History Main / OneHitPointWonder

* Deconstructed in ''{{VideoGame/Undertale}}''. If you run a check on Sans the skeleton at the beginning, you'll find that he is, with his 1 HP, 1 DEF and [[ScratchDamage 1 ATK]], the weakest enemy in the entire game. Usually he just pops up here and there, cracking jokes and pranking you while being lazy and disinterested in events, but if you activiate the No Mercy route by killing every mob and NPC you run across, he will finally decide to act and challenge you to a fight to the death. That's when it's revealed that, while it's technically true that he's the game's weakest enemy, the check neglected to mention that he doesn't ''need'' more HP or DEF because he dodges every attack effortlessly. His own attacks bypass your MercyInvincibility: he deals 1 HP damage ''[[DeathOfAThousandCuts per frame]]'' and a stackable DamageOverTime effect is applied with each hit, rendering your newly-aquired InfinityPlusOneSword / InfinityPlusOneArmor useless. It's like Creator/TobyFox is mocking you for thinking that numbers equal power.

* A variation occurs in ''Anime/DanganRonpa3''. Aoi Asahina's Forbidden Action is being hit with a punch or a kick, and if that happens, the bracelet on her wrist will inject her with lethal poison.

* Extreme Difficulty in ''VideoGame/SonicFrontiers'' not only locks all of Sonic's stats to Level 1, but makes the existence of rings and his defense stats superfluous by ensuring that every stray hit from enemies and hazards is enough to kill him. This even applies when he's in ''Super Sonic''.

** Introduced in the Sights, Sounds and Speed update is ''VideoGame/SonicFrontiers''' Extreme difficulty, which locks Sonic's stats at level 1 and more importantly, makes him go down from a single hit from any enemy, regardless of how many rings he has.

* ''Bucky O'Hare'' This game for the NES had the player dying in one hit when playing on the hidden hard mode.

* ''VideoGame/RedAlert3'': Futuretech's Cryo weapons were advertised in-universe as causing only HarmlessFreezing, for use against riots and such. While it is true that a frozen unit will thaw out over time and be none the worse for wear, they seemingly neglected to mention that while frozen, a single hit from any weapon will lead to LiterallyShatteredLives. Tanks, buildings, all go down to a single bullet or missile even from units that normally can't hit them like sniper IFVs, or units that ''deal no damage'' like Cryo Legionnaires (this one turned out to be deliberate, as Futuretech recruited sociopaths who will gleefully jump-jet into frozen prisoners to murder them).

** In ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsII'', the reward for getting OneHundredPercentCompletion on the Gummi Ship missions is the Crown/G gummi piece. When equipped it causes the Ship to start off in "berserk mode", but makes it so any hit will kill you.

* ''VideoGame/{{maimai}}'' has BonusBoss tracks called Challenge Tracks that, when played, give you a LifeMeter dependent on how old the track is, with older tracks giving you more health. Getting any note judgement below a Perfect takes away one life. If you attempt a Challenge Track less than two days after it's been released, [[BrutalBonusLevel you get only one life]], i.e. you ''must'' play the chart perfectly or you will fail instantly!

* ''VideoGame/KaijuWars'': Most of the player's units will go down in a single attack, whereas the kaiju that they're fighting have MultipleHealthBars and must be worn down through attrition. Fortunately, [[WeHaveReserves destroyed units can be repaired and redeployed very cheaply]].

** Hexers can become this, if you try to maximize the damage for their Revenge skill -- [[CriticalStatusBuff 255% of the health they've lost will be dealt to the enemy]], but the Hexer will not survive a single blow.
** The Phantom Duelist title for Fencers has Lightweight, which increases evasion for each empty equipment slot the Fencer has. Forsake all armor and throw in the Fencer's Predict, and you effectively have this trope as the Fencer will die the moment anything manages to hit them despite the evasion buffs.
** The Impact Brawler title for Pugilists in the fifth game has Death's Edge that grows stronger with the party on lower health. It is strongest when you invoke this trope on your entire party... but you have to hope it [[DeathOrGloryAttack kills before the enemy acts]].

** Most of the early games made the titular hero a One-Hit-Point Wonder. He can survive one hit if he has the "Heart" power-up, which acts as a shield. Starting with the UsefulNotes/Nintendo64 era, Bomberman got a lifebar.

* ''VideoGame/MadRatDead'': It doesn't matter if Mad Rat gets hit by a Nightmare or touches sewer water, it'll kill him all the same. Thankfully, there is the existence of the TimeRewindMechanic.

* ''WesternAnimation/WreckItRalph'': Felix is one of these in his own game, as a few loose ceiling tiles is all it takes for him to go through his death animation (and instantly resurrect seconds later). Thankfully, he can take a lot more serious harm when he's in other games (necessary for the escape from the [=NesquikSand=]).

* Both ''Space Crusade'' and the original version of ''TableTopGame/HeroQuest'' seem to follow the logic that everything only has one hit point ''unless'' there's some special way of tracking it. Thus, the only things in ''[=HeroQuest=]'' that originally have more than one hit point are the hero characters, whose can be tracked on their character sheets; even boss monsters only have one hit point, and tougher monsters are just harder to hit at all (meaning that the two hardest-hitting spells in the game can one-shot practically anything). In ''Space Crusade'', the SpaceMarine commander's hit points can be tracked on the "radar", and he has a whole six of them while all the Space Marine troopers have one hit point -- and the only "monster" with more than one is the Destructor, which is a big, multi-part model with separately attacheable weapons, and it concretely loses one weapon per lost hit point.

->''"It's like you touch the top of the building, you die, you touch the ceiling, you die, you touch the floor, you die, too far to the right, you die, too far to the left, you die, you die, you die, you die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, '''die'''!!"''

* ''VideoGame/GhostReconAdvancedWarfighter 1'': In Hard mode, all enemies aim for the head and thus kill in one hit.

** In the earlier editios, it was quite possible for a first-level player character to have only one hit point, since you rolled only one die to set your maximum hit points. Common house rules were to set all first-level characters' first hit die as the maximum roll, and this got formalized by 3rd edition.

** ''Donkey Kong Junior'' doesn't fare much better.

** All ''VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountry'' games play around with this. Since you are controlling two one hit point wonders at once, your partner fills in as your extra hit point. One single hit will take you out, but you don't lose a life. Your friend just takes over from there.
*** ''VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountry2DiddysKongQuest'' did have an example of a boss with only one hit. [[spoiler:When you refight K.Rool in Krocodile Kore.]] The catch is that said boss has a very long string of attacks before they're finally vulnerable.
*** In ''VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountryReturns'', [[spoiler:there is a Mirror Mode where Diddy Kong doesn't appear at all and Donkey Kong only has one heart instead of the normal two hearts.]]
*** If you're on the minecart or rocket and you get hit ''once'' - you instantly lose a life regardless of your heart meter. [[NintendoHard Of course, you can expect that to happen if you're not careful.]]