History Main / DenialOfDiagonalAttack

* In CaveStory, you can only fire in four directions. However, since the game is so well made, this is rarely a problem.

* In ''DwarfFortres'', not only can you attack in all 8 direction (and projectiles can be fire toward any square in view), the game currently has 3 dimensions [[GoodBadBugs but altitude has no effect on ability to attack]]: a fish in a river and a dwarf on the surrounding cliff face are perfectly capable of exchanging blows so long as they are horizontally adjacent. In adventure mode, you can even attack units ''underground'' if you happen to be directly above the 3x3 tile square that unit in is the center of.

* Mario has a variant: The game's DemonicSpider: Lakitu! You can attack diagonally, downward. But anything higher than Mario can't be attacked. Not normally a problem, until you've got a guy ''constantly'' spawning mooks. (You can kill him, but he just respawns.)

* ''[[TheLegendOfZeldaIITheAdventureOfLink Zelda II: The Adventure of Link]]'' averts this trope both by allowing Link's range of attacks to cover most of the area in front of his body and by giving him the down-stab and up-stab abilities.

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* ''The original Game/TheLegendOfZelda'': also an example of Denial of Diagonal ''Movement''.

* ''Game/TheLegendOfZelda'': also an example of Denial of Diagonal ''Movement''.

* The first ''Metroid'' game only let you shoot horizontally and straight up, and you can't duck. The Wave Beam helped deal with this, but you inevitably needed to replace it with the Ice Beam to deal with the Metroids. The Screw Attack was awesome enough to possibly qualify for a partial aversion for flying enemies, but the only other way to deal with crotch monsters was with bombs. ''Metroid II'' averted this a bit by allowing you to duck. ''Super Metroid'' and beyond averted this further by also allowing you to shoot diagonally and straight down, and allowing you to keep and combine beams instead of replacing them.

* ''{{Metroid}}'':
** The first game only let you shoot horizontally and straight up, and you can't duck. The Wave Beam helped deal with this, but you inevitably needed to replace it with the Ice Beam to deal with the Metroids. The Screw Attack was awesome enough to possibly qualify for a partial aversion for flying enemies, but the only other way to deal with crotch monsters was with bombs. ''Metroid II'' averted this a bit by allowing you to duck. ''Super Metroid'' and beyond averted this further by also allowing you to shoot diagonally and straight down, and allowing you to keep and combine beams instead of replacing them.

* ''{{Metroid}}'': the first two games only - ''Super Metroid'' and beyond averted this by allowing you to crouch and shoot diagonally. The Screw Attack was awesome enough to possibly qualify for partial aversion, but crotch monsters remained difficult for even a fully-powered Samus to deal with in the first game.

** Bass (and later [[MegaManX Axl]]) could fire in 8 directions, although they [[DoNotRunWithAGun could not run at the same time.]]

* ''MegaMan'': the series as a whole is a ''horrible'' offender of this trope. More often than not, you can't even shoot up or down, with the exception of certain special weapons. This trope is one of the main reasons the Metal Blades, which ''could'' be shot in all eight directions, were such a GameBreaker.
** It wasn't until ''Mega Man 5'' that the charged shot gained extra vertical spread, finally putting an end to crotch monsters.

** X was a GameBreaker in Mega Man X 7 because he would actually aim at his target instead of blindly shooting forward. Floor, ceiling, [[PolygonCeiling Z-axis]] be damned, you were dead meat once X fired.

** Megaman 10 uses this heavily to make certain boss and mini-boss fights "challenging." Downloading Bass reveals just how much of a game design crutch this is, as he can shoot up and will destroy these bosses almost instantly.

* ''[[Game/{{ptitlelpt9xvh0}} GoldenEye]]'': is an [[IncrediblyLamePun odd]] example where this trope's invocation is the result of one specific character/enemy and not a glaring, inherent flaw in the game controls.

* ''NinjaGaiden'': is another example of the flying/forehead variant of this trope, notable if only for the fact that the game's Goddamn Bats are more deadly than a bazooka blast to the face.

* ''{{Castlevania}}'': the flying/forehead variety is present at all times in the earlier games, and walking on stairs effectively removes your ability to deal with crotch monsters.

*** ''PerfectDark'' thankfully avoided this, because the game automatically aims at stuff lower than yourself. Maid fighting short characters like Elvis much easier.