History Main / ShieldedCoreBoss

* Each of the big armor bosses in ''[[VideoGame/ShadowWarrior2013 Shadow Warrior]]'' requires blasting away the glowing pieces of armor until the crystalline Ki Line is exposed, at which point you have to blast the hell out of it in order to disable it. Since each armor brings the armor back up after a while, you'll have to do this multiple times for each part that has glowing armor in order to destroy the boss.

* Doc Ock in ''VideoGame/SpiderMan2000'' is protected by a sort of electric field that must be shut off in order to get close to him and do damage.

* ''VideoGame/StarFox'':

** In ''VideoGame/YoshisIsland'', Sluggy the Unshaven's heart is an obvious [[AttackItsWeakPoint weak point]] (despite Kamek's SuspiciouslySpecificDenial), but hitting it requires getting through the surrounding ectoplasm, which regenerates.

!! In other media

* ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim'': Alduin can only take damage after you use Dragonrend to bring him down to the ground where you can attack him.

* ''Franchise/SuperMarioBros'':
** A late-game boss battle in ''VideoGame/SuperMarioRPG'' is the gigantic sword known as Exor. His weak point is the skull on the hilt, but the game informs you that it is protected from attacks by his two eyes. You have to attack and disable at least one of the eyes before you can inflict damage on his weak point, and the eyes revive after a few turns. Due to a GoodBadBug, the removable protection includes the ability to use [[OneHitKill Geno Whirl]] on the boss.
** In ''VideoGame/PaperMarioTheThousandYearDoor'', the Yux enemies can generate Mini-Yux from themselves, which produce shields that can block all damage Mario and his partners can do. The regular and "Z" Yuxes create one mini-Yux per turn, meaning Mario or his active partner can destroy the Mini-Yux while the other harms the Yux directly. The X-Yux, however, generates two per turn, requiring multi-target attacks, or else the X-yux will just create another shield as soon as the last one goes down. Grodus, the MadScientist who created these enemies, uses a similar system in battle, where he'll summon two Grodus X units per turn. Each Grodus X reduces damage to Grodus until four of them surround him, upon which they will negate all damage done to Grodus until at least one Grodus X unit is destroyed.
** ''VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiSuperstarSaga'':
*** In the rematch against Fawful, he starts off hiding in an invention of his that's completely impervious to damage. However, landing enough hits will provoke him into using a powerful attack that overheats the machine, forcing him to leave it temporarily and make himself vulnerable.
*** When facing the FinalBoss, you must destroy its hands and head in order to expose (and strike) its heart; the hands and head quickly regenerate, requiring you to repeat this process throughout the battle.
** ''VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiPartnersInTime'': Princess Shroob attacks the brothers on a mechanical throne with a DeflectorShield protecting her. You have to destroy the shield (which notably takes a fixed number of hits regardless of damage), disabling the throne and forcing her to fight on foot, before you can damage her directly. The second fight against [[spoiler:the ''elder'']] Princess Shroob extends this pattern one step further: you cannot damage her until you've destroyed her crown, but you can't strike the crown without attacking her feet to knock her down first. In both cases, the princess recovers after a short while, forcing you to start the process over.
** ''VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiBowsersInsideStory'':
*** The giant Wiggler. It can only be damaged in the [[AttackItsWeakPoint head]] after all its segments have been turned yellow (you do so by attacking the segments), but it will turn back to red in a short while, forcing you to repeat the process.
*** The final boss also follows in the footsteps of the previous games, but has Bowser fight against Dark Bowser until he knocks the Dark Star Core/Fawful out of him, after which he needs to vacuum it up so the bros. can fight it. This in turn requires them to first destroy both of its glasses' lens so they can destroy its three legs (As the boss simply retract them if the Bros. attack while he can see clearly), then they can ''finally'' attack the core and deal some lasting damage. Failure to destroy it in a few turns requires you to repeat the entire sequence beginning from Bowser's part, but thankfully, its HP isn't that high.
** ''VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiDreamTeam'':
*** The Pillodium takes little damage until its two wings have been destroyed, after which it'll drop to the ground and suffer from an attack/defense debuff until its wings have been completely repaired by its bits. This process can be slowed down by attacking the partially repaired wings.
*** The final boss, [[spoiler:Dreamy Bowser]], will shield his head if the Bros. try to attack it while his right arm is still functioning. Though you can aim for his body with certain attacks, his head takes significantly more damage. Annoyingly, unlike the previous boss, ''any'' amount of healing will make his arm function again, and he can start healing himself whenever he wants to, which also forces you to eliminate a mob of his minions before he'll come back and fight you again...
** A boss in ''VideoGame/SuperMarioGalaxy'', Megaleg, is powered by a [[McGuffin Grand Star]] in a glass dome on its head, and the dome is surrounded by a cage. To beat it, you have to lead a Bullet Bill up to smash open the cage... at which point a spinning wall pops up to protect the dome. Sections of the wall can be destroyed with more Bullet Bills, but after a short time they will regenerate, so you need to lead a Bill though the gap before it closes. [[DungeonBypass Or you can do some fancy jumping to get the Bullet Bill to fly OVER the wall.]]
** In ''VideoGame/YoshisIsland'', Sluggy the Unshaven's heart is an obvious [[AttackItsWeakPoint weak point]] (despite Kamek's SuspiciouslySpecificDenial), but hitting it requires getting through the surrounding ectoplasm, which regenerates.
* ''Franchise/MegaMan''
** The franchise-wide RecurringBoss [[BlobMonster Devils]] can only be attacked when their eye/core is open.
*** The Green Devil of ''VideoGame/MegaMan8'' and ''VideoGame/MegaManAndBass'' takes it a step further -- not only is it only vulnerable while its eye is open, its eye is held in the center of its body, which must be pushed out of the way by shooting at it before you can even ''reach'' the eye.

** ''VideoGame/MegaManX6''

** ''VideoGame/MegaManBattleNetwork''
*** Like the Devil series, Alpha's core from ''[[VideoGame/MegaManBattleNetwork3WhiteAndBlue Battle Network 3]]'' is open to attack once you tear open its gelatinous shell with rapid-fire attacks.

* ''VideoGame/AnotherMetroid2Remake'' has the Tester, a mechanical boss with turrets and two layers of shielding protecting its vulnerable core: four segments of armor plating that are immune to beams but vulnerable to missiles, and an energy shield that is immune to missiles but vulnerable to beams. Each segment of armor will eventually repair itself if not destroyed completely, but the inner energy shield is gone for good once you break it. (Unless you're playing on Hard mode, in which case the energy shield will also regenerate after a short time.)

* A penultimate boss in ''VideoGame/{{Psychonauts}}'' uses Telekinesis to protect himself with several rings of debris, and the player must use Raz's own various powers to break holes in each layer and deliver a strike, while the boss is simultaneously using his own psychic powers to repair each breach.
* In ''VideoGame/Persona3'', the Hanged Man boss has its three statues. Sometimes the only hit you get on it is the All Out Attack after it falls as it regenerates them immediately after their destruction.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Persona 4}}'', the boss of the "Void Quest" dungeon resembles a newborn child, who starts the battle by surrounding itself in a shell resembling a pixelated, 8-bit RPG character sprite. You must destroy the shell to expose the boss itself, although the boss is by no means defenseless while regenerating its shell.

* A few boss battles from ''VideoGame/PokemonPinball''.
** In the first game, Mewtwo protects himself from the player's attacks with a ring of rotating psychic orbs; he regenerates them every time the player succeeds in inflicting damage, although as his HP drops, the barrier becomes progressively weaker, allowing more attacks to slip through.
** Groudon from ''Pinball Ruby And Sapphire'' works similarly, frequently executing a shockwave attack that surrounds himself with pillars of flame that block the player's attacks until they can take at least one of them out.

* The early-80s VectorGame ''VideoGame/StarCastle'' (pictured above) consisted entirely of piloting an ''VideoGame/{{Asteroids}}''-like spaceship to take out an enemy ship surrounded by three layers of rotating barriers. If one layer was completely destroyed, the enemy ship would counter by generating a new layer, and could also fire its own weapon at the player if it had an open line of sight between the openings.
* A few examples from ''VideoGame/DevilMayCry'' series:
** ''VideoGame/DevilMayCry1'': In the first phase of his boss fight, Mundus periodically summons four magical orbs to create a protective barrier against Dante's attacks.
** ''VideoGame/DevilMayCry2'': Jokatgulm subverts this. You ''can'' bypass hacking away at her [[CombatTentacles tentacles]] and go straight for her head, but it's a lot easier without her tentacles in the way.
** ''VideoGame/DevilMayCry3DantesAwakening'':
*** Cerberus is covered in ice armor over his body that needs to broken through to attack his body parts, which he'll restore after at least one ice covering is fully destroyed with some time.
*** Leviathan's Heart is encased in a hard shell that opens up for a short time when one of two adjacent organs is destroyed. The other organs recover quickly and you are also constantly swarmed by {{mooks}} that make it difficult for you to directly attack the heart.
*** Nevan has an electrical shield that drops when all of the bats surrounding her are destroyed. And then you must instantly attack her at least once or else she'll immediately regenerate the shield to full.
** ''VideoGame/DevilMayCry4'': Sanctus has a regenerating force field you must destroy to damage him and constantly floats away when you try to close the distance. Overlaps with Tactical Suicide Boss, because the probes that spawn and orbit around him can be grabbed and used to pull yourself towards him - although sometimes he tries to rectify this by making them explode when you're near them.
** ''VideoGame/DevilMayCry5'': Urizen puts up a shield that Nero or Dante must destroy before he can be damaged. After some time, he will regenerate the shield and while it goes down easier, his attacks became more aggressive and hit much harder.
* The final boss of ''VideoGame/DarkMessiah'' summons a skeletal dragon to fight you while he remains in an indestructible forcefield. Killing the dragon makes him lose the shield for a few seconds; then he summons another one, rinse and repeat.
* [[MeaningfulName Absolute Defender]] from ''[[VideoGame/{{Darius}} G-Darius]]''- you have to destroy his (regenerating) shield generator in order to damage him, but once you do so, you can hit him anywhere in order to damage him.
* The Big Core ship and its many variations in the ''VideoGame/{{Gradius}}'' series generally has a series of shields you must shoot through to reach the core.
* ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'' has a couple of these: the Reaper core in the Derelict Reaper mission and the rogue VI in the ''Overlord'' DLC. In both cases, you have to shoot things around the core first to make it vulnerable.
* Doc Ock in ''VideoGame/SpiderMan2000'' is protected by a sort of electric field that must be shut off in order to get close to him and do damage.
* The last phase of ''VideoGame/{{Rez}}'''s third boss.
* In the NES version of ''Section Z'', the FinalBoss, L-Brain, is protected by twin shield generators in front of it which can regenerate in a few seconds.
* ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil4'' has this with the Queen Plaga/Salazar/Verdugo chimera; you have to shoot Verdugo's eye so the creature opens up to reveal Salazar, who is its weak point.
* In ''VideoGame/DigitalDevilSaga'', the last form of the FinalBoss Onmyo Harihara is surrounded by six different orbs. Five of the orbs cause her to be impervious to a different element, and the sixth orb reflects physical attacks. You need to strike down the orbs to even start hurting her, but she automatically restores one for free ''every turn.'' If you don't have something that does Almighty damage to wipe out all the orbs at once, you're looking at an uphill battle.
* In the final stage of ''VideoGame/PokemonSnap'', [[spoiler: Mew]] [[FloatingInABubble floats around in a bubble of psychic energy]] that prevents you from getting a clear picture. You have to hit the bubble a few times with Pokémon Food or Pester Balls in order to knock [[spoiler: Mew]] out of it, then hit her as well to get her to stop chasing after it long enough for you to try and get a decent shot. Then she teleports back into the bubble to start the whole process over again until you reach the end of the stage.

* ''VideoGame/ChronoTrigger'': In the final battle, you'd think that Lavos's main body is the centre 'pod'. It's not. The right-hand pod is the true core; when it dies, the others do. Thing is, you have to destroy one of the other pods first to get it to lower its defences (all attacks on it are functionally ineffectual otherwise, doing single digit damage) while it tries to resurrect the dead pod.
* The Goronzoran from from ''VideoGame/PhantasyStarOnline2'' is an extremely fat humanoid dragon who rides in a hoverchair, shielded by a magical barrier. The barrier can be removed by destroying the four crystals that orbit around it, after which you'll get a short period of time to freely attack the boss while he struggles to get his chair floating again.
* A {{squick}}y example in ''VideoGame/{{Action 52 Owns}}'s'' Non-Human. Gustav (a horribly mutated thing) is normally invulnerable to damage, but attack him enough and he'll cough up his innards. Hit those innards to deal damage before they're swallowed back. Don't stay near when they come out, though, [[OneHitKill or they'll drag you in and Gustav will eat you]].
* In the Wii version of ''VideoGame/PunchOut'', King Hippo becomes this kind of opponent in Title Defense. He uses a manhole cover he finds in an urban street to cover his belly during his fight against Little Mac. The cover is attached by three pairs of duct tapes, and to disjoint each pair the player has to stun Hippo after countering an attack and then land three hooks. When the cover is dropped ([[AgonyOfTheFeet hitting one of Hippo's feet in the process]]), then the fight proceeds as a regular one.
* Each of the big armor bosses in ''[[VideoGame/ShadowWarrior2013 Shadow Warrior]]'' requires blasting away the glowing pieces of armor until the crystalline Ki Line is exposed, at which point you have to blast the hell out of it in order to disable it. Since each armor brings the armor back up after a while, you'll have to do this multiple times for each part that has glowing armor in order to destroy the boss.
* ''VideoGame/PlantsVsZombies2ItsAboutTime'' has two:
** Frostbite Caves' boss, the Zombot Tuskmaster 10000 BC. Not only is it covered in ice that must be taken down in order to damage the boss, but it will also create columns of ice walls in front of it to block attacks, and these ice walls will spawn zombies when destroyed. If the ice around the boss is destroyed, it will get stunned for a moment, allowing the plants to wail on it before it refreshes the ice (and one column of ice walls).
** Neon Mixtape Tour's boss, the Zombot Multi-Stage Masher. It has a column of speakers in front of it that deal gradual damage to plants, and they will periodically flash white before shooting a sonic wave that destroys all plants and zombies in that lane. Thankfully, the Cactus' spikes will deal [[OneHitPolykill penetrating damage]] to hit the boss behind, the Phat Beet will pierce the speakers damage the boss, and the Spore-Shroom's lobbed projectiles will fire over them and hit the boss directly.
* In ''Blazeon'', the way to beat Giga Crawler is obviously to GoForTheEye (which can shoot EyeBeams, by the way), but it's protected by a bunch of balls that circle in front of it and gradually regenerate.
* In ''VideoGame/MightyNo9'', Dynatron will create an electric barrier around herself once her HP is reduced to half. This consists of six nodes, and when one is destroyed, the remaining nodes rearrange to form the next regular polygon down. The barrier is destroyed once less than three nodes remain and allows Beck to damage her. She can regenerate these nodes if Beck takes too long to defeat her, though.
* In ''[[VideoGame/EtrianOdysseyIIHeroesOfLagaard Etrian Odyssey 2 Untold: The Fafnir Knight]]'', the Yggdrasil Core will start the fight with a barrier that protects it against any and all damage and its tentacles must be destroyed to take the barrier down and be able damage it. It'll regenerate the tentacles afer a few turns, bringing the barrier up again with more of them.
* The first phase of the FinalBoss of ''VideoGame/PersonaQShadowOfTheLabyrinth'', the spider at the top of the clock tower, protects itself with four of its legs. Each is tied to a specific element, has its own weaknesses, and attacks independently. The problem is, each leg regenerates on its own timer, so to get the maximum amount of time to attack the boss, the party has to carefully kill them all simultaneously, weathering the maximum amount of attacks per turn in the mean time.

* The second boss of ''VideoGame/FranticFrigates'' is a submarine protected by a two-layer OrbitingParticleShield. Instead of taking down the particles, you have to wait for them to suddenly spread out, letting you go inside and beat on the boss. With sufficient upgrades to damage and firing speed, it's possible to take out the boss even before the shield comes back.
* In ''VideoGame/ShantaeHalfGenieHero'', Ammo Baron spends most of his time surrounding himself with a formation of flying {{Mooks}}. You can temporarily knock them out to get a clear shot at the Baron, but reinforcements will periodically fly in.
* ''VideoGame/DensetsuNoStafy3'': Pengod protects himself from attacks with a ring of ice spheres in three different colors. Attacking a sphere will cause it to change color, and when all spheres are the same color, the ring of spheres will vanish, making Pengod vulnerable to attack. Overlaps with PuzzleBoss.
* ''VideoGame/{{ULTRAKILL}}'': After enough time has elapsed, the central computer brain of the [[spoiler:Earthmover]] will pull Idols out of the floor, making itself unable to take damage until they are destroyed. It can do this multiple times throughout the fight, although it's entirely possible to kill it fast enough that it never gets the opportunity to do so at all.

* In ''Pinball/{{Avatar}},'' the AMP Suit can only be attacked after first knocking down a three-target bank in front of it.
* To attack the ghost of the War Fort in ''Pinball/AmericasMostHaunted,'' the player must first knock down the target bank blocking his weak spot.

* ''VideoGame/HollowKnight'': You cannot damage Uumuu directly without popping its outer jellyfish layer and exposing its core first, something that can only be done via external means. In the main storyline, Quirrel joins the battle in the Teacher's Archives to pop it with his weapon. In Godhome, you instead need to play aggro with the Oomas and use their explosions to target Uumuu.

* In ''VideoGame/ApeEscape'', in the true final battle against Specter (achieved after capturing all apes scattered throughout the game), he is protected by a white energy shield, which the player must strike multiple times to disable before they can actually land a hit on Specter himself. The shield regenerates each time the player actually hits Specter, as well as on its own.

* The FinalBoss battle of ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyCrystalChronicles'' takes place in the sky, with only the boss's tail within attack range. Damaging his tail eventually brings the boss down to your level to strike directly, but only for a limited time.
* Alduin in ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim'' can only take damage after you use Dragonrend to bring him down to the ground where you can attack him.

* Helicopter bosses (such as the WarmUpBoss) from ''VideoGame/NightStriker'' have a forcefield that can take quite a few hits. Once it's down, you have to hit the heli or else it'll put its shield back up in a short time (and if you do hit it, it regenerates the shield). The good news is that these helis have only three hit points, unless it's the FinalBoss of stage R, which has more.

* In ''[[VideoGame/{{EtrianOdyssey}} Etrian Odyssey 2 Untold: The Fafnir Knight]]'', the Yggdrasil Core will start the fight with a barrier that protects it against any and all damage and its tentacles must be destroyed to take the barrier down and be able damage it. It'll regenerate the tentacles afer a few turns, bringing the barrier up again with more of them.

** ''VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiPartnersInTime'': Princess Shroob cannot be damaged until you destroy the shield protecting her. The second fight against [[spoiler:the ''elder'']] Princess Shroob extends this pattern one step further: you cannot damage her until you've destroyed her crown, but you can't strike the crown without attacking her ''feet'' to knock her down first. In both cases, the princess recovers after taking a few hits, forcing you to start the process over.

** The [[Film/{{Tron}} MCP]] in ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsII''. [[DualBoss While also being harassed by Sark]], Sora has to hack through a barrier, presumably a firewall of some sort, and use a special ActionCommand with [[GuestStarPartyMember Tron]] to fire a beam at the MCP's core and delete it. The UpdatedRerelease also has an OptionalBoss fight against Vexen, whose shield needs to be destroyed before he can be damaged directly. Half the fun is just getting close enough to do this while avoiding his attacks and keeping him from scanning you, especially since he reforms the shield if you leave him alone for more than a couple seconds.

** The desert BonusBoss "Kurt Zisa" in ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsI'' only takes damage when he is stunned, but to stun him you have to attack and defeat the spells he's cast in battle first. Complicating matters is that each time his barrier is defeated he alternates to another attack pattern: One where he casts Silence on your party and attacks exclusively with his massive swords, and another where he's protected from physical attacks by a magic barrier and attacks exclusively via magic.
** The [[Film/{{Tron}} MCP]] in ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsII''. [[DualBoss While also being harassed by Sark]], Sora has to hack through a barrier, presumably a firewall of some sort, and use a special ActionCommand with [[GuestStarPartyMember Tron]] to fire a beam at the MCP's core and delete it. The UpdatedRerelease also has a BonusBoss fight against Vexen, whose shield needs to be destroyed before he can be damaged directly. Half the fun is just getting close enough to do this while avoiding his attacks and keeping him from scanning you, especially since he reforms the shield if you leave him alone for more than a couple seconds.

** ''VideoGame/StarFoxAssault'' has this in Mission 5 with [[SinisterSwine Pigma]], [[spoiler:who has become a massive [[TheAssimilator Aparoid]] creature fused with a space station]]. The first stage of the fight involves destroying the station's six crane arms before the center opens up, [[spoiler:revealing the massive Aparoidedized face of Pigma]].