That One Attack / Action Game

• No More Heroes:
  • Bad Girl has an attack that instantly kills you. What does she do? She drops to the floor crying. If you hit her, or even get close to her, she instantly beats you to death. At no point is it hinted that this will kill you, and if you play the game without knowledge of this, YOU WILL DIE. To make matters worse, she can sometimes do this in mid combo. Even more aggravating is that sometimes she actually is crying (she only attacks if she left one hand on the bat), so you can get thrown off easily if you aren't watching.
  • Rank 4, Harvey Volodarskii, the boss has a near undodgeable spinning attack that takes a large chunk of health and can not be blocked.
• No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle:
  • Mimmy has the spinning attack. "YIPEE!"SLAP!SLAP!SLAP!SLAP!SLAP!SLAP!SLAP!SLAP!SLAP!
  • Rank 7, Ryuji, can summon a dragon made of energy. This dragon will follow you very closely, and Travis can't dodge fast enough to escape it. And Ryuji will still attack freely as it's chasing you! The dragon can be blocked, though it eats your battery like candy; it also has a tell: If the sky is dark it's still chasing you, if the sky clears it's gone.
  • Alice Twilight's blade throw move which knocks you down and she recovers from it just as you get up, dooming you into Stun Lock until you get lucky to escape.
  • Jasper Batt Jr:
    • Halfway through the second phase of the battle, he'll start teleporting around, attacking three times in rapid succession. In a game where you dodge primarily by rolling, this attack comes faster than you can roll. If you manage to get him down to 1/4th HP, he'll start spamming that attack and a series of three whirlwind punches that are equally difficult (read: impossible) to dodge. The worst part? Both attacks knock you back a considerable distance, and can send you out of the arena if you are hit through the window, one-hit-killing you. That said, the teleport punch is avoidable provided you have hair-trigger reflexes and know that the second punch will almost always miss if you dodge the first, leaving you free to dodge the third. The tornado punch? It's easier to just let a prior attack knock down Travis and have him in the floor so the tornado's punches don't herm him at all.
    • His third form has an unavoidable wind attack that not only tears through your battery, but pushes you back the whole way of the stage. As you try fruitlessly to recharge, he'll use it again and probably knock you down. The only real way to avoid this seems to be to stay close to him, but since he's so big, the camera will refuse to show you his close range attacks.
• No More Heroes III: Ohma has only one attack: the Gastro Cannon, which can kill you instantly. As such, it's crucial that you dodge it at all times, although it can be hard to see what you're doing if you don't turn the camera adequately. It's even worse in the second phase, when she floats above the arena and guides the beam to your current position.
• Metroid Prime Trilogy
  • The charging tackle Meta Ridley in Metroid Prime does when he's on the ground. It's not too hard to avoid at first, but later on, especially in Hard mode, he seems to be able to guess where you'll be. Cue frustration. In fact, physical attacks in general are pretty annoying in Metroid Prime as you may get cornered.
  • The whole reason the Boost Guardian in Metroid Prime 2: Echoes is That One Boss is because of its fast pinball charge. It does it frequently and it's immune while doing it.
• In [PROTOTYPE], the Supreme Hunter can use the same tendril barrage you can, and it inflicts a terrifying amount of damage. Furthermore, depending on how chaotic the fight is, noticing the move being prepared can be extremely difficult, and there's no getting out of the way once it's been unleashed on you unless you were on or very near the edge of its effective radius and moving away when it's fired.
• Dracula in I Wanna Be the Guy is already a bone-crackingly difficult Luck-Based Mission, but he has one attack that (even by IWBTG standards) seems programmed to screw you over. He shoots a single, homing Delicious Fruit at you. It's too slow to accidentally fly off-screen, hangs around long enough that you're gonna have to dodge it, and if he follows up with his fireball attack (which floods the floor with, well, fire), or those purple things are flying around, you're screwed.
• Castlevania
  • In Castlevania: Order of Ecclessia, Dracula throws long streams of bats that bypass Mercy Invincibility and will shred your HP down to nothing in seconds if you get caught off guard. If you can avoid that, then it'll be the bloody soul steals out of nowhere, which do a lot to you and give him a bit more health back. Portrait of Ruin's bosses normally have a single attack that is much more difficult to work against than the others too.
  • Being the hardest of all old-school Castlevania games, Dracula's Curse gives Dracula's first form (of three) a fire spell that summons two spires on each side of your character and a larger spire directly targeting you, in which you have barely a microsecond to avoid. Sometimes the side-spires will spawn directly next to you, in which case you are fucked (see for yourself in The Angry Video Game Nerd's review). Note the flame pillars will appear closer to you based on the distance between you and Dracula. So it could be very well a Schmuck Bait.
  • Death is the series' go-to guy for That One Boss fights, so it stands to reason that he'll usually have one of these in his arsenal. Aside from the constantly spawning mini-scythes, the move that really takes the cake are the giant skulls in Dawn of Sorrow, which deal insane amounts of damage, take up most of the screen, and are the only projectiles in the game that don't disappear when Death is beaten.
  • Death also has one in Aria of Sorrow, where he rolls his scythe along the floor, walls and ceiling at high speeds. It too deals huge amounts of damage, and depending on where the player is standing in the room, it's anywhere from easy to nigh-impossible to dodge.
• From Ōkamiden, Akuro's Wave-Motion Gun attack. If it hits, not only does it deal out massive damage, but Akuro himself will be healed. The fact that it takes a while to charge isn't particularly comforting, as Akuro's Giant Hands of Doom can easily grab you and make you a sitting duck for the attack.
• Devil May Cry
  • The final battle with Nelo Angelo (a.k.a. Vergil) from Devil May Cry has him throwing out his deadliest attack, summoning blue energy swords around you and using them on you like Reverse Shrapnel.
  • Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening:
    • Hell Lusts have an uppercut attack. Admittedly it isn't too powerful, but it has ridiculous priority^note How ridiculous? Death won't stop a Lust getting the move off., the demons love to use it while you're busy fighting others and they sometimes feint it by just doing the starting dash without actually striking, meaning prediction is difficult. Behold the horror.
    • Vergil's Helm Breaker in the last mission, specially after he says "you're going down". The move consists of him teleporting above you and striking you with his sword four to five times in a row, each from a lower height than the last. He may repeat this 2 or 3 times and since he is with his Devil Trigger on he will be recovering health the whole time.
    • During the final fight, Vergil has a combo that consists of two swings, a upward swing that launches you in the air (and also hits you if you are above him), he then teleports above you, does a Helmet Breaker and finishes with a Stinger. If you are hit by any of his attacks past the very first swing, it's practically impossible to escape from the combo as well. The last two attacks hurt really bad, even on Normal and on higher difficulties can take a quarter of a fully upgraded health bar. He also loves to spam it, so you better learn to avoid it or DIE. He also has the abillity to project purple orbs to damage you, its fairly easy to dodge it in the first and second battle but on the third it becomes almost luck-based.
• Bunji Kugashira in the original Gungrave: "See Ya"/"Not So Fast!" Kicks Grave in the stomach —> shoots Grave while airborne = instant shield break and knocks off 25% of Grave's HP. This attack can KO you should the boss spam it (and he will). The fight even starts off with the boss using it, and it's very hard to avoid or see coming. It doesn't help that he's the only boss in the game that can heal.
• DadGame has Mecha Death. It's a freakin' power struggle you have to win. Why is this power struggle on here? You have to tap with the animation of the key tapping, but more often than not, there is going to be slowdown, and your rhythm will be thrown off just enought that Mecha Death will win this fight by instantly killing you for a simple mistake. It doesn't help that you may win the first time, but you'll lose the next one, so it really feels like that you just gotta get lucky on all the power struggles. And sometimes, he does it A LOT.
• The third phase of that flying claw boss in Frogger Beyond has an attack which elevates its difficulty to near-Luck-Based Mission levels. Basically, it's a leaded cluster of fireballs, followed by a fast fireball. Only problem is, each fireball hits a random spot, and there's no guarantee that you'll survive it. It may have a pattern, but since poor Frogger is a One-Hit-Point Wonder, one hit sends him to the first phase. This means it's nearly impossible to learn the pattern when it kills you every time. May the gods of random number shine on you if it glitches up and fires the attack out of the arena.
• The Legend of Zelda:
  • In The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, Gyorg has the habit of swallowing you temporarily after you inflict it damage. The only way to prevent this is to quickly swim and jump out of the water back to the platform before he attacks you. However, managing this jump can be really tricky because you can't see the platform decently from underwater and the slightest mistake in aiming will cause you to either land back into the water or crashing against the platform and make you stop in your tracks.
  • Phytops from The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks prolongs gradually its thorned tentacle slash combo as the battle progresses. The ultimate combo is: moving its resting tentacles (to make Link's capture of the thorns to hurt it more difficult) while it shoots three series of goo drops, attacking with its left upper tentacle, then with the right one, and finally with both.
  • The dark-type shockwaves The Imprisoned generates as it walks around the Sealed Grounds in The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword. They make attacking the nails in the feet more difficult and frustrating.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild has several:
    • Anytime a Bokoblin starts swinging a spear or two-handed weapon around over their heads and walks towards you. The attack has a long reach, sends you flying if hit, dodging it is hard and parrying it is sheer luck, and they can swing the weapon for quite a while. By comparison, the move is much easier to counter in the game’s sequel Tears of the Kingdom.
    • Most electric attacks. Getting hit by one will cause Link to drop his shield and weapon.
    • The Guardian's laser blasts. They have long range and hit for six hearts worth of damage. Dodging them requires precise timing to perform either a Perfect Dodge or Shield Parry and failing will cost you dearly.
    • You do NOT want to get hit by the Yiga Blademasters during the Stealth-Based Mission in their hideout if you are discovered. Their melee attacks will kill Link instantly unless he has sufficient armor and temporary hearts to tank with, and they bypass both fairies and Mipha's Grace. Any Yiga Blademasters encountered elsewhere in the game do not have this ability.
• inFAMOUS has the final boss Kessler. He can and will hit you with attacks that are almost impossible to dodge, and if he summons his giant copy images, well, best to take cover (but there isn't any!).
• Koei has quite a few across its three signature series, most of them handed out by high level characters or officers possessed of a situational super-buff.
  • Lu Bu, at all. His moveset is insanely powerful in just about every game he's been in since 3, but it's the throw from Dynasty Warriors 4 that really takes the cake. An unblockable multi hit throw with several officer and infantry mulching swings to tack on damage, followed by an overhead blow that occasionally sends players rocketing across the map, and more often sends their lifeless corpse into the next county, yet when you use it, its Too slow or The damage is too low. This move was taken out in 5...to be replaced with a faster, zero-telegraphing fire element dash that breaks block.
  • Pang Tong's Musou, in 4 and 5. This often involves him standing in one place and doing a lot of tornado air bursts around him, which often means he'll tack on at least three and often six good hits, and once again blow people off into the distance.
  • Gan Ning's Musou, 3 through 5. This attack is powerful, comes out fast, and sends Gan Ning racing across the battlefield at ludicrous speed. If he doesn't actually knock the player character down with the attack, the glancing blow that hits still takes off a good chunk of life, and leaves said character in a stunned state.
  • Zhang Jiao's...anything involving his fire element, but his fire based sweeping attack and Musou are fairly obnoxious due to increased damage and leaving players in a 'burned' state for a couple of annoying, vulnerable seconds.
  • Dong Zhuo’s Musou in 2. This entry had a Scrappy Mechanic where when an enemy officer is knocked down, they get power-ups or healing. Dong Zhuo’s Musou ended with a belly flop, that the game counted as him being knocked down, so he could effectively use it to get these power-up and healing effects at will.
  • Saika Magoichi's rifle blasts, especially his Musou in Samurai Warriors 1, which was unblockable for most characters (as 'bullet block' was a rather rare skill). Only his slow attack speed kept him from Game-Breaker status.
  • Ishikawa Goemon's spinning attack with his mace goes on forever, and it's just fast enough that each hit juggles. Thankfully, he doesn't appear too often in normal gameplay.
  • The same can't be said for Maeda Keiji, who gets a block breaking area of effect ground pound and a brutal multi-hit Musou attack, and happens to turn up in quite a few story modes. He also shows up on his Cool Horse Matsukaze most of the time, so there's no running from him.
  • Orochi's moveset, notable his Jumping Fireball that breaks guard, Fire Elemental, and juggles, and anything with relation with Dark Explosion(Air Charge and Charge attack) which is just as broken when you use it yourself, justified as he is the end boss to a Massively Multiplayer Crossover.
• Assassin's Creed: Enemy Counter Attacks are impossible to predict and a free hit for the one responsible. Best hope no one takes advantage of Altaïr getting laid out.
• Custom Robo has the Waning Arc and Waxing Arc guns. Each one fires four shots that can go around walls, and have slight homing. It really hurts if all four rounds connect. Very late in the game is a Dual Boss battle that utilizes both of these guns, in a stage with shifting terrain.
• In Bomberman 64: The Second Attack!, one of the two possible final bosses (depending on the outcome of a Mini-Boss battle earlier in the level) has an attack that essentially blankets the entire battlefield in a barrage of laser beams. They come too fast and too rapidly to anticipate and your character moves too slowly to reliably dodge them, meaning you will get hit if you try to do anything. How do you avoid getting hit, then? Against all your gaming intuition you've built up over the years, you will be able to almost always get away scot-free... by standing still.
• The Senran Kagura Burst Hanzo storyline's boss, Daidōji. Once her health drops low enough, if she catches you on the ground, she'll use a One-Hit Kill Dragon Punch that can't be blocked or evaded.
• Sabata's homing spin attack in Boktai. It's unblockable, unstoppable, and lasts for a really long time. Since Sabata's invincible while using it, the battle just sort of stops while you keep running around praying he doesn't corner you and drain about 3/4 of your health. The worst part of it is it breaks up what is otherwise a really cool idea for a fight: a cat and mouse battle in the dark with an opponent who you would otherwise stand no chance of beating.
• Hibari in River City Girls has an attack she'll start using in her second phase where a needle will trace around the arena multiple times, leaving a trail that will explode when it finishes. Not only are all of Hibari's needles unblockable, but if this one hits you, it'll deal about 80% of your health in damage, the needle itself is impossible to tell where it's going to come from and can easily spawn beneath you (this boss fight is fought on a 2D plane, the only room in the game that is) for an almost-one hit KO. On top of this, Hibari spawns a pair of floating Metroid-looking pin cushions who lazily drift down to you (four of them in the third stage), forcing you to keep an eye on them and the needle at the same time. She starts to use it more frequently during the third stage of her fight.
• The remake of La-Mulana has the boss of the Dimensional Corridor, Tiamat, and her Wave-Motion Gun attack. There are three ways to avoid it, or else you're going to lose over half your HP in one go. You can cling to the side of the upper wall and run under the beam, you can try your best to jump over Tiamat, or you can abuse Mercy Invincibility with the caltrops, which also damage Lemeza. Special mention also goes to Bahamut who, while not that hard, will frequently wait in the background while it shoots fireballs. It can't be hit during those cycles, leading to many a player groaning, "Not the cheese-balls again!"

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