History Main / HeadsIWinTailsYouLose

* In {{Suikoden II}}, there is a boss battle that is supposed to be a hopeless bossbattle: The boss and five mooks are able to defeat the two (three if you got the secret characters just before) characters with little to no effort, and you can't even level up one of them because they join seconds before the battle. however, it's still possible to defeat this boss by leveling up your party later, losing on purpose, and keeping your level for him. What you get by defeating him? He basically says "Not bad, but useless" and calls forth seven more mooks who arrest you.
* {{Naruto}} Ultimate Ninja Storm 2 has a nifty variation that's a combination of this trope and HopelessBossFight. It's the fight between [[DoomedByCanon Jiraya and Pain]]. You have to legitimately win the match, and drain Pain's health meter to zero, then in the middle of the fight, Jiraya gets nailed by a sneak attack by one of the hithertofore unseen Pain paths, which then leads to an heavily injured, barely playable Jiraya trying to stave off all six Pains. You will lose, but then in the ensuing quick time event, you have Jiraya get back up, and through sheer will, blow one of the Pains completely away with a move that launches his own dying body into the ocean. Heads I Win Tails you Lose has rarely been this cool.
* A very good example would be in Red Dead Redemption, when John [[spoiler: walks out of the barn into the face of a firing squad, whom you have a chance to kill, but ultimately must die]].
* An example from a miniboss, is Void, from Grand Chase. Basically, you have to avoid his projectiles, which deal decent damage, and more quickly, while dealing a massive 1 damage per hit. After a certain number of hits, he'll warp to the other side of the rather large arena, and start again. After enough hits have been done, a cutscene will happen, where he just steals what he's after, and warps off. If he takes out all your lives, you fail the dungeon. Not so hard in a party, but with slower characters in a solo run, you'll be hard pressed to not lose at least one life.

* Possibly in ''CaveStory'' after the [[ThatOneBoss Core]]. [[spoiler:The Doctor and Misery arrive, teleport the dying Core out, and leave Quote and Curly Brace behind. Then, the room floods and Quote seemingly drowns, until Curly sacrifices herself to save him. (unless, of course, you have a certain item)]]

*** The following game, ''Armed With Wings 3'', also has one of those as the first boss which you defeat (pretty easily, as he's the first boss), only to have him get up and jump your protagonist, who is taken by surprize from behind and totally defenseless, saved only by his mother.

* The online Flash game ''Red Moon'' has a particularly egregious example of this: after spending the game watching the heroine get bossed around and outright abused by her walking tutorial boyfriend, you reach the Emperor and beat him... only to see a cutscene where not only does the Emperor win easily, but he defeats your character first, leaving the NPC to do most of the fighting before running away. Then, to add insult to injury, she ''aplogises'' to him for not being strong enough. And did I mention that's the end of the game? [[WallBanger What the hell!?]]

* ''GodOfWar 2'', the first fight against Zeus. Kratos is almost dead, and can barely attack. Zeus goes ballistic on you. You're screwed.

In a video game's story, how do you portray a battle in which the main player character is supposed to lose?

* ''ShadowHearts'' has two. The first fight against Roger Bacon, he will nail you with a hit that does 999 points of damage on the third turn, for an instant death. Also, the first battle against Fox Face, he will hit you with "!!!", which will take your health to 1, and do a physical attack the next turn.

** KnightOfTheOldRepublic II also has the Exile's first fight against [[spoiler:Darth Sion]] on [[spoiler:Korriban]]. If you are killed, you're dead, but after [[spoiler:Darth Sion]] heals himself a few times Kreia tells you to run, and run you do. This is extremely frustrating since you can do the planets in any order, therefore it's entirely probable that by then you're rather powerful and [[spoiler:Darth Sion]] can't hit you, let alone do enough damage that you can't simply heal yourself easily with the Force. It's also implied that when [[spoiler:Darth Sion]] heals himself it uses up some of the Dark Side energy of the planet. Which makes this Troper wonder why you can't just whack him until there's no more Dark Side left in the planet.

If you die, you get a GameOver. [[YouShouldKnowThisAlready No surprise there]], right?

*** Actually Zero ''does'' get Soul Body, in the form of Sougenmu, gained by beating Axle the Red in this very game.

* ''GodOfWar" 2, the first fight against Zeus. Kratos is almost dead, and can barely attack. Zeus goes ballistic on you. You're screwed.

* In the ''NeverwinterNights'' module series "The Bastard of Kosigan", you encounter a seemingly helpless, vulnerable, weeping woman outside of Cologne who throws herself into your arms as soon as she sees you. You have the option to force her to give you a blowjob or try to comfort her; either way it finishes with a GroinAttack (that makes you drop your primary weapon) and you get attacked by two Rakshasa (one of which is the woman, shifted into her natural form).

* So, so often in ''BlazBlue.''

Remember: '''This trope is not HopelessBossFight. Please only add examples if defeat results in a GameOver (or whatever normally happens when you die)'''.

** Actually Zero ''does'' get Soul Body, in the form of Sougenmu, gained by beating Axle the Red in this very game.

* No mention of ModernWarfare yet? Well, ALL of Modern Warfare. Especially the second one. Your character fails and dies at the end of ''every'' chapter, but you only go to the next level if you die at precisely the right spot.