There Is No Kill Like Overkill/Video Games: Difference between revisions

* One example is ''Black Belt'' for the [[Sega Master System]]. After you beat most bosses your character will continue to beat the living crap out of them.

** Considering that Black Belt is, in Japan, originally an adaptation of ''[[Fist of the North Star]]'', this [[You Are Already Dead|hardly comes as a surprise.]]

* One of the oldest examples is ''[[Scorched Earth]]''. Nukes, Plasma Blasts, Hot Napalm, the Funky Bomb, and the aptly-named Death's Head. Quite capable of destroying large sections of the map, especially with the explosive sizes on maximum in the game's configuration. The Death's Head is so devastating that if fired wrong it can kill everyone on the screen. Including the player who thought firing it was a good idea.

** Its sequel, ''Turok 2: Seeds of Evil'', actually managed to ''[[Beyond the Impossible|top it]]''. Because hunting dinosaurs requires heavy firepower. Aside from the usual final-game devastators, a particular mention goes to the Cerebral Bore, which fires shots that embed themselves in your enemy's skull. Then they start ''drilling''. Then they [[Your Head Asplode|explode]]. One-shot-kill everything.

** Speaking of ''Command and Conquer'', just wipe out the majority of your enemy and decide to leave his Construction Yard barely intact with a little HP left? The perfect solution is to move your troops away, then launch your superweapon at the opponent's Construction Yard. Nothing quite so satisfying like kicking someone to the curb like that.

** Hell, even the superweapons need a special mention - the GDI superweapon in the third is not one, but [[Nuke'Em|EIGHT lazers fired at once from outer space]]. You can write your name on your enemy's base... [[Kill Sat|with Particle Cannons]]

** The "Command & Conquer: Retarded" [[Game Mod]] makes ''everything'' overpowered. The nukes, for instance, now have three times the power ''and'' area of effect.

** The Shogun Executioner in ''[[Red Alert]] 3'' - a giant tripod with three bodies, each of which is armed with a [[Laser Blade]]. It's also healed by electricity, and many of your enemies in this level are armed with [[Lightning Gun|Tesla coils]]. Oh, and it's tall enough to knock helicopters out of the sky just by walking into them. You can lose it, though, if not careful.

* In fighting games, it's a generally common practice to finish a near KO'd opponent with a [[Limit Break|Super move]] or a rapid combination attack, just to finish off the match with flair, at least casually.

** Famously inverted in a [[Crowning Moment of Awesome]] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KS7hkwbKmBM by Daigo Umehara].

** The ''[[Street Fighter]]'', [[Capcom vs. Whatever|Capcom crossovers]], and ''[[Guilty Gear]]'' games punctuate this kind of KO with a flash on the background.

** ''[[Mortal Kombat]]'' actually encourages this with [[Finishing Move|Fatalities]]. The gorier and more ridiculous, the better. Besides, whether performed after a [[Curb Stomp Battle]] or a fight to the final round with a [[Worthy Opponent]] or [[The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard|cheap-ass computers]], seeing your enemy go in the bloodiest fashion alive is very cathartic.

*** In certain games you also have the Brutalities, which are pretty much Fatalities on steroids. You have to do an 11-button combo to get it. The reward? Your opponent explodes in [[Ludicrous Gibs|a shower of gore and bones]].

** In ''[[Endless Frontier]]: [[Super Robot Wars]] OG Saga'', you get a 1.3x multiplier on your battle experience for performing a [[Limit Break]] finish. A lesser multiplier is awarded for finishing off the battle with a support attack. Which can be summoning a [[Humongous Mecha]].

*** Of note is one of Fulgore's finishers. The screen darkens, he pulls of his (normal-sized) head... and out pops a machine-gun turret worthy of sitting atop a literal tank, let alone a robot. [[Fridge Logic|I wonder how he fit it in the regular head?]]

* In the [[First-Person Shooter]] adaptation of ''[[Shadowrun]]'', after you kill an opponent, you have to continue to shoot their body until it [[Everything Fades|vanishes]] to keep them from [[Death Is Not Permanent|being resurrected by a teammate]].

** In an odd twist of fate, he was ''right'' that it was taking too long; unfortunately he realised this too late to actually stop her.

** In the sequel, ''[[Ninja Gaiden]] II'', the evil spider clan ninjas and evil fiends that you fight [[Determinator|will keep attacking you even after they've]] ''[[Only a Flesh Wound|lost a limb.]]'' Therefore, Ryu has a new [[Finishing Move|obliteration technique]], which in most cases will take off a few more limbs and usually a head (just to make absolutely ''sure'' they're dead).

** The Obliteration Techniques themselves are a rather ridiculous example of this trope, seeing as how you can do them on an enemy who's been ''decapitated'' just so long as the body hasn't fallen down yet.

** ''[[Samurai Shodown]]'' gets worse than that. In IV, at least, if you defeat your opponent by a lot and finish with a strong attack, you can perform a "final" attack that will cut them into pieces with blood graphically spurting out.

*** It gets even worse: In the original version of ''[[Samurai Shodown]] V Special'', you could, under certain conditions, perform a (very violent and graphic) move called the "Zetsumei Ougi" which would actually kill your opponent (thus ending the match); the relevant part is that, for a number of characters it went beyond just cutting the opponent up: some of them would literally destroy the opponent's body leaving nothing behind, save perhaps a head, a skull, or a rain of blood. Shown here. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6buTbwWTWbo

** Or on sea maps, where you can actually use a cruiser's 12in main guns to shoot infantry.

** What feels better? Instakilling someone from behind with a knife, or dropping a shit-ton of C4 around them and detonating?

* The fighting game ''[[Eternal Champions]]'' had overkill moves that were specific to each stage: if you can defeat your opponent and get their body to fall on just the right spot, they'll be chopped up by a fan, or fall into a vat of acid, or get impaled on the Washington monument, to name a few. The Sega CD remake also added a second form of Overkill, and featured more standard [[Finishing Move|Vendettas]], which were always overly bloody. One of the simplest, but most brutal one was where the character would pull out a knife, and stab his opponent ''until the screen faded out''.

** Also in the Sega CD version were the "Cinekills", in which the defeated fighter is teleported to the Dark Champion's realm, where the Dark Champion personally executes the defeated fighter, in cutscene form. However, it is difficult to pull off a Cinekill.

** The Spy's Backstab is meant to be a [[One-Hit Kill]]. To make sure it always is a one hit kill, Valve gave the Backstab the ability to always deal damage equaling twice the target's maximum health. And since it's a guaranteed [[Critical Hit]], which triples the already high damage, you're doing damage equal to ''6 times the enemy's max health''. Getting a backstab on a Heavy does an absolutely ridiculous 1800 damage on an enemy that has 300 health (sometimes 450 health).

** A similar system is used in ''[[Bookworm Adventures]]'' (only it grants gems that bestow status effects and damage bonuses).

** ''FFVIII'''s summon [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZbfDMzynwg&feature=related Eden]. Nothing says 'overkill' like shooting your enemy with a beam that blows up the next galaxy.

** Note that a long enough chain also does a massive AOE on top of the damage the Quickenings themselves do. You can one-shot most of the bosses AND their minions without ever getting touched.

* In ''[[Drakengard]]'', the weapon levelling system encouraged the player to continue slashing enemies long after their health ran out. Consecutive hits would increase the experience one obtained from defeating enemies.

** "Jailbreak" for ''[[Unreal Tournament]]'': When the enemy team is captured, the execution is, most of the times, real Overkill. In one map in space, each team's jail had 5 vertical tubes, and when the entire team was captured, the 5 tubes opened and 5 Redeemer warheads fell on the room, exploding simultaneously and turning the unfortunates into molecules and some flesh bits. The other one had big fans in each jail, ready to slice the losers to death.

** Also, The Nail Weapons II X weapon pack for UT99, and the Redeemer, which tends not to even leave chunks, let alone a corpse.

** The [[Unreal Tournament]] games are famous for several [[Game Mod|mods]] that turn this trope to eleven. Unreal4Ever, for instance, is nothing ''but'' ridiculously overpowered weapons, from one that makes your enemy explode in a giant fireball that kills anyone else nearby to one that makes blasts several times as large as the Redeemer's, to one that makes black holes that can suck the entirety of a small level's worth of foes in them and then explode. Game balance? What game balance?

* In ''[[Final Fantasy Tactics]]'', [[Take Your Time]] + [[Level Grinding]] = massive amounts of overkill for story battles, since they always have a default level. The downside to being able to drop a Meteor on, say, [[The Scrappy|Algus]] is that quite a few of the random encounters afterward (why ''hello'', Mr. [[Demonic Spider|Red Chocobo!]]) have the potential to unleash similar amounts of overkill on your party.

* ''[[Metroid]] Fusion'': In order to truly ensure the extinction of the X parasites, Samus can't rely on the Biologic Space Labs station's [[Self-Destruct Mechanism|self-destruct systems]] alone; {{spoiler|1=the only way to make sure they're absolutely wiped out is to deorbit the station with the self-destruct on a timer, and thus [[Colony Drop]] the station far enough into SR388's atmosphere to set up a [[Earthshattering Kaboom|planet-nuking chain reaction]]. Partially justified in that a station dedicated to biological (biological weapons?) research would have to guarantee that the station's remains were sterilized as well as destroyed, hence the absurdly powerful SD system.}}

*** Granted, Ridley did kill Samus' parents in front of her; and he's also been revived countless times. She might just have been making sure he wouldn't return. (He usually does anyway.)

*** {{spoiler|Indeed, he comes back later in that very game as the imposingly named Omega Ridley, and again in Super Metroid (which the Prime games are set before).}}

* Enemies and characters killed in ''[[Enchanted Arms]]'' stick around for three turns, during which time they can be resurrected. If, however, they are killed by inflicting more than double their total health in one attack, they disappear instantly and can't be resurrected until the end of the combat.

* In the shooter ''[[Call of Juarez]]'', Reverend Ray can initiate a [[Bullet Time]] mode at will, causing to draw your six-shooters and have your crosshairs go towards the center from left and right... allowing you practically kill an enemy, use the [[Bullet Time]], and then unload 12 bullets in them.

** Unless you actually target the enemy base, the titan will just fall to attrition, as it will constantly attack units if they attack them, meaning if you continuously make and send just one unit at the titan at a time, it will eventually die with you little closer to defeat. It'll still cost a lot of resources though...

*** [[Puzzle Boss|Titans have no anti-air defense.]] Air units with an attack are hard to come by - the Atlanteans have Stymphalian Birds, the Egyptians have Phoenixes - but [[Game Breaker|game-breaking]] if you plan to get them.

** Then there's [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mzIXgpyE_c Regret Buster], pretty much Valzacard on steroids minus 4 pilots.

** [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGSt2FsJOdI Darkbrain's ultimate attack] is just ridiculous. One part of it involves slamming in the enemy into a few planets, the second part is a laser-punch ''through'' nine planets and assorted meteors, and the last part involves dropping them through a hole in the universe.

* The combat system of ''[[The Force Unleashed]]'' is practically built around this entire concept, although special mention must go to the ability to {{spoiler|hold a stormtrooper in the firing path of the DEATH STAR.}}

* The [[Star Wars]] [[Real Time Strategy|RTS]] game ''[[Empire At War]]'' allows you to build the Death Star and use it in space combat. Destroying the planet means that there is no ground conflict, allowing you to control the planet just by winning the space battle.

* Recurring [[Bonus Boss|Optional Boss]] Iseria Queen from Tri-Ace's games is almost inevitably based around this - of course, since she's a boss, YOU are at the receiving end. Perhaps the best example is her appearance in ''[[Valkyrie Profile]]''... her standard attack is a 25-hit combo, each strike dealing damage above your characters' Max Possible HP. Don't ask about her Special Attacks.

** Not that ''[[Valkyrie Profile]]'' expects the player himself to raise this trope to a philosophy for the duration of gameplay. "[[Finishing Move|Soul Crush]]" indeed.

** And if you ''don't'' regularly indulge in massive overkill, Hel herself gets enraged and sends in horribly powerful monsters as punishment. Attacking efficiently is ''a very bad idea'', so much did the designers love overkill.

* Pretty much the logic behind the Bloody Mess perk in the ''[[Fallout]]'' series (Only in 3 does it actually provide any benefits). Normally, when an enemy dies, they fall down, possibly losing the last body part you shot at. With Bloody Mess, other body parts will fall off for absolutely no reason. There's nothing quite like detonating a super mutant by ''punching it''.

** Even without the Bloody Mess perk it was possible in ''Fallout 1'' and ''2'' to finish off someone with a burst from even a modest submachine gun from point-blank range, which would literally rip his upper torso apart.

** Gauss weapons are great for dealing with armored targets like robots. The Gauss rifle is the logical step up, and both the pistol and rifle are from ''Fallout 2''. But ''Fallout Tactics'' takes things towards the logical extreme with the gauss minigun, which has fairly long range for a minigun, tears through huge groups of (high-powered) enemies like they were nothing, and is more powerful than the Browning M2. [[Too Awesome to Use|It also eats ammo like popcorn so you'll be saving it for the endgame.]]

** And the true overkill comes with the aptly named game-ender experimentals. They cost about as much as 20 'regular' experimentals. Even a single experimental is a threat to most bases, and if your opponent has the same amount of resources as you have but used them to build the cheaper experimentals, [[Awesome but Impractical|he'll have overrun your base long before your game-ender is done]]. But oh, [[Curb Stomp Battle|what fun if you can get one of them deployed]]. To wit: An even more powerful artillery cannon than the tier 3, which can hit anywhere on the map with perfect accuracy, a mobile artillery installation that fires one round across the map per second, an artillery cannon that shoots one shot per 3 seconds which splits up into 6 projectiles, who each split up in 6 more projectiles, and a nuclear missile launcher that builds nukes very fast, for free, which take 2 countermeasure missiles to kill, and do 10 times more damage than the strongest unit can take in a huge radius. Oh, and there is one experimental building that produces nigh-unlimited resources.

*** You don't even ''need'' this. You can just set up a manufacturing plant that just makes [[Zerg Rush|tons and tons of gunships]]. Add in the above stationary guns, and you will obliterate ''everything.''

* predecessor ''[[Total Annihilation]]'' has many of the same things, including across-the-map artillery and nuclear missiles. It also allowed for ''massive'' rushes that were never repeated until the sequel came out many years later.

** Its fantasy cousin ''[[Total Annihilation Kingdoms]]'' allowed the player to build ''gods''. They took a ridiculous amount of time to build and the build process was a massive resource sink, but once built they could ''not'' be stopped. Their health was so high as to make them virtually invulnerable, and just ''one shot'' could destroy half an enemy base.

** Sadly, with the latest patch, Warriors can only burn 30 rage at a time (probably to "balance" PVP). Good news is you can take talents to get a chance to use it outside the 20% HP mark.

** The Paladins have their own version, Hammer of Wrath. And fire-spec Mages passively deal more damage, all to targets under a fifth already.

*** Shadow Bolt: Except maybe the screaming skull made of darkness that crits for 20k.

** However, despite the overkillness of those abilities - against bosses, who will still have a ton of health despite being at 20%... these can really win it for you in [[Player Versus Environment]] fights.

** Mimiron will launch some rockets from time to time. They are not hard to dodge, and will do no damage outside a rather small area. Fail to dodge them, however, and you get hit for 5 MILLION damage. If, at that stage of the game, you have 1% of that, you can consider yourself a damn though [[Stone Wall|Tank]].

** Additionally, we have the Infinite Omnislash, where equipping Cloud with 8 pairs of linked Counter (Which counter-attacks with the linked materia when hit) and Mimic (Which repeats the last action) Materia allows you to unleash a 16-hit Omnislash on an enemy, which will then be repeated 8 times every time he is hit. This is a great way of taking down some of the toughest bosses in the game solo.

** In ''Dissidia'', Super Nova returns, although not as long (or explosive). However, one of his HP damaging attacks does include ''dropping a meteor upon his opponent''. The blast is so bright that your screen ''will'' flash white, and it leaves lighting, flames, and black clouds in its wake.

* ''[[Kingdom of Loathing]]'' has a mechanic whereby dealing large amounts of extra damage to enemies in a certain area will cause parts of their bodies to fly off, which you then acquire in place of the enemy's normal item drops.

** This is actually a very useful strategy for speedruns in that area (and pretty much mandatory if you want the best item to drop at the end). It also has elements (pun not intended...) of [[Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors]], since the type of damage dealt sets the bodypart dropped- for example, Spooky damage "Scared the [enemy] so much he left his skull behind!"

** Excessive Sleaze damage causes the hobo to leave his [[Squick|crotch]] behind.

** Almost all Final Smashes are like this. Sonic and Pikachu start flying around dealing huge damage to whatever touches them. The Starfox fighters break through with their [[Tank Goodness|Landmasters]].Mario shoots a [[Wave Motion Gun|ludicrously large fireball]] across the screen.Link does a combo of about two dozen hits before sending the enemy fly away.And that's just the tip of the iceberg.Some of these can, with the right timing, kill an enemy, and then kill them again as soon as they have respawned and their [[Mercy Invincibility]] has expired.

* Modern combat RTS ''[[Act of War]]: Direct Action'' has each faction equipped with a superweapon and counter-superweapon. International terrorist ring The Consortium's superweapon houses 3 shots per structure (and you can build multiple structures), making it alarmingly easy to simply inundate a base with superweapon attacks faster than the enemy can counter them. In addition, the Consortium superweapon is a satellite nudged out of orbit onto the target...but first, [[It Got Worse|coated in e. bola]]. Needless to say, the strategy of "launching more satellites than you have Patriot missiles" tends to warrant some overcommitment of resources, just to be on the safe side.

* ''[[Pokémon]]'': While not entirely the fault of the game itself, moreso that of the player, but there's nothing quite as satisfying as roasting a Lv. 2 Caterpie with a Lv. 100 Charizard with max Special Attack, using the strongest Fire-type attack in the game... and scoring a critical hit. It's even worse when you use Psychic with a Lv. 100, max-Special-Attack Mewtwo against a Lv. 2 Weedle... and still get a critical hit. At that point, it's not out of the question for a player to experience a momentary [[A God Am I]] feeling.

** Given the structure of its evolution line, it's possible to produce a Level 1 Scizor (4x damage from Fire) specifically for link battles. You also get the same effect from breeding out a Level 1 Paras - which also has much lower defensive stats and has an ability which can increase its vulnerability to fire. Toasty!

** It gets better. As of ''[[Pokémon Ranger|Pokémon Ranger: Guardian Signs]]'', Heatran can use the more powerful Eruption. Meaning that at full health under sun, with +6 Sp Atk and boosts from Flash Fire, Helping Hand, a Cherrim's Flower Gift and a critical hit, with the target Paras at -6 Sp Def, Heatran can deal over ''10 million'' points of damage.

** Or, take a Shuckle, maximize its physical Defense, make it use Power Swap, give it the item Metronome, a + 6 Attack boost, Skill Swap Huge Power/Pure Power on it, partner it with a Cherrim and sunny weather, and have it use the Defense Curl/Rollout combo. On the last hit of Rollout (and 10th consecutive use of Rollout or more), have Cherrim use Helping Hand and direct Shuckle's wrath at a Level 1 Ledyba with minimum and -6 Defense and assume a [[Critical Hit]]... Of course, this is for thought experiment only.

** On the other hand, with the help of stat-increasing attacks and an accessory that doubles Attack, it's possible in some versions to get the Attack of a Marowak so high that it actually wraps around and becomes extremely low, thanks to a bug. That the bug is fixed in later versions only causes Marowak to become the EPITOME of overkill (1000+ Attack)...[[Glass Cannon|if it can survive long enough]].

** To give you an idea of how ridiculously overkill this all is, the highest [[Hit Points]] a Pokemon can have is '''714'''.

** Especially when you make a custom settings with explosions turned all the way up, and even more so with a third party program like ''Worms Armageddon'''s Fiddler which lets you monkey with just about every setting in the game. Letting loose with a high-explosive [[Gatling Good|minigun]] is very satisfying.

** By exploiting a bug related to the quick switching of weapons, it was possible to fire a minigun but use ''bazooka rockets'' as ammo. The typical result was, of course, blasting a tunnel through the whole map and killing everything in the way.

* The ''[[Dinosaur King]]'' game features many attacks which very much appear to be overkill. One such attack involves knocking the opponent over and then literally ''stomping them into the ground.'' As that attack only gets that effect at a certain level of HP, it can be very satisfying if you've been beaten a lot over the course of the match. Others involve the opponent being set on fire, stomped flat, falling head-first from great heights, drowned, crushed by giant falling rocks, and being ''impaled on lightning.''

** Heck, the third game's main combat gimmick is all about overkill. Overkilling an enemy raises your "noise" level by the amount you overkilled them with.

* In ''[[Painkiller]]'', a great many of the weapons not only kill the enemies, but sends their limbs flying off in every direction in a shower of blood. Bonus points when done to a whole pack of enemies at once and double bonus points when done in slow-motion, and extra gold for juggling a enemies' dead body.

* In ''[[No More Heroes]]'', after hitting a [[Mook]] enough times, Travis can perform a special move that decapitaes the [[Mook]], showering Travis in blood and coins. This becomes practical later in the game - said special move can also decapitate/split in half other mooks nearby, resulting in multiple showers of blood and coins. It's [[Crazy Awesome]].

** Once he's been knocked down to half health, [[Bonus Boss]] Henry gains an unbelievably awesome [[One Hit KO]] move. Describing it would fail to capture the ludicrousness, so here's a [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNsyofCN-a4 link instead].

* The Novalith Cannon in ''[[Sins of a Solar Empire]]''. Smaller worlds die from one shot, and the only way to survive two is to use the TEC-only Planetary Shield. The kicker? There's no possible way to stop a Novalith shell once fired ''even if you manage to conquer the target world and colonize it before your shells hit''.

* The ''[[Mercenaries]]'' series offers the choice of overkill, especially once more powerful airstrikes become unlocked. Sure, you could just run up to the target, shoot him, and then verify him, but it's much more fun to watch the entire city block he's hiding in get blasted to hell by a carpet bombing run.

** In ''Mercenaries 2'', you get the option to purchase a tactical nuke and use it against anything and everything.

* Overkill abounds in the RTS ''[[Rise of Legends]]''. The secondary combat unit of the Vinci faction is a 15-foot clockwork robot that is equipped with a lightning gun, while their most powerful unit is something akin to a weapons factory with legs the size of tower cranes. The magic-wielding Alin have access to 50-foot golems built entirely out of glass, as well as crystalline spiders the size of tanks. Both smush enemies with little discrimination. The spacefaring Couatl frequently utilize some very large laser beams in combination with giant stone mechs.

** ''Quake Live'' has an achievement for finishing off someone with 1 HP left with the Rail Gun, the most damaging weapon in the game.

* The final boss of ''[[Lunar 2 Eternal Blue Complete|Lunar 2: Eternal Blue]]'' has a beam attack that hits for over 7000 damage, when your characters can have a maximum of 999 hit points, and most likely have 500-600. This gives him a guaranteed [[One Hit KO]] attack even against characters with protection against the [[Useless Useful Spell]] versions.

* ''[[Jak and Daxter]]'' didn't qualify until the second game, in which Jak got a [[Super-Powered Evil Side]] possessing ''two'' kill-everything-on-the-screen attacks, as well as flickers of [[Rule of Cool|cool]] purple lightning that followed his attacks. Then he got a gun capable of firing a lightning orb that blows up every hovercar on the screen. Then the third game handed him an ''upgrade'' to this gun which burns through at least half of your ammo in one shot...a shot which is so large ''it gets its own mushroom cloud''. As well as a variant form of his yellow gun which fires an [[Attack Drone]] that [[More Dakka|spams out ammo so fast it resembles a small but deadly rainstorm]]. Someone's really got to explain the concept of 'less than total destruction' to him. Ditto with [[Aristocrats Are Evil|Baron Praxis]], who intends to stop the Metal Heads with {{spoiler|''a bomb that can blow up the universe! All of it! That's less like "overkill" and more like "omnikill"!''}}

** Incidentally, just to give you an idea of what the RYNO can do: "RYNO" stands for "Rip Ya a New One." The third game has the RY3NO. Fully upgrading this give you the RYNOCIRATOR, which ''burns every on-screen enemy into ash''.

** The RYNO IV (from ''Tools of Destruction'') was banned in 59 galaxies, including the one that you're currently in, and the mere act of ''talking'' about it is grounds for being thrown into [[The Alcatraz|Zordoom Prison]] indefinitely. The original holoplan was torn into 12 pieces and thrown across the galaxy, so nothing like it could be built ever again (as [[Mega Corp|Gadgetron]] thought it was too dangerous, and we're talking about a company that sells ''portable black hole launchers'' (point away from face)). Obviously they didn't do a good enough job of discouraging the inventor, since ''A Crack In Time'' brought us the RYNO V. This was unanimously voted the weapon "Most Likely To End All Life As We Know It", outlawed ''everywhere'', and, again, the plans were torn apart and scattered to the winds.

*** The RYNO V is notable for having an inbuilt speaker system that plays [[Standard Snippet|the 1812 Overture]] whenever you fire it. Because, you know, when you've got that much firepower, why the hell not?

* In ''[[Postal]] 2'' after killing or crippling people, you can choose to do some of the most sadistic things to them such as chopping them to pieces with a machete, setting them on fire, smashing their heads with a sledgehammer, blow them to pieces with a rocket launcher, break every bone in their body with a blunt object,etc.

** Incredibly annoying because of a [[Scrappy Mechanic]] that forces you to wail on a chest with your weapon coupled with chests that resist damage that would drop an ogre. Apparently, either locks must be picked or the chest utterly destroyed, because no one can carefully use a [[Fridge Logic|hatchet and prybar]] to open something.

** This is also the game that, with the gore settings all the way up, things explode in a shower of blood and bones when you kill them with a critical hit. This also works when killed by Instant Death spells - Implosion and Destruction actually look like they are ripping people inside out when they go off. Implosion is Area of Effect, so if it hits few creatures, the result is usually a fountain of blood and bones.

** That's your entire health meter at that point in the game. At the end of the game your health bar maxes out at 65, using every badge you can find to do it.

* ''[[The Matrix]]: Path of Neo'' allows you to pummel an enemy, lift him up into the air to continue the beating, leap up and smash him into the ceiling, fling him to the floor, and stomp on his throat with both feet.

* ''[[Eternal Darkness]]'' features a ''double-barreled elephant gun''. Firing it without bracing yourself first will knock you on your ass. And yet it is not the most damaging weapon available even in that level, nor is one shot from it sufficient to kill most foes.

** Given that the boss in question (Jack Lupino) is really, ''really'' strung out on [[Psycho Serum|a drug]] that's known for rendering people oblivious to even the most crippling injuries, it wasn't an entirely unreasonable precaution.

** The Killer Suits in the stage "The Deep Six" empty their mags into a guy at the beginning in an effort to erase all evidence of Project Valhalla. One of them reloads and puts a final round into him before the other guy tells him "I think he's dead already."

** A mod to the game let you wield a handheld minigun.

* ''[[Ace Combat]] 6'' requires you to fly your plane down the barrel of the Chandelier cruise missile launcher. Yes, a launcher with missiles so big you can fly a plane down its barrel. If a missile is launched with the plane still inside, well, "[[One-Hit Kill]]" is putting it... lightly. On the player's side, it's easy to single out a single target for all four or six special missiles, pop off the heaters and loose a few gun rounds as well. Or feed a single, isolated ground target a FAEB/LSWM/MPBM, all weapons meant for wide-area devastation.

** ''[[Ace Combat]] 5'' also has this with the Falken's Tactical Laser System and ''Zero'' has the one on the Morgan.

* ''[[Soul Series|Soul Calibur 4]]'''s [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcMY-sgZEc4 Critical Finish] Also the fact that in Arcade Mode, you get extra points for hitting the downed corpse of your enemy when you win a round.

* The [[Touhou]] fangame ''Touhou Soccer'' is basically Soccer played with additional rules that permits the use of spellcards or youkai powers on the ball. This results in [[Beyond the Impossible|excessively spectacular]], [[Super Robot Wars|SRW-style]] danmaku barrages on the unfortunate ball. For example:

** [[Battle Butler|Youmu]] [[Deface of the Moon|carves her sword technique's name on the moon]] [[Absurdly Sharp Blade|before cleaving it with her swords]] and uses the momentum to launch the balll at extreme speeds.

** The [[Our Vampires Are Different|Scarlet Sisters]] use their weapons, ''Laevatinn'' and ''Gungnir'', in addition to their danmaku techniques, for their combination attack.

*** Marisa in particular has a combination technique, where Alice and Patchouli cast buffs on her before she does a ''very'' good impression of Thrugelmir's ''Blade that Cleaves Continents'' that even '''shreds''' the spectator stands. Thankfully for the audience, spellcards only inflict all non-lethal damage...

** Mokou and Flandre [[Spam Attack|have techniques where they kick the ball thousands of times]] before it can escape.

** Hilariously inverted with [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4omz3nrUw4 this] one by [[Fan Nickname|Chi]]... er... Hong Meiling.

** [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLUKkdhv5Zc All you need to know about Touhou Soccer.]

** ''[[Record of Agarest War]]'' is based on a variation of ''Cross Edge'''s system, and also allows overkills. Normal item drops are random in Aragest, but an overkill guarantees an item.

*** Both [[Up to Eleven|get topped by]] ''[[Agarest Senki 2]]'' [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXJq7akpeYc where they unleash] an Ultimate Strike, ''and a'' ''[[Beyond the Impossible|Finish Strike!]]''

** The bottomless pits; just smash the hapless enemies off the edges and watch them fall and die.

** Smooshing enemies into pancakes with your hands. It's especially fun when you get into the higher-level comboes. One-two punch, followed by smashing it between your two giant fists, followed by a powerful spinning backhand, followed by grabbing their ankles and slamming them into walls and the ground repeatedly....

** Not to mention other horrible things you can do. Punching through 5 people at once? No problem. Grabbing a helicopter with a whip, hijack it and use it as a landmower (where grass = people on the sidewalk) or simple jump in the air, land on someone, use his body as a skateboard and kick his corpse into a wall or a car, splatting it into tiny pieces. Or just jumping at the center of a crowded street and kill everyone with a burst of tentacles or spikes coming from beneath the ground.

*** Lets just say this entire game is based around overkill. Even the military needs to use overkill just to put a dent in Alex.

** Ragna, with his Astral Heat, slices the opponent with his [[Sinister Scythe]], then transforms into... something... and then erases the target from reality. Really.

** With Haku-men's Astral Heat, Akumetsu, the screen is so filled with [[Gory Discretion Shot|blood]] that it turns black for a second.

** If punching a sucker in the face so hard it leaves a fist imprint in the soon-to-be-shattered moon doesn't qualify as overkill, then Makoto's Astral Heat (Planet Crusher) is doing something wrong.

* ''[[Ragnarok Online]]'' has a job build for Monk, which uses all of your SP for a single attack, also preventing SP regen for a few minutes afterwards. These builds usually result in someone dying, as monks are rather squishy.

** This build is the main reason Monks have their reputation as boss killers.

* ''[[Doom]]'' was probably the first game ever to make overkill somewhat worthwhile, by introducing us to [[Ludicrous Gibs]].

* ''[[Rise of the Triad]]'', an Apogee game that was released around the same time [[Doom]] was, included several weapons with ridiculous amounts of explosive firepower such as the napalm-laden Firebomb, the six-missile-overkill Drunk Missile, and the Dark Staff. Any one of these weapons could be found on the first level. Not only would the enemy be gibbed upon contact, but any surrounding enemies caught in the blast would also be wiped out, and in extreme cases, [[Coconut Effect|gibs would stream down the screen]], with an accompanying message "Ludicrous Gibs!" displayed at the top-left corner. Needless to say, these were long-distance weapons, and any player too close would be [[Rocket Jump|thrown into the air]] and most likely be killed in the blast.

* The killstreak rewards in ''[[Modern Warfare]] 2'''s multiplayer include everything from AGM missiles to airstrikes to carpet bombing runs to a Tactical Nuke that instantly kills everyone on the map, cannot be stopped or avoided (except via EMP, the second highest reward), and ends the game in victory for your team.

* With the ability to summon ''anything'', ''[[Scribblenauts]]'' is rife with opportunities for this. Park full of trash? Use a black hole. Bee attacking you? Time for a [[Gatling Good|minigun]]. Defeat a barracuda with [[Eldritch Abomination|Cthulhu]]! Summon God as your personal bodyguard! And so on...

* In the last mission of ''[[Freespace 2]]'' the genocidal Shivans {{spoiler|invade and destroy an entire star system}} in what can only come across as a literally astronomical dick move, given their enigmatic motives.

* In ''[[Sacrifice]]'', nearly all of the most powerful spells fall under this trope. In particular the spell that summons a volcano, or the one that causes a giant circle of ground to fall away. The spell that vaporizes a target unit's intestines for a one-hit-kill & gib may also qualify. A similar spell achieves the gib by dropping a giant cow on the target from several hundred feet in the air.

* The M-920 Cain heavy weapon in ''[[Mass Effect 2]]''. Its nickname is the "Nuke Launcher," though technically, it's only firing a small piece of metal at relativistic speeds. Either way, it causes a big boom. Using it against the toughest bosses practically kills them outright. Using it against weaker enemies is the very definition of overkill. There's also the downloadable M-490 Blackstorm Projector, which basically creates a miniature black hole that draws in nearby enemies until it collapses explosively.

** The sheer amount of resources that the [[Eldritch Abomination|Reapers]] have poured into neutralizing Commander Shepard is simply awe-inspiring. Given that s/he's [[Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?|killed a few of them,]] [[Badass|it's a bit justified.]]

*** Taken even further at the final confrontation in ''Mass Effect 3''. When Shepard leads a charge on foot on the teleporter that will take him/her to [[The Very Definitely Final Dungeon]], Harbinger tries to shoot Shepard personally with its massive ship-killing [[Wave Motion Gun]] to prevent that from happening. {{spoiler|It even hits, but still isn't enough to completely kill Shepard, [[Determinator|who continues to crawl and limp the final meters]]}}. To put another way: a two-kilometer tall dreadnought specifically designed to fight entire fleets singlehandedly descends from orbit for the sole purpose of stopping ''one on foot soldier'' from entering a teleporter.

** The Widow Sniper Rifle, which is designed to pierce tank armor. If you use it in ''[[Mass Effect 2]]'', you'll primarily be using it against infantry.

* With a sadistic [[Random Number God]] controlling everything from behind the scenes, you'll see a lot of Overkill in ''[[Fire Emblem]]''. So you hacked away at that boss's HP, leaving them with exactly 1 HP left? Well, the next unit to attack, which if it would crit (despite having a mere 1% chance to do so) would kill the boss from full HP... promptly will crit. Of course, if your plan is to leave the Boss with a minor bit of HP, so a weaker unit could kill it, the second attack of whatever unit you had sent into the fight to weaken said boss, also will be a crit, killing the boss immediately. Or when your unit did their first attack, leaving the enemy with a minor bit of HP, then they take the enemy's counterattack... that's when the Crit will come. Of course it all works in reverse. The enemy won't kill your unit practically. They'll crit and overkill you.

** The sacred weapons from ''Sacred Stones'' get x3 bonus when fighting a monster. Crit with that, and that can do damage upwards of 150 damage, easily. When your characters' health all max out at 60, it's not uncommon to one-hit-kill an enemy 3-4 times over. And of course, the above rule applies as well.

** Along the same vein are the mastery skills from ''Path of Radiance'' and especially ''Radiant Dawn''. In the former, you have to use up a lot of skill capacity points just to learn them and you only get 4 opportunites per game, but the masteries that inflict damage cut through enemies swiftly whenever they kick in. But lordy, ''Radiant Dawn'' is a whole other beast: all units that promote to tier 3 (and Laguz that use a Satori Sign) get a free mastery skill, and they are ALL made of Overkill. Only one or two of them ''don't'' inflict 3-5x more damage, and some have a side effect (put enemy to sleep, ect.) that you're not liable to take advantage of because your hapless victims will usually become [[Deader Than Dead]] first.

*** Luna (in ''Dawn'') triples the user's Strength, then negates the foe's Defense, then usually crushes its' victim in one stroke. More or less, there's not a unit in the game that can survive that. ''[[But Wait! There's More!|But!]]'' If that's just not Overkill enough for you, consider the Black Knight's [[Up to Eleven|obscene]] mastery, Eclipse. Same effect, but 5x Strength instead. Based on the Knight's stats, he has a fixed 40% chance to inflict 208 damage. The final boss is 88 HP short of that. Ye gods. {{spoiler|Fortunately, when it comes time to duel the Knight in the final chapter, equipping Nihil shuts down Eclipse (and any other enemy mastery) altogether.}}

* ''[[Transcendence]]'' actively promotes this in dealing with the massive capital ship enemies encountered near the end of the game. Of particular note is the alien weapon - the Iocrym Fracture Cannon - a deadly plasma cannon that launches and unending stream of excessively damaging plasma, which at this stage of the game is essentially one of the two most damaging types of damage, which can then be upgraded to + 250% damage, for a total for 350% the original damage, giving over a thousand DPS of plasma damage, which is more than enough to slice through anything in the game.

** Of all things, this can also be accomplished with jettisoned crates of fuel; putting enough fuel, or ammo, into an unlimited number of crates and then shooting them will create a massive chain reaction of thermonuclear explosions, killing anything viewable in screen with absolute certainty, and beyond, depending how widely spread the crates are. In theory, one could do this to an entire star system, frying everything instantly and completely.

* In ''[[Urban Rivals]]'', Darth of the GHEIST Clan is noted of being too good of a killer, as he is known for using hundreds of bullets, when three would have done, or also using a bazooka at the drop of a hat.

* Wesker in ''[[Resident Evil 5]]''. Hit by ''two'' rockets, which explode him into a lake of molten lava. Justified, because his mutations make him immune to most conventional weapons at this point.

** In his first appearance in ''Tales Of Destiny 2'', he lacks his trademark hi-ougi, but on higher difficulties, will use Execution and extend it into the absurdly overkill Luna Shade spell in response to item usage, which can hit for five digit damage at a point where you'd likely have slightly over 1K HP.

* In ''[[Persona 3]]'' and ''[[Persona 4]]'', if one of your characters uses a normal attack and lands a critical, they usually strike the enemy so hard or so many times, he not only gets massive damage but also is knocked down, in Persona 4 for more than one round. [[Badass|Kanji]] is probably one of the best examples - his critical attack consists of throwing his chair/board/shield at the enemy, kicking him and punching down to the ground. [[Defrosting Ice Queen|Mitsuru]] is also similar, she strikes an enemy vertically, launches a barrage of swift strikes and curb-stomps him with boots on high heels. No wonder everyone is afraid of those two characters.

** The bonus bosses from both of those games like to indulge in overkill, too. If you attempt to, in any way, null any of their attacks, and also after a certain number of turns regardless, they will cast a powered-up Medigolaon which does 9,999 to the whole party. Now consider the fact that your HP is capped at 999...

* The final boss of ''[[Descent]] II'' features a colossal green robot that is ''completely'' invulnerable to all frontal attacks and sports ''dual'' rapid fire homing earthshaker missile launchers that he uses quite liberally. The earthshaker missile is a fusion of the smart missile and the [[Penultimate Weapon|mega missile]] turned ''[[Up to Eleven]]''. In mere seconds of him spotting you, you can expect to have anywhere from 2 to 10 shaker missiles quickly closing in on your position. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jh83OXQ8GeY God help you if they miss.]

** Actually, it uses Giga-Graviton to finish off your party if your piss it off enough. And Tera-Graviton was actually mis-aimed by the one controlling it so it doesn't actually hurt you. One of the Bonus Bosses actually uses Tera-Graviton as an attack, and...it can never kill you. Weird.

* The ''[[Kingdom Hearts]]'' games are known for absurdly difficult bonus bosses, but the Unknown in ''Birth by Sleep'' takes the fucking cake. Virtually every attack he's got will reduce you to 1 HP regardless of level, which includes each individual hit from his overly long combos. Get hit with a full combo, and you'll be stunned, aka, deader than dead. Many of his own attacks consist of the most powerful deck commands in the game [[Up to Eleven|cranked up to eleven]], and to make matters worse, if you do manage to land a good combo on him...he'll just [[Time Lord|reverse time]] and proceed to [[The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard|school you]]. There's Overkill, and then there's the Unknown.

* In ''[[Modern Warfare|Call of Duty 4]]'''s Death from Above there is nothing more satisfying than using the 105mm to kill a single enemy soldier just because you have the time.

** Strangely enough, a reflection of [[Real Life]]. You can find several videos of [[AC 130]] missions on youtube; in at least one of them the gunship is shooting at a lone infantryman who keeps evading the smaller shots by zigzagging around (he only succeeds because the time-to-target is several seconds). Then the gunner gets bored and/or irritated enough to fire the big gun...

** On the topic of tactical bombings, there is a Target Locator. It rarely ever appears, but when it does, it fires bombs the size of enemy units. Firing this upon large crowds of Grunts can prove very pleasing.

* ''[[The Last Remnant]]'' has a special combat effect just for that called, guess what, Overkill. It requires someone to be hit by an enemy with about twice as much damage as the defender's HP. While hard to perform on bosses and players, normal creeps often succumb to this. Overkills usually are so powerful, not only the entire Union dies (Unions share HP - if one person gets hit for 3k damage, entire group is as well), they are blown away like a rag-doll or disintegrated if it was a spell.

* In the ''Sly Spy'' arcade game, the player fights a shark as a boss. After killing it, it's possible to keep shooting at it before the level ends, turning it's corpse into a [[Gorn|bloody mess.]]

* In ''[[Morrowind]]'' the player can become this by exploiting the ridiculously broken alchemy system. The effectiveness of the potions is determined by intelligence, and you can make potions that increase it. Do this for a while and you'll be making potions so powerful they literally break the game: "Fortify Attack" and "Fortify Strength" can, at this point, allow you to kill the second form of [[Final Boss|Dagoth-Ur]] in one hit even though he is scripted to be invincible, and "fortify speed" makes you so fast the game's physics screw up, letting you run through mountains.

** I'll explain. The Skirnir missile frigate has eight launchers for Shadow missiles. Shadow missiles have [[Recursive Ammo|eight warheads]]. Each warhead does 755 MJ of damage. The two toughest ships in the game have a maximum of 12 GJ of shielding. Do the math.

*** Oh, and did I mention the damn Shadows will ''seek new targets if the old one is destroyed before they hit????''

** The Skirnir was such a [[Game Breaker]] due mainly to [[Good Bad Bugs|a typo in the data for the Shadow missile]]. The mistake is fixed in ''X3: Albion Prelude''. Oh well.

* The [[Saints Row]] series has this happen every so often.

** When your "Wanted" rating gets high enough, whether from a gang or from the police, they send out the big guns, possibly for just one man. These "big guns" can include genetically-engineered supermen, a [[Flechette Storm]] of grenades, a girl who can [[Flash Step]] while [[Dual-Wielding]] Uzis... and a tank.

** If you let the statue in Steelport get blown up in Saints Row the Third, the paramilitary group that has declared martial law deploys a massive flying fortress to scrub the town in order to get rid of you once and for all.

** Some of the weapons you can get tend to qualify for this as well... employing a rocket launcher against a single person or even a car, calling an airstrike against someone, deploying a drone to fire a missile at one person... overkill is just another day in the office in Stilwater.

* An interesting moment happens in the [[Mobile Suit Gundam]] game ''SD Gundam G-Generation GATHER BEAT'' and its remake ''SD Gundam G-Generation ADVANCE''. At one point, you face [[After War Gundam X|the Frost Brothers]] armed with a series of Gundam Xs, one of them piloted by Tiffa Adill. If you played things right, you can actually kill the Frost Brothers ''three times'', all of them scripted moments. The first comes if you had recruited Garrod Ran, who will convince Tiffa, rescue her, take over her Gundam X and turn its Satellite Cannon on the Frost Brothers. The second involves [[Mobile Suit Gundam|Cucuruz Doan]], who will be taught a [[Super Mode]] by [[Mobile Fighter G Gundam|Domon Kasshu]] and attack the Frost Brothers with his newfound abilities in a Zaku. The last one involves [[Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam|Kamille Bidan]] losing control of himself and chopping the brothers with the Zeta Gundam's [[BFS]].

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:There Is No Kill Like Overkill]]