That One Attack/Video Games/Fighting Game

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Examples of That One Attack in Fighting Games include:

  • "Off Waves", Tabuu's instant-kill red ring attack from Super Smash Bros. Brawl. It hits thrice in a row, but once is more than enough if your dodge timing is the tiniest bit off. And that's after it was weakened by Sonic smashing the wings he extends to perform it. In a cutscene beforehand, he was able to OHKO most of the cast at once. To make matters worse, in boss mode on insane if you slip up once on this attack it could send you back to fight all of the other 9 bosses again.
    • Master Hand and Crazy Hand have their hand drill attack which is difficult to avoid and capable of dealing up to 90% damage in Brawl. As well, Master Hand's finger walk has been improved in Brawl to have almost no starting lag and move quickly. Woe betide the player that happens to be right next to Master Hand when the attack executes.
    • Quite a few characters have what could be described as Skill Gate Attacks as well. Meta Knight's Tornado and Shuttle Loop, Snake's up tilt, Diddy Kong's bananas, Falco's lasers... all are counterable if you know what you're doing, but they're still quite powerful.
    • Pit's Angel Ring reflects projectiles, tends to draw enemies inward rather than push them back, and has a massive range which sucks in even opponents melee attacking from behind. Worse, it can continue indefinitely. Very few attacks can put a stop to a player spamming Angel Ring.
    • Meta Ridley has an attack where he drops onto the Falcon Flyer, the only solid ground you have while fighting him. It's a One Hit KO if you don't have the timing required to dodge it.
  • Mike Tyson/Mr. Dream in the NES Punch-Out!! has an uppercut that is a one-hit knockdown. For the first ninety seconds of the match, he uses it exclusively, so if you're not good at dodging it, you are completely screwed. On the other hand, if you manage to dodge every single one, he'll never use it again. To clarify: He does occasionally use that attack, but it's no longer a one-hit KO, thankfully removing the main That One Attack factor.
    • Several boxers have at least one special attack that can be difficult to dodge or counter at first, such as Bald Bull's Bull Charge (also an instant-knockdown attack), Super Macho Man's Super Spin Punch attack (which is another instant-knockdown attack), Mr. Sandman's Dreamland Express, or King Hippo's Twin Smash Combo.
  • Devil's/Angels laser beam in Tekken 2, also Jinpachi's fireball attack. Both can be dodged if you can see it coming though; Jinpachi's fireball can even be low parried(!).
    • Jinpachi's "stun palm". He creates a wave that stuns the character for a minimum of 3 seconds. It has priority over every single other action in the game, coming out as fast as a jab. If you're jumping or even just lying on the floor after a knockdown, it will reset you into a standing stunned position. It can only be blocked low with proper timing. Simply put, it makes any match against him purely luck based, as you can only win if he takes pity on you and decides not to use it.
  • I-No's Megalomania in Guilty Gear XX and follow-ups. If any part of it hits, the whole thing hits. It comes in three patterns, and she can freely Roman Cancel between them to throw you off.
    • However, even Megalomania(which was originally a boss-only move but was eventually made playable due to being fairly easy to dodge with the right timing.) must bow to Boss-Dizzy's Wings of Light. Like Megalomania, Wings of Light consume the burst gauge instead of the Overdrive gauge, making it available from the start. The difference? Wings of Light has three different effects depending on the distance between you and Dizzy. If you are on the opposite side of the screen(max distance) a Pillar of Light falls on you, either dealing 3/4th of your health if unblocked, or 1/4th if blocked with Barrier. The second, if you are at an average distance, consist of a giant laser beam which turns around on the screen with Dizzy at it's center. Despite appearance, it is just fast enough to be completely undodgeable, and it is either an instant-kill(if unblocked) or deals roughly 1/3-1/2 of your health if perfect blocked. The final effect, if you are close to Dizzy(Like, say, you were attacking her when it started, or she dashed into you to put you into a corner), you die. Instantly.
  • Three words: Shun Goku Satsu. Final Bison from Street Fighter Alpha 3 also has a super fast, extremely damaging variant on his usual Psycho Crusher called Final Psycho Crusher.
    • Luckily, there are two tell-tale signs that he's about to use the FPC (in the PS One port, at least): Once his meter is filled, if he either teleports to one side of the screen or uses his diving attack out of the blue, it's coming next, no questions asked.
  • The King of Fighters' bosses all have at least one of these. Rugal has Genocide Cutter and Gigantic Pressure, Goenitz has his spammable Yonokaze projectile, and Orochi has his screen filler super.
    • Magaki in XI gives us his fireballs. At times they fill the screen, and the blue ones are one-third of your life if they hit. Apparently someone confused The King of Fighters with a Bullet Hell.
    • Surely we can't just leave genocide cutter as a passing mention. The move, in 94 anyway, has ABSOLUTE INFINITE PRIORITY and does the highest damage of any move in the game. And on the subject of this series, Igniz's qcf+ P whip attack is an infinite. It can be done eternally as needed to empty your lifebar, and what's worse is he can also do it to set up for The Brutal God Project, his very fast instant kill. In fact, he can do this without setting it up and you probably won't be fast enough to block it.
  • Geese Howard's counterthrow in Fatal Fury. If you try to hit him with a direct attack, he can throw you. This includes jumping too close to him.
  • The third Soul Calibur game's Night Terror has an attack that has a blue sphere erupt around him. If you try to cancel this attack, it just becomes stronger and unavoidable. Also, he has one that fires barely-avoidable lasers at you. If he puts his "earthquake" move before that, you're screwed.
  • Dead or Alive 4. Alpha-152. Okay, got her... GOT HER... NO! That stupid attack where she grabs you, knocks you down, then smacks you across the face a few times which removes 70% or so of your health! Resist... urge... to... toss... 360... out... window.
  • Ragna The Bloodedge has a Awesome but Impractical attack called "Devoured By Darkness" which is unblockable and damaging, but balanced by a requiring a lot of Ragna's super meter, having to go into his Deadly Upgrade Blood Kain state to use it, losing said Super Mode after an (attempted) use and being a close-range grab. Any semblance of balance goes out the window for his True Final Boss form Unlimited Ragna, who can use Devoured By Darkness nearly at-will to blow away 70% of your health and massively heal himself. Also, it doesn't remove Unlimited Ragna's Blood Kain.

Tager: Any last words? This is going to be! Your end!
Announcer: DISTORTION FINISH!

    • Hazama's Serpent's Infernal Rapture. The damage isn't that insane - the problem is that he will use it on you the first frame you are open, and it knocks you flying into the air, totally disrupting your combo and setting him up for one. He can, and will, even pick you off with it between your attacks.
  • For a while the Street Fighter series was in love with these. SFII games not so much, but in the Alpha games Bison used a full screen psycho crusher that would probably end up losing the match for you if you didn't block it. Gill from SFIII had both a full screen nuke AND a self resurrection; fortunately Gill's attacks were interruptable, if you got to him in time.
    • The Hadoken from Street Fighter II was close. On harder difficulties, Ryu would happily fire a constant stream to chip you to death, and if you time the jumps poorly, he'd take you out of the air with a Shoryuken when you got close enough.
  • In Dead or Alive 2, the Tengu can use a wind attack. It can knock you over, do a large amount of damage, and worst of all, is the only ranged attack in the game.
  • Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's Portable: The Battle of Aces has a few of these. Hayate's - and by extension Material-D's - basic attack is a spammable energy-ball thing that, once you're in range, can pretty much lock down the enemy until you run out of mana. Vita's Swallow Flier with its five homing energy balls is hard for most to swat out of the air outright and she can whore it much more than one can usually dash away from it.
  • Marvel vs. Capcom 3 has several:
    • One of the biggest ones is Phoenix's "Dark Phoenix" mode, which restores her to full health with a buttload of stronger, projectile-launching attacks and a weakness (her constantly-degenerating health bar) that can be compensated for with relative ease.
    • Sentinel's "Strong" regular attack is a plasma beam the length of the screen. The easiest projectile to use in the game, and therefore the most commonly spammed.
    • Akuma is made of this. Most egregious is the Zankukyaku, a ramped up version of Ryu's Tatsumaki Senpuukyaku. Note that while both attacks hit multiple times, Akuma's does more damage, which along with the Gohadouken, Goshoryuken, and the returning Shun Goku Satsu, combine to earn him the reputation as one of the most feared and hated opponents in the game.
    • Galactus has one attack where he shoots Fricking Laser Beams from his eyes and fingers. Cannot be avoided unless you have a character that can fly over it, is a One-Hit Kill if not blocked, and takes away about 3/4 of your health if you do block it.
  • Gantenbain's warping kick in Bleach: Heat The Soul 6. He warps into melee range and kicks you in the face. This attack has very little warning and is extremely difficult to dodge. Some of Szayel's heavy attacks are similar; he spawns a Giant Mook to attack you, except those moves have even less warning, and one of them can hit twice.
  • Arcana Heart 3's Final Boss Ragnarok has an attack that fills most of the screen with unblockable pink lasers. Hope you've mastered homing attacks to dodge it. Worse, it also gives him nearly a full second of total invulnerability in a Time Limit Boss fight.
  • The Final Boss of Tatsunoko vs. Capcom, Yami, has an attack that he uses during his first form where he lets out a red forcefield. It breaks guards and steals a special meter from you, and it's damn near unavoidable if he's in the center of the screen.
  • Any S-rank ability in Soul Calibur IV could qualify, but the worst is Auto Impact S, especially when combined with Impact Edge, Impact Heal, or both. It allows the enemy to randomly get Guard Impacts (thereby interrupting your attack and making you vulnerable to a counterattack), even if they do nothing that would merit one. At S-rank, it happens a lot. Impact Edge hurts you when you get Impacted, and Impact Heal restores health on a successful Guard Impact. Combine them for maximum frustration. It's also worth noting that only the computer can have S-ranked abilities.
    • Nightmare's Critical Edge is also That One Attack in the sequel, Soul Calibur V. Unlike many of the Critical Edge attacks, it can outright counter an incoming move instead of interrupting it, so you're going to be eating it unless you were blocking before he released it. Also, unlike most Critical Edge moves, which tend to do 25% or so of the health bar, Nightmare can devour 75% of your Health with this one attack and go on to use his multiple options for punishing downed characters.
  • Kinnikuman from the first anime is tough as balls even though he's supposed to be a normal opponent in Kinnikuman: Muscle Fight. He can heal himself back to full health and give himself super armor with his Burning Inner Strength. Although his health begins to deteriorate after using it, he can use it again if he has enough super meters. To make matters worse, Ashuraman and Puripuriman possess similar abilities to Kinnikuman
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