Wake Up Call Boss / Action Games

• Atlas from Astro Boy: Omega Factor. Attempts to go charging in, lasers blazing (like a first-time player might have done until now), will get you killed before you know what the heck happened. Atlas has jet-dashing punches, and a nastier version of Astro's Arm Cannon that takes up nearly the entire screen — and once he gets down to half-health, he replaces that move with a constant electric stream below him. He's not that difficult, but you'll need to get a good grip on battle techniques (dashing and knowing when to fire EX moves in particular), to stand a chance.
• Games based on Batman:
  • Batman: Arkham Asylum pits the Dark Knight against Bane as the player's second boss and first true boss battle. If you're new or didn't get dodging and batarang throwing down with the Titan goon earlier as a taste of things to come, then Bane is rather difficult, since you not only have to dodge him, but the attacks of several Joker goons. This same method of defeating Bane applies to the Titan goons later in the game. The first Scarecrow nightmare segment is relatively easy for a stealth segment and is nothing that a new player hasn't done before when they were the ones giving goons nightmares, but the second one is tougher, with fewer places to hide, longer stretches without cover, and enemies to fight.
  • In Batman: Arkham City, Solomon Grundy is the fourth boss, and subverts the expectations of players used to fighting big enemies from Asylum by throwing several attacks you need to dodge, while also planting explosives on electrified nodes to damage him. Titan-infused inmates, which appear earlier in the level, are also different from how they were fought previously.
  • Batman: Arkham Origins has Deathstroke, the third assassin fight in the game. Killer Croc was the first and, while tougher than normal enemies, is fairly easy to defeat as you can choose to take him head on (previous games had the big, muscular enemies as strictly Bullfight Bosses, unable to harm until you make them run into things). Electrocutioner was literally Shock and Awe, he looks intimidating and talks a good game but defeated in one strike. Deathstroke, however, has a skill set and collection of gadgets similar to Batman and forces you to watch for openings and counter his attacks instead of always pressing your attack, absolutely murdering impatient players who haven't mastered their counters.
• Bayonetta has Jeanne. Even in her earliest appearance, she's a Perfect Play A.I., so needless to say, if you haven't got the hang of dodging (and therefore Witch Time) yet, she will hand you your ass on a silver platter. Unlike the angel enemies before her, you cannot just dodge any attack and spend a few seconds in the safety of Witch Time wailing on her: the only attacks that trigger Witch Time if dodged are her Wicked Weaves. On Hard mode, she starts attacking from a distance by summoning Giant Feet and Fists Of Stomping without any warning and sometimes repeatedly, so you can't let your guard down for even a second. In Non-Stop Infinite Climax, she is even more GFS-happy and you can't use Witch Time! So basically, in each difficulty, she makes sure to be a Wake-Up Call Boss again and in a different way.
• If you haven't gotten proficient with BloodRayne's harpoon, the Sewers begin your Wake Up Call with charging suicide bombers, and ends with a Tennis Boss. Even if you are good with your harpoon, it's still That One Level.
• Talys from Bound by Blades is the fourth Ilcyon monster and has a hitbox is far smaller than the previous three bosses, being vulnerable only in her head, with her attacks covering far more range, dealing greater damage and cannot be deflected. The past three bosses are merely a series of warmups before Talys' arrival signaling that things are getting serious.
• Mahler, the third boss of Bujingai, is designed to trash players who aren't already used to parrying.
• Many, many early bosses from Capcom's brawlers qualify:
  • In Captain Commando, the second boss, Shtrom Jr., teaches players to use quick attacks (due to his cunningly quick and long jumps) and that just mashing the punch button in front of bosses doesn't work if they break the combos so easily.
  • Scully, the first boss from The Punisher definitely qualifies. The slow and weak mooks do absolutely nothing to prepare the player for the vicious onslaught Scully pulls out — he moves around quickly, delivers lightning-fast flying kicks and elbow and headbutt charges, and blocks the player's attacks time after time (and you would think a battleaxe swing to a blocking jeans-clad knee would be a bit more damaging). But if the player takes the vicious onslaught to Scully (preferably with weapons or grenades, which do great damage if not blocked), he will drop soon enough. Nowhere near a Glass Cannon would fall, mind you ...
  • Razor Claws, the second boss in Alien Vs. Predator is a similar example, with great move and attack speeds, huge damage and a reach much longer than the player's. You may have already found that the Aliens mooks are no pushovers themselves, but a single mistake against this boss will cost you dear. And never, never push him off-screen and move away afterwards in hope of a breather. He will jump right into your face no matter the distance and follow up with a claws charge. Say goodbye to half of your health bar if both these attacks connect.
• The Devil May Cry series featured some nasty first bosses, including:
  • The Phantom in the first game, Bolverk in the second, Cerberus in the third, Berial in the fourth, Goliath in the fifth and the Hunter in DmC. Not too long after those fights, the first and third games respectively throw Nelo Angelo and Agni & Rudra your way (in both cases, a mere two missions after Phantom and Cerberus) to handily punish any lingering thoughts that strategy has no value in these games. Any particularly difficult boss after that doesn't really qualify for the Wake-Up Call Boss label, but they will keep you on your toes.
  • Not long into Devil May Cry 4, the game throws Angelo Credo at you. Up until now, relentless hack-and-slashing has been more than sufficient to defeat most of the prior bosses. Try that on Angelo Credo and he dodges or blocks your attacks, then immediately runs right in for a counter-attack which kicks the living crap out of you. Angelo Credo's slow and calm Menacing Stroll also tricks the player into thinking that he has a lot of openings, but it mostly just serves as a bait. He's not particularly difficult when you know what to do, but he moves and reacts quickly, making him the first boss fight where you need to actually use Nero's attacks and combos properly while reading the boss's attack patterns. Same with your Buster—if you haven't gotten the hang of it, good luck getting through his shield.
• Dynasty Warriors:
  • The massive fire-breathing boss Bi Xie in Strikeforce. It's not too hard once you know what to do, but if you go in expecting to do the classic Dynasty Warriors mindless hacking and slashing, you're probably in for an unpleasant surprise. Even if you're reasonably capable of handling Lu Bu, Zhang Liao and Diao Chan as they go in and out of Fury mode and gang up on you, as well as the swarm of tigers that first greets you when you enter the area, AND finally the giant boss itself — it's actually very easy to time out if you don't accomplish all this quickly enough.
  • The Qiaos tend to be this in other entries, simply due to the fact that they are ridiculously fast compared to the most commonly encountered Notable Generals and juggle like crazy. Enraged Qiaos are even worse, but thankfully are rarely encountered in the core game. (They're more of a threat in the randomly generated empire building modes of XL and Empires.) Depending on which game, the worse of the Qiaos will change, since their movesets change a little every game. Huang Zhong may also count from 4 onward, as while his guards engage you he will flee and spam his arrow shot special.
  • Gan Ning is notable for being a wake-up call boss and also the Butt-Monkey. After a certain stage, usually around the fourth for any Shu or Wu character, the CPU begins to use his musou attack far more frequently. For any who don't play this series, he does a quick dash with his sword held to the side, and it does the most damage in a single hit of any in the game. Most other musous are multi-hit crowd clearers that do incremental damage and if you are juggled can sometimes be escaped from, but not this one. It fires off instantly, there is NO WAY to block it unless you were already performing your own, and if it lasts long enough, he can drive around back and run you over a second time while you're still recovering. Once it touches you the damage is already done and it's immense—even with max-stat characters on Easy. In contrast, his normal attacks are almost all telegraphed and easily blockable. Essentially, if you always stay behind him, he is one of the easiest to take down, but the battle can turn against you without warning. Depending on your character, merely being touched can do anywhere from 25%-60% damage to someone using no items.
  • In the same vein, Himiko in Warriors Orochi 3 is this for having a killer Musou which, unlike many other officer Musou attacks, comes out of nowhere, can be moved around your character's block and can instantly shred even the highest-leveled character's HP down to nothing in seconds.
• Beat 'em Up fans who played Final Fight for the first time will remember Sodom as a major wake-up call boss, in that simply punching him normally only took off a sliver of a fraction of his health with each hit, forcing you to rely on throws or to pick up one of his dropped swords to attack him; this wouldn't be so bad if not for the fact that he has a rushing attack that can take off anywhere close to one half of a full health bar and can be executed at unexpected moments, and also the fact that one chop from, his swords takes off just slightly more of your life than that. And the kicker? He's the SECOND boss, just one stage after Damnd, the first boss who you could basically curb-stomp into the concrete with little problem.
• "The Vanguard", who is the first boss of Gatling Gears after four relatively easy levels. It consists of 3 phases. The first is a Cores-and-Turrets Boss that spams strong projectiles, and periodically calls in annoying flamethrower units — thankfully, you can end this by defeating the middle turret. The second phase has a core that uses a 6-way flamethrower that forces the player to move around, and alternates with four turrets that use painful Macross Missile Massacre. The final phase is probably the game's first true instance of Bullet Hell, a giant house/train thing that can only be attacked when it's open and firing a massive Spread Shot of missiles. It also summons flamethrower units as well as bomber planes that drop damaging area bombs. And you don't get to heal in between any of these.
• In God Hand, Gold and Silver, the Macho Camp duo that serve as the first Mini-Boss fight, quickly establish the rules for boss fights in that game — that they will suck royally for the player. Elvis, the actual level boss, later serves to cement that fact.
• Theseus may seem like normal boss fare for God of War II, but definitely serves as this your first time through Titan mode. He has attacks that kill in one hit and requires that you fight minotaurs while dodging those attacks. Up until that point, Titan mode is pretty intense, but the first time (of many) you fight Theseus, the game is just saying WELCOME TO TITAN MODE, MORTAL!!!! It's also of the 'trainer' variety, rather than the 'fake difficulty' variety. After learning the Titan mode musts of compulsive dodging and blocking, he's not too bad.
• Hard Corps: Uprising has Arachne. A boss who teaches you that health won't protect you from falling. To put this in perspective, imagine you're riding on the top of a train car. Suddenly, you enter a tunnel, and when you come out of it the view has changed to you grabbing on the car for dear life as the camera switches vertically. Then this big mecha comes in, sending out mechanical BEES like his namesake. While it's doing this it's charging up a laser that causes the entire line of cars you're holding onto to explode. You need to dodge both the bees and the lasers while jumping to the set of cars opposite you. Woe to anyone playing Harley at this point.
• Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity has four, one for each mission in Chapter 2, excluding the last one.
  • For Mipha, the Zora Princess, there's the Lynel. Just like in Breath of the Wild, it hits hard and moves fast with a difficult-to-follow attack pattern, meaning you had best rely on your allies and the Sheikah Runes to whittle down its weak-point gauge to take out a massive chunk of health.
  • For Urbosa, the Gerudo Chief, there's Master Kohga. Yes, he's no different from his original iteration, but once his health gets low enough, he'll split into two doppelgangers of himself, each with their own attack pattern. The most efficient way to take them both out is to use special attacks, some of which are an area of effect like Link or Urbosa's, while others have a fan-shape, like Mipha or Daruk's.
  • For Daruk, the Goron Hero, there's the Igneo Taluses. Being Taluses, they hit like trucks and soak up damage like sponges unless you manage to hit their weak spot on top of their heads which instantly whittles away at their weak-point gauges. Either you somehow manage to style your way up there to let loose with some attacks, you wait for it to land face-first into the ground after a diving attack, or you just bomb it to kingdom come. Using the Ice Rod doesn't hurt either.
  • For Revali, the Rito Warrior, there's Revali. More than half the time, he's going to be in the air out of reach of any melee attacks only giving very brief windows of opportunity to wail on his weak-point gauge. This means you'd better have your timing for Flurry Rushes down pat, otherwise you'll need to rely on the Stasis Rune to get him to hold still long enough to counterattack.
• La-Mulana:
  • Good old Sakit is the boss of the Mausoleum of the Giants, and he's here to tell you that bosses aren't going to go down as easily as Amphisbaena did. He's only vulnerable to attack after using his Rocket Punch attack, he's immune to all subweapons, and his main attack fires large magic projectiles that deal way too much damage to your pitiful HP. For a veteran, it's child's play to skip around Sakit, but new players are likely to run straight into him. The remake makes him vulnerable to special weapons in the second part of the fight, which is well and good because a jet of flame kicks you out of melee range at that time.
  • Ellmac, the boss of the third area, is also no slouch to defeat, and unlike Sakit, can't be put off until much later because many areas are only unlocked after he's defeated.
  • Amphisbaena himself is this in the remake, despite being the (likely) first boss. In the original game, the only thing you had to do to beat him was stay on the floor and spam shurikens at his head when he approaches. He'd go down in a matter of seconds. In the remake, however, he uses a much different pattern of attack, requiring you to move quickly to avoid damage, and is a genuine challenge this time around.
• La-Mulana 2 has Kujata, boss of Annwfn. While the first boss, Fafnir, is fairly easy to beat, and the second, Vritra, is only marginally more difficult, Kujata represents a steep climb in difficulty due to his high health and the amount of things going on in his fight at once, with the falling lava rain, the rock eyes firing lasers at you, and Kujata's own eyes firing blasts at you.
• Kawashima Kaguya from The Legend of Tian-ding is the first boss that marks a spike in difficulty; she is far more mobile than previous bosses Wang and Nakamura, has a devastating slashing move with her spiked umbrella (that deals bigger damage than Nakamura's guns - somehow) and because of her Teleport Spam ability, you'll need to use Tian-ding's sash grab ability to keep up with her. If you aren't acquainted with this skill yet, you'll be royally screwed when facing Kaguya.
• Bahamut, in Lord of Arcana. As the third boss, he is much more difficult than both the previous and next boss. Not only does he have a One-Hit Kill attack (notably, the at this point infamous "Mega Flare") when you first face him, if you have not learnt how to dodge and block well, you will die. Coupled with the fact that he has much higher health than any boss so far, the outcome of the battle depends on the idea that you know how to weaken him to stop some attacks and that you know how to heal yourself at the right time. Notably, unlike the last two bosses, in which the game outright tells you that they have destructible parts, Bahamut's hint can essentially be summed up as "Megaflare hits the center of the stage". The game also does nothing to inform you that Bahamut's wings are destructible, but most players might be able to guess that. His tail, on the other hand, is not so obvious, taking significantly less damage than the rest of him and almost encouraging you to avoid it. Bahamut is also the first boss in which players might find that, to their horror, enemy bosses can, and will, flee the battle if it goes bad for them. Most players don't have the resources to even attempt to fight Bahamut again, and the mission does not end once Bahamut has fled. Instead, he appears somewhere else on the map. Most players will probably restart their PSP's and try again later to avoid losing all their healing items. And to further compound problems, unlike the last two bosses, who were quite effectively crippled when their destructible parts were destroyed, Bahamut goes on to prove that he can continue to fight without half of his tail and shredded wings with no real loss in fighting prowess.
• Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance has LQ-84i. Everything up to this point can be beaten by just running up and slashing at them, occasionally using blade mode. Not this boss. You have to be at least competent at parrying and reading enemy attacks if you expect to win. Mastering Zandatsu is also helpful, as that is the only way to heal during this fight.
  • Later in the game is Monsoon. Up to that point, parrying is a borderline Game-Breaker which lets you easily deal with enemies and bosses if you take the time to master it, although the fights are still winnable if you haven't. Monsoon's constant barrage of attacks requires you to have fully mastered parrying, and if you struggle with him, than the Final Boss, who demands that you know how to parry with even better reflexes, with wreck you.
• Gigant, the first boss of The Ninja Warriors Again doesn't fit this trope, as he was mostly a pushover who hit hard but had deceptively low HP, flinched from attacks, and could be easily thrown. However, in the Video Game Remake The Ninja Saviors: Return Of The Warriors he becomes this, as he still hits hard but is now Immune to Flinching from most attacks, cannot be thrown by most characters, and has a lot more HP this time round.
• Ninja Gaiden:
  • Murai in the Xbox version is the boss for the "tutorial level". If the mooks haven't taught you anything yet, then Murai will teach you not to button mash wildly, or he'll block and counter with a throw. So you might think turtling works — WRONG! He'll teach you not to stand around aimlessly blocking with another throw. Start learning to roll and attack at the right times if you want to get past.
  • Alma also makes an appearance to just start smacking you down when you thought the game was done throwing curve balls at you. Doku, the Zeppelin Boss, your evil twin, and the second fight with Murai all qualify as re-wake up call bosses, to make sure you aren't falling asleep yet.
  • In Black, the game just rubs it in your face. So you finally beat the game? Good job, now go beat these three new harder difficulties!
  • Same deal with the first one from the Xbox 360 version of Ninja Gaiden II.
  • The Act III boss of the NES Ninja Gaiden. The Act I boss has a huge hitbox and is easily disposed of. The Act II boss has a big hitbox for his attack, but once again mashing the B button makes quick work of him. But the third boss? Mindlessly Button Mashing in hopes of doing damage won't save your ass; you now have to strategize if you want to deplete at least 75% of his Life Meter before Ryu bites it.
• No More Heroes: Shinobu is the first boss where you have to carefully dodge, chase and wait for an opening. And demonstrates that bosses can pull out really strong attacks when they turn red. The attack isn't a One-Hit Kill, but if you've taken any damage, you're still going to die.
• No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle: If Skelter Helter didn't mess you up for the tutorial, then the 50th ranked assassin, Nathan Copeland, most definitely will. If you haven't learned how to evade attacks, say hello to a rocket to the face. If you haven't learned to dodge when danger signs flash, say hello to a metal fist in the face. Plus, his arena becomes more and more dangerous as the fight drags on, forcing you to get used to being very attentive to your surroundings. And blocking his attacks will, once again, burn through your battery like nothing else.
• No More Heroes III: Early on, you have relatively little issue dealing with the Mooks to the point that you won't have much need for evading or jumping attacks, even though they're aliens that fight a little differently from the series norm. This all changes the minute that you fight Mr. Blackhole, who abuses his teleportation powers to strike you from anywhere, then he places wormholes on his arena and unleashes highly-damaging shockwaves after you halfway through, so you must evade, jump or block effectively at all costs. To top it all off, emptying his health doesn't end the fight, as there's a whole second phase to go through with a gameplay change into the Full Armor. He's the first boss to show that this batch is unlike anything you've fought before in the series, and requires mastering all the tools at your disposal to defeat.
• Ōkami:
  • Waka, because before that, you can just hack n' slash your enemies to bits close-range. Not Waka: he throws his sword(s) at you repeatedly, and you have to deflect them back at him with some skill to beat him. The Spider Queen may come as a nasty surprise to new players as well, especially since she can stomp on you.
  • The Cutters, if you have been using weapons other than the disc class weapons, you will have a tough time killing them You have to defend with the disc when they attack to do an automatic counterattack.
• The first few minutes of [PROTOTYPE] give you A Taste of Power. The first boss fight with the Hunters afterward teaches you that you'll have to earn your God Mode powers. And if you underestimate Specialist Cross because he's a mere mortal, he will educate you, with an electrical staff enema.
• Ragnarok Odyssey has the Orc King. In the missions before it, you would be fine if you rushed in and hacked away at the enemies until they fell. Not so with this guy; he has far more health than you would be used to, and hits very hard as well, so if you try to rush him down, you'll fail the mission in no time. Destroying certain areas of the boss is introduced as well. It's at this point where the game spells out that you'll have to read the boss, learn the times you can safely attack, and position your attacks to maximize damage.
• River City Ransom has Turk, who marks the point where the bosses start throwing more exotic special attacks at you. If you're unprepared, his Nitro Port will throw you for a loop when he suddenly disappears from view to teleport right up to you, jamming a knee in your face. If you haven't been blocking, or if you've been rushing fights a whole lot, expect to get kicked around a lot before finally getting it.
• Sin and Punishment:
  • The Lizard Seemer stonewalls a lot of new players, since you have to use the projectile reflecting technique on him, which many players probably haven't even tried up until now. Trying to kill him with regular attacks will inevitably result in time running out.
  • Brad. Either get good at timing or look up how to turn on auto-aim.
  • The Heart Seeker gives almost every player trouble. It's a giant missile that you have to shoot down before it hits the intended target, and no, it doesn't just explode like you'd expect an explosive to do, so you have to maximize your damage output and accuracy. The target then begins shooting at the Heart Seeker, but misses. You will probably get hit, though. This is also the first boss where manual aiming is mandatory. Using automatic aiming, you simply cannot do enough damage to it to destroy it in time. But many players who set-and-forget to auto-aiming don't know that right away.
  • Sin and Punishment: Star Successor has Orion Tsang, the Stage 1 penultimate boss, who puts the "Punishment" in "Sin and Punishment" and shows you that the Nebulox battles are going to require some serious practice. For most of the battle, he shields himself so you can't damage him (in fact, it's very easy to time him out the first several times).
  • Also, Hibaru Yaju, third of the Nebulox. She's tough mainly because she's the first boss that actually requires melee attacks to fight. For a lot of players, this is the first time they have to seriously use their melee attacks for something other than deflecting projectiles.
• Streets of Rage series:
  • From 1, Souther, the boss of the 2nd level. He wears Freddy Krueger gloves and has an incredibly fast and damaging two hit combo with them. He'll also punish you for trying to attack him at a distance with jump kicks.
  • 2 has Barbon, the boss of the 1st level. Barbon is a tutorial on all the ways bosses in SoR 2 cheat - he blocks, has a counter throw, has an anti-air, and hits too hard and fast for standing in front of him to be safe. On the other hand, he doesn't do the ridiculous amounts of damage that later bosses like Abadede and R.Bear do.
  • 2 also signals a huge difficulty spike with the boss of level 4, the aforementioned Abadede. He has three life bars, does a ridiculous amount of damage, is incredibly hard to get close enough to to attack, and even then has a counter throw and a brief invincibility counter move.
  • The first boss in 3 is Shiva from Streets of Rage 2. Oh yeah, and the difficulty only goes up from there.
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge has these in two consecutive levels:
  • Episode 3's boss, the Turtle Tenderizer, is the first boss that fights in a less conventional way. Bebop's ball-and-chain counterattack can quickly catch players off-guard, Rocksteady pelts shots as the truck moves vertically, and the truck itself bounces all over the screen every so often. Studying this boss' patterns is crucial to win, especially on Gnarly difficulty.
  • Episode 4 has Groudchuck and Dirtbag, the game's first Dual Boss. Neither of them leave much room to breathe with their attacks (which are pretty elaborate by themselves), so micromanaging damage output to both of them is the best way to win, lest you get crushed.
• The beginning of Ultimate Spider-Man (2005) perfectly demonstrates the nature of "super-powered person vs. non-super-powered one" type of fights. When you first play as Spider-Man, you only battle extremely non-challenging foes like random thugs and Shocker. Not only that, but then you get to play as Venom and discover a whole new set of abilities: you can jump high, whip out tentacles, throw stuff and even eat people to gain health! Can it get any easier than that? Overjoyed by your newfound powers, you grab the nearest bike and smash the window of a random bar... To find out that the bike, in fact, belonged to Wolverine and you just signed yourself up for the first actual boss fight of the game. Oops. While Wolverine isn't particularly hard in comparison with some of the latter bosses, he's still far above anything you've encountered before at that point: he can actually dodge and regenerate health, his attacks are all combos, oh, and that awesome health-gaining ability? You better not try it on him.
• Ultra Toukon Densetsu, based off the Ultra Series: The fourth boss, Alien Baltan, is far stronger than the previous bosses, attack players with rapid-firing streams of energy, and uses his Teleport Spam all over the place. He's the first sign that the game isn't going to be as forgiving as it was on the previous levels.
• The massive, primal, dreadlocked monstrosity only known as Missing Link in Vendetta (1991). You had your fun with the balding guy with the buzzsaw, at the end of the first level, and maybe you thought all the other bosses were gonna be pushovers, as well. Now you only have time to wet your pants, as they slowly lower this huge cage on you, before this abomination rips the chains off himself, and starts stomping on you.
• Viewtiful Joe is full of these kind of bosses, which can be very difficult if you don't know the tricks behind your character's abilities. This will eventually become clear once the bosses you fight suddenly start constantly reappearing. For example:
  • The Helicopter will chew you up and spit you out if you don't know that, in slow mode, you can dodge and reflect bullets. In particular, if you don't already know you can knock the chopper's bullets back at it, you'll probably instead try to jump on top of it, right into the most dangerous part of the boss, and get a couple high risk, low damage hits in before jumping off to avoid injury. This makes the battle much, much longer than necessary and will generally lead to death. If you didn't get it the first time, then you'll probably have a really bad time stopping the chopper when two of them show up at once.
  • The fourth level boss Another Joe is an evil super-powered version of Joe that fights you in area with additional enemies and spike pits. Even if you made it through the other levels easily just by messing around, you actually have to know how to use your powers perfectly at this point to win.