History Main / WakeUpCallBoss

* [[TheDragon Princess Azula]] represents this for ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender''. In the first season, both [[AntiVillain Prince Zuko]] and [[SmugSnake Admiral Zhao]] were credible threats, with Zuko improving over the course of the series and Zhao having a massive amount of resources. However, even with those, neither of them together posed anywhere near the level of threat to the heroes that Zuko's [[HeroKiller younger sister]] posed to them by herself in Season 2, [[MagnificentBastard having the perfect combination of ruthlessness, brains, intimidating charisma and firebending skill that the other two lacked]], in addition to her incredible determination and will like Zuko, and vast resources like Zhao. Even more so when she had her BadassNormal friends, Mai and [[MageKiller Ty Lee]] with her. [[spoiler:The heroes' inability to adjust to her threat level quickly enough resulted in her dealing them a crushing defeat at the end of the season.]]

* In ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'', by the time RealityWarper Discord rolls in as a villain, Twilight and her friends have saved the world with the PowerOfFriendship once, and spent an entire season learning about friendship. As such, Twilight assumes that their friendship is an unbeatable and unbreakable bond that can see them through any challenge. Discord essentially shows her, quite painfully, that the simple trials they've overcome are nothing compared to a real challenge, and effortlessly separates and soils the friendship that an entire season had built up. Twilight had been taking her friendships for granted because it was easy, but was never faced with just how hard friendship could be. Only by learning that friendship isn't so easy, and sometimes you need to fight for it, is she able to reforge their bonds stronger than ever.
* [[BloodKnight Jasper]] of ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse''. She's the first Homeworld Gem warrior to arrive on the scene. During her debut, she easily defeats the entire Crystal Gem team and has technology that can [[NoSell ignore]] the strongest weaponry available to the Crystal Gems. She shows the Gems exactly how far Homeworld has advanced in their absence and that their thousands of years of relative peace are definitively over. She hits particularly with the younger Gems, Steven and Amethyst who were alive only after the GreatOffscreenWar that spawned warriors like Jasper and had faced nothing more dangerous than wild beasts before that point.

** In ''VideoGame/Yakuza2'', Daigo Dojima.

** In ''VideoGame/Yakuza0'', Daisuke Kuze fills this role. Dodge and block and you'll be fine, otherwise... hope you like respawning. It's also important to keep in mind that you have [[StanceSystem two fighting styles]] at this point, one of which makes you ''immune'' to punches for a bit when you block and comes with a better dodge than your first one.

** In ''VideoGame/Yakuza0'', Daisuke Kuze fills this role. Dodge and block and you'll be fine, otherwise... hope you like respawning.

* WakeUpCallBoss/{{Action}}

* WakeUpCallBoss/Action

[[folder:Action]]
* Atlas from ''VideoGame/AstroBoyOmegaFactor.'' Attempts to go charging in, lasers blazing (like a first-time player might have done until now), will get you killed before you know what the heck happened. Atlas has jet-dashing punches, and a nastier version of Astro's Arm Cannon that takes up nearly the entire screen -- and once he [[TurnsRed gets down to half-health]], he replaces that move with a constant electric stream below him. He's not ''that'' difficult, but you'll need to get a good grip on battle techniques (dashing and knowing when to fire EX moves in particular), to stand a chance.
* Games based on ''Franchise/{{Batman}}'':
** ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamAsylum'' pits the Dark Knight against Bane as the player's second boss and first true boss battle. If you're new or didn't get dodging and batarang throwing down with the Titan goon earlier as a taste of things to come, then Bane is rather difficult, since you not only have to dodge him, but the attacks of several Joker goons. This same method of defeating Bane applies to the Titan goons later in the game. The first Scarecrow nightmare segment is relatively easy for a stealth segment and is nothing that a new player hasn't done before when ''they'' were the ones giving ''goons'' nightmares, but the second one is tougher, with fewer places to hide, longer stretches without cover, and enemies to fight.
** In ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamCity'', Solomon Grundy is the fourth boss, and subverts the expectations of players used to fighting big enemies from ''Asylum'' by throwing several attacks you need to dodge, while also planting explosives on electrified nodes to damage him. Titan-infused inmates, which appear earlier in the level, are also different from how they were fought previously.
** ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamOrigins'' has Deathstroke, the third assassin fight in the game. Killer Croc was the first and, while tougher than normal enemies, is fairly easy to defeat as you can choose to take him head on (previous games had the [[TheBrute big, muscular enemies]] as strictly {{Bullfight Boss}}es, unable to harm until you make them run into things). Electrocutioner was literally ShockAndAwe, he looks intimidating and talks a good game but [[AntiClimaxBoss defeated in one strike]]. Deathstroke, however, has a skill set and collection of gadgets similar to Batman and forces you to watch for openings and counter his attacks instead of always pressing your attack, absolutely ''murdering'' impatient players who haven't mastered their counters.
* ''VideoGame/{{Bayonetta}}'' has Jeanne. Even in her earliest appearance, she's a PerfectPlayAI, so needless to say, if you haven't got the hang of dodging (and therefore [[BulletTime Witch Time]]) yet, she will hand you your ass on a silver platter. Unlike the angel enemies before her, you cannot just dodge any attack and spend a few seconds in the safety of Witch Time wailing on her: the only attacks that trigger Witch Time if dodged are her Wicked Weaves. On Hard mode, she starts attacking from a distance by summoning [[GiantFootOfStomping Giant Feet and Fists Of Stomping]] without any warning and sometimes repeatedly, so you can't let your guard down for even a second. In [[HarderThanHard Non-Stop Infinite Climax]], she is even more GFS-happy ''and'' you can't use Witch Time! So basically, in each difficulty, she makes sure to be a Wake-Up Call Boss ''again'' and in a different way.
* If you haven't gotten proficient with ''VideoGame/BloodRayne'''s harpoon, the Sewers begin your Wake Up Call with charging suicide bombers, and ends with a TennisBoss. Even if you are good with your harpoon, it's still ThatOneLevel.
* Talys from ''VideoGame/BoundByBlades'' is the fourth [[AlwaysChaoticEvil Ilcyon]] monster and has a hitbox is far smaller than the previous three bosses, being vulnerable only in her head, with her attacks covering far more range, dealing greater damage and cannot be deflected. The past three bosses are merely a series of warmups before Talys' arrival signaling that things are getting serious.
* Mahler, the third boss of ''VideoGame/{{Bujingai}}'', is designed to trash players who aren't already used to parrying.
* Many, many early bosses from Capcom's brawlers qualify:
** In ''VideoGame/CaptainCommando'', the second boss, Shtrom Jr., teaches players to use quick attacks (due to his cunningly quick and long jumps) and that just mashing the punch button in front of bosses doesn't work if they break the combos so easily.
** Scully, the first boss from ''[[VideoGame/ThePunisherCapcom The Punisher]]'' definitely qualifies. The slow and weak mooks do absolutely nothing to prepare the player for the [[LightningBruiser vicious onslaught]] Scully pulls out -- he moves around quickly, delivers lightning-fast flying kicks and elbow and headbutt charges, and blocks the player's attacks time after time (and you would think a battleaxe swing to a blocking jeans-clad knee would be ''a bit'' more damaging). But if the player takes the vicious onslaught to Scully (preferably with weapons or grenades, which do great damage if not blocked), he will drop soon enough. Nowhere near a GlassCannon would fall, mind you ...
** [[MeaningfulName Razor Claws]], the second boss in ''[[Videogame/AlienVsPredatorCapcom Alien Vs. Predator]]'' is a similar example, with great move and attack speeds, huge damage and a reach much longer than the player's. You may have already found that the Aliens mooks are no pushovers themselves, but a single mistake against this boss ''will'' cost you dear. And never, ''never'' push him off-screen and move away afterwards in hope of a breather. He will jump right into your face no matter the distance and follow up with a claws charge. Say goodbye to half of your health bar if both these attacks connect.
* The ''VideoGame/DevilMayCry'' series featured some nasty first bosses, including:
** The [[GiantSpider Phantom]] in [[VideoGame/DevilMayCry1 the first game]], Bolverk in [[VideoGame/DevilMayCry2 the second]], Cerberus in [[VideoGame/DevilMayCry3DantesAwakening the third]], Berial in [[VideoGame/DevilMayCry4 the fourth]], Goliath in [[VideoGame/DevilMayCry5 the fifth]] and the Hunter in ''[[VideoGame/DMCDevilMayCry DmC]]''. Not too long after those fights, the first and third games respectively throw [[MirrorBoss Nelo Angelo]] and [[DualBoss Agni & Rudra]] your way (in both cases, a mere two missions after Phantom and Cerberus) to handily punish any lingering thoughts that [[AttackAttackAttack strategy has no value in these games]]. Any particularly difficult boss after that doesn't really qualify for the Wake-Up Call Boss label, but they will keep you on your toes.
** Not long into ''VideoGame/DevilMayCry4'', the game throws Angelo Credo at you. Up until now, relentless hack-and-slashing has been more than sufficient to defeat most of the prior bosses. Try that on Angelo Credo and he dodges or blocks your attacks, then immediately runs right in for a counter-attack which kicks the living crap out of you. Angelo Credo's slow and calm MenacingStroll also tricks the player into thinking that he has a lot of openings, but it mostly just serves as a bait. He's not particularly difficult when you know what to do, but he moves and reacts quickly, making him the first boss fight where you need to actually use Nero's attacks and combos properly while reading the boss's attack patterns. Same with your Buster--if you haven't gotten the hang of it, good luck getting through his shield.
* ''VideoGame/DynastyWarriors'':
** The massive fire-breathing boss Bi Xie in ''Strikeforce''. It's not too hard once you know what to do, but if you go in expecting to do the classic ''Dynasty Warriors'' mindless hacking and slashing, you're probably in for an unpleasant surprise. Even if you're reasonably capable of handling Lu Bu, Zhang Liao and Diao Chan as they go in and out of Fury mode and gang up on you, as well as the [[GoddamnedBats swarm of tigers]] that first greets you when you enter the area, AND finally the giant boss itself -- it's actually very easy to ''time out'' if you don't accomplish all this quickly enough.
** The Qiaos tend to be this in other entries, simply due to the fact that they are ridiculously fast compared to the most commonly encountered Notable Generals and juggle like crazy. Enraged Qiaos are even worse, but thankfully are rarely encountered in the core game. (They're more of a threat in the randomly generated empire building modes of ''XL'' and ''Empires''.) Depending on which game, the worse of the Qiaos will change, since their movesets change a little every game. Huang Zhong may also count from ''4'' onward, as while his guards engage you he will flee and spam his arrow shot special.
** Gan Ning is notable for being a wake-up call boss and also the ButtMonkey. After a certain stage, usually around the fourth for any Shu or Wu character, the CPU begins to use his musou attack far more frequently. For any who don't play this series, he does a quick dash with his sword held to the side, and it does the most damage in a single hit of any in the game. Most other musous are multi-hit crowd clearers that do incremental damage and if you are juggled can sometimes be escaped from, but not this one. It fires off instantly, there is NO WAY to block it unless you were already performing your own, and if it lasts long enough, he can drive around back and run you over a second time while you're still recovering. Once it touches you the damage is already done and it's immense--even with max-stat characters on Easy. In contrast, his normal attacks are almost all telegraphed and easily blockable. Essentially, if you always stay behind him, he is one of the easiest to take down, but the battle can turn against you without warning. Depending on your character, merely being ''touched'' can do anywhere from 25%-60% damage to someone using no items.
** In the same vein, Himiko in ''VideoGame/WarriorsOrochi 3'' is this for having a killer Musou which, unlike many other officer Musou attacks, comes out of nowhere, can be moved around your character's block and can instantly shred even the highest-leveled character's HP down to nothing in seconds.
* BeatEmUp fans who played ''VideoGame/FinalFight'' for the first time will remember Sodom as a major wake-up call boss, in that simply punching him normally only took off a sliver of a fraction of his health with each hit, forcing you to rely on throws or to pick up one of his dropped swords to attack him; this wouldn't be so bad if not for the fact that he has a rushing attack that can take off anywhere close to one half of a full health bar and can be executed at unexpected moments, and also the fact that one chop from, his swords takes off just slightly more of your life than that. And the kicker? He's the ''SECOND'' boss, just one stage after Damnd, the first boss who you could basically curb-stomp into the concrete with little problem.
* "The Vanguard", who is the first boss of ''VideoGame/GatlingGears'' after four relatively easy levels. It consists of [[SequentialBoss 3 phases]]. The first is a CoresAndTurretsBoss that spams strong projectiles, and [[FlunkyBoss periodically calls in annoying flamethrower units]] -- thankfully, you can end this by defeating the middle turret. The second phase has a core that uses a 6-way flamethrower that forces the player to move around, and alternates with four turrets that use painful MacrossMissileMassacre. The final phase is probably the game's first true instance of BulletHell, a ''giant house/train thing'' that can only be attacked when it's open and firing a massive SpreadShot of missiles. It also summons flamethrower units as well as bomber planes that drop damaging area bombs. And you don't get to heal in between any of these.
* In ''VideoGame/GodHand'', Gold and Silver, the MachoCamp duo that serve as the first MiniBoss fight, quickly establish the rules for boss fights in that game -- [[NintendoHard that they will suck royally for the player]]. Elvis, the actual level boss, later serves to cement that fact.
* Theseus may seem like normal boss fare for ''VideoGame/GodOfWarII'', but definitely serves as this your first time through Titan mode. He has attacks that kill in one hit and requires that you fight minotaurs while dodging those attacks. Up until that point, Titan mode is pretty intense, but the first time (of many) you fight Theseus, the game is just saying WELCOME TO TITAN MODE, MORTAL!!!! It's also of the 'trainer' variety, rather than the 'fake difficulty' variety. After learning the Titan mode musts of compulsive dodging and blocking, he's not too bad.
* ''VideoGame/HardCorpsUprising'' has Arachne. A boss who teaches you that health won't protect you from falling. To put this in perspective, imagine you're riding on the top of a train car. Suddenly, you enter a tunnel, and when you come out of it the view has changed to you grabbing on the car for dear life as the camera switches vertically. Then this big mecha comes in, sending out mechanical BEES like his [[VideoGame/BlazBlue namesake]]. While it's doing this it's charging up a laser that causes the entire line of cars you're holding onto to explode. You need to dodge both the bees and the lasers while jumping to the set of cars opposite you. Woe to anyone playing Harley at this point.
* ''VideoGame/HyruleWarriorsAgeOfCalamity'' has four, one for each mission in Chapter 2, excluding the last one.
** For ''Mipha, the Zora Princess'', there's the Lynel. Just like in ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild Breath of the Wild]]'', it hits hard and moves fast with a difficult-to-follow attack pattern, meaning you had best rely on your allies and the Sheikah Runes to whittle down its weak-point gauge to take out a massive chunk of health.
** For ''Urbosa, the Gerudo Chief'', there's Master Kohga. Yes, he's no different from his original iteration, but once his health gets low enough, he'll split into two doppelgangers of himself, each with their own attack pattern. The most efficient way to take them both out is to use special attacks, some of which are an area of effect like Link or Urbosa's, while others have a fan-shape, like Mipha or Daruk's.
** For ''Daruk, the Goron Hero'', there's the Igneo Taluses. Being Taluses, they hit like trucks and soak up damage like sponges unless you manage to hit their weak spot on top of their heads which instantly whittles away at their weak-point gauges. Either you somehow manage to [[StylishAction style]] your way up there to let loose with some attacks, you wait for it to land face-first into the ground after a diving attack, or you just bomb it to kingdom come. Using the Ice Rod doesn't hurt either.
** For ''Revali, the Rito Warrior'', there's Revali. More than half the time, he's going to be in the air out of reach of any melee attacks only giving very brief windows of opportunity to wail on his weak-point gauge. This means you'd better have your timing for Flurry Rushes down pat, otherwise you'll need to rely on the Stasis Rune to get him to hold still long enough to counterattack.
* ''VideoGame/LaMulana'':
** Good old Sakit is the boss of the Mausoleum of the Giants, and he's here to tell you that bosses aren't going to go down as easily as Amphisbaena did. He's only vulnerable to attack after using his RocketPunch attack, he's immune to all subweapons, and his main attack fires large magic projectiles that deal way too much damage to your pitiful HP. For a veteran, it's child's play to skip around Sakit, but new players are likely to run straight into him. The remake makes him vulnerable to special weapons in the second part of the fight, which is well and good because a jet of flame kicks you out of melee range at that time.
** Ellmac, the boss of the third area, is also no slouch to defeat, and unlike Sakit, can't be put off until much later because many areas are only unlocked after he's defeated.
** Amphisbaena himself is this in the remake, despite being the (likely) first boss. In the original game, the only thing you had to do to beat him was stay on the floor and spam shurikens at his head when he approaches. He'd go down in a matter of seconds. In the remake, however, he uses a much different pattern of attack, requiring you to move quickly to avoid damage, and is a genuine challenge this time around.
* ''VideoGame/LaMulana2'' has Kujata, boss of Annwfn. While the first boss, Fafnir, is fairly easy to beat, and the second, Vritra, is only marginally more difficult, Kujata represents a steep climb in difficulty due to his high health and the amount of things going on in his fight at once, with the falling lava rain, the rock eyes firing lasers at you, and Kujata's own eyes firing blasts at you.
* Kawashima Kaguya from ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfTianding'' is the first boss that marks a spike in difficulty; she is far more mobile than previous bosses Wang and Nakamura, has a devastating slashing move with her spiked umbrella (that deals bigger damage than Nakamura's guns - ''somehow'') and because of her TeleportSpam ability, you'll ''need'' to use Tian-ding's [[ClothFu sash grab]] ability to keep up with her. If you aren't acquainted with this skill yet, you'll be ''royally screwed'' when facing Kaguya.
* Bahamut, in ''VideoGame/LordOfArcana''. As the third boss, he is much more difficult than both the previous and next boss. Not only does he have a OneHitKill attack (notably, the at this point infamous "[[Franchise/FinalFantasy Mega Flare]]") when you first face him, if you have not learnt how to dodge and block well, you will die. Coupled with the fact that he has much higher health than any boss so far, the outcome of the battle depends on the idea that you know how to weaken him to stop some attacks and that you know how to heal yourself at the right time. Notably, unlike the last two bosses, in which the game outright tells you that they have destructible parts, Bahamut's hint can essentially be summed up as "Megaflare hits the center of the stage". The game also does nothing to inform you that Bahamut's wings are destructible, but most players might be able to guess that. His tail, on the other hand, is not so obvious, taking significantly less damage than the rest of him and almost encouraging you to avoid it. Bahamut is also the first boss in which players might find that, to their horror, enemy bosses can, and will, flee the battle if it goes bad for them. Most players don't have the resources to even attempt to fight Bahamut again, and the mission does not end once Bahamut has fled. Instead, he appears somewhere else on the map. Most players will probably restart their PSP's and try again later to avoid losing all their healing items. And to further compound problems, unlike the last two bosses, who were quite effectively crippled when their destructible parts were destroyed, Bahamut goes on to prove that [[IAmNotLeftHanded he can continue to fight without half of his tail and shredded wings]] with no real loss in fighting prowess.
* ''VideoGame/MetalGearRisingRevengeance'' has LQ-84i. Everything up to this point can be beaten by just running up and slashing at them, occasionally using blade mode. Not this boss. You have to be at least competent at parrying and reading enemy attacks if you expect to win. Mastering Zandatsu is also helpful, as that is the only way to heal during this fight.
** Later in the game is Monsoon. Up to that point, parrying is a borderline GameBreaker which lets you easily deal with enemies and bosses if you take the time to master it, although the fights are still winnable if you haven't. Monsoon's constant barrage of attacks ''requires'' you to have fully mastered parrying, and if you struggle with him, than the FinalBoss, who demands that you know how to parry with even better reflexes, with wreck you.
* Gigant, the first boss of ''VideoGame/TheNinjaWarriorsAgain'' doesn't fit this trope, as he was mostly a pushover who hit hard but had deceptively low HP, flinched from attacks, and could be easily thrown. However, in the VideoGameRemake ''The Ninja Saviors: Return Of The Warriors'' he becomes this, as he still hits hard but is now ImmuneToFlinching from most attacks, cannot be thrown by most characters, and has a lot more HP this time round.
* ''VideoGame/NinjaGaiden'':
** Murai in the Xbox version is the boss for the "tutorial level". If the mooks haven't taught you anything yet, then Murai will teach you not to button mash wildly, or he'll block and counter with a throw. So you might think turtling works -- [[Film/SupermanReturns WRO]][[MemeticMutation NG!]] He'll teach you not to stand around aimlessly blocking with another throw. Start learning to roll and attack at the right times if you want to get past.
** Alma also makes an appearance to just start smacking you down when you thought the game was done throwing curve balls at you. Doku, the Zeppelin Boss, your evil twin, and the second fight with Murai all qualify as re-wake up call bosses, to make sure you aren't falling asleep yet.
** In Black, the game just rubs it in your face. So you finally beat the game? Good job, now go beat these three new ''harder'' difficulties!
** Same deal with the first one from the Xbox 360 version of ''Ninja Gaiden II''.
** The Act III boss of the NES ''Ninja Gaiden''. The Act I boss has a [[HitboxDissonance huge hitbox]] and is easily disposed of. The Act II boss has a big hitbox for his ''attack'', but once again mashing the B button makes quick work of him. But the third boss? Mindlessly ButtonMashing in hopes of doing damage ''won't'' save your ass; you now have to strategize if you want to deplete at least 75% of his LifeMeter before Ryu bites it.
* ''VideoGame/NoMoreHeroes'': Shinobu is the first boss where you have to carefully dodge, chase and wait for an opening. And demonstrates that bosses can pull out ''really'' strong attacks when they [[TurnsRed turn red]]. The attack isn't a OneHitKill, but if you've taken any damage, you're still going to die.
* ''VideoGame/NoMoreHeroes2DesperateStruggle'': If Skelter Helter didn't mess you up for the tutorial, then the 50th ranked assassin, Nathan Copeland, most definitely will. If you haven't learned how to evade attacks, say hello to a rocket to the face. If you haven't learned to dodge when danger signs flash, say hello to a metal fist in the face. Plus, his arena becomes more and more dangerous as the fight drags on, forcing you to get used to being ''very'' attentive to your surroundings. And blocking his attacks will, once again, burn through your battery like nothing else.
* ''VideoGame/NoMoreHeroesIII'': Early on, you have relatively little issue dealing with the Mooks to the point that you won't have much need for evading or jumping attacks, even though they're aliens that fight a little differently from the series norm. This all changes the minute that you fight Mr. Blackhole, who abuses his teleportation powers to strike you from ''anywhere'', then he places wormholes on his arena and unleashes highly-damaging shockwaves after you halfway through, so you must evade, jump or block effectively at all costs. To top it all off, emptying his health doesn't end the fight, as there's a whole ''second phase'' to go through with a gameplay change into the Full Armor. He's the first boss to show that this batch is unlike anything you've fought before in the series, and requires mastering all the tools at your disposal to defeat.
* ''VideoGame/{{Okami}}'':
** Waka, because before that, you can just hack n' slash your enemies to bits close-range. Not Waka: he [[ThrowingYourSwordAlwaysWorks throws his sword(s)]] at you repeatedly, and you have to deflect them back at him with some skill to beat him. The Spider Queen may come as a nasty surprise to new players as well, especially since she can stomp on you.
** The Cutters, if you have been using weapons other than the disc class weapons, you will have a tough time killing them [[spoiler: You have to defend with the disc when they attack to do an automatic counterattack.]]
* The first few minutes of ''VideoGame/{{Prototype}}'' give you ATasteOfPower. The first boss fight with the Hunters afterward teaches you that you'll have to ''earn'' your God Mode powers. And if you underestimate Specialist Cross because he's a [[PunyEarthlings mere mortal]], he will [[BadassNormal educate you]], with an electrical staff enema.
* ''VideoGame/RagnarokOdyssey'' has the Orc King. In the missions before it, you would be fine if you rushed in and hacked away at the enemies until they fell. Not so with this guy; he has far more health than you would be used to, and hits very hard as well, so if you try to rush him down, you'll fail the mission in no time. Destroying certain areas of the boss is introduced as well. It's at this point where the game spells out that you'll have to read the boss, learn the times you can safely attack, and position your attacks to maximize damage.
* ''VideoGame/RiverCityRansom'' has Turk, who marks the point where the bosses start throwing more exotic special attacks at you. If you're unprepared, his Nitro Port will throw you for a loop when he suddenly disappears from view to teleport right up to you, jamming a knee in your face. If you haven't been blocking, or if you've been rushing fights a whole lot, expect to get kicked around a lot before finally getting it.
* ''VideoGame/SinAndPunishment'':
** The Lizard Seemer stonewalls a lot of new players, since you ''have'' to use the [[TennisBoss projectile reflecting technique]] on him, which many players probably haven't even tried up until now. Trying to kill him with regular attacks will inevitably result in time running out.
** Brad. Either get good at timing or look up how to turn on auto-aim.
** The Heart Seeker gives almost every player trouble. It's a giant missile that you have to shoot down before it hits the intended target, and no, it doesn't just explode like you'd expect an explosive to do, so you have to maximize your damage output and accuracy. The target then begins shooting at the Heart Seeker, but misses. ''You'' will probably get hit, though. This is also the first boss where manual aiming is '''mandatory.''' Using automatic aiming, you simply cannot do enough damage to it to destroy it in time. But [[GuideDangIt many players who set-and-forget to auto-aiming don't know that right away]].
** ''VideoGame/SinAndPunishmentStarSuccessor'' has Orion Tsang, the Stage 1 penultimate boss, who puts the "Punishment" in "Sin and Punishment" and shows you that the Nebulox battles are going to require some serious practice. For most of the battle, he shields himself so you can't damage him (in fact, it's very easy to time him out the first several times).
** Also, Hibaru Yaju, third of the Nebulox. She's tough mainly because she's the first boss that actually requires melee attacks to fight. For a lot of players, this is the first time they have to seriously use their melee attacks for something other than [[AttackReflector deflecting projectiles]].
* ''Videogame/StreetsOfRage'' series:
** From ''1'', Souther, the boss of the 2nd level. He wears [[WolverineClaws Freddy Krueger gloves]] and has an incredibly fast and damaging two hit combo with them. He'll also punish you for trying to attack him at a distance with jump kicks.
** ''2'' has Barbon, the boss of the 1st level. Barbon is a tutorial on all the ways bosses in ''[=SoR 2=]'' cheat - he blocks, has a counter throw, has an anti-air, and hits too hard and fast for standing in front of him to be safe. On the other hand, he doesn't do the ridiculous amounts of damage that later bosses like Abadede and R.Bear do.
** ''2'' also signals a huge difficulty spike with the boss of level 4, the aforementioned Abadede. He has three life bars, does a ridiculous amount of damage, is incredibly hard to get close enough to to attack, and even then has a counter throw and a brief invincibility counter move.
** The first boss in ''3'' is Shiva from ''Streets of Rage 2''. Oh yeah, and the difficulty [[NintendoHard only goes up from there.]]
* ''VideoGame/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtlesShreddersRevenge'' has these in two consecutive levels:
** Episode 3's boss, the Turtle Tenderizer, is the first boss that fights in a less conventional way. Bebop's ball-and-chain counterattack can quickly catch players off-guard, Rocksteady pelts shots as the truck moves vertically, and the truck itself bounces all over the screen every so often. Studying this boss' patterns is crucial to win, especially on '''[[NintendoHard Gnarly]]''' difficulty.
** Episode 4 has Groudchuck and Dirtbag, the game's first DualBoss. Neither of them leave much room to breathe with their attacks (which are pretty elaborate by themselves), so micromanaging damage output to both of them is the best way to win, lest you get crushed.
* The beginning of ''VideoGame/UltimateSpiderMan2005'' perfectly demonstrates [[CurbStompBattle the nature]] of "super-powered person vs. non-super-powered one" type of fights. When you first play as Spider-Man, you only battle extremely non-challenging foes like random thugs and Shocker. Not only that, but then you get to play as Venom and discover a whole new set of abilities: you can jump high, whip out tentacles, throw stuff and even eat people to gain health! Can it get any easier than that? Overjoyed by your newfound powers, you grab the nearest bike and smash the window of a random bar... [[spoiler: To find out that the bike, in fact, belonged to Wolverine and you just signed yourself up for the first actual boss fight of the game. Oops.]] While [[spoiler:Wolverine]] isn't particularly hard in comparison with some of the latter bosses, he's still far above anything you've encountered before at that point: he can actually dodge and regenerate health, his attacks are all combos, oh, and that awesome health-gaining ability? You better not try it on him.
* ''VideoGame/UltraToukonDensetsu'', based off the ''Franchise/UltraSeries'': The fourth boss, Alien Baltan, is far stronger than the previous bosses, attack players with rapid-firing streams of energy, and uses his TeleportSpam all over the place. He's the first sign that the game isn't going to be as forgiving as it was on the previous levels.
* The massive, primal, dreadlocked monstrosity only known as Missing Link in ''VideoGame/Vendetta1991''. You had your fun with the balding guy with the buzzsaw, at the end of the first level, and maybe you thought all the other bosses were gonna be pushovers, as well. Now you only have time to wet your pants, as they slowly lower this huge cage on you, before this abomination [[BreakingTheBonds rips the chains off himself]], and starts [[GoombaStomp stomping on you]].
* ''VideoGame/ViewtifulJoe'' is full of these kind of bosses, which can be very difficult if you don't know the tricks behind your character's abilities. This will eventually become clear once the bosses you fight suddenly start constantly reappearing. For example:
** The Helicopter will chew you up and spit you out if you don't know that, in slow mode, you can dodge and reflect bullets. In particular, if you don't already know you can knock the chopper's bullets back at it, you'll probably instead try to jump on top of it, right into the most dangerous part of the boss, and get a couple high risk, low damage hits in before jumping off to avoid injury. This makes the battle much, much longer than necessary and will generally lead to death. If you didn't get it the first time, then you'll probably have a really bad time stopping the chopper when two of them show up at once.
** The fourth level boss Another Joe is an evil super-powered version of Joe that fights you in area with additional enemies and spike pits. Even if you made it through the other levels easily just by messing around, you actually ''have'' to know how to use your powers perfectly at this point to win.
[[/folder]]

* ''WakeUpCallBoss/RolePlayingGames''

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!!Games with their own sets of Wake Up Call Bosses:

[[folder:Role-Playing Game]]
* The early parts of ''VideoGame/AngryBirdsEpic'' are quite easy; you can beat most pigs just by attacking with Red and the Blues, and occasionally healing. The Howler, summoned by Wizpig as a gatekeeper to the Star Reef, is when the gloves come off. The boss has lots of HP and an attack which inflicts very strong damage over time -- forcing you to waste a turn with the Blues to cure it instead of attacking, dragging out the fight. The Howler can also summon ghostly reinforcements, which will overwhelm your birds if they're not defeated promptly, so you'll have to balance between wearing the enemies down and keeping your birds alive. You'll also need to knock out the boss and all of its minions within 2 turns of each other, or else they'll revive with full HP. While undead pigs have appeared before, this is the first boss that forces you to pay attention to your enemies' abilities and play around them, and perhaps retry with a different lineup or better equipment.
* After the easy first parts of ''VideoGame/AnotherCrusade'', Demon General Arc serves as the wake-up call. You get Niro in this fight, making this the first boss fought with two party members... and Arc makes sure you know how to properly use them. His attacks deal high damage to both Rai and Niro unless you've got a good grip of ActionCommands, and his HP is high enough that he can survive for quite a while and wear you down in a battle of attrition. Every few turns, he'll put on a layer of {{Kevlard}} and become immune to damage, forcing you to have Niro cast Water Bubble to make him vulnerable... but if you use Niro's spells to attack too recklessly, he'll be out of SP by the time Arc becomes invincible again. Even if you know how to block attacks and ration your SP and resources over a long fight, you might need to do some LevelGrinding to succeed.
* You can breeze through the first half of ''VideoGame/{{Atelier Annie|Alchemists of Sera Island}}'' quite easily by buying your raw materials instead of gathering and by ignoring jobs with attribute requirements. But then assignment 5 has you fighting a not-insignificant monster. If you've neglected to raise your exploration level, you're in trouble two ways. First, the monster will clobber you and you'll need either some level grinding or bomb items to win. Second, just beating him isn't enough for the Gold Medal -- to get that, you must grind for a certain rare drop, trade it to an NPC for a specific weapon, find an item that makes a particular Supplement (which isn't even available unless your exploration level is at least 20), and then enchant the weapon with the right attribute using the supplement. Not ''too'' hard if you know it's coming, but if you don't, kiss the GoldenEnding goodbye.
* Amorphes from ''VideoGame/AvalonCode'' will force you to see the monster description, or you won't be able to beat him.
* ''VideoGame/BaldursGate'' featured a tough early boss in Mulahey. Tarnesh -- the mage in the Friendly Arm Inn -- even more so. Beating him is something like a LuckBasedMission: If you can successfully interrupt his initial protection spell, he is dead in seconds. If you can't, he's untouchable until he had the chance to decimate your party. His second spell makes its victims unable to fight back at all and sometimes it affects your entire party. There are ''several'' ways to deal with him (draw the much more powerful town guards into the fight so they can take care of him, just run into a building whenever he starts casting a spell to cause him to waste all his magic, etc.), but there's virtually no way a first-time player would ''ever'' think of any of them.
** The next chapter features the WolfpackBoss battle inside Tazok's tent. Before, most bosses could be quickly dispatched by [[AttackAttackAttack throwing everything you have against the boss and shutting him down]]. Not here. Instead of one guy and, in Mulahey's case, a few weak skeletons, the tent contains a full-on party with a mage and three fighters. The mage is positioned well behind the tanks, out of reach of your melee fighters, who will be completely unable to get past the fighters without killing them. The mage will then ''immediately'' cast party-disabling [=AoE=] spells, starting with Horror, which almost always hits at this early stage, and will render your party helpless, running around in terror for up to ''a full minute'' while the fighters beat on them, with [[TotalPartyKill gruesome results]]. You're going to have to outlast the initial wave of spells, and pre-buff with spells or potions to improve your saving throws and ward against StatusEffects to survive this fight. Hope you brought a cleric or druid.
* ''VideoGame/BarkleyShutUpAndJamGaiden'' has the Film/GhostDad. The first few bosses in the game were relatively easy to dispatch, and this boss, being a spectral Creator/BillCosby, doesn't seem like it would be any different until you actually fight it. Among his tricks are lowering your speed (giving him more turns), increasing his own power (which is already fairly high to begin with), and worst of all, inflicting the whole party with multiple random status ailments all at once. And he uses that last attack quite liberally, and it's even worse considering that there isn't a whole lot you can do about status ailments this early in the game. If you don't come into the fight prepared, he will wipe the floor with you.
* In ''VideoGame/BatenKaitos'' you have the Nunkirantula and Giacomo as wake up calls. The Nunkirantula will constantly buff its defense, and if you don't know basic elemental alignments, you'll be dealing out ScratchDamage very quickly. Giacomo, meanwhile, is almost impossible to beat if you're lazy with leveling and deck construction.
* ''VideoGame/BatenKaitosOrigins'':
** The afterling in Olgan's mansion is the very first boss of the game, and is here to tell you just how brutal ''Origins''' difficulty level is.
** Like the first game, Giacomo rolls up to the party early on swinging his scythe and hitting like a runaway dump truck to teach you the importance of leveling up your party and properly constructing a deck. If you haven't taken the time to raise your level his Thrashingale can easily deliver a OneHitKO even without being chained to a few regular attacks (it usually is), and his habit of knocking down individual party members and interrupting attacks means you'd better have thought to put enough healing and revival items in your deck for ''everyone'' to use.
** The afterling at Botean Lake is the first boss fought with control over a full party. As in the previous example, he teaches players that it's vital to keep your health up as much as possible and that you ''must'' revive fallen party members immediately.
** The Holoholobird is a mid-game example. If you just smashed your way through the first disc, going with whatever you drew, the Holoholobird will stomp you into the dirt. If you don't know about EX Combos, you'd better learn, because this is where the game stops messing around.
* Mistwalker seems to ''love'' this trope, as the same thing is true of their other game, ''VideoGame/BlueDragon''. The first real boss is a dinosaur/dragon thing. If you've gotten the hang of combat and are sufficiently leveled, it's not too hard, but if you're not ready for it, it will absolutely ''slaughter'' you without compunction or remorse.
* ''VideoGame/{{Bloodborne}}'': Father Gascoigne is the first required boss, the first to [[MirrorBoss use your own tricks against you]], first to have multiple phases, and is there to teach you that if you can't reliably dodge attacks or keep up with the fast-paced combat, you aren't ready for the rest of the game.
* ''VideoGame/BreathOfFireII'':
** Augus. He gets two turns every round, and one of his actions is to charge up his next attack to do extra damage. Charging up then attacking in the same round will [[OneHitkill one-shot]] Katt even at full health (and Ryu and Rand if they're not pretty close to full health). Not only can he also heal himself, but it's also possible to face him with only Ryu and Rand if you messed up the coliseum event; [[ThatOneBoss God help you if you didn't push Katt out of the way of those darts.]]
** Terapin, a giant turtle-like boss with a mind-control attack which forces you to attack your own party members. Both his fire breath and earthquake attacks do a ton of damage and affect the entire party.
* ''VideoGame/BreathOfFireIII'':
** Gisshan, Scylla and Charyb are not especially difficult if you're prepared, but they ''are'' a fancy way of telling you to prepare fire defenses before going into a fire dungeon, in case you hadn't gotten the memo.
** Mikba is the second boss of the adult era. His battle is the point where the brakes come off, and just transforming into the nastiest dragon you can make won't be enough to win anymore. He specializes in [[CounterAttack Reprisals]], deals nearly-fatal damage with each shot, you start the fight with one party member knocked out, and waking Rei up has its own dangers. Keeping your team healed and shielded, and not unleashing Rei's Weretiger power blindly, is necessary for success.
* ''VideoGame/BreathOfFireIV'' has Ymechaf, which is encountered roughly a quarter through the game. His attacks are fairly powerful, but his defense is sky high. In short, the boss is the game's way of telling you "You're gonna wanna learn some of that combo magic."
* The serpent Trio from ''VideoGame/ChildOfLight''. It's a WolfpackBoss with different elemental weaknesses for each head. The orange head deals moderate fire-elemental damage to ''both'' characters. The blue head does high water-elemental damage to one character. But the nastiest is the green head -- it is ''incredibly'' fast, allowing it to interrupt Finn (the SquishyWizard who uses elements effective against the heads) with ease, and also has a move that temporarily paralyzes a character. You'll be needing much healing in this fight.
* In ''VideoGame/ChronoTrigger'', the first boss, [[WarmUpBoss Yakra]], can quite easily be brute-forced even if you don't understand the complexities of the combat system. The Dragon Tank that comes about an hour later, however, is a Wake Up Call Boss. Its parts must be attacked in a specific order (head, wheel, body), and as it can heal itself, you have to proceed intelligently rather than keep attacking until it dies. And then there's 2300 A.D. which is a whole Wake Up Call ''Area'' telling you "No, you can't just bash A to win".
* In ''VideoGame/CityOfHeroes'', Frostfire, the first elite boss players have the opportunity to face, fits this trope perfectly. He's fairly trivial compared to most later elite bosses, let alone archvillains, but he's much harder than anything new players have seen before him. On top of that, many veteran players avoid [[ScrappyLevel the Hollows]], denying new players a source of advice. Part of what gives Frostfire his infamy is that most players (particularly new players) go about the fight all wrong. Generally, players running through the Hollows content try to put together a full team of 8 to take him down. This means that the final room containing the man himself also contains 20-30 mooks, and the icy terrain makes pulling them away nearly impossible. With a team of two or three, however, the final room is much emptier, and it's far easier to grab him alone.
* ''VideoGame/ClaDun: This is an RPG!'' doesn't have very many boss encounters, and most enemies can be dealt with through basic attacks. However, when you reach the last floor of the Monster House, you'll have to deal with a fire knight, who has an incredibly powerful FlamingSword attack and has a shield that greatly reduces damage from frontal attacks. If you haven't been making good use of your Magic Circles and {{Upgrade Artifact}}s, you're going to get beaten down repeatedly, even with high-leveled characters serving as your support/shields.
* ''VideoGame/DarkCloud'': Chances are you've probably been brute-forcing your way through the first dungeon with Toan and only been using Xiao when the game forces you to. Dran will very quickly beat it into your head that this approach won't work with bosses, since he spends nearly the entire fight in the air, meaning you have to use Xiao to shoot him down so Toan can wail on him. And if you take too long to do it, [[BossArenaUrgency Dran will start blasting holes in the floor]].
* ''VideoGame/DarkestDungeon'' gives you an idea of the difficulty ahead with the Necromancer, who can be encountered by the fourth week of the game in the Ruins and who is more than capable of killing your starting heroes if they go in under-equipped. There is also the Collector, a dangerous miniboss who can show up randomly in any dungeon without warning once you have enough loot collected, and can absolutely destroy an underprepared party. Similarly, the Crimson Court DLC has a miniboss hidden as early as your first expedition there and is rather unforgiving.
* In ''VideoGame/TheDarkSpire'', most of the early bosses range from only a bit harder than normal fights to actually easier than normal fights. Then you hit the first boss with a breath weapon. It can nearly OneHitKO your party. Then the second one can OneHitKO most of your party, and the third can OneHitKO all of it. All of these are designed to teach you the importance of the Cast Quickly command. If you don't use it, you will die.
* ''VideoGame/{{Diablo}}'' features TheButcher, who is an extremely tough opponent for the part of the game he appears in, being [[LightningBruiser very fast and capable of dealing huge amounts of damage in close combat.]] He quickly becomes ThatOneBoss to lower level characters because the only way to beat him safely depends on the randomly-generated terrain spawning in such a fashion to let you plink him to death at range, or to level up your Dexterity to at least 55 so that you can trade blows with him in melee while taking fewer hits. Thankfully, he only has a 50% chance of appearing, and drops a nifty unique axe when he finally goes down.
* ''VideoGame/DiabloII'', had this at several points in the game, many of which were lethal on the Hardcore difficulty, and were designed to screw over those with poor gear or bad skill distribution.
** Good luck taking down Blood Raven if you're a melee fighter. In fact, given her speed, powerful ranged attacks, and the minions she calls up periodically to harass you, good luck period.
** Duriel, the Lord of Pain, is definitely worthy of his title. So you're a ranged class and you've been running away shooting over your shoulder all the time, eh? You think you can kite or outrange every single monster in the game, eh? You think that hit points are useless because nothing comes close to you, eh? You think if you ever come close to dying, you can always run away, eh? And the game would never put you in an inescapable sardine can with a boss that will charge you for an instant kill if you get too far away and has an unresistable slow aura? Ha!
** As of v1.13 at least, Duriel no longer uses the charge, but his (un)Holy Freeze aura makes you hardly able to retaliate effectively as he dices up your character in short order.
* ''VideoGame/DiabloIII'', meanwhile, has two of these:
** The Skeleton King is the very first boss you meet that uses teleport and hard-hitting attacks, in addition to summoning minions. You will need to use dodging, defense, and mitigation in order to take him down.
** If you came into the Belial battle thinking you can just roll over him with your offensive abilities, you're going to die. The very nature of his attacks means you will have to use damage mitigation and movement to avoid being melted.
* ''VideoGame/DigimonWorld3'' has the Byakko Leader, which marks the point where you can just brute-force your way through boss battles. His final Digimon, Mamemon, can randomly inflict the "Frozen" status (with a rather high chance rate) and once frozen, your Digimon will waste turn after turn doing nothing as Mamemon deals a DeathOfAThousandCuts. This marks the point where paying attention to status effects becomes important, as does customizing accessories for certain battles and having a decent stock of items in general. Datamon, fought not long afterwards, has a four-hit combo as his standard attack, which can quickly rack up damage, but since he's by himself it's not hard to ZergRush him. Multi-hit moves quickly become the norm for bosses soon after his introduction.
* ''Franchise/DragonAge'':
** ''VideoGame/DragonAgeOrigins''[='s=] first "Red" (Boss) enemy is the Ogre. Up until this point, you've had some tough, but winnable battles, mostly against mooks, where some relatively simple tactics will generally win the fight. The Ogre, though... hooh boy... The entrance to the tower is a Wake Up Call Level, too. You're running headlong into a trap fanged by a fireball-using Emissary and several archers. That teaches you to get in smart, fast, and take down the enemy before you get taken down.
** The first boss in ''VideoGame/DragonAgeOriginsAwakening'', The Withered, gives you a taste of being on the receiving end of the new high end talents available in the expansion. The moment you see all the damage dealt to him being reduced to zero thanks to "Carapace" is the moment you realize that the new abilities are not to be taken lightly.
* ''Franchise/DragonQuest'' games can be hard, and often pack a Wake-Up-Call Boss to let you know that.
** ''VideoGame/DragonQuestII'' doesn't have many boss fights but they're usually this trope. The Gremlins will really test your strategic ability before you can get the ship. Think you're ready for Hargon's Castle? Say hello to three mini-bosses in a row; the first one (Atlas) deserves particular mention as one that WILL kick your ass if you're not up to speed.
** ''VideoGame/DragonQuestIII'': The [[RecurringBoss first]] fight against Robbin' 'Ood is a huge lesson in why party buffs are essential to survive.
** ''VideoGame/DragonQuestVII'' has the hackrobat. He has tons of HP, gets two turns per round, can blind you, has a powered-up attack, ''and [[PowerNullifier none of your magic works]]!!''
** ''VideoGame/DragonQuestVIII'' has [[PunnyName Geyzer]], who is pretty tough for a first boss, but Don Mole has tons of HP, can call for backup, has an area-of-effect attack, and can confuse the entire party.
** ''VideoGame/DragonQuestIX'' has the Wight Knight. Did you recruit any allies at Patty's Place beforehand and level them up?
*** There's also the Ragin' Contagion later in the game, which teaches you why it's a good idea to have '''1)''' an ally who can heal your party and '''2)''' items that can cure status effects like Poison and Paralyze.
** In ''VideoGame/DragonQuestHeroesIITwinKingsAndTheProphecysEnd'', the fight against Maya in Ingenia's throne room will prove to be a pain in the neck. She retains all of the skills she had from her playable appearance in [[VideoGame/DragonQuestHeroesTheWorldTreesWoeAndTheBlightBelow the prequel]], dancing all over the battlefield while tossing her fans and high-level Sizzle spells at your party. Every so often, she'll use her [[ScaledUp Puff]] spell to [[BreathWeapon bathe the area in flames]], so if you don't heed your party's warning to block the incoming attack, you'll probably have to burn a Yggdrasil Leaf to pick one of your allies up from the ground.
* In ''VideoGame/DungeonFighterOnline'', the lightning Knoll is the first boss that legitimately can give you trouble. It's the first boss that possesses powerful ranged attacks, and its moves can hit for a ton of damage. They also usually multihit, resulting in you failing a quest. Of course, he's easy relative to the later bosses.
* ''VideoGame/EarthBound1994'':
** Frank Fly might not seem so harsh to a beginning player... until they have to fight his "Frankystein Mark II" [[SequentialBoss immediately afterward]]. This fight mostly serves to teach you about the rolling HP meter; without exploiting that, you're in for a world of pain. Then, get past him and the Giant Step, you have to deal with the [[PoliceBrutality Onett Police Force]], a massive SequentialBoss fight against five foes: four Cops, which immediately become {{Degraded Boss}}es after the fight, showing up in the area you gain access to after the fight, and then Captain Strong, who can guard and change his own stats. Strong isn't so bad; it's the fact you're dealing with five boss fights in a row with no healing in between, and each enemy has one attack that can deal around 30 damage to you, which, at this point in the game, is a lot.
** The Titanic Ant is also a wake-up call in its own way. It's a FlunkyBoss at a time when you only have Ness, and uses PSI moves against you.
* ''VideoGame/EldenRing'': Margit, the Fell Omen. He guards the easiest way to Stormveil and is basically there as a way to tell the player that the game wants them to ''explore''; if you just rush in a straight line through Limgrave and don't bother to upgrade anything, you will run smack into Margit, and he will curbstomp you. His moveset is also designed to [[DamnYouMuscleMemory punish]] players who thought they could coast through the game with knowledge of previous ''Souls'' combat.
* ''Franchise/TheElderScrolls'':
** ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIIIMorrowind Morrowind]]'': Snowy Granius is a [[MagicKnight battlemage]] who hangs out on the bridge to [[NoobCave Arkngthand]]. He's wearing a heavy armor cuirass, wielding an axe, will likely summon a skeleton when he sees you, and knows several other damaging spells as well. For a player who has stuck to the main quest, this will likely be his or her first real challenge, and may even be the first non-critter the player has fought.
** ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim Skyrim]]'' offers several:
*** Salhoknir. Put off "A Blade In the Dark" long enough, and when he crawls out of that burial mound, you're going to have an Ancient Dragon when you may be only high enough of a level to be fighting Blood or Frost Dragons.
*** The Draugr Boss at the end of Bleak Falls Barrow. This is probably the first boss monster the player will encounter in the game, as well as the first opponent who will provide a challenge, unless you are unlucky enough to encounter a bear or a sabre cat on the way to Whiterun. The Wounded Frostbite Spider fought before you receive the Golden Claw is surprisingly tough as well.
*** Some dungeons, including a notable few on Solstheim, have particularly high level enemies that will spawn there. For example, upon running across Saering's Watch, where you obtain the first part of the Bend Will shout, you can be only level 30 and find yourself surrounded by Draugr Deathlords and Draugr Death Overlords, when you're used to fighting Restless and Scourge Draugr. Even on the lowest difficulty setting, be prepared to start chugging potions.
*** Hamelyn, the guy squatting in caves underneath the Honningbrew Meadery. Up to this point in the Thieves' Guild questline, your jobs have been burglarizing, extortion, pickpocketing, and arson - usually with specific instructions not to kill anyone or cause more harm than is necessary. Then WHAM!, they hit you with this guy. Surrounded by an army of skeevers and spiders, Hamelyn boasts impressive fireball spells and is nigh impossible to sneak to or past at lower levels (if you alert his "pets", you alert him as well). There is absolutely no warning that this guy is part of the mission, making it highly possible you didn't bring the right gear with you. Good luck with that. It's even lampshaded. The guy who hired you for the job KNEW about him, he just didn't want to scare potential recruits away. Would YOU have taken the job, if you knew what you were in for?
*** Going to High Hrothgar at too low of a level may result in the frost troll near the monastery serving as one of these.
*** Mirmulnir, first dragon soon after you BringNewsBack from Helgen's destruction-by-dragon. True, you have the Whiterun Guard as backup, but seriously, you just left the FirstTown, Riverwood, not twenty minutes ago. (By the way, the dragon you fight isn't the same dragon that attacked Helgen.)
* Due to it being a MMOG, chances are you will eventually stumble into one of these in ''VideoGame/{{Elsword}}''. Those bosses will teach you that bumrushing isn't going to work. You'll have to be aware of automatic "super armor" which puts them into temporary [[ImmuneToFlinching no-flinch]] status once they've taken enough hits. Some of them also have super armor while executing certain attacks (usually the most powerful ones) and will be able to interrupt you mid-combo if you so much as hesitate.
** Bereauk and Kayak are two bosses that will teach you how to pay attention to dodging. While the former is fairly forgiving as he does not do as much damage(but can drain you off mana easily with status effects), the latter has a homing magical projectile, devastating fire-based attacks and summons a previous boss once his health gets low enough.
** Then there's Wally No.9, who, unlike other bosses faced so far, moves almost as swiftly as you, super armors at will and can take a potshot at you with no warning from across the map if you refuse to approach him. And you had to fight another boss just a minute earlier with no chance of recovery in-between.
** And if any of those were not enough for you, Raven most definitely will be enough. Being one of the selectable characters, he follows the exact same movement rules as your player character and can combo you with impunity if you so much as let him hit you with his Nasod Arm.
* The ''VideoGame/EpicBattleFantasy'' series makes a point of having these in each installment beyond [[VideoGame/EpicBattleFantasy1 the first one]]:
** ''VideoGame/EpicBattleFantasy2'' has the Guardian, whose CognizantLimbs will regrow if you don't use the proper status effects, but will pummel you into the ground and bury you if you ignore them. This is where you learn there's no such thing as a UselessUsefulSpell in this game.
** ''VideoGame/EpicBattleFantasy3'' has the Wooly Mammoth, who does much of the same, except with a gigantic HP pool and some crazy hard strikes, with the summons acting as its medics.
** ''VideoGame/EpicBattleFantasy4'' has the Praetorian, who also teaches you the exact same thing, except he uses an ''insane'' buff on itself that can get your party killed in one sweeping strike if you don't know what a dispel is.
** ''VideoGame/EpicBattleFantasy5'' bumps its difficulty with the Neon Valkyrie, the second boss. [[WarmupBoss Jotun]] was a straightforward fight, but the Neon Valkyrie has much higher stats, more devastating skills, and can summon various turrets with their own gimmicks that need to be managed. Lance fights alongside it as powerful backup.
* The ''VideoGame/EtrianOdyssey'' series contains many good examples of this, such as a F.O.E. on the very first floor of the game that will utterly destroy most mid-leveled parties and demonstrate to the player that you should not actually try to kill everything the very first time you encounter it. Then you have the first boss, for which you'll learn the hard way how to prepare for a ''real'' fight for survival or else your adventure will be halted (Chimaera in ''Heroes of Lagaard'' and Amalgolem in ''Beyond the Myth'' are especially cruel at this).
* ''VideoGame/EyeOfTheBeholder'': The giant spiders and the whole fourth level of the first game can be considered this trope. Prior to this, the first three levels are set in the sewers beneath the city of Waterdeep and involve weaker enemies such as kobolds and undead. The fourth levels and beyond contrast by resembling ancient labyrinths but the enemies get much harder. Specifically, you immediately encounter giant spiders upon landing in the fourth level. The spiders can poison you and you probably only have limited means of curing the poison status at this stage in the form of a "slow poison" spell. It's not unusual to have characters die from poison damage before you can find antidotes.
* The first (and only mandatory) Super Mutant Behemoth encounter in ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 3}}'' can get many a low level character pulverized by its fire hydrant hammer, and inexperienced players can easily blow themselves up with the [[NukeEm Fat Man]] that is provided. Worse, if ''Broken Steel'' is installed, you may have to fight a [[BossInMookClothing Super Mutant Overlord]] or two beforehand who start spawning at level 15 (out of 30 and prove a hard fight at max level!).
* The Macomb mission of ''VideoGame/{{Fallout Tactics|BrotherhoodOfSteel}}'' -- or more specifically, the barricade just before the library. The first three missions of the game you can just Rambo through, due to having better skills and weapons than your enemies. Then you start Macomb and the enemies now have better armor, aiming, and a knack for sniping you from the rooftops. It's still not too hard, but then halfway through, you open a gate and a random mook on the other side fires on you with a ''rocket launcher'', while his pal crouching behind some sandbags tosses grenades at you. If you survive, you quickly get the message that it's time to put those stealth and ambush tactics they taught you in the tutorial to good use.
* The ''[[VideoGame/SaGaRPG Final Fantasy Legend]]'' games feature several of these.
** Gen-Bu from ''VideoGame/TheFinalFantasyLegend'' was likewise a sudden jump in difficulty. And it was possible to save to the game's single save slot after triggering him, and just before fighting him, rendering your game borderline {{Unwinnable}}.
** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyLegendII'': It's possible to get pretty far with a weak party by relying on NPC guest characters, running away from battles, saving a lot, and sheer luck. Then the player runs into Venus, who will wipe the floor with any player that's been neglecting to upgrade the party's equipment and its stats. Much later, near the end of the game, the fight with Apollo presents another brick wall.
** Chaos from ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyLegendIII'' is none too easy either, he uses Quake which hits all allies for heavy damage.
* ''VisualNovel/FleuretBlanc'':
** The very first trophy bout, against Roland, tends to give people a lot of trouble. Though he averts being an EarlyBirdBoss, he can still be confusing and unpredictable, making him into a LuckBasedMission. He's supposed to teach players about the style point system, as the best strategy for beating him is to salute Grams and rack up enough style points that you'll win even if you run out of HitPoints. Unfortunately, as this is the player's first real foray into the combat system, this isn't readily apparent to most players.
** Le Neuvieme, the next trophy bout, is an even more extreme version. He ''is'' an EarlyBirdBoss, and his dodging strategy is even more unpredictable than Roland's. He's also even more focused on style points, necessitating that players really know what they're doing. Even the developer says this fight is "the bane of [his] existence"!
** Inverted by Masque, the next boss. You may have thought Le Neuvieme was preparing you for a difficult style-off, but Masque is actually not a style fighter, making him refreshingly straightforward and predictable.
* The first real [[TheWarSequence War Sequence]] from ''VideoGame/{{Freelancer}}'', when you end up in Bretonia, tells how the next storyline missions are gonna be.
* In ''Website/GaiaOnline'', the first few zones (Barton Sewers, Village Greens, and Bill's Ranch) are fairly easy, as long as you've been collecting and leveling up your rings properly. The only time you'll really need to crew up is for the Gnome General boss. Where the Wake Up Call comes in is dependent on what the player chooses to do after they finish the "Ranch Hand" quest line. If players elect to help Ian with the "Denial of Service" quest line, they explore the rest of Dead Mans Pass, and fight the OMGWTF, who can decimate an unprepared crew. Players can instead elect to travel to Zen Gardens, in which Qixter and the dev crew remind you that just because this is a "casual mmo" doesn't mean it's an easy one. Zen Gardens stresses safety in numbers. Enemies in the southern area can either kill you in one hit, or [[GoddamnBats Swarm you to death]], while enemies in the northern half enjoy playing ping pong with you. But the real wake up call has to be Kat's Kokeshi Doll, the final boss of the zone. It's ThatOneBoss for many players. Prior to the zone's revamp, defeating it was actually ''the first quest of the zone''. And it ''wasn't instanced''.
** In a bit of irony, visiting the gardens is actually much more difficult if you fail to visit Dead Mans Pass, as you miss out on valuable Ring and Orb Drops. It's recommended that you take on OMGWTF before you head to the gardens. Your avatar will thank you.
** Before the game's difficulty was lowered, She Wolf was this.
* In ''VideoGame/GoldenSun: The Lost Age'', BadassNormal pirate Briggs is definitely this. He comes after you with two buddies for support, hits like a truck, uses both damage and recovery items, and will call more buddies if you take down the ones he starts with. Worst of all? It's way too easy to accidentally [[SequenceBreaking reach him far earlier in the game than you're supposed to]], [[FailureIsTheOnlyOption underleveled and underequipped]].
** ''[[VideoGame/GoldenSunDarkDawn Dark Dawn]]'' drops the Stealth Scouts on you in the Konpa Caverns, who also like damage/recovery items, team tactics, and add StatusEffects (Stun Shuriken) and ManaBurn (Psy Grenades) to the menu. The last of these is a real terror unless you know how to exploit Djinn ([[GuideDangIt and have collected them all!]]) or spam recovery items of your own, since it ruins the possibility of healing Psynergy.
** The original ''VideoGame/GoldenSun'' was possibly the worst offender of this in the series. The player had likely fought a few bosses by the time they reach the Mercury Lighthouse. The bosses before it being a trio of bandits and (possibly) a possessed tree. Neither were exceptionally difficult. And then they must fight one of the game's main antagonists, who has a brutal physical attack, and plenty of hit-all Psynergy while you have no group heal spells or items. Oh yeah, and your recently acquired healer can die in one bad hit from him thanks to her [[ElementalRockPaperScissors elemental attribute]]. Have fun!
* ''VideoGame/GranblueFantasy'':
** Unlike the earlier bosses who can be easily defeated by raw damage output, Yggdrasil Malice is the first real challenge of the Story Mode. Players are likely expected to have developed their grids, worked on weapon skill levels, or levelled-up their characters to have a chance of beating her.
** The inclusion of the high Elemental Resistance mechanic for some bosses like the Xeno, Primarchs, and Arcarum bosses encouraged players to develop grids for all elements and not just focus on a single one.
* ''VideoGame/GuildWars'' features Wake Up Call Missions.
** Zen Daijun from ''Factions''. Minister Cho's estate was virtually a tutorial. When you get to Zen Daijun and face a whole HORDE of [[BodyHorror the Afflicted]] AND that horrible Miasma which spreads degenerations around your entire party (particularly bad if you're using henchmen, who don't know well enough to not stand in close formation and keep reinfecting each other) AND [[EscortMission you have to bodyguard 2 (admittedly very high level) NPCs]]... prepare to die. And right after Zen Daijun was a brief time on Kaineng City, before Vizunah Square. While it was nerfed eventually, if you weren't at level 20 by that point then you would have a ''very'' hard time with it. Tahnhakai Temple similarly taught the player how to carefully pull and how to combat certain skills that enemies from then on would throw out with ease -- if you can't pull, focus fire, or counter certain skills via enchantment removal then you ''will'' fall behind.
** Nightfall also had these, however, one thing that was notable compared to ''Factions'' and ''Prophecies'' was the fact that the "Wake-up call" mission came much later in the game. (Zen Daijun, Vizunah Square, and Tahnhakai Temple are all early missions.) This mission was the Grand Court of Sebelkeh - By that point, the mission assumes that you know how to focus fire, crowd control, keep mobs in area of effect attacks (and have powerful [=AoE=] builds like Searing Flames.), to be able to keep your mobility up. and to watch the map. Even though the game does allow you to practice such skills in previous missions and on trash mobs, it's still likely to catch players off guard at the sudden combination of ''needing'' to do those skills, especially with how ''fast'' the mission can be failed. (It wasn't uncommon for people who didn't know what they were doing to fail within less than a few minutes.)
* ''VideoGame/GuildWars2'' has a few:
** Mai Trin, the first real boss faced in Fractals of the Mists, requires actual coordination and strategy to beat. If you try to just stack and whack, you will die. A lot.
** Vale Guardian, the first raid boss introduced, is a nasty shock for inexperienced groups. He has several mechanics that need to be coordinated while moving, while healing through constant pressure damage, and failing any of them can make the fight rapidly go off the rails. Also, there's enough randomness to the battle that he's been known to give experienced groups the howling fantods - while he's not the hardest raid boss (that award probably going to either Matthias Gabrel or Soulless Horror), even experienced raiders regard him as moderately difficult.
* ''VideoGame/IllusionOfGaia'' -- Castoth, the first boss, is frequently cited as one of the game's most difficult. This is mostly because the player may still be learning how to play the game tactically, and because the player character is still weak. In the final BossRush, Castoth goes down against a flurry of about half a dozen hits.
* ''VideoGame/InazumaEleven'': Things will go very smoothly up until you meet Mikage Sennō Junior High (Brain Washing Junior High in the English anime dub). Unlike your previous opponents, MSJH have much better defensive and ball-keeping stats than your vanilla footballers, and their Killer Techniques, especially those used to steal and keep the ball, are much stronger than most of your team's. It doesn't help that they won't lose any TP during the first half, which basically guarantees that they'll have drained poor Raimon Eleven's energies, unless the player brings enough items to sustain the characters. Worst of all, MSJH have the tendency to play very defensively after scoring a goal (something that is reflected in an episode of the anime).
* ''VideoGame/{{Kinder}}'': Princess Hanauta Mitsugi. Prior to her, Mami was a HopelessBossFight and Nightingale was a traditional, easy WarmupBoss. But Hanauta has a powerful, TotalPartyKill attack she will unleash at a regular interval ([[spoiler:two turns after her heart beats]]) that can only be survived by blocking. She basically serves to show that the bosses will require more [[PuzzleBoss puzzle-based thinking]] than most [=RPGs=]. If you simply try wailing on her, you will die.
* The Marid King in ''VideoGame/LastScenario'' is something of a rude awakening if you thought the game had been tricky up to that point. He serves to teach you that a) [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard status effects in this game are pure evil]] and b) stealing from random encounters is ''not'' a waste of time. If you didn't grab an Alarm Bell or three from the kelpies, your entire party is going to wind up asleep. And, irritatingly, you can't backtrack from that dungeon to pick up more supplies. (You ''did'' keep a save file from before you left, right?)
* ''VideoGame/TheLastStory'':
** The white tiger from chapter 2, which is partly a tutorial about using your Gathering and Guard abilities to keep its attention off your comrades, can and will kick your ass if you're not guarding/dodging properly.
** At the end of the battle on the ship (Chapter 12), you run into a giant terrapin-thing summoned by the ship's captain. While the earlier bosses are either Events or a Bullfight Boss, this one really forces you to think on your feet and learn its tells, because of a spinning-shell attack that will easily wipe out your part all at once, quickly depleting your supply of lives. There's also the Mystic Spider in Chapter 15: Its web attack can make it swallow party members, and if that happens to Zael as well, it's Game Over.
* ''VideoGame/LegendOfLegaia''
** Even Caruban, the first boss, is a decent challenge, as it has more than enough attack power to bring either of your first two characters to their knees in a single combo attack, and has a [[BreathWeapon fire breath]] attack that can halve your party members' HP.
** In ''Duel Saga'', Elfin serves as a combination of this and BeefGate. She is designed to be easy enough if you are at least level 9 and have four art blocks, but difficult to impossible otherwise.
* ''VideoGame/LostOdyssey'': The first real "boss" is just a kind of gryphon-thing named Grilgan, which really isn't very impressive -- but considering your very limited selection of skills, weapons, characters, and spells at the time, he ends up wiping out most players the first time they meet him. And probably the second too. The main difficulty with this boss is that it requires you to make use of the Guard Condition mechanic, which is easily ignorable up until then. Going on the offensive is suicidal -- the trick is to focus on defense and keep the SquishyWizard alive long enough to do the real damage. The [[GuideDangIt official strategy guide]] for the game even calls Grilgan "the hardest first boss you may ever face in a video game." It doesn't help that even if the player keeps his Guard Condition up, a bout of bad luck (such as Grilgan using its powerful "Downburst" attack twice in a row before you can heal up) can ''still'' wipe you out.
* The first boss in ''VideoGame/LufiaIIRiseOfTheSinistrals'' is a simple affair of AttackAttackAttack while healing whenever your HP gets low. The Big Catfish is a lot tougher and its Earthquake and Flash spells do a considerable amount of damage, capable of easily wiping you out if you don't keep Maxim's HP high. Tarantula comes later in and will painfully teach you to keep you ready for status ailments like Poison. And the boss summons minions that are not only quite strong but can easily turn the tide of the battle in the boss' favor.
* The Garland Boss in ''VideoGame/LufiaTheLegendReturns'' is your first clue that [[EasyLevelsHardBosses boss fights aren't going to be a simple matter in this game]]. He's accompanied by two flunkies whom he can respawn as long as he's alive, and the three of them can dish out the hurt quite quickly.
* The fight against Gades in Parcelyte in ''VideoGame/LufiaCurseOfTheSinistrals''. The only non-[[DegradedBoss Degrading Boss]] you've fought to this point was Idura, who was a FlunkyBoss with a simple gimmick to his fight. Gades attacks more aggressively than any other enemy, has much narrower openings for attack, and past the first phase will take any opportunity he gets to [[KickThemWhileTheyAreDown carve off half your HP meter after knocking you down]]. Spamming Potions is only going to get you so far here.
* ''VideoGame/{{Mabinogi}}'' uses this. Being an MMORPG, which boss it is depends on how you play:
** If you try to take Alby Dungeon Normal, you'll face the Giant Spider. While the enemies before this generally do single-digit damage even to raw newbies, the Giant Spider can kill you in two or three hits if you're not familiar with defensive tatics- an attribute which will be shared by both bosses and mooks going forward. It's also a FlunkyBoss, meaning you have to have at least a basic understanding of how to manage aggro.
** If you go to Ciar Dungeon Beginner instead, you'll fight the Small Golem. While less difficult on the whole, it has at least one move that can break through your defensive stance, requiring you to learn how to read and respond to enemy attacks.
** Finally, if you forgo the dungeons entirely and just do hunting quests, you'll soon find yourself hunting wolves and learning that yes, random wild animals ''can'' kill you in this game.
* ''[[VideoGame/MagicalVacation Magical Starsign]]'':
** The first encounter with Master Chard. It's a long fight, so you'll have to get used to party members gaining and losing advantage based on the planet orbits and day/night cycle. Next, he has a devastating all-party hit which is telegraphed several turns in advance, teaching you how to prepare for and recover from battle-defining boss abilities. His HP pool is also so massive that you are almost guaranteed to run out of MP, forcing the player to appreciate strategic item use, which is a must when it comes to surviving difficult encounters in this game.
** A bit later on, there's Lt. Mugwort -- more so if you went to Puffoon first instead of Gren. He's a mixture of this trope and EarlyBirdBoss, as he'll start the fight by using Celestial Swap -- a common spell among bosses later in the game, but one which the player won't have access to yet -- to move planet Gren into position and power himself up. Aside from that, Mugwort is just generally a tough boss for this early in the game, with lots of HP and powerful attacks that can hit both single targets and the entire party, [[ElementalRockPaperScissors especially Lassi.]] Like Chard, beating him requires the player to use items strategically and get used to the system of planet orbits and the day/night cycle.
* ''VideoGame/ManaKhemiaAlchemistsOfAlRevis'' has a rather mean one of these late in the game. If there are more than 3 timecards out on the field at any time, yours or your opponents, doesn't matter, the enemy will transform all of them into devastating attacks that drain at least half of your SP each time the card activates, and at least a third of your HP, making healing yourself or even getting any skills in next to impossible, unless you have Roxis use a skill that removes some of the timecards.
* Silver Horn, third boss of ''Videogame/MegaManXCommandMission''. He has absurdly high defense, the ability to freeze one of your party members on the first turn, an attack that (while not very accurate) can hit all three party members, and once you deplete enough of his health, he boosts his defense and attack power and starts using another powerful attack. This is only made worse by the fact that the new party member starts at level 1 and is weak to ''all'' elements. Fighting Wild Jango, the second boss, was more of just "heal and hope for the best" along with learning to use Spider. Silver Horn forces you to take [[ElementalRockPaperScissors element weaknesses]] into account to do anything.
* [[WarmupBoss Air Man]] in ''Videogame/MegaManBattleNetwork 2'' is pretty easy, and leaves you feeling pretty confident in your abilities. Then [[LightningBruiser Quickman]] spends the whole fight jumping around so you can barely hit him, hits quite hard for that point in the game, and ''catches your bullets'' unless you nail him right before he throws a boomerang. It's your first real signal that [=BN2=] is a bit of a DifficultySpike from 1.
** Flashman in ''Battle Network 3'' serves to illustrate the fact that yes, enemies can use chips too, and quite effectively; one of his attacks brings up a pair of [=FlashLights=] in your area. In your first encounter, they have five HitPoints apiece, but failing to move quickly and destroy them both will result in an (at this point) unblockable stun (there's only one chip you can get at that point in the game that can block it, and the odds of getting it are slim). While you're stunned, he'll steal your front row and, in a move inspired by the [=AreaGrab=]+ Sword combo you used in the tutorial level, uses an attack that is guaranteed to hit at least once (since you're stunned) and leave your dodging room for subsequent attacks significantly reduced. As if that wasn't enough, his other attack is a fast attack that can move in either a homing pattern or a zigzag, and it's hard to tell which unless you have ''very'' good reflexes. The worst part is when the only other way to counter the attack is used (e.g. use an [=AreaGrab=] yourself); then the [=FlashLights=] become more spread out, and if you end up on any row but the back row and the lights go off, you still get hit. It completely fails if you just let them stun you on the back row, though.
** Rogue in the 2nd ''Videogame/MegaManStarForce'' title. Unlike the previous bosses, he does not blatantly show off where he plans to attack with flashing panels, he moves quickly around the field, making slow attacks hard to connect, the window between planning for an attack and actually performing it is small (where the previous bosses could just be knocked out of an attack by all but a handful of attacks if the player was quick, or at least, they could get out of the way) AND he has an attack (that he spams) that requires dodging mid attack (as the delay after shielding leaves you open to the 2nd hit). This is one of the few times in games where you really will win by a thread like the plot suggests.
** Unlike the preceding Bonne machines, The Marlwolf from ''VideoGame/MegaManLegends'' will utterly [[CurbStompBattle Curb Stomp]] you if you're not ready. It's the first boss in the game that can use a shield-breaking move which not only homes in but has a ''huge'' hitbox, and you can only damage it by jumping on its back and shooting through the door when it's open. It also comes early enough in the game that the only possible sub-weapons you can have are the useless grenade and mine arms, and the machine arm which only becomes useful after a ''lot'' of costly upgrades. He basically exists to teach you that if you aren't spending time exploring ruins, buying armor and energy tanks, and purchasing upgrades, this game ''will'' hand your shiny blue ass to you.
** In ''Legends 2'', the Giant Mammoth you fight on Forbidden Island more than qualifies. You have no offensive weapons at the time (except the [[JokeWeapon fire extinguisher]]), and depending on what difficulty you're playing on, his health bar can get rather large. Add some hard to dodge ice shots, and you have one tough cookie to take down!
* Fairly early in the SNES game ''[[VideoGame/MetalSaga Metal Max Returns]]'', you face a pair of bosses called Big Cannons. Between them opening fire on you as you approach them on the world map, having very high HP and armor when you ''do'' reach them, and dealing a good bit of damage to your tanks, it's very hard to win simply by using your main cannons. The battles thus teach the player to use part-breaking attacks, making the bosses miss their turns and allowing you to survive long enough to bring them down.
* In ''VideoGame/MightAndMagic X: Legacy'', Mamushi the Boss of the Lighthouse (either the second or third Boss you fight, depending on whether you choose to go there or the Den of Thieves first) is a ''nightmare''. First of all, he has an ability that a lot of tough Bosses have called Retaliate, which lets him strike back hard if you hit him. That's the good news. The fight itself takes place on the top of a Lighthouse, and he has another ability that lets him push you backwards, potentially [[TotalPartyKill killing the entire party]] if your back is to the edge. Even worse, he moves very fast, switching to another place in the arena about every other combat turn, making it hard to avoid being in a dangerous spot and make a successful counterattack. Even worse, Bosses in this game share a common ability that makes them immune to most status causing effects that don't directly damage them, so a lot of strategies you've used up to now won't work.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Miitopia}}'', if you haven't been utilizing the Safe Spot, you're going to have a hard time against the Pharaoh. During the battle, Miis may become inflicted with a status effect that causes them to offer up healing items to the Pharaoh. Putting the affected Mii in the Safe Spot prevents them from doing this. Needless to say, if you weren't making use of the Safe Spot before this boss fight, you're probably going to start using it more afterward.
%% Do not link to Monster Girl Quest'', as it was deleted per P5.
* ''Monster Girl Quest'' has the Queen Harpy. Up until now, you could get by with "attack-heal" strategy. The Queen Harpy shows you that attacking without paying attention will get you [[CurbStompBattle stomped flat]] from that point on by having an [[OneHitKO insta-death]] {{counterattack}}. It drives home that you need to watch what the enemy is doing instead of [[AttackAttackAttack attacking continuously]].
* ''VideoGame/Mother3'':
** Mr. Passion is generally the first boss where players realize just how vital debuffs, status effects, and item strategies are. LevelGrinding and the Thunder Bomb trick will only get you so far here.
** So, you breezed through Mr. Passion without too much trouble. Well, congrats. A couple chapters later, however, you're gonna meet the Jealous Bass, a tough FlunkyBoss who works with his flunkies to hit Lucas and Boney multiple times per turn. Without finding the right combination of items and Lucas' limited [[PsychicPowers PSI]], you'll get stomped.
** The very first chapter boss, the Mecha Drago, will let you know that bosses in this game won't tolerate being walked over. It can't even be hurt without using a turn to use the item that will reduce its defense to a high but reasonable level. It also is very strong and has a lot of health for that point in the game. Although you do have an NPC to assist, his role is mainly to give you some healing items. And you're still not done after taking it down - it will deal fatal damage to you after dying, which means you have to scroll through the post-battle text (and possibly a level-up) or [[KaizoTrap die before actually succeeding]].
* ''VideoGame/NeverwinterNights'': The Intellect Devourer is one of the first bosses you face. It has natural damage resistance and uses mental attacks that can daze or stun you or your party members, rendering them helpless. Also, the encounter itself has some rather unique mechanics, as well. [[spoiler: During the battle, there are several dazed human guards standing about. If you cannot persuade them to leave, the Intellect Devourer will possess their bodies each time his current host is killed.]]
* ''VideoGame/NiNoKuni'' has Moltaan. Not only does it hit like a truck, but it also has three area attacks that can and will wipe you out in a few short turns. Running around is viable for its Blazing Breath and Tail Flail, but you have to defend when it uses its Volcanic Roar (or pray that you get a critical hit to cancel it). There's also the fact that it's the only boss with a weak spot (its tail) and it's the first boss with an exploitable elemental weakness (Water/Ice spells and tricks) and Esther's Drongo and the Seed Sprite are likely to be the only party members you'll have at that point with the ability to efficiently do so, hinting at the fact that bosses from here onward will require a bit more strategy than simply spamming attacks, spells, and tricks.
* ''VideoGame/OctopathTraveler'': Some of the Chapter 1 bosses are more difficult than others, if their opposing protagonist is the one you start with, requiring said protagonist to fight them alone.
** Helgenish, Primrose's Chapter 1 boss. He has over 1,000 HP and can take out Primrose within only a few hits, and despite being weak to Daggers, killing him just with normal attacks is all but impossible. It doesn't help that Primrose is a FragileSpeedster not built for defense. You have to take advantage of Primrose's path action Allure in order to defeat him, or gather party members before starting Primrose's Chapter 1.
** The Guardian of the First Flame, Ophilia's Chapter 1 boss. It has almost 2,000 HP, and when weakened enough will start summoning Dark Wisps that, if not defeated in time, will self-destruct and deal a large amount of damage to Ophilia. While it's weak to Staves, the Guardian resists Light, so Luminescence isn't going to be much help. This encourages you to take advantage of Ophilia's path action Guide in order to defeat it[[note]]In particular, an NPC in the Flamesgrace tavern with the skill "Summon Winds" can break 3 of the Guardian's shields (it's weak to Wind) with a single use[[/note]], or gather party members before starting Ophilia's Chapter 1.
** Mikk and Makk, Tressa's Chapter 1 bosses. They're a DualBoss with almost 1,700 HP between the two of them, and if you choose Tressa as your starting protagonist, you'll have to fight them two-on-one. Sure, they're both weak to Wind skills (which Tressa has), but they share no other weaknesses between them. When one of them reaches 50% HP, they'll use a skill that allows the other to intercept single-target physical attacks and skills. Tradewinds and Trade Tempest are certainly helpful, but it's recommended to gather party members before starting Tressa's Chapter 1. Cyrus in particular helps make the fight against them more manageable.
** Typically, transitioning from one set of chapters to the next (i.e., finishing all the first chapters and then moving on to the second chapters, and so on) tends to coincide with a DifficultySpike and ups the ante of the bosses appropriately. Due to the freeform nature of the game, the LevelScaling, and how you can do any chapter in any order, the WakeUpCallBoss will likely be different for everyone, but the most commonly ones cited appear to be [[spoiler:Hróðvitnir]], the boss of Ophilia's Chapter 2, and [[spoiler:Miguel]], the boss of Alfyn's Chapter 3. Perhaps not coincidentally, these are the earliest bosses who are able to make themselves move more often in one turn.
* ''VideoGame/OctopathTravelerII'' players often find themselves challenged by Castti's Chapter 2 boss, Plukk. She has 7 shield points on her BreakMeter paired with potent damage output, often able to two-shot characters. This in itself isn't ridiculous; the problem is that she's a FlunkyBoss, and her two helpers are... Mikk and Makk. (There's no indication that these are the same characters; they might just be a RunningGag within the franchise.) When each of them is conscious (IE not Broken), they ''nullify'' half her weaknesses, meaning you can't Break her without Breaking one of them first; they each have 4 SP; they have pretty significant damage output. And the three work as a team: Plukk can designate targets for focus fire (and unless you manage to slip a heal spell in between attacks, that target ''will'' die), all three are able to buff each other, and they have a CombinationAttack where ''all three of them charge special attacks''. Mikk buffs Plukk, Makk debuffs your team, and Plukk just piles on the damage. To prevent this from happening, you have to Break ''all'' of them, which can require as many as 15 attacks, in one turn -- or have one of them be already Broken when Plukk initiates the combo, reducing your overhead to a slightly more reasonable 11. (And while this franchise has a "Boost Point" system where you can, in fact, store extra moves for later use, the max you're allowed to use in a single turn is 16... and saving up those extra moves, instead of spending them on healing abilities to keep yourself in the game, can be challenging.)
* ''VideoGame/OdinSphere'': Baby Levanthon hits like a truck despite his small size. If your main strategy for dealing with enemies is hitting it until it dies, he will punish you heavily for it. Once you learn his tells and can reliably dodge his attacks, though, [[AntiClimaxBoss he's easily the least challenging in the game]].
* ''VideoGame/{{Omori}}'': Space Ex-Boyfriend is the first challenge the player will meet at the beginning of the game. If you haven't understood how the Emotion System and Follow-Up works, get ready to see your party members toasted.
* Number 9 in ''VideoGame/ParasiteEve2'' serves as a wake up call boss. He has a paralyzing attack and a one hit kill attack. He also has massive amounts of HP to boot. If the player doesn't realize to use the electrical boxes on him, or fails to find the [=MP5=] or grenade launcher, there's not a lot of hope to beat him.
* ''VideoGame/PillarsOfEternity'' has Lord Raedric, whom you can encounter as early as level 3, with a three--to-four man party. You can decide against fighting him, but otherwise, you will be going up against a hard-hitting, heavily armored boss, a bunch of his equally heavily armored flunkies, a couple archers, a CombatMedic priest, and a court wizard with AreaOfEffect damaging spells. ''Nothing'' in the entire castle (or, indeed, in the entire game until then) even comes close to this DifficultySpike, which really pummels in the importance of choke points, crowd control, and prioritizing targets. On a larger scale, the mega dungeon under your own keep is comprised exclusively of entire Wake-Up Call ''Levels'', that force you to invent new tactics on the fly to beat increasingly difficult monsters.
* ''VideoGame/PokemonFloraSky'' has Caitlin. She's only the second gym leader, but her shiny Delcatty will wreck you if you aren't prepared.
* ''VideoGame/RakenzarnTales'' has quite a few in different version.
** Version 1-2: we have Buggy the Clown. He's not terribly strong, but he's your first solo fight with Kyuu, so you'll need to have learned how to use his Arxus Rouge class features, such as training for stat boosts outside of battle and switching equipment to suit the opponent, due to Buggy being immune to bladed weapons.
** This is followed by the Blizzard Dragon. Here, more than the previous bosses, is where you learn about proper party composition, buffing, debuffing and exploiting enemy patterns and weaknesses. He's much stronger than the previous bosses to boot.
** And one of the first Ultra Bosses is Asmodeous and Beelezebub. Both gals are very nasty and really hammer home how tough the game gets with its bonus bosses.
** Version 4.1.1: Double-Head in Kyros' Route is one. Not only this snake has high HP and hits like a truck, it can attack twice and use 3 elements! This is the point where the game stops pulling its punches. You have to properly manage your party, switch party members at the right time, give them proper RK-0s, use buffs and debuffs, and exploit enemy patterns and weaknesses. If you haven't learned how the game works and play by its rules, Double-Head is going to decimate you in seconds.
* ''VideoGame/RakenzarnFrontierStory'' has two:
** Ronove. The previous bosses were manageable to fight, but the demon butler is your first real challenge. He only has one weakness, can buff himself, and has his very own LimitBreak. If you haven't mastered the class system or don't pay attention to the way using buffs and debuffs, Ronove can destroy you very easily.
** Solo and No. 9. You have two bosses to fight and they have their own strengths and weaknesses. They both can hit hard and they have their specific skills. Solo can hit all party members and inflict poison ailments and No. 9 buffs them up. [[FromBadToWorse If that's not bad enough, they also have their own Limit Breaks.]] Pay attention to their patterns and exploit their weaknesses, but you have to use your own buffs too. Otherwise, this is going to be one long fight and they could potentially one-shot you with their Limit Breaks.
* In ''VideoGame/ResonanceOfFate'', the first real boss "Tar Man" Will destroy your team repeatedly, until you master the combat system and learn that not every move needs to be a "Hero Action." Even then, he has a lot of armor and requires multiple death-defying passes to take down. To top it off, he will regenerate his health (but not his armor, thankfully) if you don't kill him fast enough.
* The Mark VIII Salamander at the beginning of ''VideoGame/RogueGalaxy'' has three stages to break through, and your party members force you to fight solo for the final phase. Hope you stopped to buy extra {{healing potion}}s.
* ''Videogame/SacredEarthPromise'': Balcruade and Zuleika are far more difficult than the Beholder boss, since they can easily exploit your characters' elemental weaknesses. The battle serves to teach the player how to do the same to them, as well as how to use auras to cover elemental weaknesses.
* ''VideoGame/SecretOfEvermore'' has two bosses that will make you realize that yes, you do need to learn a bit more about this game's combat system if you want to reach the ending.
** The first is Salabog, the [[StockNessMonster massive sea serpent]] in {{Prehistoria}}. He has 2000 HP (compare to the previous boss's 600), he spawns mooks that can hurt you by touching you (they're made of FIRE), and he only emerges to spring an attack on you and to make more mooks. If you haven't learned how to use charged spear attacks, or haven't leveled your spear up enough to throw it at all, you're gonna be in for a long, painful, and ultimately futile battle.
** The second is the Verminator, one of the later bosses of the medieval times world. This guy sits on a pile of crates, and will never come down, making him the first boss that you encounter which cannot be affected by regular attacks. He relentlessly uses status effect spells and attack spells on you, and, again, if you're no good with spear throwing, you're gonna die, since you'll run out of attack spells well before you get anywhere near killing him. You need to not only be very good with your spear, but also good with alchemy so you can cure the status afflictions he causes and protect against his attack spells. If, through some miracle, you've made it this far without learning about charged attacks, you're never going to win. The fact that he's placed at the end of [[ScrappyLevel the forest maze]], and the fact that the inn and save point are so easily missed, add to the aggravation.
* ''VideoGame/SecretOfMana'',
** You literally [[ForegoneVictory cannot lose]] against the first boss, and the second is a piece of cake too. And then there's Spiky Tiger, who is considered by many players to be one of the toughest bosses in the game. This is probably due to his ability to inflict the burning status on your characters (paralyzed and taking continuous damage) as well as knocking them out with a hard-to-avoid physical attack. He also regularly jumps to the raised platforms on the sides where he can only be hit with the two ranged weapons you have -- which, being weaker than the melee weapons, you may not have bothered using them, meaning you won't even have unlocked the charge attacks. AND you don't have any magic of your own yet.
** When you first get to the ice country, you'll encounter a mid-boss, Boreal Face. The wake up call here is that once you obtained magic, most bosses were about spamming it until it died. Boreal Face, however as an absurdly high magic defense, and the most you can do against it with magic is 20-30 HP and it has around 1100HP. By the time you absolutely run out of MP for attack spells, Boreal Face will have over half of its HP left.
* The Bogeyman, in ''VideoGame/TheSecretWorld'', can be this for new players. The game relies on mobility and positioning far more than the average MMORPG, and if you haven't gotten that by the time you fight him in the game's second major zone, you're gonna have a bad time. The damaging wave has a buildup that should be familiar enough and easy to avoid if you're paying attention. His "purple rain" is also pretty straightforward, just don't stand anywhere that's about to explode. Much trickier is a one-two punch of attacks that require you to either get a certain distance away, or be within that same distance to avoid. Even if you're good for that, his final attack [[TurnsRed at roughly 1/4 health]] will probably kill you in one hit and covers most of the arena. It has a huge buildup and is obviously going to hurt, but given other games' use of HomingBoulders, many players don't think to just stand on the other side of a rock.
* ''VideoGame/SekiroShadowsDieTwice'': The second battle with Genichiro marks the spot where the player MUST get good at deflection and the Perilous Attack counters. Every boss before him has some sort of trick that can be used; Gyoubu is extra weak to the Firecracker and Lady Butterfly can be cheesed by spamming certain moves such as Nightjar Slash or sidestepping attacks. Genichiro has no such gimmicks -- you either parry his attacks, or you die.
* Many players seem to have problems with the Executioner on their first pass through ''VideoGame/SkiesOfArcadia'', but he's a breeze on repeated attempts. He's the first boss who can finish off your characters from even relatively high levels of health, and so he teaches players to keep their HP high at all times in boss fights. There's also the power of [[StatusBuff Increm]]. A big part of what makes the Executioner a pain is that he comes almost immediately after another boss, Bleigock, whose main strategy is poisoning your party and is a bit of a wakeup call boss in its own right. The game gives no indication that the Executioner fight is coming, so if you don't already know about the Executioner, there's a good chance you didn't heal up and save after you beat Bleigock.
* ''VideoGame/SoulBlazer'' has Solid Arm as the first boss (who becomes the {{Superboss}} in ''VideoGame/IllusionOfGaia''). Until then, you can mostly just breeze through the first level, but then suddenly the boss is there and his triple-fireball attacks deal some heavy damage, are unstoppable, and fire almost non-stop. You need a decent tactic to get him when his guard is down. It also doesn't help because unlike ''Illusion of Gaia'', it's possible to somewhat underlevel in ''[=SoulBlazer=]'', making your task even harder.
* The fight with the strippers in the Peppermint Hippo in ''VideoGame/SouthParkTheFracturedButWhole'' becomes this in stage 2; getting to Classi will have her summon Spontaneous Bootay, a plus-sized stripper who acts as an AdvancingWallOfDoom that will one hit kill the New Kid and Captain Diabetes if she gets too close. She attacks on a timer that constantly charges during character turns, is invincible to any and all damage and effects, and all the other strippers start adding knockback to their attacks to drive the heroes back towards Bootay. The player must act fast and keep moving or be [[AssKicksYou crushed to death by her massive butt]].
* Cademmimu in ''VideoGame/StarWarsTheOldRepublic'' was full of these. While not the first flashpoint after The Esseles or Black Talon, everything between it (Athiss, Hammer Station, Mandalorian Raiders) was full of mechanics that veered between simple tank and spank, ShootTheMedicFirst, or were, after World of Warcraft, simple in nature and a lot of players would easily figure them out. Cademmimu on the other hand, required players to kite mobs around to avoid crowd control or DeathByAThousandCuts and pay attention to environmental hazards. The final boss of Cademmimu was a ''notorious'' newbie trap in the day, as he would make 3/4ths of the stage an almost instant death trap, forcing the players to run over to the safe segment.
* ''VideoGame/SuikodenI'': Almost everyone agrees that the Zombie Dragon wasn't just a hard boss for the level, it's a really hard boss in general. [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard It attacks your whole team at once, does a large amount of damage, and has a lot of health]]. If anyone in your team dies, or if you don't distribute potions, gem (and odds are, at this point, you don't).
* In ''VideoGame/{{Terranigma}}'', after four towers with [[WarmUpBoss pathetic excuses for bosses]], the fifth tower has a sudden wake-up call in the form of Shadowkeeper, a giant demonic spider/crab hybrid thing. This monstrosity has serious HP and equally serious attacks to match, and going up against it underleveled is suicidal.
* ''VideoGame/TrialsOfMana'':
** At approximately the mid-point of the game, there is a series of seven [[PhysicalGod Benevodons]] that need [[DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu killin']]. They are always of increasing difficulty, but the order is up to you. Regardless, the jump somewhere between the second and fourth Benevodon will always be HUGE. This serves to force you to attain or come close to attaining your first PrestigeClass.
** Zehnoa has considerable spell firepower and two resilient, respawning mooks helping it. It can easily overwhelm a novice, but if you know how to control your fighters and bought power-up items in Beiser beforehand, it'll be a cakewalk.
** The [[RecurringBoss first]] battle against a fused Bil and Ben, which occurs immediately ''after'' the above-mentioned Zhenoa. While the player does get the usual post-boss-battle full heal and has time to open the storage and bring out more items if necessary, this battle can still kick ass. They are the first of enemies that can actually use the higher-tier attacks that the party learn -- specifically, they use Shadow Menace that can become a Ninja-classed Hawkeye's attack. That hits pretty hard, and can easily put a party member into yellow health. And they eventually split into two copies, so they tend to spam Shadow Menace on one member twice, which pretty much spells doom. They also like to use attacks that lower the party's accuracy.
** Machine Golems. These will [[ThatOneAttack quickly teach]] you that direct damage spells are not the GameBreaker they were in [[VideoGame/SecretOfMana the previous game]].
* Qudamah the Jackal can be this for ''VideoGame/TwoWorlds II'' players, as he's very easy to run into by accident while exploring and completing quests in the first act of the game and is considerably stronger than anything else you fought so far. The quest leading up to him is extra deceptive in that it makes you go after a bunch of weak Varns in a mine, lulling you into a false sense of security only to then throw this unholy canine-faced terror at you without warning. Hope you didn't save in the mine by the way (or have a backup save if you did), as you can't get out without killing Qudamah.
* ''VideoGame/{{Undertale}}'' has several:
** Dogamy and Dogaressa are oftentimes the cause of the first death to even more skilled players, due to them being the first enemy that requires use of multiple [=ACTs=] to end the battle peacefully [[spoiler: (Roll Around, Sniff, Pet)]], utilizing blue attacks in close proximity to regular attacks, and their axe attack, which covers most of the bullet board and requires precise movement to dodge.
** Papyrus can be this on all the playthroughs:
*** On a neutral or pacifist route, he is the first enemy to introduce unique combat mechanics in the form of his BLUE attack, as well as the first foe to have a progressively more difficult attack pattern instead of simply repeating two or three attack waves, unlike the previous boss who simply relied on a handful of attacks and vanilla combat mechanics. While he's still not ''difficult'', and the battle can by bypassed if you lose three times, he's never-the-less a pretty sudden warning that bosses from here on out won't be holding your hand or making their attacks miss like Toriel did.
*** On the Genocide route, the same effect is achieved but in the complete ''opposite manner''. For any players justifying their actions under the guise of "self-defense", Papyrus immediately dismantles that excuse by ''[[BadassPacifist refusing to fight you at all]]''. Killing him is the first unambiguously evil action in the Genocide route and is a test to see if players are willing to continue down the path they've set themselves upon.
** Undyne also serves this role no matter which route you take.
*** Players aiming to play as a Pacifist will have to fight a relatively difficult boss with low stats, and must realize that they can't spare her; they'll have to [[spoiler:evade her long enough to get to Hotland and give her water when she collapses from the heat]].
*** Those more willing to resort to violence will be instead faced by increasingly difficult attacks as they stand and fight back, especially if they [[SchmuckBait Challenge her]] to strengthen her attacks. She's also the first boss who doesn't go easy on the player -- unlike Toriel who makes her attacks avoid you when you're weakened, and Papyrus who harmlessly captures you on defeat and spares you outright after three failed attempts, Undyne ''will'' kill you and send you back to your last save if you arse up the fight.
*** Finally, [[VideoGameCrueltyPotential Those who have killed]] everything possible up to this point [[spoiler:will kill her in one hit, like every other boss, only for her to come back as Undyne the Undying, with faster and stronger attacks that will prove a challenge to even a Genocide player, making her one of two challenging battles on that route]].
* ''VideoGame/VagrantStory'' doesn't feature a single ''easy'' boss, but at least the first few don't require much skill beyond picking the right weapon type and not standing right in front of them when they try to hit you. Then, after around 3 hours of gameplay, you finally escape the first dungeon and reach the above-ground part of the city. Including the first ''human'' boss -- a priest general -- two screens away from the dungeon gate. For the first time, you're ''really'' going to need those armor spells, reaction abilities, and risk-reducing potions.
* ''VideoGame/VampireTheMasqueradeRedemption'' had Mercurio, a Cappadocian librarian who was just a little bit overwhelming, as he would chain-cast an area of effect spell that had good chances to affect both of your characters, deal major damage, ''and'' induce a frenzy (i.e. you lose control of the character, who just starts spamming powers and attacks at random). Compounded by the fact that, at this point in the game, you have likely not spent XP to upgrade your vampiric powers... He was, however, tweaked down in a patch and is now quite beatable.
* ''VideoGame/VampireTheMasqueradeBloodlines'' features Bishop Vick, who you can fight very early on. Most of your boss fights up to now have been with melee fighters in areas with lots of cover to hide or disappear behind. Vick, on the other hand, is incredibly fast, wields a shotgun that he's very good with, and even if you run behind the scant cover, he can see through your invisibility power. He's a pushover if you wait to fight him until you've become more powerful, but he will absolutely shred a low-level character, and there's no warning given that he's going to be so hard.
* ''VideoGame/{{Vay}}'' has the battle against Krager's Wind Elemental in Mt. Bole. It can deal two physical attacks per turn and use a variety of lightning-elemental spells on you (including the dreaded Megablast, an AreaOfEffect attack that's almost guaranteed to KO one or both of your {{Squishy Wizard}}s). Not only is it a DamageSpongeBoss with about 5000 HP, but your own magic spells will have little effect on it, so your best options are to keep smacking it with your weapons and hope that it doesn't feel like Megablasting your party.
* The Gnoll Chieftain, the boss of "The Decisive Battle" quest, is many ''VideoGame/{{Vindictus}}'' players' first introduction to just how tough the bosses of the game can get. If you try to take this guy like the rather easy bosses that came before him, you're going to get owned in short order. He is the first boss to make extensive use of smash attacks, which are more powerful than regular attacks, can lay you out with just one hit, and cannot be blocked with Fiona's shield without a special skill that you only learn after defeating him for the first time. His [[CarryABigStick big-ass hammer]] takes off a LOT of HP with its smash attacks, often breaking your armor in the process (and trying to repair your armor with two tons of big red beast bearing down on you is no easy task!). He can also debuff your strength, reducing the effectiveness of your attacks and making it harder to pick things up and hurl them at him. Players taking this guy on must learn to read the boss's behavior in order to determine what's coming so that they can get the hell out of the way, as well as the use of things like spears and chains to stun the boss so that they can get off their combos and do damage before the boss recovers and brings the hammer to bear again. Needless to say, while you ''can'' solo him with difficulty, this guy is best taken with a party that knows what the hell it's doing.
* Tharzog, the first boss in ''VideoGame/WarInTheNorth'' is a nasty surprise for ill-prepared players. He's assisted by hordes of respawning mooks, has a huge amount of health and all his attacks are unblockable. If you haven't mastered dodging attacks and using your abilities then expect to die a lot. Worse still, once you enter the battle there is no way of escaping to buy supplies or repair equipment which can turn a rather tough fight into a gruelling ThatOneBoss.
* ''VideoGame/Warhammer40000RogueTrader'': The final boss of Chapter 1, a Word Bearer Chaos Space Marine. Despite the MassOhCrap it inspires, it isn't ''that'' hard to take down... for a well-built, well-equipped, and well-optimized party. However, parties that have been sleepwalking through the game will struggle to put out enough damage to stop it from destroying the shuttles that will get them off-world [[spoiler:before it becomes a daemon world]].
* The Hellhound at the end of Act I of ''VideoGame/TheWitcher'' is one of these. The player can be easily stunned by it while its pack of barghests chomp away at their leisure, even with strong Group attack skills. One good blast of Aard can set up a one-shot kill, a feat impossible with later bosses. The battle also shows that some allies can be unkillable in battle. It also shows just how helpful alchemy is, as the right oils and potions can make the boss a walk in the park.
* ''VideoGame/TheWitcher2AssassinsOfKings'' involves many different mid-bosses, who will clean the floor with you if you don't prepare before fights and learn fast:
** The Kracken mid-boss is an unholy combination of giant stomping tentacles and nauseating venom. If you didn't do as a Witcher does and prepare before the fight, you have to learn to trap and dodge the beast's super-tentacles in mid-progression, and avoid its near-fatal and blinding poison. Even with the preparation, the fight is the first real enemy encounter in the game that is alien and overpowering.
** Mid-boss Letho is one hell of a fight. By this point, you have to know how a Witcher prepares, fights, and improvises, because Letho will do the same. As his [[GeniusBruiser game description implies]], Letho will make preparations with a mana shield to prevent slamming on his weak spots (he becomes invincible for about twenty seconds), and THEN charges in because you literally can't do damage to him, and will use 'frag grenade' bombs if you decide to run away and attack from a distance. He's a powerful fighter, and even if you play dirty he'll still be a major threat from a distance because of his mastery of elemental magic and bombs. You either have to be a good enough duelist to render his preparations useless, or be constantly alert for magic attacks and incoming grenades.
** The optional boss in Act III will grind you alive if you decide to fight him. You've mastered everything except an attack by a freaking field commander. If you don't deal with the gargoyle reinforcements, he'll pummel you with fire magic. And all of this is considered a prelude to the giant dragon you'll have to fight as the final boss!
* ''VideoGame/TheWitcher3WildHunt'':
** Nithral of the Wild Hunt walks the line between this and ThatOneBoss, as he will kick your teeth in if you're not properly prepared and still comes early enough in the game to pose a real challenge for you, especially if you haven't yet mastered the art of dodging and alchemy preparation. Adding to that, you meet him right after defeating a Mid-Boss and your health may already be drained. Now, imagine a gamer who still had no idea that potions could be replenished via meditating and you've won yourself [[SomeDexterityRequired some Lessons, learned the hard way]].
** The ''Hearts of Stone'' expansion made its combat harder and more tactically involving than the base game's-- even the new regions' basic wildlife (like the wild boars) forced players to use different tactics than they would've when fighting wolves in Velen--but the "Frog Prince" in Oxenfurt's sewers ''really'' punishes players who've gotten too used to the base game's "Quen, Dodge, Repeat" strategy.
* Xord in ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles1'', specifically his first phase, serves simultaneously as this and ThatOneBoss, being the only time in the game that you'll really have to knuckle your way through a Mechon fight without being able to use the eponymous MacGuffin to its full effect. If you are not properly leveled, and haven't mastered chain attacks, well, you'd better fix that, or you're not getting past the Ether Mine. Thankfully, you only need to bring down a handful of his HP before the battle transitions to the much-easier second phase. This serves to make sure the player has sufficiently learned how to manage their team, a skill that will be needed for the rest of the game.
* The [[spoiler:Wrothian]] definitely fit the bill in ''VideoGame/XenobladeChroniclesX'', as this is the first story boss since [[MiniMecha Skells]] became available that forces you to fight your opponent on foot, and will punish players who may have neglected their on-foot builds just because [[CurbStompBattle their Skell could easily destroy most foes smaller than them]]. They are all extremely fast, extremely tough and [[spoiler:Ga Jiarg]] has a OneHitKill move to boot. [[spoiler:And then they get into Skells, where they are just as quick but even harder to kill, and while they do allow you to use your Skell in this phase, it may tell you that it's time to replace your starting Skell]].
* There are a number of examples in the early chapters of ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles2'':
** For Chapter 2, the fight against Morag is a step up from the previous boss fights. While Dughall was complacent with his Blowdown attacks which can be prevented with a wind blade combo, Morag is a great deal more unpredictable, and can last quite a bit longer.
** At the end of Chapter 3 is a fight against Malos, Akhos, and their blades. Either Malos will taunt your party into wasting attacks on his beefy setup, or Akhos will lock your blades out, costing you the chance to use them in combat.
** Lila's a lot tougher than she looks. Her second fight in Chapter 4 might bring unprepared players to a standstill. She has many counters and shields, and becomes a lot more aggressive when she TurnsRed. A chain attack finisher with plenty of preparation might make the difference between victory and death.
* ''VideoGame/{{Xenogears}}'':
** Redrum is notorious for giving players grief, to the point of ThatOneBoss territory if they haven't taken the time to not only invest the time in building their deathblows and the required grinding to gain access to them, using spells that increase resistance to elemental attacks and building the AP for the combo command. He has more health than the previous two bosses ''combined'' (and they were gear battles, to boot), but he also has an attack which can one-shot a party member and heal him for the same amount of damage he deals, a fire attack that hits the entire party (and heals him) and his physical attacks hit hard.
** Calamity is the first boss in the game that isn't playing around. By this point, you have access to your first Gear upgrades, and Bart's Wild Smile ether technique. This is the game's way of forcing you to do more than simply spam X attacks. Try that on Calamity and it will ''thoroughly'' wreck your shit. Also, if you didn't do what the characters suggested you do and upgrade your Gears earlier (namely their engines), you won't stand a chance.
** The gear fight against Dominia is kinder, but also pretty painful, as it is the first gear boss where healing the gears becomes possible, making it essential to not only ''equip'' the one you got onto Fei's gear, but learn how to balance Fuel for healing, damage and boosting the gear's speed, while taking her out and the add (which does heavy damage if you fail to, hence the boost). Fuel availability is still at a premium at this point.
* ''VideoGame/YakuzaLikeADragon'' has two noteworthy ones:
** [[spoiler:Reiji Ishioda, piloting a wrecking ball-equipped crane, is the boss of Chapter 9. You have fought a similar opponent before with the Excavator in Chapter 6, but this time it's tougher, deals massively more damage with attacks that usually cover a massive AOE, and still have all the resistances and attack restrictions of non-human enemies. Passing this fight is effectively a test to see if the player is able to work with a tanky opponent that regularly dishes out near one-hit-kill attacks]].
** [[spoiler:Goro Majima and Taiga Saejima, the ClimaxBoss of Chapter 12. Both of them hit hard, have multiple phases, and cover each other with non-overlapping weaknesses. They are also noticeably over-levelled compared to where your party should be at this point in the game, which is a hint that you really should give the recently-unlocked [[PeninsulaOfPowerLeveling Sotenbori Battle Arena]] a try. Beating Majima and Saejima demand that you have a well-balanced party capable of targeting both of their weaknesses, with both strong single-target and crowd attacks, and that you don't neglect your items and support abilities]].
* ''VideoGame/YourBizarreAdventure'' (a ''Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventure'' FanGame) stops pulling punches once the player fights [[Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventureGoldenWind Fugo]]. His [[FightingSpirit Stand]]'s power creates massive poison clouds that damage you over time, and he has a habit of [[RapidFireFisticuffs barraging]] you afterwards to keep you trapped in there. Defeating him requires a significant amount of agility and knowledge of the game's [[VideoGameDashing dash]] mechanic, something not necessary for any previous boss.
[[/folder]]

** World 4 as a whole represents a DifficultySpike in [=DKC2=], but the boss, King Zing, drives the point home. Despite the fact that he's a mid-game boss, he represents an entirely different challenge than any boss in either the first or second Donkey Kong Country games. To wit, he's the first boss in the ''series'' that is fought while riding an Animal Buddy (namely, Squawks the Parrot; [=DKC3=] would later have two bosses fought with Ellie the Elephant and Enguarde the Swordfish), let alone a buddy that had only been available for a few levels at this point, the only boss in the game that does not revolve around evading attacks until a convenient barrel or cannonball spawns, the first boss in the series that is invulnerable aside from one weak point (in this case, the stinger), and only the second boss in the series, second only to the K. Rool fight in the first game, that has multiple stages. While the second stage is decidedly easy, the first stage is highly irritating; hitting the weak point requires precision timing, aim, and positioning, as HitboxDissonance makes it difficult to hit the target while not crashing into Zing yourself. Worse, he becomes invulnerable every two hits and breaks his predictable flying pattern to chase the player while spewing an increasingly fast volley of spines in every direction. Fortunately, there's a GoodBadBug that can allow the player to defeat the first stage without leaving the (mostly) safe corridor you start in, though this requires a good deal of patience.

*** The boss of Dark Palace, the Helmasaur King. The bosses of the Ligt World, Agahnim included, were pretty straightfoward and required only to do one thing. The Helmasaur King, on the other hand, is a bit more complex: you need to break his armor first with either the magic hammer or the bombs, and once its weak point is exposed, hit it with the sword or preferably arrows. All of it, while trying to dodge its brutal attacks. This is to show that bosses from this point onwards can't be just beaten with a single trick, or have more than one phase that requires different tools and/or tactics.

* ''VideoGame/MissionImpossibleKonami'': The first actual boss fight in the third mission is incredibly hard. You have to fight a teleporting, [[DopplegangerSpin duplicate-creating]] ninja on a [[TemporaryPlatform crumbling floor.]] You can either try to deal enough damage to him, which can be tough as he spams you with shuriken, or make a section of floor collapse under him, which is easier said than done with how he teleports around.

* Myth/IrishMythology, The Battle of Ventry: While all the early clashes with [[GodEmperor Daire Donn's]] forces were tough, with several of his champions and generals being worthy foes, it wasn't anything The Fianna couldn't handle. However, that's when The King of the World sends out [[OneManArmy Dolar Dorbha.]] While The Fianna initially brush off his challenge to face 100 of them at once as empty bravado, Dolar Dorbha quickly proves his prowess by [[CurbStompBattle killing all 100 without taking a single wound.]] He then proceeds to kill 100 Fianna a day for 3-5 days without showing any signs of slowing down. It's not until Gall, Prince of Ulster, comes to their aid and pulls a TakingYouWithMe on Dolar Dorbha that he's able to be overcome. It's after this encounter that we see The Fianna start gathering allies from all over Ireland[[note]] And in some versions, even as far as Scotland)[[/note]] and [[HomeOfTheGods The Otherworld]] for the oncoming battles. This also the beginning of a significant DifficultySpike, as the champions and generals that follow are considerably more dangerous going forward and do considerable damage to The Fianna and their allies before being defeated.

* ''WebAnimation/ExtraCredits'' discusses this in "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EitZRLt2G3w Balancing for Skill]]." It's presented as a necessary corollary to the SkillGateCharacter. It's good to have an easy strategy to help the player get their feet under them and succeed in the first stretch of the game, but that'll become a GameBreaker if you can go through the entire game with that strategy. So, the alternative is to provide a challenge that the SkillGatecharacter can't beat, forcing the player to diversify their strategies and get good at the game.