"Wake-Up Call" Boss: Difference between revisions

{{quote|''"You'll be having a really good time...and then all of a sudden this boss will kick your fucking nuts out through your nose."''|'''Noah Antwiler''' of [[The Spoony Experiment]] on ''[[Persona 4]]'''s [[That One Boss|Shadow Yukiko]].}}

 

 

Due to this, they usually appear early on, but can appear from early to early-mid game. They definitely shouldn't appear late. And it's not really [[That One Boss]] so much as it's very brutally drilling into you how to play: like a boss in a beat-em-up designed to very easily beat anyone who thinks they can button mash through the game.

 

 

Compare with [[That One Boss]], though this trope is specifically for bosses that appear early in the game and are merely a sample of the rest of the game's challenges. Also compare with [[Disappointing Last Level]]. Contrast with [[Warmup Boss]], a first boss that frequently is impossible (or at least very difficult) to lose to. See also [[Hopeless Boss Fight]] and [[Final Boss Preview]]. Compare [[Skill Gate Characters]], which are PvP characters/factions/whatever that serve a similar purpose in separating newbies from the experienced.

 

== Action ==

* Waka in ''[[Okami]]'', because before that, you can just hack n' slash your enemies to bits close-range. Not Waka: he [[Throwing Your Sword Always Works|throws his sword(s)]] at you repeatedly, and you have to deflect them back at him with some skill to beat him.

* ''[[No More Heroes]]'': So you just got dropped into the game a few minutes ago, the controls on the High/Low thing are still shaky, and most of the Mooks you've fought have made you wonder what the blocking and emergency evading are for. You've probably only charged your Beam Katana manually once or twice so far, in safety after clearing a room. Then you fight Death Metal, who seems to block everything that isn't a counter hit, has a metric crapload of HP, and attacks with huge combos that burn through your battery -- if you're attentive enough to block. Oh, and halfway through, he produces two clones of himself who also have his [[BFS]]. Needless to say, once you learn Dark Steps and get better at the recharging, he's cake, but until then...ouch.

** The real wake up call comes when you battle the notorious {{spoiler|Shinobu}}, the first boss where you have to carefully dodge, chase and wait for an opening. And demonstrates that bosses can pull out ''really'' strong attacks when they [[Turns Red|turn red]]. (The attack isn't a [[One-Hit Kill]], but if you've taken any damage you're still going to die.)

** Then we get to ''Desperate Struggle''. The very first thing that happens? A ranking match against Rank 51. On Sweet, it's a tutorial fight. Anything more difficult? "Welcome to the game. Now die."

** If Skelter Helter didn't mess you up for the tutorial, then the 50th ranked assassin, Nathan Copeland, most definitely will. If you haven't learned how to evade attacks, say hello to a rocket to the face. If you haven't learned to dodge when danger signs flash, say hello to a metal fist in the face. Plus, his arena becomes more and more dangerous as the fight drags on, forcing you to get used to being ''very'' attentive to your surroundings. Not to mention that blocking his attacks will, once again, burn through your battery like nothing else.

* Theseus may seem like normal boss fair for ''[[God of War (series)|God of War]] II'', but definitely serves as this your first time through Titan mode. He has attacks that kill in one hit and requires that you fight minotaurs while dodging those attacks. Up until that point, Titan mode is pretty intense, but the first time (of many) you fight Theseus, the game is just saying WELCOME TO TITAN MODE, MORTAL!!!! It's also of the 'trainer' variety, rather than the 'fake difficulty' variety. After learning the Titan mode MUSTS of compulsive dodging and blocking, he's not too bad.

* ''[[Bayonetta]]'' has Jeanne. Even in her earliest appearance she's a [[Perfect Play AI]], so needless to say if you haven't got the hang of dodging (and therefore [[Bullet Time|Witch Time]]) yet, she '''will''' hand you your ass on a silver platter.

* Bahamut, in ''[[Lord of Arcana]]''. As the third boss he is much more difficult then both the previous and next boss. Not only does he have a [[One-Hit Kill|one hit kill]] attack (notably, the at this point infamous "[[Final Fantasy|Mega Flare]]") when you first face him, if you have not learnt how to dodge and block well, you will die. Coupled with the fact that he has much higher health then any boss so far, the outcome of the battle depends on the idea that you know how to weaken him to stop some attacks and that you know how to heal yourself at the right time.

** Notably, unlike the last two bosses in which the game outright tells you that they have destructible parts, Bahamut's hint can essentially be summed up as "Megaflare hits the center of the stage". The game also does nothing to inform you that Bahamut's wings are destructible, but most players might be able to guess that. His tail, on the other hand, is not so obvious, taking significantly less damage then the rest of him and almost encouraging you to avoid it. Bahamut is also the first boss in which player's might find that, to their horror, enemy bosses can, and will, flee the battle if it goes bad for them. Most players don't have the resources to even attempt to fight Bahamut again, and the mission does not end once Bahamut has fled. Instead, he appears somewhere else on the map. Most players will probably restart their PSP's and try again later to avoid losing all their healing items.

* A quintessential RPG example is Brock from ''[[Pokémon Red and Blue]]''. Although he's far from being the most powerful Gym Leader, Brock is still unexpectedly strong enough to catch most off guard. Firstly, most if not all of the Pokémon catchable before the battle (Bug, Normal, Flying, Poison and Electric types) are weak/powerless against his Rock/Ground Pokémon, leaving the starter to be the one to do most of the work. However, if the player powers through Viridian Forest without bothering to [[Level Grinding|grind]], only fighting the pretty easy bug catchers in the forest, then their starter may not be strong enough to stand a chance against his stronger Pokémon, especially if they didn't learn the type-specific move that the starter learns after a few levels and which can be used to [[Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors|super-effective him to death]]. In addition to that, since several fans thought that the fire-breathing Charizard was [[Rule of Cool|way cooler]] than the rest, they had the additional problem of having their starter being weak to Brock's Rock-type attacks as well with no recourse other than [[Level Grinding]]. Tough luck, kid.

** The remakes fixed it by allowing a Mankey (Fighting) to be caught early on in Route 3, which can deal super effective damage against Rock types.

** Heck, pick up Chimchar in Diamond/Pearl and try to beat Mars the first time. Unless you deliberately overlevel Chimchar, her Purugly ''will'' wipe your party.

** Gold/Silver had Falkner. Up until this point, you've probably curbstomped every trainer you've fought. Your Rival? The Sprout Tower? Those are easy. If you picked Chikorita as your starter, its got a natural disadvantage against his Flying-types. Picked Totodile, nobody has an advantage. Picked Cyndaquil? Mud Slap can destroy you with a single hit.

** Duriel. So you're a ranged class and you've been running away shooting over your shoulder all the time, eh? You think you can kite or outrange every single monster in the game, eh? You think that hit points are useless because nothing comes close to you, eh? You think if you ever come close to dying you can always run away, eh? And the game would never put you in an inescapable sardine can with a boss that will charge you for an instant kill if you get too far away and has an unresistable slow aura? Ha!

** As of v1.13 at least, Duriel no longer uses charge, but his (un)Holy Freeze aura pretty much makes you hardly able to retaliate effectively as he dices up your character in short order.

** And then there's 2300 A.D. which is a whole Wake Up Call ''Area'' telling you "No, you can't just bash A to win".

* ''Final Fantasy Legend II'' (aka ''[[SaGa 2]]'') features several of these. It's possible to get pretty far with a weak party by relying on NPC guest characters, running away from battles, saving a lot, and sheer luck. Then the player runs into Venus, who will wipe the floor with any player that's been neglecting to upgrade the party's equipment and its stats. Much later, near the end of the game, the fight with Apollo presents another brick wall.

** Gen-Bu from ''[[SaGa]] I'' was likewise a sudden jump in difficulty. And it was possible to save to the game's single save slot after triggering him, and just before fighting him, rendering your game borderline [[Unwinnable]].

** Similarly, at max level (70 in ''The Burning Crusade'', 80 in ''Wrath of the Lich King'', and 85 in ''Cataclysm''), characters may begin entering heroic dungeons, which are powered up versions of the standard ones, as well as raid dungeons intended for 10 or 25 players (the original game had 40-man raids). These are significantly more difficult than normal dungeons in terms of the level of gear needed to survive, the skill and coordination required of players, and often the challenge of getting a group together in the first place. Also, raid dungeons lock players into a particular "instance" of that dungeon for a period ranging from 3 days to a week, making consistent and prompt attendance essential. The result of this is that new players who have never tried to tackle endgame content face a brutal learning curve, especially if they can't get into a guild that's been raiding for a long time and can train them. In the original ''[[World of Warcraft]]'', this dungeon was Molten Core; Karazhan served the function in ''The Burning Crusade'', and Naxxramas is the ''Wrath of the Lich King'' equivalent, although Blizzard has made a conscious attempt to lower the bar to raiding by making the latter relatively easy.

*** Speaking of Naxxramas, the second boss of the Construct Quarter Grobbulus definitely qualifies, since players will often elect to face him early in the dungeon. Although previous bosses are designed to be beaten through sheer power, Grobbulus lays deadly patches of poison gas where he stands and summons additional mooks throughout the encounter, necessitating strategic movement and co-ordination. Gluth and Thaddius serve to drive Grobbulus's point home (although many guilds will elect to fight Gluth and Thaddius close to the end).

** Sunwell Plateau could be described as an entire wake up call ''dungeon'' , but specifically the first two bosses, Kalecgos and Brutallus, who were both significantly harder than Illidan (the final boss of the dungeon before SWP,) forced a large number of players to learn to play or go home. Countless guilds maybe scraped a Kalecgos kill or two but failed to make so much as a proverbial dent in Brutallus, causing them to give up (or perhaps even just break up entirely.) M'uru had a similar effect on the guilds that made it to him.

** A late expansion example would be the trio of dungeons released in "Fall of the Lich King", at a point where everyone got used to breezing through dungeons even on heroic difficulty on autopilot. Many of the bosses could be considered this, depending on how long it takes for the player to realize that they have to ''pay attention this time''. The Devourer of Souls would be the first, often catching players off guard when he uses a new attack at low health, a wandering beam that swiftly kills anyone standing in it, as well as making people kill themselves with his [[Synchronization|mirrored soul spell]]. All of the bosses in Pit of Saron count to some extent as well.

* ''[[Secret of Evermore]]'' has two bosses that will make you realize that yes, you do need to learn a bit more about this game's combat system if you want to reach the ending. The first is Salabog, the [[Stock Ness Monster|massive sea serpent]] in [[Prehistoria]]. He has 2000 HP (compare to the previous boss's 600), he spawns mooks that can hurt you by touching you (they're made of FIRE), and he only emerges to spring an attack on you and to make more mooks. If you haven't learned how to use charged spear attacks, or haven't leveled your spear up enough to throw it at all, you're gonna be in for a long, painful, and ultimately futile battle.

** The second is the Verminator, one of the later bosses of the medieval times world. This guy sits on a pile of crates, and will never come down, making him the first boss that you encounter which cannot be affected by regular attacks. He relentlessly uses status effect spells and attack spells on you, and, again, if you're no good with spear throwing, you're gonna die, since you'll run out of attack spells well before you get anywhere near killing him. You need to not only be very good with your spear, but also good with alchemy so you can cure the status afflictions he causes and protect against his attack spells. If, through some miracle, you've made it this far without learning about charged attacks, you're never going to win. The fact that he's placed at the end of [[Scrappy Level|the forest maze]], and the fact that the inn and save point are so easily missed, add to the aggravation.

* ''[[Persona 3]]'' gives us the Change Relic around 20% into the game. Up until now, any enemy that isn't easily pummeled to death by exploiting [[Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors]] is handled with little trouble by exploiting the party heal of the Cadenza spell. Change Relic has no elemental weakness, and its wind magic can hit every party member for a good chunk of HP, or just hit one target for a potential [[One-Hit Kill]]. Then there's Poison Mist, which poisons your entire party, putting you on a very fast clock if it hits early. This is the point at which savvy players realize that sometimes, there's no substitute for good old-fashioned [[Level Grinding]].

** Hard as that is, though, Change Relic is actually a blessing in disguise. There's a checkpoint immediately before it which takes you back to dungeon lobby, so dying loses you five minutes of gameplay, tops. If you're stubborn and don't get the message there, however, the game punishes you with [[Dual Boss|Emperor and Empress]] shortly thereafter. They're not especially difficult if you're adequately leveled and prepared, but they'll destroy you if you're not. And there's a series of lengthy cutscenes between them and the most recent save point.

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Boss Battle]]