jayoku Houtenjin that still fatal counters), and his command throw leads into a ''stronger'' version of his Mizuchi Rekkazan.<br /><br />''Unlimited Mu'' has an exclusive super which is a carbon copy of Dizzy's Imperial Ray super from Guilty Gear, and the [[Attack Drone|Attack Drones]] that she summons can now move freely and fire at will. And you can also continuously summon as many as you want, essentially making the battle a [[Bullet Hell]] shmup. Extend allows those attack drones to cause [[Collision Damage]], and Mu now has two more Distortions: One is a grab-range distortion and the other one fills the screen with electric orbs.<br /><br />''Unlimited Makoto'' is unique in that the majority of her movelists has been changed. It's a combination of [[Street Fighter III|Dudley's and the other Makoto's]] moves. The one thing that makes her broken, however, is her new 100-heat super, which makes you mash B in order to get '''[[Memetic Mutation|OVER]] [[Dragonball Z|9000]]''' damage! Extend gives her a multi-punch auto-combo super.<br /><br />''Unlimited Valkenhayn'' has a new battle stance where he waves his arms around similarly to [[X-Men|Magneto]]. He starts out unable to transform into a wolf, but once he transforms he can pretty much infinitely switch in and out of wolf form with impunity, and he also gains the ability to use his wolf transformation to escape many normally guaranteed combos, much like Bursting, but not limited in the number of times he can use it per round. His Beast Spiral can now be done 6 times in a row just by mashing A and it automatically homes into the opponent, and he has a new [[Spinning Piledriver]] super which always does a fixed amount of damage and can be easily comboed after latter. And now he also has an aerial-ramming super.<br /><br />''Unlimited Platinum'' can choose which one of her Magical Weapons she wants to summon next (instead of the order being randomized with the ability to see the next one in the row), and they're always the powered-up versions she normally only gets after using a Distortion Drive to power one up. She has a new DD that breaks 3 Guard Primers on block, more than any other move in the game (besides Arakune's Astral Heat, which doesn't really count), and her Cure Dot Typhoon summons a colossal cat missile followed by a rain of cat bombs if it connects. Extend gives her a short range super which attacks upwards.<br /><br />''Unlimited Relius'' has an infinite Ignis gauge, meaning he can use his puppet whenever he wants. He also has two new supers. One of them is a high-damaging variant of Venom's Dark Angel from ''Guilty Gear'' (a fireball super, and he can fire two rapidly if his gauge allows it), and the other is an instant autocombo with Ignis.<br />

* And ArcSys has done it again in ''[[Battle Fantasia]]'' with its end boss, End of Deathbringer (like the original, except constantly {{smallcaps|[[Man On Fire|on fire!]]}}) Though he lacks a Super Move meter, his lone super-special attack, Apocalypse Flame (activated after an unpredictable countdown), almost completely fills the screen, and will burn off a large chunk of HP to anyone who hasn't mastered Gachi counters. This, of course, is provided you manage to survive his regular special attacks, which deal a lot of damage and have insane priority. And unless you go into "Heat Up!" mode, you won't be able to cause anything but chip damage to him. Also, half of EoD's moves are unblockable ''and'' make him immune to stance break (ie, you can't knock him out of them), and on top of that, his Apocalypse Flame ''can be comboed into'', which basically spells instant death if he does it. For all that Arcana Heart 3's Parace L'sia (another boss done by Arc System) is incredibly cheap, she's got nothing on End of Deathbringer - at least she can be hurt with normal moves and hit out of her own attacks, and her lifebar is normal. This... monstrosity... on the other hand, is completely and utterly unfair to anyone who isn't a master. And even to the masters, too. For an amateur, beating End of Deathbringer at anything above the easiest setting is wishful thinking.

 

 

** ...and Jun transforms into [[Super-Powered Evil Side|Un]][[One-Winged Angel|known]], effectively ending the [[Epileptic Trees|decade-long debate on the character's identity]]. Unlike her ''Tag 1'' incarnation, she does not mimic other cast members a la Mokujin. Instead, she retains Jun's moveset as well as gaining a damage output increase and a few boss-exclusive moves that borderline on downright unfair, including a call back to Jinpachi's infamous stun. There are no guarantees in this fight; if she wants to, she'll either initiate a simple combo that shaves off roughly half of your health or reverse your attacks to death. One of her most dangerous attacks is a [[Marvel vs. Capcom|Snap Back-esque]] move where a portal appears on the ground. If you get hit by it, a huge hand surfaces from the stage and splats you, forcing you out of the arena and leaving you with only a pixel of health remaining and a large chunk of recoverable health. Did we mention that she can combo into it? Good luck when she pulls ''that'' off.

* The first game in the [[Soul Series]], ''Soul Edge/Blade'' has Soul Edge, who would later become Inferno. He is a much tougher version of Cervantes who is able to teleport and use flying unblockable attacks, seemingly from anywhere on screen. His difficulty is so great that the original arcade version of the game had to have its difficulty lowered for a rerelease, because him and Cervantes (who you face before him) were considered impossible to beat. It can still take several retries to defeat him and that's only if you're lucky, as he's utterly unpredictable. And note that "lucky" here means you happened to not be in the way when he used one of those flying attacks and [[Artificial Stupidity|he launched himself clear out of the ring]].

* ''[[Soul Calibur]] III'' utilizes this to a degree even with ''non''-boss characters, although there are [[AI Breaker|certain moves]] that can be used to circumvent the seemingly [[The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard|precogniscent AI]]. But the [[Bonus Boss|secret boss]], Night Terror, is absolutely batshit ''insane'' in this regard, with [[Eye Beams]] and a stance which renders him immune to damage; unless you're using one of the aforementioned AI-killing attacks (or a few more that take advantage of Night Terror's absurd size) it appears that you can only beat him if the CPU decides that you can. Oh, yeah...you can't beat him by "ring out", either, because he'll just fly back in. Thanks God he isn't playable, at least if you're not using a cheating device.

** The story mode only character Ceres is supposed to be this - he blocks pretty much every move you use against him, and the story moves on if you lose the battle. Beating him results in nothing.

** In Tower of Lost Souls mode he has a 50% chance each SECOND of "unblockability" - which includes being impossible to parry - being granted to his next attack, takes 30% normal damage, does double normal damage, has two health bars, and drains life with every attack? Essentially, if he hits you the battle is probably lost.

** The Apprentice in Arcade. While not -quite- SNK level, he does seem to have an uncanny knack for sidestepping verticals, vert-jabbing horizontals, air-juggling and... to cap it all off... a truly ridiculous frequency of Just Impacts.

** First up is Kilik. Despite being a mimic character normally, in Legendary Souls he is stuck using Xiba's style, which was originally his own from previous games. The second you let him get momentum, he starts comboing you like a maniac with ambiguous mixups, and doesn't stop.

 

 

* The ''[[Mortal Kombat]]'' series is notorious for its SNK-like sub-bosses, starting with ''[[Mortal Kombat 2]]'''s Kintaro and ending with ''[[Mortal Kombat Deadly Alliance]]'''s Moloch. Not only are they super-powerful, but they're unthrowable, unjuggleable (for the most part) and - with later games - immune to projectile attacks.

** In ''[[Mortal Kombat (video game)|Mortal Kombat]]'', we had Goro and Shang Tsung.<br /><br />Goro had the highest defensive and attack stats of any character in [[MK 1]], and his stomp could get heavily annoying. He also had an ''unblockable'' fireball that came out very fast, and an overpowered throw that did almost 40% damage.<br /><br />Shang Tsung also had unblockable and cheap fireballs, and could morph into any character at random, [[Oh Crap|including GORO]]! If he just so happens to morph, the character's AI will be at the maximum level, meaning it'll be extremely difficult to land a hit. He's also floating along the ground so sweeps and Sub-Zero's slide special will not work on him.

** ''[[Mortal Kombat 4]]'' didn't offer anything, but ''Deadly Alliance'' gave us Moloch, a [[Red Oni, Blue Oni|blue oni that acts like a red oni]], with [[Glowing Eyes of Doom]] and a ball-'n-chain strapped to his hand. He takes roughly half-normal damage, and has ridiculous attacks such as a non-telegraphed bum-rush. The worst thing about Moloch is if you win one round against him, he just stands there and roars. If you want the satisfaction of seeing him fall, you need to win the match.

** ''[[Mortal Kombat]]: Deception'' introduced Onaga, the mighty Dragon King, for the first time, and he lives up to his name. The game foreshadows Onaga's immunity to projectiles in the opening cutscene: he walks through sustained fire from Shang Tsung, Quan Chi, ''and'' Raiden at the same time.<br /><br />First off, he's bigger than Goro, Kintaro, Motaro, and Moloch combined. Secondly, he breathes fire that causes massive hitstun. Third, he's immune to projectile attacks, and while he can't crouch, his guard is both high and low at the same time. Fourth, he can use his wings (which are even '''BIGGER''' than his body) to backdash away from combos, while doing some of his own. And fifth, his throw is really powerful, and cuts off about 40-50% of your health. And if that wasn't enough, the stage where you fight against him has a Death Trap (the spikes surrounding the arena) which you can't knock Onaga into, but ''he'' can knock '''you''' into it.

== Other Commercial Fighting Games ==

* ''Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers: The Fighting Edition'' has [[Mighty Morphin Power Rangers (film)|Ivan Ooze]]: he's unaffected by gravity, can't be thrown, has a normal attack which knocks the opponent clear across the screen if not blocked, his other moves (3 normals and 2 specials) are all projectiles, with the specials being multiple homing projectiles, and one of his specials makes him invincible for about 2 seconds. So what's supposed to offset these advantages? He can't block, and he has no super. Too bad his invincibility special more than makes up for not being able to block, and his specials do so much damage that he doesn't need a super. And the [[Revive Kills Zombie]] part of the trope is, in fact, subverted, because the player, when he manages to play as him, gets all the same advantages and disadvantages. Arguably one of the most broken fighting game characters of all time in fact.

** Certain characters have an easier time fighting her than others. It's been too long to remember exactly which characters, but if memory serves, quicker characters and characters that are difficult to read (Helena, Brad) had an easier time, as they can adjust to her teleport attacks quicker, not to mention the ability to just rush at her and get a few moves off before she teleported again.

*** She doesn't suffer from [[SNK Boss]] Syndrome, no; she ''revels'' in it. It's so bad that when she reviewed the game on ''[[X-Play]]'', Morgan Webb openly threatened @152's AI's programmers with bodily harm should she ever meet them in person.

*** Tengu was actually really easy to beat if you learned his weakness: while the wind-gust maneuver cannot be blocked, it ''can'' be countered via the middle-punch counter, so long as you are somewhat close to him. The gust has a long wind-up time, giving you plenty of time to close the gap. What's more, Tengu loves spamming the gust when you're at range. So just counter the gust, back up so that you provoke another gust, run up during the wind-up and counter again, back up some more, etc. With this technique, you can easily beat Tengu with any character. Yes, exploiting the AI is cheap, but then so is Tengu.

*** In the [[Updated Rerelease]], ''[[Dead or Alive]] 2 Ultimate'', he gains a new CPU-exclusive move for his exclusive stage which cannot be accessed: he can change the weather. It's ''really'' distracting and it can hurt your eyes if you're not prepared for it. And while he's doing this he can charge at you freely.

** After Tengu, Ayane's foster father Genra/Omega made his debut in ''[[Dead or Alive]] 3''. First, you fight him in [[Interface Screw|a really weird camera angle]]. Secondly, the fire around his stage makes everything super-blurry so you can't see his attacks. Finally, one of his attacks has to be jumped over, which is easier said than done.

** This all falters in the face of Dead or Alive: Dimension's brand new "Tag Challenge" mode. It starts off innocuous enough, but the final five fights have you play against a beefed-up Kasumi clone named Kasumi Alpha, all of the bosses in Dead or Alive history, AND a brand new boss in the form of {{spoiler|supreme Mugen Tenshin clan badass and father of basically every ninja in the game, Shiden, who pulls so many moves out of his ass it's sheer baffling.}} Add to everything that they take majorly reduced damage and can take away up to 75% of your health from an accidental tag, and the fact that you have two characters to even the odds barely matters.

* ''[[Bushido Blade]] 2'' has, if the player plays the story mode as a Shainto clan character, a penultimate boss that instantly teleports away, without a scratch, if 'hit'. The only way to kill him is to keep making him teleport, as each time he does, he reappears closer and closer to the player, and you have about a second-long window to gut him before he stands up and readies himself. Of course, if you die (which is easy, since your character is a potential [[One-Hit-Point Wonder]]) the process starts over. Almost as if to make up for this pain-in-the-ass opponent, the Shainto's final enemy is [[Anticlimax Boss|an unarmed girl who doesn't even fight back]].

* ''Matrimelee'', the revival installment of the ''[[Power Instinct]]'' series, replaces Angela with a [[Beware the Nice Ones|not even less 'cutie']] [[Rich Bitch|Princess Sissy]]. A seemingly harmless young girl, she can conjure many different things from her magical box. One of her most annoying tactics is constantly bringing out [[Literal Genie|Abubo]] from ''Rage of the Dragons'' that swings his fists around, so they would get you in '''both''' air and ground. She regularly does this when the opponent is anywhere nearby her. This guarantees that you will be unable to get close to her unless you keep trying incessantly, are a pro and/or exploit her rather simple AI. But it doesn't end on Abubo. She also has <s>drill</s> [[Chainsaw Good|chainsaw boots]], a purple bomb, an uncancellable frog projectile and even a <s>booby trap spike</s> sword. And, to finish your attempts to marry her '''off''' once and for all, Sissy's arsenal includes a '''FUCKING''' annoying and unblockable {{spoiler|(Although, you know... it's [[Double Jump|overjumpable]], thankfully)}} super where she shoots a raygun at you and turns you into a '''FROG'''. ...oh, and she's <s>almost</s> [[Hitbox Dissonance|unhittable when she attacks]].

** On a side note, she's still damn hard to beat [[Boss Dissonance|even if you're playing at the easiest difficulty.]] Yeah, even '''as''' Sissy. And even in Bloodlust Fight mode.

* Groove On Fight has Bristol, the final boss. His first form is fairly harmless - does high damage with leg-based attacks, but nothing too terribly nasty. Then he turns into a demon after being KOed. And things get worse, as he gains a slew of attacks that have incredible priority, come out monstrously fast and do entirely too much damage. His Super is unblockable as well. And he buttonreads. Welcome to hell.

** However, Sakurai had to be a bastard. In [[Boss Rush]] mode, you only get one life. Good luck beating it on Intense, as per one of the [[Hundred-Percent Completion|challenges]] that can't be bypassed with a Golden Hammer.

** [[Memetic Mutation|Sakurai: "(laughs)"]]

*** The difference is not in difficulty, but in length: all bosses do pretty much the same amount of damage in SSE and Boss Rush, but they have a LOT less HP in Boss Rush.

* The Eternal Champion, from the obscure-but-popular [[Sega Genesis|Genesis]] Fighter ''[[Eternal Champions]]''. Not only is he as strong as him being on this list would imply, you have to beat him five times in one round, and each time he uses a different (but equally painful) move set.

** Getting to the final set of fights on Champion mode leads to the Dark Champion [[Badass in Distress|kidnapping the Eternal Champion]]. You get to fight the Dark one as the Eternal one in what can be an absolutely epic fight, were it not for the Dark Champion being damn hard.

*** The worst part is you only get one chance to win the last battle, or you have to start the whole game again.

* The prototype of all 2-D [[Fighting Game|Fighting Games]], ''[[Karate Champ]]''. Once a player reaches 8th Degree Belt level, the computer-controlled opponent becomes practically unbeatable, anticipating and countering a player's every move with frequency only a literal god of fighting could be expected to pull off.

* ''[[Punch-Out!!|Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!]]'' ups the difficulty to ludicrous levels for the fight against the eponymous boxer--a single punch from the guy KO's you, and his weak spot is only exposed very rarely. Not to mention he acts lightning fast, giving you very little time to dodge and fight back. And there are no saves.

** The [[Retraux]] remake of ''Punch-Out'' for the Wii does not have Mike Tyson (obviously, considering several controversies), but it has something even better. {{spoiler|[[Donkey Kong]].}} Mr Sandman also seems to have carried over Tyson's mannerisms for the fight against him.

* Chaos from ''[[Dissidia Final Fantasy]]'' is a great example of this trope. He attacks faster then any other character in the game by a wide margin, his attacks massively lower your Brave and increase his own, he chains his Brave attacks into his HP attacks, and while most of his Brave attacks are "melee", they send out shockwaves that exceed the size of the area where you fight him. When he uses Divine Punishment and Scarlet Rain, once he starts the attack, he becomes invincible. His Demonsdance attack chains together a massive string of bonecrushing hits, with several HP attacks ''in the combo!'' He also gets the Shinryu summon, which, unlike the player's summons, can be called as often as Chaos wants and his effect varies, because Shinryu mimics the other summons in the game! And he also has three forms, fully recovering HP each time while you're left at the amount you had. There's a catch, though: there's a flaw with his AI that makes him unable to avoid the final hit of [[Final Fantasy VII|Sephiroth's]] octoslash HP attack, he'll dodge every slash except the one that actually does the HP damage, so if you feel like going slow and steady against him, you can turn even his [[Harder Than Hard|Inward Chaos form]] into a joke.

* ''Dragonball Z: Budokai 2''. Dragon World mode and Kid Buu, who among other things, was pretty much unblockable.

** It got worse in ''Budokai Tenkaichi''. Kid Buu has a Blast 2 move which is a long and crazy combo with nasty priority that the AI LOVES to spam in [[BT 2]]. Then there's Android 13, whose super form has a normal Blast 2 that is XBOX HUGE, there's Broly who is surprisingly fast for a huge guy, Syn Shenron/Omega Shenron/Yi Xing Long, whose attacks have vicious priority and worst of all, Cell, who is just plain horrible.

*** And that's not even to mention Uub vs. Omega Shenron on the hardest difficulty... or Omega Shenron in any of the story modes, for that matter. "30 Seconds to kill him AND do it using my Ultimate Move? WTF?!"

* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJPLDR8DWmI Mutilator] from ''Bio F.R.E.A.K.S.'' It's a bit like fighting [[Metal Gear Solid|Metal Gear Rex]], only it's a [[Fighting Game]]. And the arena is [[Down the Drain|flooded]]. And the water is full of [[Everything's Even Worse with Sharks|sharks]].

* [[Star Wars Battlefront]] Elite Squadron: {{spoiler|X1, the player's clone twin brother}} at least [[Nintendo Hard|in the DS version]].

* Various RTS games face a campaign only "boss" unit, or the enemy has some special thing(s) that is unique to the campaign.

** In Tiberium Wars: Kane's Wrath in one mission you will face up to 3 MARV Tanks, two of them at once. Players can only build one MARV unless they capture a Construction Yard of an opposing GDI faction (it has to be a different GDI faction, not just any one mind you). Inverted during the final mission, where it is possible to build 3 Redeemers, but it's highly unlikely that you'll use them since the [[Timed Mission|level is going to end one way or another at that point]].

*** You ''can'' build 2 MARVs but not in the campaign. In the Global Conquest mode, as GDI you can deploy the most powerful army, which will include a MARV by default. During a mission, you can build another MARV. You can't keep the second one beyond the mission, however. This applies to all epic units.

** Inverted in Red Alert 3 in the Japanese Campaign, where you are given control of the [[Game Breaker|nigh]] unstoppable Shogun Executioner, who is basically the bigger brother of the King Oni Battlemechs that can heal when attacked by tesla weapons (guess what weapons your opponent use?), has an AOE shockwave attack, kills any units in one hit, and is so huge and well armored that simply ''walking'' into an aircraft will destroy it. [[In Soviet Russia, Trope Mocks You|To quote Moskvin:]][[Incredibly Lame Pun|"YOU...]] [[Inverted Trope|CHE]][[The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard|AT!!!"]]

** In Tiberian Twilight's final Nod mission the final 'boss' is the enormous Arcus Bomber. In the introductory cutscene it eliminates your allies' Crawlers and can obliterate most of your forces with just a few shots. Since the game unlocks more advanced units as the player gains experience, the player may not yet have access to the only units powerful enough to do any real damage making the game impossible to complete without spending hours player multiplayer and Skirmish mode games in order to unlock the necessary units.

*** This was kind of the trend after Warcraft 3: Reign of Chaos, where the campaigns would always end in some overly powerful boss that was a modified unit. Not surprisingly, this eventually gave way to [[WoW]], whose MMORPG style basically makes this mandatory for it's Raid Bosses.

** The original campaign in ''[[Warhammer 40000]]: [[Dawn of War]]'' had you fight a Deamon Prince at the end, who was way stronger then even the game's unique super units.

* In the JRPG ''Dragoneer's Aria'', to get to the Earth Dragon, you have to Battle against Ruslan L'avelith. While fighting against him, he can easily kill your entire team. Once you beat him and he joins your team, he's nerfed like hell.

* ''[[Fire Emblem Jugdral|Fire Emblem Thracia 776]]'' is already the hardest [[Fire Emblem]] game in the series (or heck, it's probably the hardest game in existence!) Then along comes Chapter 22, which has several factors working against you as it is. Once you cross the second bridge, however, the first one collapses, and the mini-boss, Reinhart, starts attacking you. He has Daim Thunder, a weapon [[The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard|normally only available to]] [[Magical Girl Warrior|Olwen]], which allows him to attack twice, and has FOUR skills: Continue (randomly allows him to attack twice in one round) Ambush (ensures that he attacks first no matter whose turn it is), Duel (forces another round of combat without allowing the unit that just attacked a chance to heal) and Big Shield (will randomly block one of your attacks entirely). With all these power-ups, it is literally and completely impossible to beat this asshole without resorting to status effect wands, which are rare. Silence keeps him from using magic, so you can thankfully use ranged attacks against him (he also has a Brave Sword) but the most reliable way to beat him is to put him to sleep, and yet both options are only achievable with a M-Up wand or a Holy Water, since your wand user must have higher magic than he does, and all stats except HP cap at 20 in this game! Reinhart's mere existence might just cause your file to become unwinnable if you don't have Warp wands, which most people use to kill the real boss on the first turn (He also has Big Shield, so [[Luck-Based Mission|good luck with that!]]) and warp Leaf to the castle and [[The Enemy Gate Is Down|seize it for an instant win,]] but then you miss out on the chapter's other goodies. In fact, the first house on the map ''gives you a Warp wand,'' as if to say, [[Viewers are Morons|"Yes, you dumb fuck, that's how you're supposed to clear this chapter."]] To add insult to injury, you have to have the above mentioned Olwen talk to him to obtain a rare weapon.

*** 30 Speed (by far the worst of the lot, this means he'll double attack anything up to and including Heroes [26 Speed] and looking at the previous points, you should be able to put two and two togeather. Yes, NOTHING can possibly survive 2 hits from him, meaning anyone with 26 or less speed who attacks him is [[You Are Already Dead|already dead.]] )

*** 40 (actually 42 due to [[Geo Effects]]) Defense and 30 Resistance (not the worst thing about him, maxed out Marth still hits 21 damage with the Falcion. [[Scratch Damage|Everyone else on the other hand...]])

== Doujin Fighters/Fan-made Games ==

* ''[[Eternal Fighter Zero]]'', an otherwise very balanced doujin game, has [[AIR|Kanna]] as the final boss. Her melee attacks have immense range and her projectiles are fast and cover a lot of area. Her AI is also incredibly skilled at blocking attacks, making it difficult to land any normal hit. Her character is available to the player as well, without any nerfing at all, which is why she's banned from tournament play.

* ''[[Super Cosplay War Ultra]]'''s Zenka, based on the (in)famously badass [[Super Robot Wars|Sanger Zonvolt]], has full screen specials, supers and [[Finishing Move|EX Super]] (some of them unblockable or do massive chip damage), high priority, is much faster than her range would imply and tends to exploit these advantages to the fullest.

** Next, comes Zmega, based on [[King of Fighters|Rugal Bernstein]], but in Story Mode, he's weaker than what you'd expect from a [[Shout-Out]] to one of the greatest [[SNK Boss|SNK Bosses]] out there. Still, the game plays it cruelly in that there's only one round against him: should you lose, you automatically lose the game, but given the stand in Zmega's difficulty compared to Zenka, it's rather relative. However, this trope applies to his form taken at the end of Battle Royale Mode called Shin-Z, so much that even if you have an allied CPU still standing to fight with you, his sheer tendency to combo his specials directly to a super absurdly well, no thanks to crazy priority, turns frustration and keyboard breaking [[Up to Eleven]]. Should you lose against him, you have to engage a survival battle against 5 enemies first before he pops out again.

** [[Dragonball Z|Hyper Gogeta]] by Supermystery, with his screen-filling Kamehameha.

** The Legendary [[SSJ 3]] Nightmare, probably one of the more infamous examples. Broly has a minute long intro of him powering up that knocks the opponent down and into a wall. If you've managed to survive that you have to deal with an annoyingly sturdy shield, shitloads of ki blasts and noisy shouting. And when he wants to, he can go straight to [[SSJ 4]] where he becomes literally invincible and coats the screen with explosions.

** [[Super Mario Bros.|Hyper Neo-Kamek]] by Kamek, who gives a new definition to the phrase [[Beam Spam]].

** Light Yagami from ''[[Death Note]]'' who, well, has [[One-Hit Kill|a Death Note]]. (and [[Painting the Fourth Wall|CAN READ HIS OPPONENT'S NAME FROM THE TOP OF THE SCREEN]])

*** Original Zero and Clone Zero have their movesets combined, allowing the former to use both his strikers and Clone Zero's Shadow Arts. As with Orochi, he receives a couple of variants to his Black Hole.

*** Igniz gets a full screen version of Chaos Tide (the quad-energy blast), a screen filler, Krizalid's End of Heaven super, the Zeroes' Black Hole and a super where he charges up a large energy ball that is an instant kill if not blocked.

** Ver. B of Act Cadenza introduced a new hidden boss: Neko-Chaos Black G[[Number of the Beast|666]]. Created by Kohaku in an alternate story mode for Neko-Arc, this is a true successor to G-Akiha who loves to abuse [[Beam Spam]], but also has other attacks like a drill and a missile arm. It's extremely hard to beat due to the large amount of damage it does. At first it can only be fought in Neko-Arc Chaos' secret story, but if you beat it you unlock Giant Attack Mode, which lets you beat it with any character. The catch with Neko? He's pretty susceptible to multiple-hit attacks after he attacks, so you can pretty much punish his moves with a combo or two.

** Actress Again gives us Dust of Osiris, only available to certain characters. It's an alternate-reality version of Sion, and it's pretty cheap in its own right. Look it up on [[YouTube]] and see for yourself.