That One Player describes someone who has played a game so much, discovered all the secrets, knows all the moves, hell, he might as well have gotten the timing down to the point where he plays with almost super human reflexes. However, this ruins the fun of everyone else who plays with or against that one guy because he's so skilled, he's either doing all the fun parts or able to take on an army of adversaries without breaking a sweat. However, sometimes being That One Guy can be a talent for entertainment, when he can show off his inhuman skills.
That One Player, though, may not necessarily mean a stop having fun guy or the other way around. Nor is he That One Boss, though if he was a boss, he would be. May possibly be a Challenge Gamer, which would certainly explain their ungodly skill. And chances are they are a munchkin, and their munchkinry is to blame for their annoyingness.
Some video games have a "handicap" option to either make a certain player weaker or everyone else stronger, purely to keep that one player from restricting other players' fun... or their own, for that matter.
Not to be confused with The One Guy, a trope about one male character in an otherwise all female cast. Or with the concept of "That guy
", a tabletop player who ruins the experience for everybody else through creepiness, powergaming, poor hygiene, or general unpleasantness. See also Munchkin and Always Someone Better.
Examples:
- Ai Kora: Closet Geek Yukari is secretly a fan of video games, and likes to unwind after final exams by going to the local arcade incognito and getting a high score on all her favorite games under the alias "Fantazma".
- Bottom-tier Character Tomozaki: Fumiya Tomozaki, the main character, is Japan's number one player of the Platform Fighter Attack Families. Of course, the reason he is so good at the game is that he is bad with dealing with real life, meaning he basically puts all his free time into the game. When Aoi Hinami, number two player, who happens to be a classmate at his school, finally meets him, she doesn't like the idea of her Worthy Opponent having No Social Skills.
- Genshiken: Makoto Kousaka is like this with all video games, but his skill at fighting games (as well as Puyo Puyo) in particular makes other otaku quake.
- Lucky Star: Konata Izumi is seen playing a fighting game at an arcade in one episode. She beats a guy, much to his dismay of finding out who beat him. A strip similar in idea was: since she is excessively short, the other tomboy misjudged her ability and got owned. On the next day, that other tomboy beat Konata — but within such a razor-thin margin that she knew that Konata let her win!
- No Game No Life: Sora and Shiro. Through teamwork, and years of experience from never leaving their house they are the greatest game players in the world to the point that they catch the God of Games' attention and win an invitation to his world where everything is based on games.
- One-Punch Man: King can beat very hard games one handed and trounces the protagonist on every game they play. His badassery in videogames is contrasted, in turn, with all the badassery people think he has in real life.
- Sailor Moon: Ami Mizuno manages to be this on a game she has never played before, twice. First a platforming game in the original series and then a fighting game at a tournament in the Stars series. She's just that smart.
- White Devil of the Moon, a crossover between Nanoha and Sailor Moon, has Nanoha perform so well on the Sailor Moon arcade game that she maxes out her score and reaches a Kill Screen. She notes that the only thing difficult about it is that it was built for right-handed people (Nanoha is left-handed).
- Monster House has one of these, who gives the kids a vital clue as to how to handle the eponymous creature.
- How I Met Your Mother: Marshall Eriksen has a preternatural skill for board games, such that he can deduce the rules of a complex foreign gambling game just by watching others play for a few minutes, despite not understanding what the players are saying. His friends assigned him to officiate their game nights rather than playing, because otherwise he'd win every time.
- Nestov in Tracker (2001) was this with one of the video games in the Watchfire. He could analyze the math and patterns well as a Dessarian, according to Cole. He was making bets and money off it.
- Death both is this and is stymied by one in Good Omens, as the other Horsemen find him playing a video game in the diner where they all meet. The high scores list consists entirely of himself, except for the absolute top player, T Pratchett, whom he cannot seem to beat - by a margin of one point.note
- The song "Pinball Wizard" by The Who is about a psychosomatically deaf, dumb, and blind kid who still manages to be That One Player.
- reallyjoel's dad (an in-joke of Daniel Remar and the eponymous reallyjoel, which developed into a Running Gag of his games) is a Memetic Badass version of this. reallyjoel's dad is said to play at Tool-Assisted Speedrun level, and several games use "reallyjoel's dad mode" as an over-the-top, literally impossible difficulty setting, as he's the only person who could beat it.
- In Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Viridi makes a quip about this trope when Pit plans to avoid Incineroar's Revenge buff by waiting for it to wear off, then swooping in for the KO. It's pretty obvious she's using Yahtzee's definition of "that guy."
Viridi: Sure, if you want to be THAT guy. Might as well edge-guard while you're at it.
- In Final Fantasy VII: The Sevening, Yuffie is apparently really good at fighting games.
- Exaggerated and parodied with AAA, who's essentially the best player in the cosmos.
God: Who's this guy who always beats my Pong high scores?
- Posters on 4chan's video game board sometimes post about their (fictional) encounters with the Memetic Badass player known only as "Gregor", who joins a server and proves to be frighteningly competent at whatever role he chooses to play: offense, healing, whatever, and somehow knows exactly how to coordinate with his teammates in every situation despite never using any voice or text chat.
- South Park: the main characters take up World of Warcraft, but find it unplayable because a griefer has leveled up so high that even the admins can't ban him. In reality, he's just a Perpetual Frowner, morbidly obese Basement-Dweller.
"But how do you kill that which has no life?"
- A running gag in Aladdin: The Series was that Genie would always lose to Carpet in the many, many games they played.
- The concept behind Captain N: The Game Master is that they brought That One Player into the world of video games, so he could use his skill to help them fight villains.
