Ground Pound

"Your Thruster-Pack includes the new Power Slam feature! Just press R1 during a jump to enjoy your new destructive capabilities."

— Helpdesk Lady, Ratchet & Clank (2002)

Essentially the more powerful relative of the Goomba Stomp, this is a near obligatory basic combat maneuver that involves the Player Character jumping, ducking, or crouching in the air, and then forcefully smashing/pounding/diving directly into the ground. Is also a common way of activating switches. If the attack sends out a wave of damaging energy, then it's a Shockwave Stomp.

This move is similar to the Double Jump and the Air Dash but in a downward direction. It tends to be mutually-exclusive with Falling Damage and does not harm the Player Character despite sending them plummeting. Don't think too hard about how any of it works.

Practically a staple of 3D platformers, but by no means limited to that one genre.

It is also a favorite boss tactic, often used by big and powerful bruisers who will leap up and off the screen before coming down upon your character unless he or she manages to get out of the way in time (usually the main warning the Player Character will get is a Shadow of Impending Doom upon them moments before impact).

Not to be confused with:

1. Ground and Pound, a Mixed Martial Arts tactic that involves taking an opponent to the ground using a takedown or throw, obtaining a top, or dominant, position, and then striking the opponent repeatedly.
2. Operation Ground and Pound, by DragonForce.
3. Hammered into the Ground, where a character is literally driven into the ground, usually feet first.

Sister Trope of Ground-Shattering Landing.

See Ground Punch, when this is done with the fists, and Sword Plant, when this is done with a sword. Often intersects with Ass Kicks You or Belly Flop Crushing.

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Examples:

Action Adventure

• Advent Rising: Once his superhuman melee skills are upgraded, Gideon Wyeth can perform a Seismic Pound.
• Castlevania: Various protagonists can do this, usually after getting the double jump ability. With the right timing, a mid-air "stomp" can sometimes get you up to platforms you shouldn't be able to reach yet. Soma in Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow only gets this ability from an enemy (usually it is inherent with double jumping), and in Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow, the damage the drop kick does depends on how long you fall for. So get the Medusa Soul and drop kick, then float in the air for ages using the soul, then let him drop for high damage. It's not always useful, but it's cool as hell. It's not entirely a ground pound though, as you can use it to bounce off enemies and even chandeliers and candles.
• Hollow Knight: Soul Master uses the Desolate Dive skill during his fight, teleporting above the knight before slamming into the ground and causing a shockwave. After defeating, the knight gains the same ability (but without the teleportation), allowing the player to spend a charge of Soul to plunge downward in a charge that causes signficant damage to any enemy in their way and smashes through breakable floors. This can later be upgrade to a stronger version, the Descending Dark.
• The Legend of Zelda:
  • The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask: This is a special ability gained when you get the Goron Mask. In Goron form, Link can crouch and then do a brief jump to land onto the floor with great impact, which is good to attack nearby enemies and press big switches.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild: If you're underneath a Hinox's hindquarters, they'll jump and try to smash you underneath. For Stalnox, this becomes Hoist by His Own Petard, as at half health or lower, this causes them to temporarily crumble, dislodging their eye.
• The Simpsons Hit & Run: Everyone that you control can do this. Its only uses are on either breakables in the environment (for coins and wanted level) and innocent bystanders (for wanted level only). It actually doesn't reduce your falling damage... because there is no damage to humans.
• [PROTOTYPE]: Two-fisted, stomp, elbow drop... oh, and like a bunker buster. The last one is kinda hard to aim, but afterwards, the LZ tends to be clear.
• Dual Hearts: Tumble the Baku has the creatively named "Megaton Buns", used both to attack and activate switches.
• Tokobot: Bolt activates switches by jumping and dropping over, while his tokobots do a formation stomp around him.
• Shadow Complex has such an ability when you start to assemble the power suit about halfway through the game. It is just one of the features you get, but it's never required to proceed further.
• Messiah: If possessing a Behemoth, whenever you jump and land, everyone in the vicinity fall down and get stunned.

Action Game

• God of War. Slight variation in that you can Charge it, and can perform it on the ground (where it's the shockwave and not the collision that does the work.)
• Spider-Man: Friend or Foe : One simple move from jumping, shoot a webline to the floor, yank downward, and pound the ground with a moderately ranged shockwave.
• Transformers: Devastation has a unique take on this, in that the Autobots perform this by transforming into vehicles mid-air, with Grimlock taking a more traditional approach. It can be used as both an attack and as a means of un-earthing hidden items.
• Burrito Bison has his "Rocket Slam", which has several uses — it prevents him from losing speed on contact with the floor, it protects him from the usual consequences of hitting police gummies (since hitting them with a rocket slam doesn't count), and if he hits an explosive gummy, it amplifies the boost he normally gets.
• The Matrix: Path of Neo a few examples of this during in-game cutscenes, whenever he lands it causes the SWAT team to stagger off balance.

Beat Em Up

• All physical classes in Dragon's Crown can perform different kinds of Ground Pounds when they do a Down Attack in mid-air. Fighters will perform a Sword Plant when armed or a Ground Punch when unarmed, Amazons will swing down with their spears when armed or perform a butt stomp when unarmed, Dwarves will do a Rolling Attack, and Elves will drop down with a foot stomp.
• Wulverblade: A mid-air down attack will send the Player Character crashing downwards and planting their sword in the ground.

Driving Game

• Padre Destino in Vigilante 8: Second Offense has an underground Ground Pound. He goes subterranean, tunnels to the target, and erupts from the ground, emitting a shockwave that blows nearby enemies away.

Endless Running Game

• Bendy in Nightmare Run: Bendy and his friends can kill mooks that get too close by jumping in the air and stomping down on them.

Fighting Game

• Many of the characters in the Super Smash Bros. games have something to this effect. Yoshi, Bowser, King Dedede, and Sonic (with the custom special "Stomp") do this in the traditional manner, and Kirby simply turns into one of many possible forms (rock, spike ball, Thwomp, Lip's garbage block). But beware: You can ground pound off the edge of the map and lose a life.
• Potemkin in Guilty Gear.
• The Mortal Kombat series might have introduced ground pounds to fighting games, with the Shokan warriors Goro, Kinaro and Sheeva being the primary users of this move. In Armageddon's Konquest mode, Taven can use his version to, yes, trigger switches on the floor. Jax is the most well-known user of this move, using it since his original debut.
• Goro Daimon from The King of Fighters.
• C. Viper from Street Fighter IV.
• Many fighters in PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale, particularly Fat Princess and Sweet Tooth. Parappa's is actually a downward-advancing Spam Attack and Kratos' Barbarian Hammer slam mainly has priority in front of him instead of below. Also, Sir Daniel's Hammer can be used on the ground or in the air, and has the benefit of launching enemies into the air.

First Person Shooter

• In Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel! all main characters receive this wondrous ability thanks to the setting's weak moon gravity and a mysterious device on their shoulder. It is augmented with a hearty dose of Shockwave Stomp, which staggers enemies and breaks their forcefield-helmets for a short time, making them gasp for air (acceleration is constant and stomp reaches greater proportions with longer falls). The maneuver is described in-game as done specifically with one's butt, and is officially called butt-stomping.
• Deus Ex: Human Revolution features the Icarus landing system which activates if Adam falls from a dangerous height, if you have the augmentation that is. While falling ,the player has the choice to make him smash the ground which releases a shockwave that staggers nearby people.
• Several of the Jedi heroes in Star Wars: Battlefront II can do this, even leaving a black scorch mark on the ground. Jedi in LEGO Star Wars do this, too.
• Halo 5: Guardians: The name of one of the new Spartan abilities, with a corresponding medal. If you are above an enemy, you can jump, "charge up", quickly target an area, and hit them from above. In multiplayer, it will severely deplete the shields and health of a fully shielded Spartan, allowing them to be finished off quickly. A Spartan with less than full shields will be killed outright, and the splash damage will kill or damage any enemies within a certain radius, making it possible to kill more than one enemy in one ground pound. However, a player with acute hearing can potentially hear the "charge up" and move out of the way, and hovering in the air before ground pounding can render you vulnerable to enemy fire (killing an enemy while they're in the middle of a Ground Pound gets you the Starkiller medal).
• The protagonist in REAVER can ground pound to crush the enemies below. Holding the button will create a shockwave, sending lighter enemies up in the air. Ground pound also has utility to gain a downwards boost. Do it next to a wall and you can Wall Jump at very high speeds.
• V1 from ULTRAKILL has the ability to ground pound, damaging enemies below. Holding down the crouch button once V1 reached the ground causes a shockwave at the cost of stamine that sends many enemies in the general area up in the air. Those directly under V1 get messily stomped, and the ensuing geyser of blood you initiate makes it a very good healing move.

Hack And Slash

• Barbarians in Diablo II have Leap and Leap Attack skills. Both create circular shockwaves that knock enemies back.
• Diablo III barbarians also have the Leap skill. The Might of the Earth armor set, with a build colloquially known as "Leapquake," makes use of Leap along with an item called Lut Socks that creates an earthquake where the barbarian lands.
• There are two ways of doing this in Drakengard. The first and most obvious way is to be using Seere and have him command Golem to destroy everything in front of him, and then watch the fun. The second way is to start a running charge, jump, and attack, in which the protagonist sends out a circular shockwave around him when he lands. This second move is almost completely useless.
• Heroes of the Storm has this as one of Sonya's ultimate abilities. Instead of shockwaves, it causes the ground to shatter upwards to create a makeshift wall around her and anyone unlucky enough to be her target.
• Magicka has a boss who will do this.
• Minecraft Dungeons: The leapleaves from the Jungle Awakens DLC use this as a heavy attack. When they start pounding their chest, they'll charge towards the player or any of their allies and do a small hop in the air before slamming their arms into the ground. On some occasions, they'll become immobile for a few seconds after using this attack, giving the player a chance to get some hits in.
• Common move in the Samurai Warriors and Dynasty Warriors series. The area of effect is usually very small, but the AI frequently uses it to knock down players who stick too close to an enemy officer. Oh, and in the Samurai Warriors series, it's one of the few ways to reveal a burrowing ninja.

MMORPGs

• Champions Online used to have this if you bought the Cannonball advantage for Havoc Stomp, but the notoriously buggy advantage was eventually removed.
• City of Heroes had this on release for their Super Strength powerset in the form of Foot Stomp, which later had an alternative animation option that used one's fist instead of their feet. Later, the Kinetic Melee powerset had a similar attack in the form of Burst.
• In Conqueror's Blade, the Shortsword-and-Shield hero class has an ultimate move called Thunderstruck. Your character leaps into the air and slam his shield down on the ground, producing a shockwave that sends enemies flying outward.
• Guild Wars 2 gives us the Warrior's Stomp and the Elementalist's Earthquake, making your character jump into the air and slam into the ground, whether a ten foot tall Norn, a five hundred pound charr, or a tiny, tiny asura.
• World of Warcraft: Warriors have this in the form of Heroic Leap.

Party Game

• Mario Party:
  • Mario Party: There's a 1-player minigame minigame actually named after this trope. In it, the player has to stomp onto tree trunks with flat tops to win while avoiding the trunks with pointy ones. The catch is that butterflies stand onto these tops, so it's important to remember which trunks can be stomped (the player has a brief time to look at all of them before the butterflies arrive).
  • Mario Party 2: In the minigame Totem Pole Pound, the players are place at the top of multi-colored totem poles. The objective is to ground-pound the poles to lower their height and reach the floor. The first player to return to land wins.
  • Mario Party 4:
    • Various minigames enable this as a move, but its biggest role is in the minigame The Great Deflate. There are two pairs of characters, and in each the two players have to ground-pound the inflatable Thwomp they're standing on to completely deflate it. The first pair to do so wins, but if they don't manage to do it after 30 seconds then the minigame ends in a tie.
    • In Story Mode, the minigame Goomba's Chip Flip settles a duel between the Party Star of Goomba's Greedy Gala and the Goomba host. Twenty chips are placed in a casino board, and both characters have to ground-pound them to collect them and earn their worthy points (though a few chips have negative values). The first character to reach 50 points wins.
  • Mario Party 5: There are many minigames where you can perform this move, but the most explicit instance is in the minigame Ground Pound Down. All characters have to crush the ground's rocks to reach the bottom and unleash an underground source of water. What makes this minigame tricky is that, while doing a tall jump before the pound allows one to gain enough strength to crush several soft rocks at once, the effect of the pound's height is the same for the harder ones (as they require three pounds each), so it's best to deal with those by performing three short, quick pounds to save time. Whoever unleashes the underground water wins, but if nobody reaches the bottom after 90 seconds, it will end in a tie.
  • Mario Party 6:
    • In the minigame Pop Star, three characters have to fill up a balloon with as much air as possible until it explodes, and do so by repeatedly pounding the pumps they stand on. The solo player has the same objective, but relies on a hammer instead.
    • The minigame Pixel Perfect has two teams of characters competing in a matching challenge. The screen at the center will show a pixelated image and then zoom it, making it so some pixels are dark green and the others are bright green, and the objective for each team is to ground-pound the tiles in their area to swap their colors so they match the pixel pattern shown. The team that manages to do this first will earn a point, and the next zoomed area of the image is shown; if no team does the match in 20 seconds, then the zoomed part of the image is replaced by another regardless. The first team to score two points wins; but if neither team manages to do so after five rounds, the minigame ends in a tie.
    • The minigame Smashdance has all the characters use this move to stomp crystal tiles whenever these glow. Each stomp is worth one point, but it will only count before the tile's glow fades out completely. The character who scores the highest after 30 seconds wins.
    • The minigame O-Zone has two dueling characters perform ground pounds onto orange-colored tiles in a factory to unveil red O's. Some of the tiles may instead have a blue X, and it will electrocute and briefly stun the character who unveils it. Other tiles have nothing drawn, and thus have no effect whatsoever. The character who stomps three tiles with red circles first wins.
  • Mario Party 7: There are several minigames where this move is performed, but the most explicit cases are the following:
    • Boxing Day. Three players have to ground-pound all 16 tiles of their area to reveal a Bob-omb's image, while the fourth player uses the Mic to command attack moves to the large robot to knock away the trio. The solo player wins if they manage to eliminate the whole trio, while the trio wins if they manage to fully reveal the Bob-omb's image in the floor by pounding onto all tiles. If neither outcome happens after five minutes, the minigame ends in a tie.
    • Tile and Error. One pair of characters have to ground-pound the floor's tiles to turn them red, while the other pair has to do the same to turn them blue. After 30 seconds, whichever team has the most tiles marked with their color wins; but if both teams have the same number (eight), then the minigame ends in a tie.
    • Cardinal Rule. There are several cards in the floor, each showing a specific mook. The center of the screen will shown a certain mook, and the pairs of characters have to ground-pound the tiles that match that mook; they must make sure to pound the cards showing the exact gesture of the mook (for example, if it's a Bob-omb, then they have to check if its eyes are open or closed). There are three cards showing each mook and a specific gesture of theirs, so the first team to pound two of them will earn a point. The first team to score three points wins; if 10 seconds pass in any round without either team pounding two cards showing the requested mook and gesture, then the minigame ends in a tie.
  • Mario Party 9: Many of the mini-games allow players to perform a Ground Pound by pressing the jump button in the middle of a jump.
    • In Wiggler Bounce, players must use their ground pound ability to stomp on Wiggler's segments to score points.
    • Fungi Frenzy is divided into three rounds where players use their Ground Pound ability to collect Mushrooms from ? panels on the ground. Before the each round starts, each panel will show how many Mushrooms they contain, and the player who collects the most is the winner.
    • In Whomp Stomp, all players that manage to avoid getting crushed by the Whomp in each round will climb up onto its back, where they can Ground Pound it to damage it and score points.
    • Double Pounder challenges two players to pound eight colored panels to create a path to chase after Bowser Jr. However, the panels are color-coded, and require both players to pound the two panels of the same color simultaneously in order to be activated.
    • In Sand Trap, two players must work together to make Bowser Jr. fall down through a grid of sandy blocks. The grid has 16 blocks in a 4x4 square, with one player placed on a row of four switches on both the X and Y axis of the grid. Players can ground pound the platform adjacent to a row or column of the grid, and if both players pound at the same time, the block highlighted in the cross between the two will disappear. Players defeat Jr. by removing the block that he's standing on, but he doesn't stay still, so players will have to remove enough blocks so he won't have anywhere to run.
  • Mario Party: Island Tour: In the minigame Claiming The Cube, the characters are located in a minuscule cube-shaped planet, and each of its faces has four panels. When the minigame starts, some of the panels will begin glowing, and the objective is to stomp them with a ground pound while they're in that state. Each character earns points by pounding these panels, though they can also squash other characters to sabotage them. After 30 seconds, the character who earns the highest score wins.
  • Mario Party 10:
    • Bowser's High Dive consists of three rounds where Bowser will jump high up into the air before dropping onto Team Mario and attempting to sit on them. There are two platforms, one on the left and one on the right, and Bowser will land on the one his player chooses, though he can change which one he will aim for in mid-jump. Team Mario has to do their best to predict which platform he will land on, and stand on the opposite side, but they can determine how far up Bowser is based on his shadow. Any players that Bowser lands on will lose two hearts.
    • In Found It? Pound It!, there are nine panels on the floor in a 3x3 grid, and a large screen on the wall. The screen will show a pattern of different items, and players run around the room and press the 2 button twice to stomp on the panels that match the pattern on the screen.
  • Mario Party: Star Rush: Certain minigames give the players the ability to jump into the air and slam down by pressing the jump button twice.
    • Mega Dry Bones's Femur Fever requires the players to use their Ground Pound ability to power up cannons to fire at Dry Bones.
    • In Bowser Jr.'s Pound For Pound, the arena is covered in flashing buttons that the players must ground pound in order to score points while avoiding Jr.'s attacks. Each button is deactivated once it's been pounded, so players must hit each button once in order to finish the battle.
    • Petey Piranha jumps up into the air and attempts to slam down on the players during his boss fight in Petey Piranha's Shell Smackdown. However, the shock from his ground pounds shakes the surrounding trees so much that it causes Koopa shells to rain down, which the players can throw at him to deal damage.
  • Mario Party: The Top 100: This is a prevalent move in certain minigames from the Action category, such as Tidal Toss (3, where a solo character pounds the boat they're in to send tidal waves to the rivals to push them away) and Defuse or Lose (5, where pounding over a fuse delays its arrival to the King Bob-omb and avoid its explosion for as long as possible). Interestingly, the minigame The Great Deflate (4) is classified within the Skill category instead.

Platform Game

• Furwind: The Player Character seems to have this in his moveset. It can be useful for destroying platforms he needs to get under.
• Hextech Mayhem: Player Character Ziggs can slam into the ground, which serves as a way to kill enemies, as well as a way to reach the ground fast.
• Pac-Man has the "Butt-Bounce" in the Pac-Man World games. In World 3 it is amplified and can do a Shockwave Stomp every third bounce.
• Pizza Vs. Skeletons: You can make the pizza perform one by tapping the screen while it is in mid-air.
• Raccoo Venture: This is one of the moves you start the game out with.
• Shantae:
  • Shantae: Risky's Revenge: The Elephant transformation gains one of these if you hunt out its super attack in Baron Desert.
  • Shantae: Half-Genie Hero: The Elephant transformation gains one of these if you start the Geneaologist's quest, since he gives the power.
  • The Scimitar also functions this way in Shantae and the Pirate's Curse.
• Murray's Thunder Flop in the Sly Cooper games.
• Smashroom: The Player Character can perform this move by jumping in the air, and then pressing the down button.
• Stitchy In Tooki Trouble: Tooki has the Slam move. Press B while in mid-air to cause Tooki to shoot downwards and Slam the ground.
• Super Mario Bros.:
  • Trope Namer and possible Trope Codifier: Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island. While the player first got access to it with the bull helmet Power-Up of Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3, Yoshi's Island was where it became a key maneuver that could be used freely, and afterwards this application of the move migrated to most of the other Mario platform games, including Super Mario 64, Super Mario Sunshine (in which, if you do it from high enough, Mario's butt actually starts burning up from reentry), all New Super Mario Bros. games (in fact, in New Super Mario Bros. Wii, if all the players Ground Pound at the same time in multiplayer mode, it sends a shockwave with a nice chime that hits all enemies on the screen), the Paper Mario games, all the Yoshi's Island sequels, Mario Party games, Super Mario Galaxy and Super Mario Galaxy 2 (which both allow you to pull off a homing Ground Pound), Super Mario 3D Land and Super Mario 3D World, Super Mario Maker and Super Mario Maker 2 (only in the levels based on New Super Mario Bros. U, unless a giant Goomba Shoe is worn in a level based on Super Mario Bros. or Super Mario Bros. 3, or a Dry Bones Shell is born in levels from those styles as well as Super Mario World) and Super Mario Odyssey.
  • Super Mario Bros. 3:
    • Roy Koopa and Ludwig von Koopa, the bosses of Worlds 5 and 7, respectively, have this method of attack.
    • The Sledge Bros. in World 4 do as well.
    • Lastly, Bowser does this in the final battle, and that may be the precursor of this move (you have to get him to Ground Pound the bricks away so he falls into the Bottomless Pit below). It became one of his attacks in Super Smash Bros. Melee and onward, but was renamed the Bowser Bomb. He retains this attack in Super Mario Maker and its sequel, but only when fought in the Super Mario Bros. 3 game style.
  • Wario uses this in the Wario Land series. He first uses it against Mario in Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins. Later becomes something the player can use when powered up as "Bull Wario", and after that it becomes one of his standard moves. In one game, it is used for a similar purpose as Sonic's Bounce Attack. In another, if Wario falls from high enough, he can crash through blocks that are otherwise unbreakable.
• Banjo-Kazooie:
  • The first game has a rather painful-looking variation in which Kazooie slams face-first into the ground as Banjo drops down on top of her. In Banjo-Tooie it is upgraded to a Drill Ground Pound. The original version still exists...but is only used twice in this game thanks to the changed mechanics.
  • Banjo-Tooie: Klungo attacks this way when drinking the red potion and growing large. As does Weldar over the course of his boss battle (and his version is a lot stronger).
• Various games in the Donkey Kong universe:
  • In Donkey Kong 64, it turns out to be the only potion ability from Cranky Kong that applies to all Kongs (the other potion abilities are character-specific); it can be upgraded twice. Some bosses also have this within their attack repertoires (and due to their size, it comes along with Shockwave Stomp).
  • In Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, Cranky Kong can do this, DuckTales style.
• In some designated cases, the eponymous character of Conker's Bad Fur Day can do this when B is pressed while in mid-air, briefly turning into an anvil in the process. Two of the bosses (Haybot and Uga Buga) have this attack as well.
• Grey Area (2023): Collecting the hidden coins in Chapter 2 will result in Hailey taking the Pow Cereal box with her into the Grey Area. Holding this box lets Hailey violently slam into the ground at high speeds. This can be used to break through fragile floorboards or escape the gravitational field of black holes.
• Jak and Daxter: As "normal" Jak you can jump and dive to the ground fists first. As Dark Jak jumping and hitting the ground with your fist creates a blast of Dark Eco that damages/kills everything on screen (including your teammates and the people you're supposed to protect).
• Mega Man 8: Duo, while fighting him during the intermission stage, has an attack where he will yell, advance towards Mega Man's position, and slam his big fist into the ground, creating a large energy blast.
• In the Mega Man X games, Zero has had a few moves of this sort, most notably his Giga Attack. In addition, Guts Man (Mega Man), Hard Man (Mega Man 3), Stone Man (5), Concrete Man (9), and Flame Mammoth (Mega Man X) all have "seismic" attacks where they slam into the ground very hard, causing Mega Man to lose his balance and fall down stunned if he's on the ground. Hard Man's case is quite odd because Mega Man freezes even if he's in mid-air, giving Hard Man a chance to recover from his upside-down position.
• Vexx has a "Ground Blast", where Vexx halts in midair (yes, it helps avert falling damage) and blasts energy downward.
• Jazz Jackrabbit 2, where it's called a buttstomp.
• Crash Bandicoot gains a Ground Pound attack in his second game, with which he can belly-flop onto unsuspecting enemies or bust open metal-enforced crates that would otherwise seem impenetrable. In the third game, this attack can be upgraded to create a shockwave that can destroy crates from a reasonable distance.
• Garfield's Nightmare: Garfield can perform a stomp attack when the player presses A to jump and then B. It becomes handy to press switches in the ground.
• The titular character of Sonic the Hedgehog could perform something like this with the Bubble Shield powerup in a couple of his games. It was also used to bounce up to platforms that were too high up for a normal jump. Particular examples include:
  • In Sonic Adventure 2, Knuckles used a variation on the move to dig into the ground.
  • Also, Sonic could get an item called the "Bounce Bracelet" to perform the same bouncing maneuver from Sonic 3.
  • Sonic Heroes had a body slam that worked a little like the bounce bracelet (without the height gain in most cases) when used by Big or Vector.
  • In Sonic Unleashed, Sonic can use the Stomp after acquiring the Stomping Shoes (only in the PS360 version; in the WiiS2 version, you have it the whole game). It's used to hit certain ground switches and take out shielded robots.
  • And Secret Rings features a handful of skills that allow Sonic to deal damage to enemies during a jump cancel. Yeah, that translates directly into "ground pound."
  • In Sonic Colors, Sonic can do that move from the beginning of the game. There's also the Blue Cube Wisp, which has a more powerful Ground Pound as its secondary power.
  • Sonic Generations features the now standard stomp attack, but there is an optional equippable skill that you can gain by beating a mission called the Power Stomp, which turns it into a Shockwave Stomp.
  • In the Sonic Advance Trilogy, all of the playable characters except Tails have some variation on it. Sonic gets the bounce attack, Amy a spinning hammer attack, Knuckles the drill claw move from Adventure 2 except without the digging, and Cream a more traditional Mario-style hip drop. Tails eventually gets to do a hip-drop style ground pound in Sonic Boom.
  • In Sonic Mania Plus, Mighty, after having shared the same abilities with Sonic and Ray in SegaSonic the Hedgehog, and having functioned as a stand-in for Sonic in Knuckles Chaotix, gets a move called the "Hammer Drop", functioning most similarly to Sonic with the bubble shield, albeit without the requirement of having to have it first, and not having the same amount of bounce as well as smashing anything near the impact zone and certain fragile objects.
• Subverted in Wario Land: Shake It! If the player shakes the controller when a gauge is full, Wario literally pounds the ground (with his fist), stunning all on-screen enemies and knocking down loose objects.
• Psychonauts: Razputin can do this with his telekinetic hand during a jump. In Lungfishopolis (where Raz is the 50-foot tall "monster"), this attack still works, though instead of using his hands, he uses his feet.
• Spyro the Dragon:
  • From the second game onwards, Spyro can pull off a move called a Horn Dive/Headbash. It's often used to activate switches in The Legend of Spyro: A New Beginning, and in Skylanders' Spyro can acquire a similar move as an upgrade.
  • The Legend of Spyro: The Eternal Night: During the first part of his boss battle, Gaul will crouch and suddenly jump in the air to deliver a pound attack with both swords, releasing green shockwaves. He can perform this attack several times in a row, but after each fifth attack he gets stuck, leaving him vulnerable.
• Ratchet & Clank had this in the first game (for switches) when you obtain the Thruster Pack. It was removed in the later games when the Thruster Pack was changed from an upgrade to the Heli Pack to an alternative.
• Prinny: Can I Really Be the Hero?: The Prinnies can use ground pound attacks to stun enemies and get to places normal jumps can't reach. It's all but required to use to defeat the bosses (with the exception of Sir Sweet's second form, who can't be hurt this way), since otherwise, they soak up a whole lot of damage.
• Jett Rocket can do this — and needs to, because it's the only way to activate the end-of-level warps and defeat certain enemies.
• Bram Stoker's Dracula (NES/SMS/GB/GG) used this to smash through ledges.
• Kirby:
  • The Stone Ability, which can turn him into a rock in midair and attack enemies from above. The attack is reused for the Smash Bros. Ability.
  • Metal from Kirby: Squeak Squad is a more typical example, requiring no transformations.
  • Kirby's Epic Yarn has Kirby turn into a weight in midair as a regular attack.
• Kao the Kangaroo: Both Round 2 and Mystery of the Volcano have it. It can be used not only to fight enemies, but also to press switches and the like. Round 2 even has an unlockable upgrade that makes the attack a lot more potent.
• In the Toy Story 2 Licensed Game, Buzz can perform a stomp move to activate switches and springs.
• SpongeBob SquarePants: SuperSponge: The butt bounce is SpongeBob's default attack where he can butt-stomp his enemies and destroy weak floors.
• A Bug's Life lets Flik perform a ground pound to crush enemies and activate switches. He also has the unique ability of holding down the jump button and allowing him to slide across the floor on his bottom. This is also the wasps method of stinging Flik. They will fly directly over him and will try to ground pound him back. (If you actually time it right you can easily ground pound those wasps back).
• Funk Unplugged: Ampy has this abiity. It can allow him to break breakable floors.
• Electronic Super Joy: Ground Pound is the main method of attack. Ground pound makes the player fall into the ground instantly.
• T'ai Fu: Wrath of the Tiger: The Leaping Slam Fist of the Leopard Style evokes this, combining it with the blast-wave from a Shock Wave Stomp for good measure.

Puzzle Game

• Bendy and the Ink Machine's final boss fight of Chapter 4 includes a phase where Boris jumps at Henry, smashing him if he doesn't move out of the way.

Real Time Strategy

• Pikmin:
  • Some enemies in the games can do this to attack Pikmin, and because of how fragile the Pikmin are they can die instantly this way. Emperor Bulblax, the Final Boss of the first game, is so big that its Ground Pound not only kills any unfortunate Pikmin it may end up squashing with, but also depletes as much as half of Olimar's full HP. Luckily, the boss doesn't do this move in the second game.
  • Purple Pikmin are heavy enough to pound the floor when they're thrown, and can stun enemies this way.
• Dawn of War II: Assault Sergeant Thaddeus has the Assault Jump ability, allowing him and his squad to perform a Ground Pound on any enemies you target, knocking them aside. Subverted in the board game, where trying that same maneuver with the same models (a Deep Strike) used to result in the models instantly dying, no matter how flimsy the thing is they landed on. Thanks to a recent core rules change, there's only a 1/3 chance of instant death in this case, but none of the three results of the Mishap Table cause any damage to what you land on.

Role Playing Game

• Sacred has several characters with this, and a couple with no shock waves.
• The protagonists in Wild ARMs 4 and 5 have this as part of their puzzle-solving repertoire (yes, used to pound switches).
• Dragon Age II Warriors have Tremor and Mighty Blow, striking the ground for massive damage or disabling opponents within a radius. Fist of the Maker is a telekinetic version.
• Final Fantasy X: Cindy, eldest of the Magus Sisters (an optional summon) has the Camisade special attack; she is propelled into the air, and hands hard on the opponent. She can't be told to do this directly, however, as the Magus sisters can only be 'influenced' by Yuna to act a certain way in combat.
• Dark Souls — a pair of bosses named Ornstein and Smough have a buttstomp move. Smough gets it when he's small, but if you kill him first and make Ornstein giant, Ornstein will get a superpowered one that also releases a lightning shockwave.
• Dark Souls II — Like its predecessor, there's one boss called the Old Dragonslayer who has a dark-type shockwave ground pound.
• In Elden Ring, you can harness this power yourself with the Ground Slam Art of War, creating a shockwave around where you land. Golden Slam is an alternate version that creates a holy shockwave.
• Fallout 4 lets you do this to any enemy if you have power armor and are falling from a great height (or you have a jet pack)

Roguelike

• In HoloCure, the boss of Stage 1, Giant Smol (sic) Ame's main attack is to leap into the air and ground pound the player, which can be dodged by moving away from her shadow.

Simulation Game

• Too many monsters in MapleStory do this. And the player can perform a Ground Pound if they're a Marauder and if they're in a Super Saiyan-esque form.

Third Person Shooter

• Crackdown lets you ground pound from any height, including off the top of skyscrapers. Brilliantly, the shock wave you create when you hit the ground sends cars, objects, and pedestrians flying.
• Scourge: Outbreak has the "Shockwave" ability built into your character, which releases a rather wide energy circle with each stomp that paralyzes enemies caught in the radius.
• Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine lets you do that when equipped with a jump pack, killing or stunning nearby enemies.

Wide Open Sandbox

• Dead Rising features an aerial stomp attack that can be gained. Aside from its usual ability to instantly decimate undead forces beneath him, it also allows Frank West to make suicidal jumps and be fine thanks to knee drop invincibility.
• In Spider-Man (PS4), Spidey can learn a ground punch ability. It's a touch more justified than most, since Spider-Man uses his webs to pull himself toward the ground much faster than just falling by gravity. Normally it staggers enemies in the impact radius, but it can be upgraded to inflict more damage and knock all foes in the radius to the ground.

Survival Horror

• This is a huge number of tactics used by bosses in Bloodborne. nearly every single boss has some kind of leaping attack where they go high up, then come straight down, with the most notable examples likely being Amygdala and Ludwig the Accursed, the former using the attack like near clockwork which is daunting given its massive size, and the latter nearly instant-killing the player if they fail to avoid it. Because Bloodborne is designed around precise inputs and spot dodges, not realizing the attack is being launched until a second later can be the difference between avoiding the attack and getting your skull squashed like a grape.

Non-video game examples:

Comic Books

• The Incredible Hulk: The Hulk uses this a lot, to the point that not only is this a staple of his in the comics, animations, and the most recent movie, but every game adaptation has him able to do it.
• "Superman and Spider-Man": In order to leave a company meeting to go out and fight Hulk, Clark Kent stomps the floor hard enough to make the building tremble, making everybody believe Hulk is approaching and evacuate the building.
• Most comic characters with Super-Strength have used this move at one time or another to create an earthquake/shockwave and trip up or knock down opponents. Some, like the mutant Arclight and the Inhuman Gorgon, never use any other attack.

Films - Animated

• In Disney's Alice in Wonderland, The Queen of Hearts does this while the cards are dragging off prisoners for painting the roses red. It sends all of the nearby cards falling flat on their faces.
• In The Super Mario Bros. Movie, the first instance Mario does this, he uses it to smash through some blocks on his final and near-successful attempt to finish the obstacle course. He does this again to a group of Koopa Troopas while wiping out Bowser's army with Donkey Kong.

Films - Live Action

• Will Stronghold of Sky High (2005). Also qualifies as a Shockwave Stomp as the planks that make up the gym floor ripple outward.
• Thor does it to a bunch of Frost Giants in the 2011 film. The devastation apparently spreads for miles.

Literature

• Gandalf was planning this in The Hobbit, but at the last second was nabbed out of the sky by Gwaihir.

Live Action Television

• In the title sequence of The Colbert Report, Stephen Colbert takes a running leap with the flag and plants it with a shockwave on landing.

Tabletop Games

• In Champions, a character can use his Leaping movement to counter the damage from a fall.

Web Original

• Pounding the ground to survive a fall is part of Cracked's #9 Science Lesson As Taught by Famous Video Games.

Western Animation

• In the Tom and Jerry episode "Part Time Pal", Mommy Two Shoes does this as she pursues Tom. The entire house remains a wreck.

Real Life

• In trampolining, a move called the seat drop resembles the ground pound in form. The person performing it jumps into the air, and comes down in a sitting position. This is commonly used to get some extra altitude from the rebound, as well as to launch other people on the trampoline upward.

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