Smart Bomb

"Use bombs wisely"

— Peppy Hare, Star Fox 64

Ubiquitous in Shoot Em Ups although it appears in other genres too, this is the screen-clearing attack that gives you a moment of respite from relentless alien attacks and prolific Mook Makers. However, these are extremely rare, making them for emergency use only; in many games, you get two or three per life or per game. Some give you one every so many points. Some are available as a Power-Up.

It goes by many names, but it's most commonly referred to as the Smart Bomb, since it's apparently smart enough to destroy every enemy on screen while leaving your own ship, Attack Drones, allies, and friendly structures untouched. Players might find these Too Awesome to Use. Smart players will learn to "panic-bomb"—that is, bombing at the first sign of danger; it's much better to waste a bomb than to waste an entire life, especially if your bomb stock doesn't carry over to the next life.

Often, but not always, overlaps with Phlebotinum Bomb, which may be used as the in-universe justification for why it doesn't destroy its user or their allies. However, it doesn't have to be a bomb at all, but could just as easily be a magic spell or something else. Smart Bomb is a game-specific trope about a mechanic for clearing the screen of enemies, while Phlebotinum Bomb is a general trope about a bomb that is selective in what it will or won't damage.

Compare Invincibility Power-Up, the usual Platform Game counterpart.

The real-life weapons of the same name bear little resemblance to this definition. In fact, they're almost the opposite, designed to only kill what you aim them at and not anything else.

---

Video game examples

• Adventure Time: All of Marceline and Flame Princess's Imagination moves damage all enemies on screen.
• Azure Striker Gunvolt Series:
  • Gunvolt has his Voltaic Chain, where he runs his enemies through with massive chains which he electrifies.
  • Copen's Shred Storm commands his bits to rapidly fly around the screen, creating a storm of slashes that draws the "claw" kanji. This attack kills all onscreen enemies and significantly damages bosses. In the iX games, he instead has Twin Shredder and CoLossal Maelstrom where he and his sidekick Lola dash around the screen, damaging all enemies.
  • Newcomer Kirin in ASG 3 has Hidden 92nd Rite - Divine Ruin Heresy, a Blade Spam fit for an Iaijutsu Practitioner like her.
• The Binding of Isaac: The Death tarot card, the Necronomicon, and the Sun tarot card (one of its many effects) damage every enemy in the room when used. In Rebirth, black hearts serve this function when depleted.
• In Danganronpa: Ultra Despair Girls, Toko's Slash Lust attacks will usually clear all surrounding enemies instantly.
• The Smart Bomb in Defender (1980) is perhaps the Ur-Example of this trope for arcade games, as well as the Trope Namer.
• In Devil May Cry 4, Lady's Burst Attack serves this purpose. It requires all the energy stored in the DT Gauge, but makes Lady temporarily invincible and blasts nearby enemies with a high-powered attack.
• In Dodge, the power-ups with fire-like trails destroy all enemies on screen.
• In Donkey Kong 64, a Kong's musical instrument can be used to take out Kremlings.
• In Earthworm Jim, the Barn Burner functions as this. When fired, an explosion will cover the whole area, with nearby enemies completely obliterated.
• Gradius's blue capsules activate as soon as you pick them up. Other games have the "Mega Crush", when you pick up enough power ups.
  • Interestingly, Parodius has two varieties of smart bomb: the screen-flashing blue capsules of Gradius, and a one-use giant shockwave attack that can be gained by picking up a blue bell. The former has an instant effect and only works on normal enemies, while latter takes a second to engulf the screen and damages bosses as well.
• Pizza Tower has the Super Taunt, which instantly kills every enemy on screen.
• Plants vs. Zombies:
  • The Doom-Shroom's explosion radius is large enough to blast away zombies.
  • The Shadow Peashooter main plant power in Plants vs. Zombies 2: It's About Time makes it drops a huge shadowy nuke that hits every zombie on the screen for massive damage.
• Geometry Wars has one, which is so powerful it wipes out the background grid and even kills the soundtrack for a moment. The PC clone Grid Wars is much more punishing, as it resets your score multiplier every time you use one.
  • Several types of stages in Geometry Wars Galaxies outright prohibit their use: "Zoo-" (small) stages, "Roc-" (rock) stages, and "Sur-" (survival) stages. You get no bombs at all.
• Injustice 2: Captain Cold's Cryogenic Blast attack creates a wave of intense cold that almost instantly covers the entire screen and freezes the opponent in place, opening them to a full combo followup if they aren't blocking.
• Iji: The Nuke weapon deals heavy damage to all enemies on the screen, by way of nuclear fireball. It can even take out one of the bosses in one hit, if you manage to get it early.
• Ratchet & Clank:
  • When your health increases in Going Commando, you get one of these. Up Your Arsenal changed it so the Smart Bomb happened on every multiple of 10 health.
  • The Zodiac in ''Going Commando". Pull the trigger, electricity begins flying everywhere, the screen turns white, and pretty much every enemy onscreen will be turned to dust.
  • RYNOCIRATOR, which is the max-leveled version of the RY3NO. Pull the trigger, a bunch of red projectiles are fired and combine into one, the screen turns white, and pretty much every enemy onscreen will be turned to dust. Only a few enemies and most bosses can take multiple shots of the weapon.
  • The RYNO VI Protosuit from All 4 One has a really strong Co-op Overload that's enough to obliterate pretty much any onscreen enemy.
• Smart Bombs also exist in Star Fox, although the name varies. They were called Nova Bombs in the original (and did not home in on a target, but instead simply destroy near-everything around them by sheer explosive force), Smart Bombs in Star Fox 64, and simply Bombs in the most recent games.
  • And back to Smart Bombs in Super Smash Bros. Brawl It's odd to see them by another name when all you've played is Brawl and Star Fox 64.
• In many of the Metroid games, you got the Power Bombs as a late-game upgrade. Their range is more than the entire screen (in both the 2D and 3D games), and you can easily get more by killing enemies (by, say, bombing). Fusion variety also has the benefit of gathering any released parasites from the destroyed enemies where the bomb was initially set for easy absorption.
• Mega Man:
  • Mega Man (Classic) has "hits everything on the screen" as one of the more commonly recurring Robot Master weapons. Usually, they have extremely high ammo consumption (as in, usually only seven shots from a full bar, and sometimes even less), but tend to also boast shield-breaking properties, making them good for clearing out rooms of low-health fodder or even the occasional gang of Heavily Armored Mooks. They also tend to have some kind of quirk to them, whether it's to balance them out or just make them more interesting. Given their general properties, they also have a habit of utterly destroying whatever boss is weak to them, since the only challenge ends up being "use it when they aren't on their I-frames." Examples include Rain Flush^note has a delay on its attack, Gravity Hold^note  instantaneous activation and animation, lower damage, doesn't technically kill enemies and therefore doesn't give drops, Centaur Flash^note pretty much the same as Gravity Hold but without the last bit, Astro Crush^note good damage, gives invincibility throughout its long animation, Lightning Bolt^note ditto, Tornado Blow^note much higher ammo consumption than the others, but does much more damage and boosts your jump if used in midair, and Tundra Storm^note only becomes a true screen-clearer with the Power Gear active.
  • Some of the Giga Attacks in the Mega Man X series, both used by either X (with his armors) and Zero with his Special Attacks. Mega Man X8 introduces a third one where you tag in your partner and they perform a Combination Attack that destroys all foes in the vicinity.
  • As a playable character in Mega Man: Maverick Hunter X, Vile can unlock the Necro Burst shoulder weapon, which wipes out all enemies on screen as well as some minibosses. However, it has a very high cost to equip, leaving him with only the weakest arm and leg weapons.
  • The "-nite" type of Hacker Cyber-Elves in the Mega Man Zero series will destroy all weaker enemies.
  • The Model A form of Mega Man ZX Advent has the successor to the Giga Attack, the Giga Crush. There is actually a use for it, in the sense that killing certain bosses with it alone is required for 100% Completion.
  • In Mega Man Network Transmission, GravityMan's Navi chip has him instantly delete smaller viruses on screen.
• The House of the Dead 4 has three screen-clearing grenades per level.
• They have 'em in Typer Shark. Very useful when the piranha are getting a little too numerous.
• Some Capcom games, such as 1942 and Black Tiger, have POW items that, when picked up, destroy all enemies on the screen.
• The potions in Gauntlet and Golden Axe can do this, depending on the toughness of the enemies (and the player's magic level in the former).
• Early Castlevanias had this in the form of a rosario (fancy name for a rosary), but it's a Power-Up Letdown, as it goes off when you touch them, and they almost always appear where there are just a couple enemies you can easily whip out of the way.
  • In Castlevania: Lament of Innocence, you can play as one of the bosses as a bonus player. When you choose him, all the rosario items change to bloody skulls, since he is a vampire.
• The Legend of Spyro: The Eternal Night: In New Game Plus, Spyro use his dark form to unleash a wave that turns all enemies to stone and instantly shatters them.
• The Legend of Zelda:
  • Zelda II: The Adventure of Link has the Thunder spell, which uses half your magic. It's also needed to expose the vulnerable spot in the penultimate boss.
  • The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past has the three medallions, Ether, Bombos, and Quake, which freezes all enemies on the screen, lights them on fire, or affects them the same way as the Magic Powder.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time has Din's Fire, which sets everything around you on fire. Unfortunately, the Keese don't mind being on fire, it just turns them into flying dive-bombing fireballs instead.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild has Urbosa's Fury acting as this in a large local area, allowing Link to obliterate/stun every enemy around him.
• The Touhou games have them and call them spellcards, though they're often just called bombs. They also have counterbombs, which allow you to save yourself from the brink of death by bombing right after getting hit. The eighth game, Imperishable Night, steps it up with "Last Spells" (also known as "deathbombs"), basically giving you an extremely powerful, very long lasting attack at the expense of two bomb units in a sort of Big Damn Heroes moment (though normal counterbombing is still present). Of note is that, with the exception of Mountain of Faith, they tend to be very, very different depending on the chosen shottype. Imperishable Night, for example, has eight different bomb types, ranging from orbs that wipe everything in the screen, a narrow Wave-Motion Gun that lasts for a good five seconds, a series of screen-wide slashes that instantly destroy everything, or lots of knives thrown at every single enemy in the screen.
• Sailor Moon (1993): The player can use the Sailor Guardians' Signature Move to wipe out all enemies on the screen and cause heavy damage to bosses. But its use is very limited (credit-based instead of lives-based, so you had to continue to get your supply back) and there're very few items in the game to replenish it.
• Tempest has a Super Zapper which destroys every enemy on the screen. The player gets one per level, but it can be used a second time to clear only a single enemy on-screen.
• The Giga Wave Cannons of R-Type Final aren't as much Smart Bombs as they are Wave Motion Guns that wipe out everything on a full charge. The game also gives all ships a Smart Bomb attack if they hit enough enemies or enemy fire with the Force.
• Variation on a theme with Darius Gaiden, in which the smart bombs are micro black holes that suck everything in! (Bosses survive, but are pulled towards it.)
  • In the last Darius game, G-Darius, the smart bombs that you need have been replaced by Capture Balls. These balls capture your average Mecha-Mooks and use them to assist you in battle until they're destroyed. The best part? There are two further uses of these mooks: They can either be blown apart like your standard Smart Bomb (with larger enemies having bigger explosions), or cooler yet, absorbed so you can perform a Wave-Motion Gun all by yourself! It gets better; bosses can perform their WMG too, in which you can Button Mash against it (or use the rapid fire button) so your WMG can grow larger, inflicting more damage. A boss spams this attack, only to die beautifully seconds later, in fact.
• The Guardian Legend features Enemy Erasers, which do this. Later in the game, they start becoming fairly regular drops from enemies - your cue that survival will rely heavily on spamming them in later stages.
• The Simpsons Arcade Game: There are nuclear bombs that instantly KO all on-screen mooks.
• In DoDonPachi Daifukkatsu ver. 1.5, the game forces on autobomb, causing you to fire a weaker bomb if you have at least one remaining. This effectively gives you three to six free hits per life, more if you get the rare bomb icons. On the other hand, bombing, automatic or not, breaks your combo, so scoring is no less difficult with autobomb.
  • The Black Label version of Daifukkatsu allows you to switch off autobomb, and additionally lets you convert unused bombs to Hypers.
  • Daifukkatsu ver. 1.51 not only holds your combo during a bomb, but firing a bomb while lasers are present coupled with a high combo counter will result in a massive spike to your score.
• Raptor: Call of the Shadows has these, with a twist: like all of the equipment you can pick up during a mission, you can also buy them between missions with the money you earn. You can carry up to five at a time. They're not hugely expensive; in the late game, it's not unreasonable to buy as many as you can carry and expend them all during the mission.
  • Unlike most Smartbombs, the Raptor smartbomb takes a few moments to reach the center of the screen and detonate, so you have to use it carefully. This also means it takes longer to detonate if you're near the edge of the screen.
• In Rez, smart bombs are called Overdrives. Rather than a bomb, they function as an auto-targeting version of the player's standard laser that destroys as much as it can for around 5 seconds. While certainly doing a lot of damage to bosses and the like, they work better for when you're overwhelmed by enemies or missiles. Likewise, Child of Eden calls it Euphoria.
• Dangun Feveron has a decidedly hilarious smart bomb, which serves to complement the game's disco motif- it literally blasts every enemy onscreen with the power of disco, visually conveyed as a stream of silhouetted dancers.
• Tiger Heli had bombs that would clear a large radius around your helicopter. If you had any whenever you got hit, they would automatically dispatch to protect you.
• Serious Sam has Serious Bombs which kills all enemies within a large radius except bosses. In multiplayer in Serious Sam II, when unlimited ammo option is on, beating the game can become extremely easy.
• Tak and the Guardians of Gross: The Juju Nova special attack is activated by collecting blue and red Juju orbs that fill an energy bar until it's complete. It kills every single enemy onscreen at once.
• The anachronistic space shooter game, Inca II, includes bombs that destroy everything in its range, among the assorted weapons aboard El Dorado's Tumi ship. The only thing immune to these bombs are Lord Aguirre's space stations.
• These show up in both The Lost Vikings games every now and then. Most are found in hidden areas.
• In Mushihime Sama Futari Black Label, using Smart Bombs comes with a nasty penalty: your counter drops by about 6,000-7,000, as opposed to the 2,000 or so you'd lose by dying, so by firing bombs to save your life, you can easily destroy three stages' worth of counter buildup. So unless you're good enough to 1LC the game, it's either play for survival and run your counter into the ground, or play for score and not get very far (especially in Original difficulty, where the counter also serves as an indicator of the game's Dynamic Difficulty).
• Crystal Quest reproachfully calls any use of its Smart Bomb "using an anti-aircraft gun to kill a mosquito." (A de Havilland Mosquito, maybe...)
  • The clone X Quest also calls them Smart Bombs.
• EVE Online has "smartbombs" of a sort... while not a nuclear panic button, they radiate an omnidirectional pulse of EM/Gravitons/explosion/whatever that most players in PvP use to kill other players' drones. You can also use them to kill other people, but nobody does this unless the other person is in a frigate (usually the weakest combat ship in the game) or if you're griefing people in a crowded area like Jita.
  • Exceptions to this rule generally qualify as crowning moments of awesome/funny, like when eight battleships destroyed a fleet of nearly fifty enemy ships after luring them into a smartbomb disco party.
• Fury³ had the FFF in weapons slot 7. You could only have one at a time, but it destroyed (or heavily damaged) everything onscreen and in the immediate area (including stuff you would prefer to not destroy), and would also refill your ship's health to full.
• In Cho Ren Sha68k, the "Bomber" item not only does heavily damage to all enemies on the screen, but instantly removes all enemy bullets as well, a la Touhou and similar Bullet Hell games. This one also heavily averts the Too Awesome to Use issue, since not only are your bombs wasted if you die while holding them (especially if you have more than 3, since each new life resets you to 3 bombs), but one bomb is worth significantly less than your life. They can be earned from the fairly frequent power-up rings, only worth 20,000 points each at the end of the level as opposed to the 50,000 points that your shield and/or lives are worth each. Extra lives are extremely rare as well, and best not wasted, especially because continuing after a Game Over forces you to restart the level and resets your score to zero.
• Startropics had the Spiked Shoes, despite being a Zelda-esque game. When using these, Mike teleports around the room and kicks every enemy.
• The arcade version of both, Shinobi and Shadow Dancer, gives player Ninjutsu techniques that could only be used once per life on each stage (usually). While each of the Ninjutsu techniques has a different visual effect (such as summoning lightning bolts or tornadoes), they all serve the same function in wiping all on-screen enemies. Although, the Sega Master System port of Shinobi did add a few new Ninjutsu techniques that had other purposes besides killing enemies. The Genesis sequels, The Revenge of Shinobi and Shinobi III, has the Mijin no Jutsu, which allows the player to damage all on-screen enemies at the expense of one life. This technique can even be used when the player is already on the verge of death, allowing him to revive with a full heath gauge in the same exact spot where he died instead of restarting from the last checkpoint, and unlike other Jutsu, it also resets your Jutsu usage, allowing you to use Mijin for as many times during a single life as you have extra lives available. However, when the player uses the Mijin no Jutsu on his last life, it will result in an instant Game Over.
• The Hard Shell mode of your Transforming Mecha in Vortex gives you three Electrobombs per level. If you're being overwhelmed by enemies and have no way out, activating one of these bad boys insta-kills every normal enemy in view.
• In Starcraft II, the Xel'naga Artifact in "All In", the last mission of the Terran campaign, functions like this in that it incinerates every Zerg unit a good ways around when activated. It can only fire every 210 seconds at the fastest, so make every use count. That said, if you have a charge ready, you can use it to punch a hole through to Kerrigan if she's coming your way.
• In Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, the Arrow Storm acts like this, killing off every guard in an area around Ezio.
• Major Stryker has the Zap Bombs, which deal 2 Hit Points of damage to all enemies on screen.
• Heavy Weapon has your character's Nuke weapon that kills everything on the screen except for bosses, who take lots of damage. Comes coupled with a nice nuclear explosion in the background!
  • CAUTION: You're not the only ones with Smart Bombs! There's a regular Mook that can drop Atomic Bombs on you- if these touch the ground before you shoot them down, you're toast no matter how strong your Deflector Shields are!
• In Legacy of the Wizard, monsters may randomly drop a cross. Picking up a cross kills all enemies in the area.
• In Blazing Lazers, one type of weapon powerup can be fired on. After cycling through several types, it will turn into a flashing pink orb, which when collected will damage all enemies on screen and give the player an extra respawn.
• Contra:
  • Contra III: The Alien Wars introduced bombs that could be stock-up and use at anytime to wipe out all on-screen enemies, a feature that was carried over to Contra: Hard Corps. Before that, the arcade version of Super Contra had Mega Shells that served the same purpose, but those could only be used in overhead stages.
  • Contra Doom, which was mostly based on Alien Wars, also had collectable bombs that worked in the same way.
• Superbombs in Beat Hazard work almost the same as traditional smart bombs, in that they release a dense, circular spread of high-powered bullets from your ship as opposed to just instant death/damage to everything on screen. While that will do the job for a swarm of low-powered enemy ships, the bullets from superbombs don't travel THROUGH anything, meaning anything hiding behind a tougher ship (or, annoyingly, snakes) won't take any damage at all. However, they do fulfill the "momentary respite" part of a traditional smart bomb, as setting one off will make your ship invulnerable for a few seconds regardless of what the bullets hit.
• Thunder Cross has a variant of this with the three special weapons (Napalm, Flame and Laser). Collecting one of these makes all four of your options into special ones capable of using a powerful, screen-damaging attack... for about 10 uses. And then you can just pick up another power-up containing them again.
• Scrolls in Soulcaster deal massive damage to all nearby enemies. They're a good panic button in case you get surrounded.
• Tutankham gave the player a limited supply of flash bombs to clear the screen of enemies when the Mook Makers got too active.
• Descent has Smart Missiles, which are homing missiles that detonate into a group of homing plasma bolts. This has the net effect of wiping out most enemies around you regardless of where you fire them. Of course, one of the bosses will use them against you. The Earthshaker missile in the second game is basically a Smart Missile, and yes, the Final Boss uses them against you.
• In Hellsinker, all characters have one (Kagura even has four) that can be launched if you have 3 or higher SOL power. If you have 5 SOL, then they will launch a more powerful version of the bomb.
  • There is also the Solidstate mode where if you have three or more SOL then it will clear the screen right away for a while if you are hit. However you can only have three solidstates per stage and in the Shrine of Farewell they are disabled all together.
• TNT charges in the original Jazz Jackrabbit instantly deal 2 hit-points of damage to all enemies and destructibles on the visible screen and approximately half a screen further in all directions. This includes activating checkpoints and shield/weapon monitors.
• Konami's Lightning Fighters has two types of this. The first is a Wave-Motion Gun, the second is a fire dragon with Chain Lightning-type behavior.
• In Kickle Cubicle, touching a Power Rock will freeze every enemy on the screen that Kickle could otherwise freeze one at a time. This is not as useful as it sounds.
• In the first Streets of Rage game, the "Special" button allowed the player to call in fire support. A squad car pulls up and a police officer pops out with a heavy weapon: For player one, he fires a bazooka that creates a ring of fire; for player two, he fires a minigun that sends down a rain of bullets. Either weapon immediately clears the screen of mooks and knocks off a large chunk of health from bosses.
• Mega Flare in the Kingdom Hearts series is more or less this, launching a fireball that creates an explosion generally huge enough to wipe out or heavily damage every enemy present. It has one of the longest cooldowns out of any command to compensate, but there's nothing keeping you from loading up your deck with multiple copies of it. However, it's not practical for bosses thanks to the cap on the damage you can cause per hit against them.
  • Infinity Circle is the Shotlock of the Ultima Weapon in Kingdom Hearts III, and while it takes a few seconds to charge up, it destroys everything small and heavily damages everything big in a wide area, including bosses.
• The Fairyland Story has the Star Tiara, which bombards the screen with stars that kill enemies instantly, and the Book of Death, which causes an earthquake that reduces enemies to dust (and points). There are lesser versions in the Moon Tiara and Scroll of Ice, which immobilize all enemies for a limited time.
• Hocus Pocus has enemies which kill all enemies on screen if you shoot them.
• Sine Mora has Koss' subweapon, Punk Spirit - this creates a fairly large explosion that covers around a third to half of the screen, destroying projectiles and enemies alike. Most other subweapons destroy enemy projectiles as well as harming enemies, and all of them reset your Score Multiplier when used.
• In Atlantis no Nazo, the "S" powerup makes all your bombs damage every enemy on screen.
• In Psycho Fox, the Straw Effigy destroys all enemies on screen when activated.
• Gate Of Thunder has the Energy Blast, which sweeps across the entire area of the screen to destroy all enemies. It can only be used when one of your power-ups is maxed out.
• Super Mecha Death Christ serves as this in The Angry Video Game Nerd Adventures.
• A large number of Shoot Em Ups by Shinobu Yagawa are well-known for mechanics that encourage the player to abuse the hell out of their Smart Bombs, especially if playing for score. Additionally, in many Yagawa games, the player collects bomb fragments to increase their bomb stock, and if the player doesn't have a whole bomb to use, they can use their remaining fragments to fire a weaker bomb. Some specific examples of Yagawa bomb mechanics:
  • Summer Carnival '92 Recca has the charge-up bomb, which, on top of damaging all enemies within its blast radius, also nullifies bullets.
  • Battle Garegga and Armed Police Batrider have parts of scenery that can be blown up only by bombing them. This is often rewarded with powerups or large quantities of point medals.
  • In Battle Bakraid, you get a point multiplier that increases as you destroy large enemies in succession, and resets if you go too long without destroying a large enemy. Firing a bomb freezes the combo timer, allowing you to buy yourself some time.
• In S.T.U.N. Runner, the Shockwave is a special weapon which destroys all enemy vehicles in your path. They are awarded when you complete a stage after driving over a set number of stars.
• Putty has the power to inflate to bursting point, and the resulting explosion takes out all enemies on the screen. This magic power can only be used four times each level unless replenished with bubblegum.
• The third installment of the Area Flat Java game series has this. It actually razes a circular area of ground underneath you when you use it.
• Tiny Toon Adventures: Buster's Hidden Treasure has Concord Condor, Li'l Sneezer, and Little Beeper serving as these. Concord drops an anvil, Sneezer uses his trademark Sneeze of Doom, and Beeper just speeds by. All three clear the screen of enemies.
• Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 has the Tactical Nuke, which is an instant win for the player using it.
• Eschatos has 'F' icons that, upon contact, wipe all light enemies and bullets on screen while doing damage to armored enemies. In Original and Time Attack modes, these are always good. In Advanced mode, however, you don't want to pick them up except in a dire emergency; doing so powers you down and drops your multiplier by one.
• RosenkreuzStilette: Liebea's Liebessturm can hit any enemy on screen for full damage.
• Sonic the Hedgehog games:
  • In Sonic 3 & Knuckles, this occurs when you take a Lightning Shield into water, albeit at the cost of the shield vanishing. Hyper Sonic and Hyper Knuckles can also achieve this by double-jumping and gliding into a wall, respectively.
  • Sonic Heroes has the Team Blast act as this for all four teams when they gain enough energy. Team Sonic has Sonic Overdrive, wherein they can use the Light Speed Attack, Team Dark has Chaos Inferno, which can also temporarily stop time, Team Rose has Flower Festival, which can also make them temporarily invincible and level up, and Team Chaotix has Chaotix Recital, which can turn all onscreen enemies into ring boxes. In the final story with Team Super Sonic, this attack is necessary to defeat the Metal Overlord, who is none other than a transformed Metal Sonic.
  • In Shadow the Hedgehog, if Shadow gains enough dark energy, he can use the Chaos Blast to eliminate any enemies near him.
  • The DS version of Sonic Colors has an exclusive Red Wisp that gives Sonic the power to turn into a fireball, which can charge up energy to launch around all enemies.
• Super Mario Bros.
  • In Mario Bros., the POW Block works by bouncing the entire stage each time it's hit, which potentially flips enemies over so you can knock them away. As a result, it does not work on enemies currently in the air, especially Fighter Flies. In two player mode, it also makes the other player bounce up slightly.
  • A Mini-Game in Super Mario 64 DS and New Super Mario Bros. has Bob-Ombs raining from the sky, with the sole intent of killing some of the Toads' flowers in their garden. The player has to ward off the Bob-Ombs by flicking cannonballs at them using the touchscreen. Sometimes, a Lakitu will appear, and instead of throwing Spinies or anything, it just kinda hovers back and forth. Hitting the Lakitu clears all Bob-Ombs off of the screen, but as the game goes on, it gets increasingly likely that Bob-Ombs will start flooding the screen the moment right after you hit a Lakitu.
• Jak 3: The third upgrade for the Peace Maker allows Jak to fire a lone missile that pierces the ground, causing a white flash that wipes out all enemies without a trace as the explosion forms into a Mushroom Cloud.
• Kirby's Crash and Mike abilities work this way, with him either unleashing a massive explosion or breaking out into song to wipe out all enemies on screen and deal heavy damage to bosses. Crash can only be used once, while Mike is slightly weaker but has three charges.
  • Super Star introduced the Cook ability, which turns every baddie onscreen into a food item, and the Paint ability, a rare ability that can only be obtained in the boss battles against Chameleo Arm and Heavy Lobster (and in Super Star Ultra, Marx Soul).
  • The Amazing Mirror brought in the Magic ability, which turns every enemy on screen into a certain item (selected via roulette wheel).
  • In Super Star Ultra's "Meta Knightmare Ultra" mode, Meta Knight's Mach Tornado special move has this effect.
  • Similarly, in Planet Robobot's "Meta Knightmare Returns", the special move Meta Knightmares summons members of the Meta-Knights for a powerful full-screen attack.
  • Star Allies introduces the Festival ability, which turns every enemy nearby into Point Stars. There's also the Artist ability with its one-use Painbrush attack, as well as the Mage Sisters' Sister Circle (introduced in the Wave 3 update).
• Dead Rising and its sequels features a smart bomb-esque item in the form of queen wasps. Capturing one, then throwing the jar containing it and killing it causes all zombies around where the jar hits to die instantaneously.
• No More Heroes: Travis's Anarchy in the Galaxy power gives him a Smart Bomb that he can set off at will, killing all enemies in the immediate area around him.
• The SNES port of Area 88 / U.N. Squadron has a variety of subweapons that can be purchased and equipped prior to entering a stage. One subweapon that follows this trope is the Mega Crush, a strange, fat missile that is fired up into the air from your plane. It doesn't merely explode—it rains a wave of devastating laser fire from above for several seconds, thoroughly wiping out lesser enemies and knocking a modest chunk out of bosses. The catch is, of course, you have to be able to afford it first, and you can only carry one (unless you buy the Infinity Plus One Plane, which can carry two, presuming you have the money for them).
• Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze does this with a meter that fills up when enemies are defeated (or when bosses take damage). When the meter is full pressing the L or R buttons will have DK and his current partner (which is required for this move) do a specific pose^note A high five with Diddy, a double high five with Dixie, or a "fist bump" with Cranky., and eliminate all onscreen enemies leaving behind either extra lives (Diddy), gold hearts (Dixie), or banana coins (Cranky).
• In the various Angry Birds games, the Mighty Eagle acts as one; his divebombing attack pops all the pigs in the stage and causes massive damage. In Angry Birds 2, he does a zooming flyby that has the same effect, although it's not as potentially destructive.
• The games of the Aero Fighters franchise, as well as its relatives such as Strikers 1945, have this. Each plane has its own type of Smart Bomb, that range from summoning several bombers to carpet-bomb the screen (for example the Harrier in Aero Fighters 1 or the P-51 in Strikers 1945) to stopping everything for a few seconds (the F-15 in both Aero Fighters 1 and 2.)
• In Alpha Mission, the Thunder Armor is the most powerful and visually impressive weapon. It destroys all enemies on screen at the cost of one-third of the energy meter.
• In Konami's MSX game Pippols, picking up a cross will instantly defeat all enemies on screen.
• In the Arcade Game Anteater, eating one of the Queen Ants at the bottom of the screen will instantly wipe out all ants, worms and spiders present.
• In the third act of God of Thunder, you acquire the Power of Thunder, which eats a huge chunk of your Mana Meter in order to damage all enemies onscreen. It's enough to one-shot most enemies, but for those it doesn't, it also doubles as an Invulnerable Attack, so you have time to get another shot off (or run away).
• Michael Jackson's Moonwalker has a strange example — Michael has a move where he begins dancing, which somehow induces all the Mooks on the screen to dance along with him, then immediately fall over dead. Its use is limited by the way it eats up half his health bar.
• In Iron Tank, the "?" weapon wipes out all non-boss enemies on screen, and does a sizable amount of damage to bosses as well.
• Pokémon Mystery Dungeon has several moves that can deal damage to all enemy pokémon in the same room as the user, such as Blizzard, Heat Wave, Ominous Wind, and Silver Wind. In corridors, however, the range is at default, 2 tiles.
• Harry Potter: Puzzles and Spells: The Charmed Bag removes all the gems of one color from the board. Depending on the board's win conditions, simply double-tapping it will either remove the gem color that's needed or a random color. If it's swapped with a gem, it will remove that color, and swapping two adjacent Bags clears all the gems on the board.
• Ultra X Weapons, a game based on the Ultra Series, have the players as the show's defense team pilots and the Ultramen as Smart Bomb attacks. Their assistance comes in various forms, too - Ultraman and Ultraman Taro uses their Specium and Storium Kousen respectively in a sweeping arc that clears away enemies, Ultraseven turns his Eye Slugger into a Storm of Blades, Ultraman Jack and Ultraman Ace unleashes a screen-covering Deadly Disc / Sword Beam, while Ultraman Leo and Ultraman 80 simply Beam Spam every enemy onscreen.
• The Rosary pickup in Vampire Survivors instantly kills on-screen enemies when collected. Only a select few are immune to it. The Pentagram weapon also does the same with a long cooldown, and targeting on-screen pickups as well; it takes some leveling to make this "bomb" smarter and start sparing the stuff you actually want, and when evolved into the Gorgeous Moon it actually converts enemies into Experience Gems then pulls them over to you.
• The oddly named Universe Enema from Skullmonkeys wipes out all enemies onscreen when used.
• Spectrobes: In the first two games, combination attacks used by your Spectrobes are already a downplayed example, dealing heavy damage to every Krawl on the battlefield. If you have a Geo equipped, though, this attack will instead summon an Ultimate Form Spectrobe, which will deal immense damage in the first game, and outright annihilate every Krawl in the encounter in the second, even ones in future waves.

Non-video game examples

Pinball

• Just like the video game, Defender has Smart Bombs that destroy all enemies currently on the playfield.
• The Power Bomb in Metroid Prime Pinball works in this manner, though only for whichever screen Samus is currently on.
• Data East's Jurassic Park has the Smart Missile, activated by a button on the gun-shaped plunger. It collects any currently lit modes, making getting to T-Rex Triball rather easy.
• The sequel, The Lost World: Jurassic Park, nerfs it in several ways - you have to collect it first from the Egg Scoop (though this is hardly a challenge, as it's usually the first thing said scoop awards), and it only works on Multiball-related criteria.
• Williams Electronics' Shoot 'Em Up Hyperball has the "Z Bomb", which instantly destroys all enemies currently on the screen.
• Revision 1.6 of the code for AC/DC introduced the "VIP Pass", which downplays this by automatically collecting a shot that's pertinent to the current mode.
• Star Trek (Stern) has Photon Torpedoes, which are launched with the Fire button on the center apron. Each one scores a hit on the Vengeance to enable Vengeance Multiball.
• Attack from Mars lets you acquire Martian Bombs; each one will take out a martian during Martian Attack by hitting the ball launch button. There is also a smart bomb during the Video Mode that will blow up all saucers on screen. It can even be used to immediately take out the mothership (that normally takes 80 hits), if you can hold onto it for that long.
• Last Action Hero has the Smart Missile, which is fired by pressing a button above the plunge trigger. It awards whatever is currently lit on the playfield.
• Guardians of the Galaxy downplays this with the Hadron Enforcer, which can be activated with the center button and will automatically collect the highest-scoring lit shot on the playfield.
• Deadpool: Downplayed with the boom button, located on the center apron of the game, which ordinarily only collects the highest value shot available. However, spelling B-O-O-M four times without using it upgrades it to a "Big Boom" that plays the trope straight, collecting every single lit shot at once.
• Batman '66 has "gadgets" that can automatically award a shot during one of the four main villain modes or (if applicable) lock the ball when the player initially plunges it.
• The 1.06 update to Aerosmith added "Smart Missiles", which downplay this by automatically collecting the leftmost lit shot when used.
• Downplayed with the Mind Gem in Avengers: Infinity Quest, which will automatically collect whatever shot it's placed on when activated. Power-ups and level increases can make it a straighter example; at full power, it collects every lit shot upon use.

---