Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?/Video Games: Difference between revisions

*** A ''minor, recurring'' enemy at that. It actually is present in multiple ''Castlevania'' games, but is generally named Malachi (mistranslation during production of [[Symphony of the Night]]; the name stuck), and never a boss.

*** At one point in ''Dawn of Sorrow'', you walk in on Dmitri killing Cthulhu/Malachi, so Soma might very well ask the trope title.

** ''[[Castlevania: Symphony of the Night]]'': Shield Rod + Alucard Shield = Did You Just Eat Cthulhu? Especially with Galamoth, a potential ruler of hell who's two screens tall, and you consume him like so much dim-sum.

*** Galamoth also has an odd quirk where blunt strikes to the face make him flinch. A savvy Alucard can reach an eye-level platform before he's ready to fight and defeat him easily with nothing but repeated punches to the nose.

** In ''[[Castlevania: Lords of Shadow]]'', you get to [[Air Jousting|air joust]] with {{spoiler|Satan}}. And then you punch him out. And then you ''strangle him''.

* ''[[Chrono Trigger]]'', in which a teenaged boy and his friends amass enough power and allies to be able to destroy, in direct combat, a being that renders planets nearly uninhabitable and shatters civilizations. And one of your party members fights with her fists.

*** Not to mention, a fully-leveled Ayla can kill its ''strongest'' form in ''two punches'' if both are critical hits.

** As an extra bonus, the Ocean Palace scenario, which is the first time are forced into a confrontation with Lavos, contains several references to the Cthulhu mythos. (You can voluntarily face Lavos anytime after you reach the End of Time, but unless you're in a [[New Game+]] this only leads to a quick [[Game Over]] if you do so before the Ocean Palace event.)

** A straighter example would be when Adell pulls a [[Get a Hold of Yourself, Man!]] on {{spoiler|Rozalin's [[Super-Powered Evil Side]]}}, an [[Omnicidal Maniac]] that just finished thoroughly trouncing a level 1200 (in standard RPG levels, by the way) overlord without even breaking a sweat. Did He Just [[Bright Slap]] Cthulhu? Yes, and it ''worked''.

** Also in ''[[Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories]]'' you can fight and ''defeat'' Laharl (the aforementioned level 1200 overlord). To put it into perspective, Laharl is the protagonist of the first game with enough power to blow up a planet out of hand. And in the PSP remake of the original you can fight Zetta, who is stated to be the most powerful being in existence. Then there's Baal or The Dark Sun...

** Basically, in the Disgaeaverse, there are a number of characters who are fully capable of punching out Cthulhu.

* ''[[Doom]]'' is one of the legends in this department. The hero, an ordinary [[Space Marine]], with an arsenal of powerful but in no way supernatural weapons, kills his way through hell, defeating archedemons and such.

** It ends with Hell exploding. The Marine does not go in for half measures.

* [[Dragon Quest]] games love this trope. Every final boss usually has the whole world scared shitless, generally proven themselves unbelievably evil, and are stupid powerful, and once their asses are kicked, the games in series go out of their way to make sure you know you just punched out Cthulhu, and usually every citizen on the planet is quite aware of just how damn badass you are at the same time.

* Hastur from ''[[Earnest Evans]]'' is, indeed, taken down by a puny human whip.

** {{spoiler|[[Chainsaw Good|Did You Just Saw Cthulhu's Head Off?]]}}

** Not to mention that that series had a tendency to base bosses on various mythical deities, and not just the final ones. In the second game you beat the crap out of Venus and Odin (who had been [[Death Is Cheap|resurrecting]] [[Ungrateful Bastard|you for most of the game]]. On the final world {{spoiler|a reanimated statue of Isis joins your party, and you take on a security system built by the ancient gods}}. However, most of the Gods in the second game are just people with MAGI, aka parts of an ancient statue {{spoiler|yeah, the one in the spoiler above.}} That you're carrying most of the MAGI most of the game and don't declare yourself a God probably has some meaning to it, but the game just skims over that point.

* As mentioned above, ''[[Kingdom Hearts]]'' does this a few times. The Greek God of the Dead (or the wisecracking Disney version) is a recurring boss, and while you can't seem to put him down permanently you can inflict some serious hurt. The most powerful [[The Heartless|Heartless]] can easily be seen as [[Eldritch Abomination|Eldritch Abominations]], as can some of the Nobodies, and, oh yeah, the main characters take on Disney's [[Fantasia|Chernabog]] (who is basically Satan) in the very first game. He's not even the final boss, just something the developers kept in for the cool factor. For Sora, Donald and Goofy, fighting the Devil is a ''speed-bump''.

* ''[[Fire Emblem]]: Radiant Dawn'' requires you to kill a god with a mercenary and his posse. Granted, one important member of said posse {{spoiler|is a vessel for the equal and opposite half of that god}}.

** You still have to land the killing blow with [[The Hero]]'s [[Infinity+1 Sword]], or else the aforementioned god will simply regenerate. Justified because {{spoiler|Ragnell was one of two swords created by the goddesses back when they were one deity. It is also powered up by said equal and opposite god during Ike's finishing attack.}}

** Subverted in ''[[Fire Emblem]]: The Sacred Stones''. The previous group of heroes had to seal away the [[Eldritch Abomination]] [[Sealed Evil in a Can|within the titular Sacred Stones]], which over the course of the game naturally get broken. However, {{spoiler|in the closing moments of the game, the heroes seal it away again, leaving them to fight the mindless body but not the full evil. It is implied in the game that they ''could not'' defeat it, only seal it, just as the generation of heroes before them had to do.}}

* At the end of Irrational Games' ''[[Freedom Force]]'', the team must contend with [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|Timemaster]]. Timemaster cannot be defeated until you've destroyed his four Energy Crystally Thingies, but once you have, the Lord of the Timelines is in for a good face-kicking.

** As the original Greek Gods didn't always defeat human heroes (Ares in particular got beat up by Diomedes in one book of the Illiad) this is not entirely unreasonable.

** ''[[God of War (series)|God of War]] II'' basically takes this to the extreme: Kratos punches out gods, the gods parents, and everyone that gets between him and the gods. All because he ''hates Zeus''. And because Zeus is totally a jerk.

*** Possibly more impressive than the above is that he {{spoiler|KILLS THE FATES! And this is after they tell him they've seen the future, and in it he fails.}} This isn't even possible for Olympus.

** [[Word of God]] has it that ''[[God of War (series)|God of War]] 3'' explains why the greek pantheon of gods no longer exists. It's no one's surprise that Kratos is the answer. The ending is basically Did You Just Punch Zeus til His Head Was Completely Obliterated?

** Before that, in ''[[Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter]]'', one of the playable characters is Shuma-Gorath, who in the comics is an incredibly powerful [[Eldritch Abomination]] but of course had to be severely toned down to maintain [[PVP-Balanced|balance]]. Same for Blackheart, son of Mephisto himself.

** Pretty much the whole series can be consider an example when you look the powers of the different characters, and realize that if many of them actually fought the fight would be a big [[Curb Stomp Battle]], assuming of course character shields were removed (for example, [[Badass Normal|Captain America]] going up against the [[Person of Mass Destruction|Hulk]]).

** Akuma (who isn't exactly normal) acknowledges this trope when defeating Thor, Ammy or for maximum aplication, Shuma-Gorath

{{quote|'''Akuma''': I have killed a god with my fists!}}

** ''[[Mass Effect 2]]'' on the other hand, {{spoiler|ends with your three-man team fighting a Reaper, albeit an unfinished one, ''on foot''. It was '''EPIC!''}}

*** Not to mention in the Lair of the Shadow Broker Downloadable Content, Shepard, quite literally punches out Cthulu, or in this case, {{spoiler|The Shadow Broker, a Yahg, several times throughout the course of the fight with him, only being finished off by a biotic attack from Liara.}} Yeah, that just happened.

** The whole series is shaping up to be one long string of this trope. Shepard's punching hand is gonna be sore...

*** ''[[Mass Effect 3]]'' is set to be doing this throughout the entire gameplay. And we're talking about well over ''[[Curb Stomp Battle|seven]]-[[Eldritch Abomination|freaking]]-[[Beyond the Impossible|hundred]]'' of these cursed things! [[Gonna Need More Trope|We're gonna need a bigger fist.]]

*** All Poké Balls act as a [[Power Limiter]]. Of course, how it's supposed to work on the creator of the Pokémon universe is another matter... maybe Arceus was just toying around?

**** Alternatively, it's just being greatful. You did help out with [[Omnicidal Maniac|Cy]][[A God Am I|rus]]. I'm pretty sure God would help you out after that. Speaking of Cyrus, he's the only example to punch Cthulhu ''without'' a Pokemon battle. Using the power of the Red Chain, he manages to enslave ''the personifications of space and time.'' If it wasn't for the timely intervention of [[Cthulhu Mythos|Yog-Sothoth expy]] Giratina, we'd all be screwed.

** The [[Pokémon (anime)|anime, or at least the movies]], handles this more "realistically", with only the weakest legendary Pokémon (e.g. Celebi, Jirachi, Manaphy) capable of being harmed by humans. The more powerful legendaries (e.g. Mewtwo, Kyogre, Darkrai) are more-or-less invulnerable to anything less than other legendaries, and the ''truly'' powerful ones (e.g. Dialga, Giratina) are essentially indestructible.

*** Except in the [[Pokémon: Arceus and the Jewel of Life|12th movie]], where [[Physical God|Arceus]], despite [[No Sell|shrugging off]] the combined attacks of Dialga, Palkia, ''and'' Giratina... takes damage from Pikachu's Thunderbolt. Electric rat > Alpha Pokémon, apparently. This is explained as the result of giving away the defensive plates that would have made it trivial to resist electric attacks... and it still takes a ''lot'' of them to cause Arceus lasting harm.

* ''[[Splatterhouse]]'' sees Rick doing battle with living embodiments of evil and all that serve them... with his fists. And on occasion baseball bats and two-by-fours. Thing is, this is presented in a much more serious manner than usual - the only way Rick can do all this is that the Terror Mask is backing him up, {{spoiler|and the Mask is using him as a tool}}.

* Dark Brain from ''[[Super Robot Wars]]'' and the related series ''Great Battle IV'' can travel multiple dimensions using his own powers, grows larger based on the despair of the people fighting it (which, in retrospect, may not be a good thing when fighting [[Hot-Blooded|mecha pilots]]), and can destroy planets easily. He seeks the 12 keys of the Super Robot Wars Multiverse, and he created Dynamis the [[Big Bad]] of ''Super Robot Wars R'' to search and destroy Fighter Roar. You have an assload of [[Humongous Mecha|giant robots]]. Guess who's not walking away from this fight?

** Well, one might say a lot of ''Super Robot Taisen'' games feed off this trope. Other games have the Super Robot team go up against villains who, in their respective series, proved to be impossible to defeat... and win all the same:

*** In the ''[[Super Robot Wars Alpha|Alpha]]'' series and in ''MX'', during the ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion]]'' storyline events, the heroes manage to defeat the Seele's Mass Produced Evangelions. Yes, exactly the monsters who, {{spoiler|after having been defeated by Asuka, simply regenerated and tore her to pieces as if nothing happened.}} The Super Robots managed to kill them all. Not only that, but, in ''[[Super Robot Wars Alpha|Alpha 3]]'', they follow it up by {{spoiler|fighting -and defeating- the fusion of the nine white Evangelions with a berserk Unit 01 and the Tree of Life... also known as God!}} And it's not even the final stage!

*** [[Super Robot Wars Alpha]] also gives a few villains from other series their own moments against the Angels. When the Third Angel appears over Tokyo-3, out steps a man in a suit smoking a cigar. This man proceeds to ''pound the Angel flat with his bare hands''. The man in question? [[Giant Robo|Alberto the Shockwave]].

*** In ''[[Super Robot Wars Alpha|Alpha 2]]'' and ''[[Super Robot Wars Judgment|J]]'', during the final assault on [[Empathic Weapon|Orphan]], the Super Robots defeat [[Big Bad|Baron Maximillian's]] [[Deadly Upgrade|Hyper Baronz]] from ''[[Brain Powerd]]''. {{spoiler|In the series proper, the Hyper Baronz was so powerful that all Hime managed to do was damage it somewhat, and she and Yuu had to wait it out and survive until Baron exhausted all of her energy.}}

* In ''[[Tales of Legendia]]'', the heroes beat {{spoiler|Schwartz}}, supposedly a destroyer of universes. To be fair, she {{spoiler|needed the negative energies of people to power up, and was weakened by positive energy, ala ''Earthbound''.}} So her status might have been * very* exaggerated. Or she was just an avatar of the real one.

** She wasn't actually stated to have that much power on her own. She was go to destroy the universe by destroying this one point, which if destroyed, destroys everything else.

** Again in ''[[Tales of Symphonia]]'', the heroes defeated {{spoiler|Mithos Yggdrasiil}}. This person SPLIT A WORLD IN HALF, and in the first battle you fight against him, he punches you out with a healthy serving of [[Beam Spam]]. The second, third and fourth times you fight him, however, it is essentially a [[Curb Stomp Battle]] in your favor, making the [[Big Bad]] look like a [[Squishy Wizard]].

* In ''[[Touhou]]'', [[Plot Armor]] has allowed [[The Hero|Reimu]] and/or [[The Rival|Marisa]] to defeat and [[Defeat Means Friendship|subsequently befriend]] beings that while not eldritch or abominations are certainly comparable to them, including but not limited to an [[Enfante Terrible]] with the power to destroy anything just by thinking about it and clenching her fist, one of the four Oni Devas that [[Gravity Sucks|hurls black holes]] and is capable of tearing apart mountains, the millenia-old ruler of the netherworld, a [[Reality Warper]] with likely limitless power, one of the Judges of the Dead, and a [[I Love Nuclear Power|nuclear-powered]] hell raven that uses miniature suns as a weapon.

** They also defeated five ''literal'' gods in Touhou 10 (though two were just harvest gods). The next game's final boss (who already made the above list) had ''eaten'' a god to gain its power. Then again, in Touhou-verse "god" doesn't really mean all that much.

* The biggest threat to humans and Vasudans in ''[[Free Space]]'' is a powerful Shivan dreadnought, the ''Lucifer'', with nigh-impenetrable shields, which {{spoiler|devastates Vasuda Prime and is looking for Earth}}. It is only defeated in the last level through the use of [[Lost Technology]] by {{spoiler|chasing it in subspace with fighters/bombers and destroying its generators while its shields are down. The explosion does, however, cause Earth to be but off from the rest of the galaxy for many decades}}.

** The sequel had the Shivans go [[Beyond the Impossible]] in terms of threat level: your biggest victory in the campaign comes when you destroy the ''Sathanas'', a ship far more powerful than the ''[[Fan Nickname|Lucy]]'' ever was, at great cost (the one ship capable of tackling the ''Sathanas'' is drydocked for extensive repairs). Then the Shivans {{spoiler|reveal that they have ''over 80 more such ships en route'' to Capella.}} [[The Alliance]] [[Hopeless War|does not walk away with a victory.]]

** A possible explanation is that {{spoiler|the two hands are essentially the gods of Subspace, while Tabuu is more of a devil figure. The hands' behaviors towards the fighters in prior games could be deliberately training them in anticipation of when they'd need their help stopping Tabuu.}}

** ''Brawl'' is made by Mashahiro Sakurai, who also did ''Kirby'', so it makes sense.

** Most impressive is his victory over {{spoiler|Gilgamesh}} in the UBW arc. Just to be clear, Shirou is a rather limited Magus whose speciality is duplication and strengthening. {{spoiler|Gilgamesh}} is a Servant who owns EVERY (bar Avalon) Noble Phantasm that ever existed. And he comes with his own personal NP that is stated to be powerful enough to rip a hole in space-time and destroy the world. Shirou fights {{spoiler|Gilgamesh}} to a draw, and then {{spoiler|Gilgamesh}} [[Too Dumb to Live|decides to]] [[Berserk Button|insult Saber's]] [[Heroic Sacrifice]]. Cue [[Crowning Music of Awesome|Musubareru Sekai]] [[Curb Stomp Battle|and a massive Curb Stomp Battle]] [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|that culminates in Shirou removing his opponent's arm at the elbow and stuffing him into a tear in reality.]]

*** Kuzuki vs. Saber should also count. Saber is, after all, one of the strongest Servants, with flat out superhuman capabilities and wielding one of the most powerful Noble Phantasms. Kuzuki is a former assassin turned teacher whose only advantages are a strange technique (the Snake) and an augmentation by Caster. Kuzuki proceeds to ''block Saber's sword between his knee and his elbow'', punch her in the back of the head while standing in front of her, nearly tear her throat out and send her careening into a wall at a couple hundred kilometers per hour. Throughout all this, Saber has no idea what is happening, and if not for Caster making Kuzuki let up on the assault, she'd have been killed. Oh,a nd Kuzuki actually ''did'' kill Rider earlier.

* ''[[Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story]]'' has Bowser go up against a being of pure darkness {{spoiler|using his form}} that has more than enough power to destroy the world, and ''repeatedly'' overpowers it with brute strength alone. The only part the Bros. play in the battle is helping to make sure it doesn't get back up again ''after'' Bowser has knocked the core out of its gut (he wins at inhaling the thing, too). Did you just prove yourself better than Cthulhu at everything he tries?

** And then Bowser LITERALLY punches it out with a series of [[Megaton Punch|Megaton Punches]].

** Mario can '''kill the goddamn sun''' in ''[[Super Mario Bros 3]]''. It's fair to say this overshadows ''anything'' else that's happened in this series in terms of sheer ludicrousness - and probably many entries in this article, to boot.

* In ''[[Dragon Quest Monsters]]: Joker'', {{spoiler|your [[The Rival|Rival]] Solitaire}} gets disqualified from the Monster Scout Championship Finals by jump-kicking your [[Olympus Mons|Olympus Mon]]. (A [[Berserk Button]] was involved.)

** {{spoiler|But it's later played straight with [[Planet Eater]] Guhnash. It's justified by the fact that you're attacking his weak point, his brains, [[For Massive Damage]], but it's still just one kid and a couple of dinosaurs taking out a being the size of a planet [[Death of a Thousand Cuts|by scratching at it.]]}}

* In ''[[Penny Arcade Adventures]] Episode 1'', after Tycho learns what the mimes are up to, persuades Gabriel and the Player to help stop them from incarnating an Eldritch Horror. To convince Gabriel, Tycho asks him, "Would you like to ''punch a god?''" Gabriel is immediately up for it.

** According to canon, [[Badass Grandpa|Heihachi]] did. And then, when half of Devil came back (after Heihachi [[No-Holds-Barred Beatdown|ripped Kazuya a new one]]) to try to possess the then-unborn Jin, Jun Kazama took up the reigns. Word of advice: [[Mama Bear|you don't mess with Jun's child]]. Did we mention that she was [[Pregnant Badass]]?

** The battles against Ogre (''3''), Unknown (''Tekken Tag Tournament''), Jinpachi (''5''), and Azazel (''6'') can also qualify.

* In ''[[Dungeon Crawl]]'' you can go through the gateway to Hell, and individually beat all four lords of hell. Theoretically you could do this with your bare hands, though they have ludicrous hit points and AC, and, in the meantime, you would probably be killed by the hordes of demons they summon.

** What about {{spoiler|killing Jiyva}}???

* Several of the final bosses in ''[[Saga Frontier]]'' can probably qualify as gods or [[Eldritch Abomination|Eldritch Abominations]]. If punching's not your cup of tea, grappling moves work just as well on a region destroying giant mech, Satan, and what is more or less the god of sex.

* Notably [[Inverted]] in ''[[Okami]]''; you're playing as an [[King of All Cosmos|eccentric]] [[Physical God]], but a large number of the bosses you face are [[Badass Normal|Badass Normals]] who can still give you one hell of a fight. Played straight when you defeat {{spoiler|[[Eldritch Abomination|Yami]]}}.

* The ''[[Metroid Prime]]'' series is rather fond of this one. First up was Gorea, an [[Eldritch Abomination]] that wiped out some precursors and ended up [[Sealed Evil in a Can|sealed.]] Samus unsealed it and kicked its ass. Second was the Emperor Ing, a demonic [[Dimension Lord]] that Samus shot to death. Finally, there was the sentient planet of Phaaze, whose [[Toxic Phlebotinum]] was corrupting the universe itself. [[Earthshattering Kaboom|Samus blew it up.]]

* Almost every boss on ''[[Grand Chase]]'''s Xenia is a god of some kind. And only one of them said they were going easy on the group.

* In ''[[Wild Arms 2]]'', your party has to kill {{spoiler|a parallel universe that's encroaching on their reality}}. Logic dictates that ''you cannot punch out {{spoiler|a universe}}'', but the heroes find a way that almost manages to make sense. Then, after kicking its ass, the main character takes a moment to [[Duel Boss|duel]] a completely unrelated and comparatively mundane [[Eldritch Abomination]].

* ''[[Arc the Lad]]'' is a rare case: while the [[Eldritch Abomination]] responsible for most of the trouble is eventually defeated, it takes four games, {{spoiler|4.000 years in story, no less than five team of semi-godly fighters powered by the local gods and three near or complete collapse of civilization}} before the [[Big Bad]] finally bite the dust. Before that, the game series will provide plenty of deaths, [[Player Punch|tragedies]] and [[Difficulty Spike|Difficulty Spikes]]: The [[Eldritch Abomination]] will eventually get defeated, but you're going to [[Earn Your Happy Ending|earn that triomph]]