History Main / SNKBoss

This trope can also apply to non-fighting games, provided they are similarly competitive and have similar was of ensuring CompetitiveBalance. {{Racing game}}s, for example, may have a champion with an absurdly tricked out car and a knowledge of the track that combine to give it an advantage no mater which vehicle/racer you choose.

This trope can also apply to non-fighting games, usually in a genre that is similarly competitive and has similar rules of CompetitiveBalance. Racing games, for example, may have a champion with an absurdly tricked out car and a knowledge of the track that combine to make this trope.

Applied to inherently asymmetrical games (such as [[RolePlayingGame RPGs]] or platformers), the trope means that the boss violates the rules and conventions previously established, whether within the game, by the genre, or even general video game conventions or design practices.

[[caption-width-right:290:I thought [[VideoGame/PunchOut this game]] [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard was about boxing.]]]]

In some fighting games, the FinalBoss is a unique opponent in both design ''and'' ability (such as a [[{{Kaiju}} 30-foot]] EldritchAbomination) that is PurposelyOverpowered and only appears in single-player/non-competitive game modes; it's slightly more sensible that such a boss would have those high-powered attacks rather than a human-sized villain. [[BraggingRightsReward It can also feel pretty good for a player]] who manages to use an otherwise-mortal BadAss to [[DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu beat the crap out of a godlike monster]].

# [[RulesAreForHumans Complete Disregard for System Limitations]]: While you may have to switch between high and low blocking, the SNK Boss needs to only block one way. Where you have to crouch or be in a specific position to perform certain moves, the boss does not. Where you have a regular super meter, the boss either fills its super meter much faster than yours, has a regenerating super meter, or in extreme cases has no visible one, meaning it can use as many supers as it wants whenever it wants.
# Blatantly Overpowered Offense: A trademark of the SNK Boss. Where you have fireballs, the boss has full-screen lasers that come out faster than you can blink, deal damage equivalent to 1/4 of a health bar, and snuff out all other projectiles. If you have an invincible uppercut, the boss likely has one where he surrounds himself with lightning for more hits and damage, and can cancel out fireballs. These types of bosses sometimes, but not always, have a [[ThatOneAttack maximum level super]] where they show off their superiority by utterly annihilating you regardless of your current health, usually combined with FingerpokeOfDoom for maximum insult.
# Blatantly Overpowered Defense: They may be the gameplay equivalent of TheJuggernaut, being able to [[NoSell continue their attack startup against your own hits]] or possess features like a larger health bar, reduced block-stun, inability to get dizzied (or a shorter dizzy period), or they can interrupt your combos with its attacks or escape from a juggle via some sort of recovery/teleport.

An SNK Boss is a boss in a FightingGame who [[ScrewTheRulesIMakeThem breaks the rules]] that enforce CompetitiveBalance to such an absurd degree that they are considered to be vastly superior to every other character in the game. The SNK Boss combines NintendoHard with TheComputerIsACheatingBastard and takes them UpToEleven. These types of bosses usually contain any of the following factors.

Is there an upside to this? GameplayAndStoryIntegration. Given that characters of this kind are frequently talked up in the story as being terrifying and powerful, if they fall into this category then at least player doesn't feel like [[CharacterShilling all the hype and drama was over nothing.]]

[[TropeNamer Takes its name]] from the company Creator/{{SNK}}, which seems to ''love'' making bosses like this and having each successive one [[SerialEscalation top the last]]. This is also a case of FollowTheLeader, especially with [[VideoGame/GuiltyGear Arc]] [[VideoGame/BlazBlue System]] [[Persona4Arena Works]].

Has nothing to do with ''[[Manga/AttackOnTitan Shingeki no Kyojin]]''.

In some fighting games, the FinalBoss is a unique opponent in both design ''and'' ability (such as a [[{{Kaiju}} 30-foot]] EldritchAbomination) that is PurposefullyOverpowered and only appears in single-player/non-competitive game modes; it's slightly more sensible that such a boss would have those high-powered attacks rather than a human-sized villain. [[BraggingRightsReward It can also feel pretty good for a player]] who manages to use an otherwise-mortal BadAss to [[DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu beat the crap out of a godlike monster]].

# Blatantly Overpowered Offense: A trademark of the SNK Boss. Where you have fireballs, the boss has full-screen lasers that come out faster than you can blink, deal damage equivalent to 1/4 of a health bar, and stuff out all other projectiles. If you have an invincible uppercut, the boss likely has one where he surrounds himself with lightning for more hits and damage, and can cancel out fireballs. These types of bosses sometimes, but not always, have a [[ThatOneAttack maximum level super]] where they show off their superiority by utterly annihilating you regardless of your current health, usually combined with FingerpokeOfDoom for maximum insult.

Has nothing to do with ''Manga/AttackOnTitan'' (which has the original Japanese title of ''Shingeki no Kyojin'').
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->''"Hey, don't take this as an excuse or something, but... that Ragna at the very end? That sucker is TOUGH! Oh my God, you have no idea!"''
-->-- '''Hazama/Terumi''', ''VideoGame/BlazBlue''

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[[folder:Namco]]
* Heihachi in the first ''VideoGame/{{Tekken}}'' is much harder and faster than his later incarnations, due to being the boss of the game. This has been written into canon with ''Tekken Tag 2'' supposedly featuring a return of his younger self, when he was much tougher.
* ''Tekken 5'': Jinpachi Mishima (unavailable to players), who can interrupt any attack you throw at him and possesses a fireball that takes away two-thirds of your health with a single hit (which he can also fire rapidly in case you try to sidestep it). Yes, the final boss of a hand-to-hand fighting game is best known for his nigh-unavoidable magic stun and long-range fireballs. In addition, he can heal himself by stealing your life bar and phase around the stage so not only can he make it impossible to hit him if he so wishes, it is possible you may hit him and still get a "perfect" loss.\\
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If you are jumping in the air, the stun will drop you down to the floor and you will reel from it. If you are as far away from Jinpachi as the game will allow, the stun will hit you and you are unable to move. If you are blocking, you are stunned and unable to move. If you are on the floor, the stun will hit you, make you stand, and have you reel.\\
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Also, there's one thing that gets you no matter what - The stun/fireball combo. Go go, random stun counter followed by avoid-this-or-die fireball. Both mechanics are fine on their own, but when combined, there's nothing you can do.\\
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Ask any Tekken player you know how bad would it be if you couldn't move for six seconds, given that Tekken's claim to fame is juggling and combo-ability. Then add to the fact the weakest of Jinpachi's moves will take off a fifth of your lifebar and is combo-able. And you have the equation for a true SNK Boss.
* Azazel, [[OurDragonsAreDifferent the literal Dragon]] of ''Tekken 6'', is ''much'' worse than Jinpachi. He's got Devil's EyeBeams, Jinpachi's stun, plus even more ridiculous moves such as raising boulders out of the ground, throwing barrages of ice projectiles, and the ability to regenerate. Not to mention he doesn't even stagger on normal basis, and when it happens, he takes no damage. May be the Grand Champion of SNK Bosses.
** The BonusBoss [=NANCY-MI847J=] has ten times the energy bar of other fighters, cannot be stunned or juggled, attacks with lasers, machine guns, and missiles, and has an EyeBeams attack that cuts holes in the floor, killing you instantly if you're standing there.
** Boss Jin, whom you fight before Azazel, and right after Nancy. At the start of the round he automatically activates Rage Mode, meaning he deals twice the amount of normal damage. Not only that, but his AI suddenly increases to that of an expert player, no matter if you're fighting the CPU or a ghost, and will counter your strategies at every turn.
* ''Tekken Tag Tournament 2'' gives us a three-stage BossRush featuring the return of young Heihachi and Jinpachi Mishima at Stage 7, Ogre at Stage 8, and finally fan favorite [[MissingMom Jun Kazama]] for the Final Stage.\\
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The first two stages are warm-ups for the battle against the latter. She starts off as a defensive beast, completely at home in blocking most of your attacks. Take into account that [[ArtificialBrilliance she had been spending the game learning your moves and tactics]] and this is made even worse. She also uses her Attack Reversal every now and then, which is considerably rare for Tekken AI. Since she is a solo fighter, her entire health bar is doubled and must be depleted to knock her out, including her recoverable health. Once you win the first round and defeat Jun, the fun begins...
** ... and Jun transforms into [[SuperpoweredEvilSide Un]][[OneWingedAngel known]], effectively ending the [[EpilepticTrees decade-long debate on the character's identity]] [[note]]well, sort of; Unknown in the first ''Tag'' was originally meant to be Jun's younger sister[[/note]]. Unlike her ''Tag 1'' incarnation, she does not mimic other cast members a la Mokujin. Instead, she retains Jun's moveset as well as gaining a damage output increase and a few boss-exclusive moves that borderline on downright unfair, including a call back to Jinpachi's infamous stun. There are no guarantees in this fight; if she wants to, she'll either initiate a simple combo that shaves off roughly half of your health or reverse your attacks to death. One of her most dangerous attacks is a [[VideoGame/MarvelVsCapcom Snap Back-esque]] move where a portal appears on the ground. If you get hit by it, a huge hand surfaces from the stage and splats you, forcing you out of the arena and leaving you with only a pixel of health remaining and a large chunk of recoverable health. Did we mention that she can combo into it? Good luck when she pulls ''that'' off. Only plus side is Unknown is not as defensive as Jun, so it's really a toss up on which side of her is worse. It depends on your play-style. More aggressive players will find Unknown to be much easier than Jun, but that's like the difficulty going from impossible down to joystick snapping.
* An update for the free-to-play ''Tekken Revolution'' added a special version of True Ogre that can be fought in Arcade Mode, known as Gold Ogre. This version of True Ogre has had its AI buffed and its moveset modified to make it more boss-like. The computer will read your inputs and counter with the exact move necessary to counter it, which is usually its extremely damaging Invincible Move, now made faster than the regular version of Ogre and also safer when blocked. It can also teleport during a juggle like Azazel and appear on the other side of the screen to ram into you or breathe fire at you.
* The first game in the ''VideoGame/{{Soul|Series}}'' series, ''Soul Edge/Blade'' has Soul Edge, who would later become Inferno. He is a much tougher version of Cervantes who is able to teleport and use flying unblockable attacks, seemingly from anywhere on screen. His difficulty is so great that the original arcade version of the game had to have its difficulty lowered for a rerelease, because him and Cervantes (who you face before him) were considered impossible to beat. It can still take several retries to defeat him and that's only if you're lucky, as he's utterly unpredictable. And note that "lucky" here means you happened to not be in the way when he used one of those flying attacks and [[ArtificialStupidity he launched himself clear out of the ring]].
** If you did beat Cervantes and Soul Edge using Mitsurugi, you'd find yourself up against [[MeaningfulName Tanegashima]], a BonusBoss who starts the fight with a matchlock rifle, fully loaded, primed, cocked and pointed at your face. You have a split second (1 or 2 frames, at most) to dive to one side or his bullet will result in an unblockable OneHitKill. Of course, if you manage to do that, you've got plenty of time to run up to him and hack him apart while he reloads, but occasionally he does manage to block your attacks (which somehow doesn't interfere with his reloading) long enough to get off another shot.
* ''Soulcalibur II'' makes use of this trope with Inferno, a final boss who uses random move sets of other characters. This final fight carries the deceptive appearance of a single-KO battle, but Inferno's life bar is in fact 3 times normal size. He also receives a damage bonus, a special throw that knocks off more than half of your life gauge, and changes move sets when he hits 2/3rds and 1/3rd of his total life (and if you deal extra damage, it always truncates it, so Inferno starts each "round" with that amount of life). Additionally, flames blanket the stage and cover Inferno's body, making it harder and harder to discern his movements. Definitely a joystick-snapper.
** Fortunately, Inferno is [[AIBreaker surprisingly susceptible to throws.]]
* ''Soulcalibur III'' utilizes this to a degree even with ''non''-boss characters, although there are [[AIBreaker certain moves]] that can be used to circumvent the seemingly [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard precogniscent AI]]. But the [[BonusBoss secret boss]], Night Terror, is absolutely batshit ''insane'' in this regard, with EyeBeams and a stance which renders him immune to damage; unless you're using one of the aforementioned AI-killing attacks (or a few more that take advantage of Night Terror's absurd size) it appears that you can only beat him if the CPU decides that you can. Oh, yeah... you can't beat him by "ring out", either, because he'll just fly back in. Thanks God he isn't playable, at least if you're not using a cheating device.
** The story mode only character Ceres is supposed to be this - he blocks pretty much every move you use against him, and the story moves on if you lose the battle. Beating him results in nothing.
* ''Soulcalibur IV'' actually ''averts'' this, believe it or not, with its final boss, Algol. While he's fast and strong, he never feels impossible, and his projectiles are not only blockable but they can be ''parried'' to reflect them back against him. In the Tower of Lost Souls Mode, he actually does appear to fight like an SNK Boss, until you figure out [[ArtificialStupidity the bug in his AI]]. In the right circumstances, he'll ring himself out, every time those circumstances are presented to him.
** In Tower of Lost Souls mode he has a 50% chance each SECOND of "unblockability" - which includes being impossible to parry - being granted to his next attack, takes 30% normal damage, does double normal damage, has two health bars, and drains life with every attack? Essentially, if he hits you the battle is probably lost.
** He also boasts some ''stupidly'' broken infinites, although the A.I. never seems to make good use of them.
** [[VideoGame/TheForceUnleashed The Apprentice]] in Arcade. While not ''quite'' SNK level, he does seem to have an uncanny knack for sidestepping verticals, vert-jabbing horizontals, air-juggling and... to cap it all off... a truly ridiculous frequency of Just Impacts.
* ''Soulcalibur V'' has the honored privilege of granting us not one, not two, not three, not four, not ''five'', not even '''six''', but '''''seven''''' SNK Bosses, all fought in a row, in [[BonusLevelOfHell Legendary Souls mode]]. This, ladies and gentlemen, is the new [[VideoGame/BlazBlueContinuumShift Score Attack]]. The AI becomes demonically possessed, reads your inputs and reacts with unbelievable timing, and does not let you so much as breathe when it goes on the offensive. It can also perform any move requiring a Just Frame perfectly, resulting in combos which are completely impossible unless you have close to exact timing.
** First up is Kilik. Despite being a mimic character normally, in Legendary Souls he is stuck using Xiba's style, which was originally his own from previous games. The second you let him get momentum, he starts comboing you like a maniac with ambiguous mixups, and doesn't stop.
** Next is Nightmare, who uses an exclusive costume just for this mode, his ''Soulcalibur IV'' outfit. With his immense range, he will constantly knock you down and take away about 50-70% of your health bar using his Brave Edges and comboing into his Down+A+B attack while you're on the ground, resulting in a special command throw.
** Your third opponent is Siegfried, who also uses his ''Soulcalibur IV'' outfit exclusive to this mode. While he doesn't have the damage output of Nightmare, he does have the momentum and mixup game of Kilik, and is also a massive block-whore. Be prepared for ring outs several times over, and good luck trying to break his defenses.
** Contestant #4 is Cervantes, decked out in his Inferno costume from the very first game. While he's a bit easier than the first three opponents, your jaw is guaranteed to drop as he juggles you with Instant Geo Da Rays[=/=][[Franchise/StreetFighter Psycho Crushers]] for insane damage.
** After Cervantes, you fight Edge Master. Just like Kilik, in this mode he gets stuck with one set style - Alpha Patroklos', who in turn uses Setsuka's style. If the AI blocks you even ''once'' you will be punished with either a combo into his Critical Edge which can be done off of pretty much anything due to how fast it comes out, or a Just Frame Sakura Twister, which is so fast it can be done ''twice in a row'' and deals amazing damage for a combo ender. For many, this is the breaking point, but there's something even worse after him.
** That "something worse" is the 6th battle against Elysium. Again, she uses a set style - Pyrrha Omega's, to be exact. And this just so happens to be Sophitia's style, who Elysium takes the form of. Unfortunately, this version of Sophitia's style is faster, and about 10 times cheaper, making Elysium a total bitch to fight against. She spams Angel Strike (her signature stab) like it's going out of style, and will always end it with the Just Frame ender. She will also use her exclusive Critical Edge, which is a 20-hit full-screen attack, at the worst possible moments. Have fun.
** Your last opponent is a familiar face - Algol from ''Soulcalibur IV'', who seems to now be taking fashion advice from [[VideoGame/StreetFighterIII Gill]]. This time he's gotten smarter and doesn't ring himself out on accident anymore, which is bad news for you. Luckily, he's easier than the first 6 opponents put together, making this an AntiClimaxBoss.
*** The catch is that, while manageable compared to the other six, Algol is still a force to be reckoned with, even after losing the infinites that banned him from TournamentPlay in ''IV''. If he builds up his meter, Algol ''will'' use his Brave Edges and [[LimitBreak Critical Edge]] with sadistic glee, all of which puts you in position for [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyE2bwBHQlU more combo madness]] like rebounding you off of his levitating throne for ''an untechable juggle'' and then using his projectiles to pop you off of the ground, air controlling your position as a setup for combo finishers that allow him to further press the assault on wake-up. And if Algol is feeling ''especially'' malicious, he'll store up his meter and ''use all of it at once''. Nothing quite says frustration like a 10+-hit, touch of death combo. Or Algol using his ''complete'' Critical Edge at full meter, ''which is among the most-damaging single-hit moves in the entire game.'' Moral of the story: never let Algol gain momentum. ''Never.''
* ''VideoGame/FightingLayer'' has Vold Ignitio, the final boss. The first round is no big deal, even if he's tougher than most of the previous fights. If you win a round against him, he goes LimpAndLivid, and the difficulty skyrockets. When you attack him and he's not trying to get up or in the middle of an attack, he will swap places with you and counterattack with your own move. He also has an unblockable diving attack that is guaranteed to hit if you can't get out of the way. Finally, his gun super is fast, unblockable, and heavy hitting.
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[[folder:Midway/Netherrealm Studios]]
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJPLDR8DWmI Mutilator]] from ''Bio F.R.E.A.K.S.'' It's a bit like fighting [[VideoGame/MetalGearSolid Metal Gear Rex]], only it's a FightingGame. And the arena is [[DownTheDrain flooded]]. And the water is full of [[EverythingsEvenWorseWithSharks sharks]].
* Midway's 1997 ''VideoGame/WarGods'' on Nintendo 64 features two SNK bosses in the progressive fighting mode: Grox and Exor.\\
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Grox was the first big green blob thing, who looks like a joke but takes basically no flinch damage when hit and has a variety of moves which take 15-30% of your health in 1 hit.\\
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Exor's name is not even given, and he basically has a bunch of moves no other character can perform, others that no other character cannot perform efficiently and also takes no flinch damage, combined with teleportation abilities and a very high speed. Even on the lowest difficulty, this boss is impossibly hard.
* The ''MortalKombat'' series is notorious for its SNK-like sub-bosses, starting with ''VideoGame/MortalKombat2''[='=]s Kintaro and ending with ''VideoGame/MortalKombatDeadlyAlliance''[='=]s Moloch. Not only are they super-powerful, but they're unthrowable, unjuggleable (for the most part) and - with later games - immune to projectile attacks.
** In ''VideoGame/MortalKombat'', we had Goro and Shang Tsung.\\
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Goro had the highest defensive and attack stats of any character in MK1, and his stomp could get heavily annoying. He also had an ''unblockable'' fireball that came out very fast, and an overpowered throw that did almost 40% damage.\\
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Shang Tsung also had unblockable and cheap fireballs, and could morph into any character at random, [[OhCrap including GORO]]! If he just so happens to morph, the character's AI will be at the maximum level, meaning it'll be extremely difficult to land a hit. He's also floating along the ground so sweeps and Sub-Zero's slide special will not work on him.
** Then came ''VideoGame/MortalKombat2'', which introduced us to Kintaro and Shao Kahn.\\
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Kintaro is basically Goro but taken a step further in difficulty. His fireball is slower, but still unblockable. His stomp is more easily telegraphed, but now it has a shorter version which stuns you for a LONG time.\\
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Should you beat Kintaro, you go on to fight Shao Kahn. The first thing you'll notice is that he has a head start at the beginning of the round, and overrides the "FIGHT!" message from appearing with his taunt (since he's the announcer after all). What differentiates him from the previous bosses is that ''all of his moves, when blocked, put your character into hitstun, and have no lag time inbetween''. The only way to defend against him is to dodge his attacks, which is easier said than done. He can throw an energy spear, ram you with a shoulder charge, [[PunchedAcrossTheRoom Sparta kick you all the way to the other side of the screen]], and throw a mean right hook that also sends you the same way.
** ''VideoGame/MortalKombat3'' decided to drop the traditional 4-armed Shokan sub-bosses in favor of Motaro, a demonic Centaur. He easily outshines the previous sub-bosses in cheapness, and is the grand champion of SNK Bosses in MortalKombat. Projectiles thrown at him bounce right back at you, he teleports like crazy, his attacks (throw included) do WAY too much damage, and he can fire an infinite number of energy balls from his metal tail in any direction. You'll need an extensive knowledge of your character's bread-and-butter combos in order to win against him (or you can crouch the whole time and uppercut every time he gets close enough - he'll tail swipe you a couple times, but not enough to put you in danger).\\
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Should you beat him, you will have to once again fight Shao Kahn, but this time he is ''much'' different than before. This time he's ''really'' pissed off about your defeating him in [=MKII=], and can now utterly destroy you in a few seconds. He button-reads, he's faster than he was in [=MKII=], does more damage while taking less, traded his energy javelin for an unblockable {{Eye Beam|s}}, has an upwards version of his shoulder charge in case of jump-ins, and he can [[{{Hammerspace}} pull out a giant metal hammer]] [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard which automatically dizzies you regardless of whether you blocked or not]]. "It's official: '''You suck!'''"
** ''Videogame/UltimateMortalKombat3'' isn't much tough, right... But play the Game Boy Advance port. Not only the AI uses every dirty trick and secrets, but also brutally beats you down EVEN ON LOWEST DIFFICULT. Now imagine how tough the boss must be. Good luck.
** ''VideoGame/MortalKombat4'' didn't offer anything, but ''Deadly Alliance'' gave us Moloch, a [[RedOniBlueOni blue oni that acts like a red oni]], with GlowingEyesOfDoom and a ball-'n-chain strapped to his hand. He takes roughly half-normal damage, and has ridiculous attacks such as a non-telegraphed bum-rush. The worst thing about Moloch is if you win one round against him, he just stands there and roars. If you want the satisfaction of seeing him fall, you need to win the match.
** ''MortalKombat: Deception'' introduced Onaga, the mighty Dragon King, for the first time, and he lives up to his name. The game foreshadows Onaga's immunity to projectiles in the opening cutscene: he walks through sustained fire from Shang Tsung, Quan Chi, ''and'' Raiden at the same time.\\
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First off, he's bigger than Goro, Kintaro, Motaro, and Moloch combined. Secondly, he breathes fire that causes massive hitstun. Third, he's immune to projectile attacks, and while he can't crouch, his guard is both high and low at the same time. Fourth, he can use his wings (which are even '''BIGGER''' than his body) to backdash away from combos, while doing some of his own. And fifth, his throw is really powerful, and cuts off about 40-50% of your health. And if that wasn't enough, the stage where you fight against him has a Death Trap (the spikes surrounding the arena) which you can't knock Onaga into, but ''he'' can knock '''you''' into it. Your only saving grace is that his weakness is spread across the arena, and if you take down a kamidogu, he becomes immobilized and much weaker.
** Finally, we come to ''MortalKombat: Armageddon'', which gives us the fire elemental Blaze as the FinalBoss. Some of you may remember Blaze as the fiery-looking secret character from Deadly Alliance. Yeah, that version's gone. Instead we get a giant lava titan that can do a rolling attack, teleport, and do overpowered combos.
** Shao Kahn retakes the throne as of ''VideoGame/MortalKombat9''.\\
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The main thing that makes him a pain in the butt is his ability to turn off hit stun on himself whenever he pleases. So you can just punch him as much as you want but you're still eating a shoulder to the face. All the bosses seem to have this property but Shao Kahn certainly makes the best use of it. He can also fling his hammer at you, which is unblockable and has a considerable hit stun. And God help you if his X-Ray attack hits you, though, since it does 54% damage. Oh and all the damage he takes is reduced by 50%, effectively doubling his lifebar. Overall, a very challenging boss at least and SNK Boss at worst.\\
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And things are even worse in the Challenge Tower, where you fight him a bunch of times. Some are just straight one-on-one matches (though you don't get to choose your character), but most stack things against you even further, such as making you go solo against Shao Kahn and two other opponents, or go solo against [[UpToEleven three Shao Kahns on one lifebar.]]
* With InjusticeGodsAmongUs, there are two examples. First up is Regime!{{Superman}} in Classic Battle mode, who takes only half damage of whatever you throw at him (Meaning if you character has a Character Trait that gives you a damage boost, turn it on before using a super move, you'll do 100% of the damage for the move), constantly will spam his special moves or combos (Yes, even at Medium). And the real kicker, not only does his character trait (Which makes his attacks ignore armored hits and inflict increased damage for a short period of time) runs out slower than normal, but after it runs out, it ''immediately fills back up.''\\
\\ Then there's Lex Luthor in some of the S.T.A.R.S Labs missions. May not sound as bad as it does. You're wrong. He gains a shield for a couple seconds during the match that not only protects him, but rebounds the damage you inflicted onto him ''back to you''. And not only that, Lex will go special move crazy sometimes with and without the shield, killing you easily, making the gamer wanna slam the controller down to the ground, especially in the mission where you play as Black Adam.
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[[folder:Trope Namer: SNK Playmore]]
* The full term is SNK boss syndrome, boss characters who disregard competitive balance are said to suffer from it, as seen [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZA8YUSQHhZ8 here]], a comparatively mild case.
* This being SNK, the ''KingOfFighters'' series had loads and loads of these:
** ''The'' SNK boss by which all others are defined is Rugal Bernstein from ''[[KingOfFighters The King of Fighters '94]]''. His first form is cake, but once round 2 starts and [[TheCoatsAreOff that tux comes off]], pray:\\

He uses a variation of Geese Howard's Reppuken and Wolfgang Krauser's Kaiser Wave that go through all other projectiles and have priority over everything. Also, he has his own move called Genocide Cutter which he uses with reckless abandon. It can shave off 40 to 70 percent of your lifebar, depending on whether the computer wants it to be so. He's easily-hit with most Jump Kicks, but they do so little damage that even this go-to attack won't win easily.
** The series upped the ante considerably in '95 with [[{{Brainwashed}} Saisyu Kusanagi]] followed by [[OneWingedAngel Omega Rugal]]:\\

Saisyu's Moveset was copy of Kyo's moveset in turbo, for SNK Boss, his character strength wasn't that strong. However, his Ai was pretty much designed to [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard React to your button input.]] Thanks to that. He's ''harder'' than Omega Rugal, and that's saying something.\\

Omega Rugal is...the same Rugal from '94, but with white hair, no shirt, dark skin (Or pale and zombie like in 2002), a large Omega symbol branded into his back, hence the name, and [[RecycledINSPACE A SUPER MOVE]], except it hits better.\\
That said, You were allowed to select those two characters by putting secret command during character selection. ''Without being weakened.'' Guess how that ended up.
** ''[='96=]'' had two bosses in a row with [[BarrierMaiden Chizuru]] and [[BlowYouAway Goenitz]] and there's also a Boss Team.\\

Goenitz is difficult to hit, let alone beat. If the computer [[AIRoulette felt like it]], Goenitz could be ''completely unbeatable by any means.'' He has a wind barrier, the Yonokaze, which can come out directly in front of your character, can't be rolled through and blocks all projectiles. It could also appear anywhere between you and Goenitz, meaning that rushing towards him or approaching him just increases the chance of you strucking yourself against this invincible pillar of wind. The only thing capable of breaking it was Leona's rushing slash kick.\\

Also, if somehow Yonokaze spawns exactly in front of Goenitz, [[IncrediblyLamePun you will get winded up]]. Oh, and if the AI goes into a loop and does it repeatedly (its downtime isn't NEARLY enough to give you an opening to attack), then nothing you can do will have any effect whatsoever. Also, his super meter is infinite, and his super grab will grab you even you're full character length away.
** ''[='97=]'' had [[BrainwashedAndCrazy Orochi Iori (or Leona)]], [[QuirkyMinibossSquad the Orochi Team]], and then {{Orochi}} himself, all in a row.\\

To start, Orochi Iori is roughly twice as fast and twice as strong. With him moving around so quickly it's easy to confuse players. When you play as him, [[GlassCannon his defense is severely weakened]], and you'll be horribly surprised at exactly how hard it is to control him. Similarly, Orochi Leona's speed and strength is just as big and has new animations that give her priority over several moves (such as her new run animation, which now lets her go ''underneath fireballs'').\\

Next, there's the Orochi Team. Orochi Chris and Orochi Shermie aren't that hard, but when you face Orochi Yashiro, you'll realize that he's a ''block whore'', meaning that most of the time you will find him '''blocking almost all of you attacks.''' And then he'll toss you around since his new moveslist includes ''several'' throws. Ew.\\

And then there's Orochi. He has Mu Ni Kaerou (Return to Nothingness), a screen-filler attack: it basically turns him into an open [[Film/RaidersOfTheLostArk Ark of the Covenant]]. Block it, and you will take unusually high damage for a blocked attack. Don't block it, and you're gone. However, unlike the other bosses on the list, Orochi's AI was poor. Had it been at the level of the previous bosses, combined with vicious priority attacks, Orochi would have been near unbeatable.
** Then came ''[='98=]'', which had Omega Rugal once again.\\

This time, he has a whole slew of new moves, such as the fusion of Kaiser Wave and Reppuken called the Gravity Smash (with nasty priority, and covering his body when he charged it, making it hard to hit him out of it) he swaps out God Press in favour of Vanishing Rush (which is what it sounds like, complete with being fast enough that you barely have a moment to react to it) his Destruction Omega super move (a grab that does ridiculous amounts of damage), a devastating super called the Rugal Execution (which drains your health at a very rapid rate) and an update of the Genocide Cutter, the Dark Genocide, which is a 3-hit version of the original.
** The UpdatedRerelease of ''[='98=]'', ''Ultimate Match'', has Orochi, Goenitz, AND Omega Rugal as bosses. Which one you encounter depends on how many super finishes you get on your opponents. ''All 3 of them'' have increased stamina.\\

The boss who was changed the most was Goenitz, who is even CHEAPER than in 96. Not only can his Winds of Night hit you while you're knocked down now, but he has a new command attack, a new special move, and vastly upgraded super attacks.\\

Orochi has been revamped from his original incarnation and now has a crouching animation, along with updated normals and several of his original moves switched around, but his Mu Ni Kaerou screen filler super still does ridiculous damage, and if you're positioned ''exactly'' in the middle of the screen and don't block, it does double the amount of hits and damage. 50% plus 50% equals 100%. Yes, it instantly kills you if you're in the wrong place at the wrong time.\\

Omega Rugal is roughly the same as before, except slightly faster.
** Krizalid was the boss in ''[='99=]''.\\

He had a pansy first form like Rugal, with a 2-hit projectile that would win over your projectiles. In round 2, he burns off the coat, and starts spamming a Tornado Kick attack, the Typhoon Rage, which has priority over everything, and Lethal Impact, which looks like an axe kick, but can hit high, overhead OR low as a command throw, OR counterthrow! In short, projectiles and throws are the only things that one move could not counter... and he sometimes spammed it if you closed in on him. His supers, at max level, do '''90 percent of your health bar'''!
** Clone Zero in ''[='00=]'' had a screen-filling super that did 60+ percent damage and could easily Guard Break your characters with his Cutter Arts, which did multiple hits whether it was the special or super version. Gladly, his Ai was bad enough to be easy.
** Original Zero in ''[='01=]'' is the same as his clone, except for the fact that he already has 3 strikers to make up for the lack of moves that Clone Zero had: Ron, (a "Guard Breaking Striker") Krizalid, and a huge black lion named Glaugan, mainly to differentiate him from his clone. Again, he suffers from the same AchillesHeel as Krizalid and Clone Zero.
** And, finally, we come to Igniz.\\

Fireballs with absolute priority, cheap whip attacks which have ridiculously long range and could lead to infinites which he ''will'' use if he ever feels like it, can ''cancel'' ALL of his moves (except [[SuperMove DMs]]) into EVERYTHING (including a DM) and has a super called Brutal God Project where he rushes you, pins you in the corner, whips you, hits you with the edges of his cape, does one of his own supers within this super, and finally engulfs you in a ball of energy, the whole combo doing roughly '''''[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vk_PxKL_1q4 80 PERCENT DAMAGE!!!]]'''''.\\ Ai also use Sagittarius Blade infinite himself, making user writhe in pain. If player selects it, it can do [[http://youtu.be/Z6d7sErvTO0?t=5m32s infinite from everything.]] (Player of following video used cheat to decrease 1P Igniz's damage, and both Igniz has more defense then normal character.)\\
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He also earns one point for Overkill: most multi-hit attacks are interrupted when the target is knocked out (or they continue, but the victim falls) but for Igniz, if you are with only 1 HP and are struck with his Brutal God Project... you will take the whole attack until he allows you to give your KO scream. It's [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfsbPqvD5Jk possible to defeat him]], but you have to play his own game for that. Whatever the case, Lord have mercy if you attempt to beat him at Level 8 difficulty.
** To conclude the NESTS saga, we have ''2002'', which has, by far, the cheapest version of Rugal to date: OneHitKill {{combos}} by the dozen, the return of Reppuken, '''3''' Kaiser Wave variants (the last of which is unblockable and the first of which comes out faster than the speed of light), a 3-hit Genocide Cutter...\\
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To make up for it, his [[DesperationAttack MAX2]] is a series of Kaiser Waves which are horribly inaccurate. Unfortunately, it STILL does a sickening amount of damage. [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQ7yG9oI-FI&feature=channel_page And in the unlikely event you Dodge Roll in front of Rugal when he's charging a Kaiser Wave, it'll STILL hit you while he's charging!]]\\
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And if that wasn't enough, there's a GameBreakingBug with the Kaiser Wave. [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fxoulcPogc&feature=channel_page If he happens to release it at just the right moment that you come out of the Dodge Roll, it hovers. FOREVER.]] So basically he would have this one ball of energy floating behind his ass (or in front of his crotch, if you managed to switch sides) until he launches another Kaiser Wave (HSDM included), or grabs you (supers included, but check out what happens when you do his Gigantic Pressure) It's like Benimaru's hovering lightning ball HSDM, but '''evil''', never ending and guaranteed OHKO.
** The remake of 2002, ''Unlimited Match'', has ''all of the NESTS Saga bosses'': Krizalid, Clone Zero, Original Zero, Igniz, AND Rugal! As per usual, [[ClippedWingAngel all the bosses do decreased damage when playing as them]].\\
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Krizalid is, surprisingly, the most broken out of them all: he builds his super meter extremely fast, has horrid infinites, insane juggles and his [[DesperationAttack MAX2]] (Lightning Disaster, a full-screen attack that sends a bunch of lasers into the air) can hit you while you're on the ground and he can even juggle into it.\\
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Clone Zero is roughly the most balanced out of all of them. To put that into context, he has no 0-stock infinites outside of Max Mode, while the other NESTS bosses do. His new [[DesperationAttack MAX2]] (Anryuuten Hazaki, a Shun Goku Satsu-esque attack) does decent damage as do all his other moves.\\
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Original Zero is decently balanced, but can be considered cheap because he's much faster than in ''2001'', AND with some effort, can spam his Krizalid striker to juggle you forever. His [[DesperationAttack MAX2]], Kyou Hoshi Mikaijin, is essentially Clone Zero's, but with the addition of assistance from his Strikers, starting with Ron whacking your soul from your body and culminating with all three strikers ganging up to beat the tar out of said soul.\\
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Igniz is exactly the same as he was in ''2001''. Unfortunately, this means he still has his Sagittarius Blade (QCF+ HP) infinite. (While his A step C step infinite is removed.) His new [[DesperationAttack MAX2]] (Disintegrational Universe) is undoubtedly the most visually impressive - he traps you in a curse seal, which encases you inside a black orb that Igniz turns into a galaxy/nebula, and Igniz makes said galaxy/nebula explode. This particular move is no exception from the cheap rule. It WILL hit if your character is just touching the ground. And the damage doesn't get dampened.\\
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And if you did not lose more than 2 teammates after beating the final stage (which consists of one of the first 4 aforementioned bosses), [[TrueFinalBoss you enter a special battle against Rugal]]. He's roughly the same as before, and that means he has increased stamina for his boss version, his Beads Destructor now bounces you off the wall, his Kaiser Phoenix is more accurate and hits you while you're on the ground, (though as a trade off, its damage output is pathetic) and his AI is also much smarter: it doesn't spam Kaiser Wave as much, but remember that one glitch from the video above this entry? Yeah, it's still there. Oh, and if you lose the match it's GameOver.
** ''The King of Fighters 2002: [[UpdatedRerelease Unlimited Match]]'' brought [[FatalFury Nightmare Geese]], and gave him all sorts of enhancements to his moveset that made him the pinnacle of overpowered:\\
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Lightning fast Reppukens, Shippukens that had no recovery time and could be fired '''TWICE IN A ROW''', a Double Shippuken which much like its ''FatalFury: Real Bout Special'' version can be used twice, thus FOUR SHIPPUKENS, worse still considering it lacks the slight delay the RBS version had meaning a bombardment of them from a {{Griefer}} is likely, a Jaeiken that led into a juggle, the "Claw" Raging Storm that can now OTG, and many other edits that make this version of Geese one of the cheapest SNK bosses out there.\\
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He also has a new [[FinishingMove MAX2]] where he takes off his shirt and starts building a huge Reppuken, which he promptly blasts you with after it's reached roughly quadruple size (The activation's reminiscent of his lesser known Raising Dead End super from ''Fatal Fury Wild Ambition'').\\
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Couple all of that with the literally psychic AI that predicts every input you do and naturally responds with the correct counter for your offense and you have one of the most unbeatable bosses in SNK's history. Not only that, but you have to BEAT HIM in the last [[BonusLevelOfHell Expert Challenge in Challenge Mode]] to unlock everything. Good luck.\\
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Oh, and to even unlock the challenge to fight Nightmare Geese? You have to pass a challenge that puts you up against ALL the NESTS bosses AND Omega Rugal, all in a row, survival-style. And Nightmare Geese is STILL harder. Thankfully, SNK decided to have at least a small amount of mercy for people who want to unlock everything but don't have super powers at fighting games: If you fail enough challenges, the game will still gradually unlock things for you.
** ''Neowave'' was only released in Japan and Europe on PS2 and on Xbox in the US, and is essentially a tech demo for the Atomiswave hardware. There're no post-match quotes or endings and everything is pretty much recycled from KOF 2002... except from the unique-to-this-game version of Young Geese:\\
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Priority over everything and with more tricks than a clown's pocket; he's capable of finishing you off even if you have 3/4 of your health. To make matters worse, the CPU version's Deadly Rave super is completely unblockable. Makes the VideoGame/ArtOfFighting 2 version look like Karnov.
** In ''2003'', if you manage to fulfill the condition to the true ending, you'll get to fight Chizuru and Maki Kagura as the penultimate boss. While Chizuru uses DopplegangerAttack, Maki '''''[[SpamAttack spams]]''''' it. You'll start the fight against Chizuru, but if she ever switches to Maki, good luck. That said, she has strongest command grab in KOF Boss history, She grabs you through air, knocks you down. Call Chizuru, and hit you with move that seals all your special move. Which also cuts out 35% of your health. Of course, this is not even a super. It's a normal special. She is still considered harder than Mukai because of the Ai and ridiculous invincibility frame. That is saying something.\\
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The game also marked the debut of Rugal's son Adel to the fray. Adel not only inherited his father's moves and essence of {{Badass}} (Sans villainy, he's more of an honorable chap), but also his SNK Boss Syndrome.\\
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He lacks his father's Kaiser Wave until ''XI'', but his Reppukyaku comes out very fast, his God Press is unblockable (including the Gigantic Pressure) and hits even only his back touches you, and the Genocide Cutter is now a super which does a ridiculous amount of damage.\\
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Mukai, the TrueFinalBoss from the same game, Shows worst, Having full screen LDM that [[TakenForGranite turns you to stone for a free hit]] Which activates in 2 frame (Second fastest full screen LDM in KOF Series with activation time of 1/30 second), His stone throwing move literally ignores any projectile player can use except a sunglasses throw LDM of K`, Stone pillar moves breaks your guard if you guard it twice, And has command grab that grabs you through air which [[TakenForGranite turn you to stone as well.]] To make it more frustrating, he have auto-guard in any normal move he use with strong punch or strong kick.
*** To make things worse, Mukai has an infinite combo that is ridiculously easy to do. Fortunately, the AI never exploits it.
** Magaki from ''XI'' seems to be SNK's way of saying "we gave up trying to think of ways to mess with you, so here's a boss that throws more projectiles than a bleeding ''VideoGame/{{Touhou}}'' character... ''''''while you have no grazing option''''".\\
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He ''loves'' [[BeamSpam abusing his fireballs]], to the point where there will be [[BulletHell lots of them flying everywhere]] including ones that disappear halfway and reappear behind you. Then there are also the large, semi-invisible ones that move in an arc towards you. Said fireballs also happen to be 100% invincible, [[TheJuggernaut moving nonstop]] and crushing all projectiles, even super ones.\\
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Then his [[ThisIsYourPremiseOnDrugs psychedelic pink full screen-filler attack that will hurt your eyes the first few times]] (you'll get used to it). It's hard as hell to even get close to him, and if you do, he'll probably just throw you right back with his little frontal explosion whenever he feels like it.
** ''XII'' had no proper boss character, despite rumors, but ''XIII'' gives us two: Saiki and Dark Ash.\\
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Saiki is the leader of Those From The Past. Before the fight begins, he changes into a naked red demon with a blacked out face. He is an amazing block whore (except against some projectiles) and counters any and everything thrown at him by abusing projectiles that freeze you solid, stabbing you in the chest, freezing time, and pummeling you. He also has a super version of this move that sucks you in if you're too close and instantly stuns you. And of course, he wouldn't be a proper SNK boss without a screen filling attack, which just so happens to be his [[DesperationAttack Neo MAX]]. A Neo MAX that disregards the rules and lets him do it with only 1 meter. He's also got some moves involving dark flames, too, which is a grab in ranged form. And just after you beat him, and you think it can't get any worse...\\
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Then you fight [[SuperpoweredEvilSide Evil Ash]], the TrueFinalBoss. The fight takes place in a completely white void and Ash is completely covered in black flames. If you think this is only a powered-up Ash, you're wrong. This is Ash fused with Saiki with the projectile spam of Goenitz, the AI of Rugal, and a screen filling super that makes Orochi proud - Which is second strongest screen filler move that fills screen in just 0.5 frame. That's right. ''1/120 second!'' SNK pretty much lost their minds when it came down to the difficulty of Dark Ash.\\
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He has regular Ash and Saiki's movesets combined, but their rage-inducing properties are worse than you can imagine from the explanation alone. Unlike Saiki, who at least lets up on the fireballs, Evil Ash's fireballs have no recovery, and according to a movelist found out by hacking him in the PC leak of the Arcade version, they do not require charging either. That's right, all the CPU inputs is Back, Forward+Punch at super fast speeds. His AI is also psychic and he counters everything you do with a Flash Kick. Then he walks away and goes right back to spamming. By far the most infuriating part about him is that he has not one, but '''TWO''' [[FinishingMove NeoMAXes]]. One of them is Saiki's screen-filler attack with no delay, and the other is Ash's normal command grab NeoMAX...followed up by Germinal. You heard right - he adds on damage to an already damaging NeoMAX, AND disables your specials in the process.\\
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There are some weaknesses, though: said screen filler doesn't do too much damage to guard and, in spite of his supers, he cannot Max Cancel like a normal player... [[TemptingFate which is a blessing]]. Also, for some reason, neither Dark Ash nor Saiki seem to properly counter Mr. Karate's Shoran Kyaku rushing command grab - even at the hardest level, they ''always'' fall for it and take the damage to the face, which makes them disarmingly easy to beat for anyone maining Mr. Karate, especially since Shoran Kyaku can be spammed due to Mr. Karate always landing exactly within range to do it again immediately. The same is true for Vice's Splash command grab, which is slightly less accurate and more unsafe... but neither boss punishes a miss unless they feel like it, which is (thankfully) very rarely. Have fun!
** SNK bosses crept their way into the ''Maximum Impact'' games, as well, with Duke and Jivatma.\\
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Duke had an unlimited Super Meter and a nigh-unblockable super move that instantly breaks your guard meter if you're lucky enough to block it. As playable characters, both lose their special tricks with their super meters, but ''retain'' their Super Moves. (Though these require full bars to use)\\
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Jivatma had an insane reach and a super move that damages you for 1/2 of your life bar (and he ''loves'' to use it just as you come down from a jump, so that you can't block). Oddly enough, he's actually ''easier'' to beat, because his super bar isn't at maximum all the time. (It just regenerates.)\\
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''Regulation A'', the update of Maximum Impact 2, has Duke, Jivatma, and Nightmare Geese as the final opponents. They subvert this trope entirely, having no extra traits whatsoever.
** ''The King of Fighters R2'', for the Neo Geo Pocket Color, has Rugal as its final SNK Boss. His moveset and AI are almost the same as in 98.
** Speaking of portable KOF games, we mustn't forget ''The King of Fighters [=EX2=]: Howling Blood'', whose end boss is a BrainwashedAndCrazy kid named Shinobu Amou, who was part of an experiment by [[CorruptCorporateExecutive Gustav Munchausen]] to transplant Goenitz's soul for reincarnation.\\
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His AI isn't that hard, until Round 2 when he suddenly [[TurnsRed Turns Gold]], becomes faster and more powerful, and starts hurling attacks from every single direction with absolute priority. Oh, and he changes elements from [[RazorWind wind]] to [[ShockAndAwe lightning]]. [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poe0GATQl9A You will HATE Shinobu]], guaranteed. His winquote puts it perfectly into perspective:
-->''"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! I BROKE YOU!!!"''
** It should be noted that for several ''KOF'' games, if the player opts to use a continue, the player can choose from several power boosts, including reducing your enemy to 1/3 of his health. The maddening side effect of choosing this option is that your enemy recovers a little bit of health after every win. Combine this with the chance you may not be able to inflict more than a few pixels of damage on these bosses, and voila: ''Your enemy starts each round with more health than the previous round.''\\
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Also, bear in mind that most SNK bosses (Starting from Geese Howard in Fatal Fury) are, in some degree, susceptible to trips, throws or certain fancy attacks. (Leona and Goenitz, Lucky Glauber and Rugal, to name a few)
* Don't be fooled by how cute and lighthearted ''VideoGame/SNKGalsFighters'', a.k.a. "The Queen Of Fighters", looks, this is one of the toughest SNK fighters to date. Aside from the final boss [[VillainousCrossdresser Miss X]] (Iori dressed as a woman), there are two sub-bosses that need mentioning: Whip and Yuki.\\
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Whip has most of her moves from ''The King of Fighters '99'', but also has a move that lets her swing up and stomp you to the ground. She'll even go as far as [[KickThemWhileTheyAreDown shooting you while you're down]].\\
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Yuki, Kyo's girlfriend, looks [[NotSoHarmlessVillain harmless]], and has no knowledge of martial arts whatsoever. But she's insanely fast and even uses a BigNo for both offense and defense. One of her desperation attacks delivers 33 hits, the highest in the game. And another desperation has her eating a hamburger- that replenishes her health! It seems that she went the [[VideoGame/ArtOfFighting Yuri]] way and [[TookALevelInBadass took several levels in badass]].
* Johann, in ''VideoGame/RageOfTheDragons'', has fireballs that throw him backwards out of the way of almost anything coming over them. He also has absolute priority, takes no block damage, does ridiculous amounts of damage, and a prescient AI. Johann can also throw you (with appropriately MassiveDamage) out of ''anything.'' Including a roll, a SuperMove, and even another throw.
* The ''VideoGame/FatalFury'' games predates all of SNK's previous games with '''Geese Howard'''.
** In the first game, he was armed with a projectile that could cut off a third of your health, has incredible priority, and a counter-throw he could use against ''any attack he chose'' (even when you were simply jumping at him he could grab you out of the air with said counter-throw), setting the boundaries to be later broken by Rugal. Fortunately for the player, he suffered from the same bug as all other players: he's vulnerable for the first frame of standing up.
** In ''Real Bout Special'', Geese returns as the game's TrueFinalBoss only if you have a high enough score after beating Krauser. This incarnation, commonly known as ''Nightmare Geese'' to fans (And later [[SureWhyNot officially christened that]]), really IS a nightmare (Figuratively and literally, since the battle is hinted to be one big nightmare).\\
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Not only do his Reppukens have absolute priority, but he can fire ''2 Shippukens'' and '''2 Double Shippukens''' (that's 4 Shippukens!) in the air! He's so broken that most of his {{Combos}} do 100% damage! This version introduced the claw version of his Raising/Raging Storm, which did a ridiculous amount of block damage, and he also has a newly super-powered version of his Thunder Break super from ''Real Bout''...which is now unblockable while jumping and hits at random places across the arena, even hitting the extra lanes! Worse still, lose to him once and it's GameOver.
** Geese's half-brother, Wolfgang Krauser, shares some SNK Boss Syndrome, but only in his debut game: ''Fatal Fury 2''. His AI is infuriating as all hell, and his moves hit incredibly hard. Oh, and the restriction about being at low health to use your super doesn't apply to him, meaning that he can Kaiser Wave you at any time.
** ''Garou: Mark of the Wolves'' inverts this, with the sub-boss being the SNK Boss and the FinalBoss being somewhat balanced.\\
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The sub-boss, Grant, has several powerful attacks at his disposal which can decimate your health bar in mere seconds. Be especially wary if his T.O.P meter kicks in, because his moves will do extra damage, and you may end up getting killed by last-minute damage scaling.\\
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The final boss, Kain, is surprisingly easy...until Round 2 where he gets a '''full T.O.P meter''' for the rest of the match.
** The boss of the PlayStation version of ''Real Bout Special'', White, is a parody of Alex from ''Literature/AClockworkOrange'', but instead of just being a mere sociopath he's a '''CRAZY''' motherfucker who can brainwash people with his [[FreudWasRight rod]].\\
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To start off, he doesn't crouch, backdash, run, or even jump, meaning you will ''never'' be able to predict what he's going to do next. Also, he has poison skull projectiles that go through everything (even Nightmare Geese's Reppukens!) and instantly dizzy you. His normal moves also cause a massive amount of hitstun, leading to infinites. Hell, even his poison skulls can lead to infinites. And if you deplete his health to the point where he can use his P-Power attack, better not jump because his P-Power move is a '''huge''' force field that takes off 3/4 of your life. He also has an S-Power super that slows you down.\\
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Oh, and if you do manage to beat him for good, he uses a secret P-Power move where he fires an unblockable explosive laser at you from his rod that instantly kills you unless you jump over it. His winpose through either all those cheap douchebaggery or that secret P-Power, in his winning round? He falls to the floor, laughing like a hyena. He tries to control himself, but can't, and just continues laughing at you while rolling on the ground like a little kid. White, you '''ASSHOLE!'''
* In ''VideoGame/ArtOfFighting'' Mr. Big and Mr. Karate were hard enough. [[CanonImmigrant Geese Howard]] in ''Art of Fighting 2'' made things worse.\\
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Mr. Karate is extremely susceptible to jump kicks, and can be beaten pretty easily by just repeatedly doing these off the wall. The problem is getting to him in the first place - even at the lowest difficulty, Mr. Big is ridiculously hard.\\
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Mr. Big can be easily crushed by jump kicks as well, just keep hitting upward and kick at the same time, you will jump kick him to death easily. In contrast, Mr. Big in ''Art of Fighting 2'' is a complete joke.
* And then came ''VideoGame/SNKVsCapcomSVCChaos''. If SNK Bosses in general are considered to be The Syndrome, then this game is to be considered '''The SNK Boss Epidemic'''. Starring, but not limited to: [[OriginalGeneration Serious]] [[VideoGame/ArtOfFighting Mr. Karate]], [[VideoGame/StreetFighterAlpha Shin Akuma]], VideoGame/{{Athena}} and [[VideoGame/GhostsNGoblins Red Arremer]].
** [[MegamanZero Zero]], [[TheKingOfFighters Goenitz]] and [[FatalFury Geese Howard]] are SNK Sub Bosses. Run into the first one, you'll be shredded like a maverick. Run into the second one and you'll be [[MemeticMutation spinning round like a record]]. Run into the third one and prepare to be cheesed to death by his Deadly Rave.
** The SNK side final boss is a powered-up version of Mr. Karate, called "Serious Mr. Karate", which furthered his shenanigans.\\
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His health and damage are higher than pretty much all other characters, his moves have insane priority and '''most are invincible on startup''', and pretty much all of them knock you back across the screen, nullifying all that hard work you had to do to even get close to him.\\
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Oh, and you know those huge fireballs (the ''Haoh-Sho-Koh-ken'') the [[VideoGame/ArtOfFighting Kyokugen practitioners]] characters are fond of throwing? Yeah, he can do three of those. In a row. Normal Mr. Karate at least had it as an [[DesperationAttack Exceed.]] Serious Mr. Karate has it as a '''''[[OhCrap NORMAL SPECIAL. THAT HE CAN DO AT ANY TIME WITHOUT LOSING A POWER STOCK]]'''''.\\
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Also, his Ko'oh Ken functions much like his ''2002'' counterpart (He is Takuma after all)...but now they have huge range and come out very fast. And they nullify whatever comes across them. Most of his moves do take off quite a bit of guard meter and he can easily guard crush you although you can't do the same when you get to play as him in the console version.\\
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To finish, his supers count as special moves and his Exceed is completely unblockable, yet it has pretty poor priority and can be reversed by Iori and Kasumi's Exceeds.
** The Capcom side final boss is Shin Akuma, who's just as cheap.\\
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In this game, his supers that he used to have normally are considered ''special moves'' and take 0 super stocks to perform, with the exception of the Raging Demon (which is his regular form's Exceed). Worse still is that he has all the perks that Shin Akuma normally has (a full-screen Raging Demon and double air fireballs, insanely fast teleport with no recovery time).\\
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But the worst part is definitely his Exceed, the Misogi, which '''homes in on your character's position, comes out lightning fast, and is UNBLOCKABLE.''' You have to be really lucky or skilled to avoid/counter that move.
** Depending on [[GuideDangIt how you did throughout the entire game]] prior to fighting either of the above, if you managed to beat Serious Mr. Karate, you go to Heaven to fight Athena. She's not the Athena you all know and love from ''VideoGame/PsychoSoldier'' and ''VideoGame/TheKingOfFighters''. No, this is ''goddess Athena'' from ''VideoGame/{{Athena}}'', and she lives up to that old game's NintendoHard difficulty.\\
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All of her attacks count as supers but are actually special moves, much like Shin Akuma & Serious Mr. Karate. What makes her worse than both of them combined? All of them have absolute priority and do RIDICULOUS damage for special moves. Her Exceed is blockable, yes, but if she's already got you down to almost half of your first lifebar (which she ''will'', guaranteed) and you don't block, it's an INSTANT KILL.\\
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To add insult to injury, when she wins she turns you into an animal.
** If you, instead, had to beat Shin Akuma, you go to hell to fight [[VideoGame/GhostsNGoblins the Red Arremer]]. At first it seems like he's balanced, but then he starts summoning strikers that paralyze you. Then he starts flying. Then he rams into you. Then he chews on you and then throws you. Then you die. Then you get turned into a lowly demon.
** The absolute worst part of both Athena and Red Arremer is that if you lose, ''you won't be able to try again and have to start over completely'', much like Final Bison in ''Street Fighter Alpha 3''. However, it's somewhat logical here, seeing as your character would never be able to fight again as an animal or small demon.
* The ''SamuraiShodown'' series had many of these as well:
** Amakusa in part 1 likes to bitchslap you into a corner and keep you there for an easy infinite. He also has 2 fireballs (one being unblockable), and he teleports like crazy and throws you as soon as he gets out of it. He also has a wall jump move where he flies off-screen, surrounds himself in energy, and crashes down on top of you like a meteor. If you beat him in Round 1, a cutscene occurs where he powers up and unleashes the powers of his dark god to make him stronger and also harder.
** Then came Mizuki in part 2, who had several moves that caused InterfaceScrew, or [[BalefulPolymorph transformed you into a vulnerable PIG,]] in addition to using several of Amakusa's previous tactics.
** Zankuro in part 3 could literally kill you in 3 hits. And you need to win 3 rounds to defeat him while he only needs to ''win 2 to defeat you''. Bust Zankuro's Super Move unleashed a screen-height wave that WILL KILL YOU IF IT HITS YOU WHILE YOU ARE IN THE AIR.
** Part 4 has you fight not one, nor two, but ''three'' bosses in sequence. The first is a CPU-only version of Amakusa with purple skin who is always in Bust mode (except if you also use a character who's in Bust Mode when fighting him). This version of Amakusa, sometimes called ''Aku-Amakusa'', is NOT the SNK boss of the game, however, as he's the same as the player version. Upon beating him, you fight the ''real'' SNK boss, Zankuro, for the 2nd time in the series. He's more intelligent this time around, and his Heavy Slash cuts off half of your health bar. Afterwards, it's a cakewalk when you fight your rival in one final battle.
*** .....Unless you didn't get to Amakusa within a certain time window. You don't fight him or Zankuro, instead you fight your rival with '''The AI of an SNK Boss'''. Depending on who your character has as a rival, this can be very irritating.
** ''Samurai Shodown 64'': Yuga uses levitation, has own slashes and unblockable grabs teleporting directly on opponent from any distance, has access to time stop, healing, teleportation, and few annoying projectiles. Before Yuga, you fight Deku, the catch is that Deku-Yuga team needs to win 2 rounds to defeat you, while you have to win a total of '''3 rounds''' to defeat them (Sound familiar? You should however, have to defeat Deku once to face Yuga). If you are defeated by Yuga and continue, you are going back to fighting Deku.
** ''Samurai Shodown 64 2 (Asura Zanmaden)'': In this game, Yuga's first form again has levitation, teleporting slashes, projectiles, ability to snag opponent's soul out of his body, and energy shield. Her second form has ability to turn her arms into weapons and stretch them via entire screen, has access to all kinds of projectiles, beams and fire waves, ability to slow opponent's movement, and her super involves dropping an energy sphere which results in nuke-comparable unblockable explosion, shockwave from which covers almost entire screen for major damage.
** ''Warriors Rage (PS)'': Main boss Oboro has no body you can attack, since you fight his giant levitating weapons instead. Those weapons are the only "character" in game which takes full advantage of 3D space flying here and there and attacking from various directions - while their own hitboxes (which you should attack to damage Oboro) are almost nonexistent.
** ''SamuraiShodown 5'' and its mid boss Sankuro carry on the proud tradition of SNK Boss cheapness: First off his takes way less damage from attacks, plus his special attacks involve calling in annoying helpers (the sliding girl isn't so bad, but the guy coming down from the sky does a sick amount of damage, and the grabbing guy from behind is usually coupled with a healing move that restores almost a quarter of Sankuro's life bar). Add to it that his super is apparently an instant kill. Add to it the fact that Sankuro is only the MID-BOSS... yeah, ''Samurai Shodown'' has a bunch of SNK bosses.\\
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Once you damage the final boss Gaoh enough, he goes to an invincible demon armor mode and will charge at you constantly like a rhino, and you have to wait until the mode ends.\\
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And then, rounding out the previous two examples is Yumeji, Gaoh's [[TheDragon Dragon]]. [[AmbiguousGender He/she]] is essentially Bust Mode Ukyo on steroids. He/she has a [[{{BFS}} nodachi]] that can take off 3/4ths of his/her opponent's health bar in a single strike and an inescapable multi-hitting trap move that is almost as damaging, but much harder to avoid. And if that's not enough... he/she has the ability to [[DittoFighter transform into the other fighters]] and [[MegaManning use their signature moves]].
** ''5 Special'' has you fight Amakusa, Zankuro, Gaoh, and Mizuki in sequence, but the only ones who really qualify as SNK Bosses are Zankuro and Mizuki because Amakusa's AI was rather retarded and Gaoh was heavily nerfed. Zankuro is even ''more'' intelligent than in ''4'', despite being balanced somewhat, and he has a new counter move that he uses ''all the time''. Mizuki lost her InterfaceScrew moves, but got a whole lot of new non-screwy moves that still make her a cheap bitch.
** And in ''6''? Demon Gaoh, who's a bit of a GiantSpaceFleaFromNowhere, is the unplayable final boss you fight AFTER beating one of the above. He has several of Gaoh's more annoying moves, a fire explosion sweep that's really hard to get around, can bounce you off a wall and combo from it, has a Super move that all-out destroys your weapon and is invulnerable, a ridiculously fast charging super meter, and will not drop/break his own weapon no matter what you hit him with.
** ''Samurai Shodown Sen'' has sub-boss Drago, whose weapon is a rifle. This game goes for a slightly more realistic level of swordplay than the rest of the series (no wind fireballs here) so this is significant. His fighting style basically consists of backflipping out of your range, then raining destruction upon you for a crazy amount of time before he finally has to stop and reload.\\
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Subverted by Golba, the final boss, who fights with generic rapier attacks and an apparent lack of ''special moves''.
* What, you didn't think SNK would skimp on boss difficulty for their big MascotFighter, did you? ''All four bosses'' of ''VideoGame/NeoGeoBattleColiseum'' ([[VideoGame/WorldHeroes Neo-Dio]], Mizuchi, (a clone of [[KingOfFighters Orochi]]) [[SavageReign King]] [[KizunaEncounter Leo]] and [[BigBad Goodman]]) have regenerating health, annoying attacks, and do an insane amount of damage.\\
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King Leo abuses Nightmare, a counter where he went black and any move that hit was countered with a small combo, like a motherfuck. As playable, he loses his flaming kick special and King Upper.\\
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Mizuchi is basically Orochi with an added touch of Goenitz, meaning that he will abuse an energy pillar special which, while Orochi possessed it before, did not abuse it as much. As playable, he loses his ability to create 5-6 energy pillars at once.\\
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Neo-Dio teleports a lot and is an incredible block-[[{{Whoring}} whore]]. As playable, he loses his feather projectile and another move that held you in place.\\
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Goodman is basically Igniz mixed with Magaki from ''The King of Fighters XI'', and uses a whip to control a weird flaming monkey spirit. He can control it for as long as he wants, in any direction. And his super move actually makes it ''stronger''. You '''will''' hate Goodman. As playable, he remains the same, but cannot jump or crouch and you can't partner him up with anybody.\\
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Plus, due to the way the game's arcade mode is set up, you only get one shot at them before you have to continue.
* Speaking of King Lion and King Leo, in [[SavageReign their games]], King Leo served as the final boss, basically possessing faster, stronger versions of Lion's specials; his stage, unlike all the others, had only one platform of sorts so you couldn't exactly jaunt all over the place to avoid his attacks. Furthermore, he gains a super that King Lion does not: the aforementioned King Upper which is sure to knock you into a worse situation than before. Couple that with a faster weapon throw (Both normal and the God Breath variant) and King Leo is a VERY fearsome bastard. Take him lightly? How silly you are!
** King Leo was downgraded to sub-boss for Kizuna Encounter but STILL possessed all the deadly power he had in Savage Reign. the only difference being he swapped King Lion's God Breath for a stronger, faster variant called Thunder.\\
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His place as final boss is taken by [[FeatheredFiend Jyazu]]. While he at first appears to merely be a Gozu/Mezu headswap that uses their moveset, they're faster than normal, he has a deadly whirling dervish-like attack with his blades that sort of resembles SonicTheHedgehog, he has a very [[FistOfTheNorthStar Hundred Crack Fist-style]] SPECIAL attack, meaning he can abuse it and it takes off a lot of health and hits a lot, and a kick variant of said special, and his Desperation Attack summons an array of large fire pillars. And just to serve as a warning of how deadly he is, he appears to easily slay King Leo while still in bird form! [[HoistByHisOwnPetard Using the latter's own sword]], no less!

[[folder:Capcom]]
%%SVC Chaos is a game made by SNK, not Capcom, so please, don't include it in Capcom's section.
* As expected, the StreetFighter series has many of these:
** The original ''StreetFighter'' had Sagat as the final boss, who was not only the most powerful iteration of Sagat in the series, but also capable of knocking off more than half your life bar in one hit. And to top it all, all the now-standard FightingGame special moves like [[KamehameHadouken Hadoukens]] and such were considered secrets at the time, with very few knowing of their existence, let alone the exact command to do them. And even then, Sagat could stuff fireballs and hurricane kicks cold. No tick damage, no knockback.
** The original ''VideoGame/StreetFighterII'' had all four Devas as potential SNK Bosses.\\
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Balrog / M. Bison (Boxer) loves his Dash Punch. ''A lot.'' So much so that if you beat him once he gets pissed in Round 2 and does a barrage of instantly charged Dash Punches and Uppers. '''26 times in a row'''. Afterward he waits and does other normals...for all of about 3 seconds. '''Then he resumes'''. Your only option here is to low block and die. Not ''or'' die. '''AND''' die. Because the frames of his Dash Punch never give you an opportunity to strike. If you have less than 25% life, you are FUCKED. End of discussion.\\
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Vega / Balrog (Claw) likes to jump on the cage in his stage all the damn time. Oh, and he is very fast and unpredictable, and scores quick and very damaging hits against you. And when he gets off the cage, he ambushes you. If you narrowly dodge it, well, he follows up with an unseen strike. A special mechanic was even built in to his stage so if you played as him on that stage, you could do it too. In ''Super'', however, the move is no longer available to the player, but the CPU can still do this.\\
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Sagat returns from ''VideoGame/StreetFighter'', with some new moves under his belt. Not that it matters because all he does is spam Tiger Shots all day. And if you jump at him he will do a psychic Tiger Uppercut. The AI in Champion Edition, strangely, never uses the Tiger Knee. Hyper Fighting fixed this, so now he will occasionally do a Tiger Knee up close...then tick throw you for the win. He also has one of he largest hit boxes of the original characters, besides Dhalsim of course. His kicks and Tiger Uppercut are difficult to evade.\\
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M. Bison / Vega (Dictator) is this type of boss in the sense that there is absolutely no way you can predict what he will do. His AI pattern is completely randomized and will surprise you at every turn with a high-priority attack via command-reading. Thinking of doing a fireball? Head Stomp. Shoryuken? He'll Scissor Kick you right out of it. Hurricane Kick? Psycho Crusher.\\
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Akuma/Gouki from ''Super StreetFighter II Turbo'' was this type of boss in his first appearance; he could teleport, was fast, did massive amounts of damage and could shoot two fireballs in mid-air. Furthermore, the secret playable version of Akuma/Gouki was less powerful than the boss version, though still so [[GameBreaker broken]] that he's always been banned from TournamentPlay.
** Apparently someone at Capcom decided that Akuma wasn't powerful enough, and thus Shin Akuma from the ''VideoGame/StreetFighterAlpha'' series was born. He regains the double air fireballs from ''Super Turbo'', deals '''double damage''' with all of his moves, his [[TeleportSpam teleports]] are completely invincible, and his Raging Demon now goes ''all the way across the screen''.
** ''VideoGame/StreetFighterAlpha 3'' had M. Bison, whose Psycho Crusher attack is quite different between normal and boss versions in that it was huge and if not blocked did incomprehensibly high damage, and his teleport has 0 lag. The only way to hit him is to counter all of his attacks, which requires mind-boggling amounts of skill. Also, you can't continue if you lose to him.
** Gill from ''VideoGame/StreetFighterIII'' is incredibly hard to beat in one sitting. Projectile attacks that are much stronger than any of the main characters, a pair of special attacks that ate up screen real estate (and most characters' life bars, even when blocking), and the ability to ''fully revive himself after being knocked down'' make him a particularly controller throw-worthy boss.\\
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On top of that, while you only have access to one of your [[LimitBreak Super Arts]] at a time, Gill can use all three of his. Just about the only upside is that during Resurrection, Gill is wide open, and a single hit stops the attack (although he also has a force field, so getting to him isn't easy) - so it's pretty likely he won't get back ''all'' his health. In addition, Resurrection shuts off Gill's Super Meter, so it can only happen once a round, for what it's worth.\\
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It should also be said that if you happen to knock Gill out of Seraphic Wing or Meteor Strike (the former is more likely), he will ''keep'' his entire super bar. Thus, if he doesn't whip out another super (which has a very slim chance of happening), defeating him will initiate his usage of Resurrection. Luckily, [[AntiFrustrationFeatures if you continue a set amount of times in]] ''3rd Strike'' [[AntiFrustrationFeatures the CPU's difficulty will be bumped down a level]], which eases a bit of the pain of fighting Gill. You can tell whether or not the difficulty will be lowered if [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06oR0R9e-9s Gill starts using his taunt]] (read: [[EasyModeMockery "laughing his ass off at you"]]), which is something he ''never'' does regularly.
** ''VideoGame/StreetFighterIV'' gives us Seth, Gouken and Akuma.\\
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Seth is the half naked man-cyborg FinalBoss. He seems like a pushover during Round 1, but then in round 2 he suddenly starts using his special moves that he copied off of the other characters. He also starts spamming teleports around like crazy and with such accuracy that you'll usually end up facing the wrong way and eating a SpinningPiledriver. Still, there are ways to get around Seth's omniscient AI.\\
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If you fulfill certain conditions after beating Seth (provided you actually get to fulfill them), a slash will suddenly appear through the victory screen and a silhouette appears. If you [[spoiler: get 2 perfects and don't continue]], you fight Akuma. If you do that while also [[spoiler: getting 5 first attacks and 3 Ultra finishes]], you fight Gouken. Both of them are cake compared to Seth, though.
** ''Super SFIV'' takes it up a notch.\\
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Seth starts using special attacks he copied off the other characters as early as ''Round 1''. If you survive that, Round 2 unlocks his super and ultra moves. [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard And he can pull off ultra moves twice in a row straight, with no recovery time]]. It's practically a LuckBasedMission. However, if he has Ultra 2 he will always use it as soon as he gets up, no matter where you are. Be thankful Capcom did that. And when you finally get to play as him, he takes '''twice the normal amount of damage!''' Yes, his defense is the lowest in the game.\\
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And if you fulfill the conditions necessary to fight Akuma after beating Seth, you fight '''Shin Akuma''', who is Akuma in his 7th color palette (purple gi, darker red hair, reddish skin, basically Alpha Shin Akuma). Yes, HesBack, and more infuriating than before. He has 1000 HP and stun (same as Ryu), has his double air fireballs (normally an EX move) as a normal move, has an invincible teleport, and not only does his regular Raging Demon go faster and double the range it normally goes, but the Ultra version goes even '''faster''', and across the entire screen. His Ultra 2 also hits on the very first frame, making it near impossible to dodge at close range.\\
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Likewise, fulfilling Gouken's conditions gives you Shin Gouken, which is Gouken wearing his 7th color palette, making him look like the way Sheng Long was depicted (all grey gi). Many of his Specials now have armor break properties, and his Hadokens (including Ultra 2) are already charged to the max level. If you get hit by his Hadoken in a corner, blocked or not you WILL be trapped in the corner as he spams more Hadokens, safely chipping lots of life from you or outright taking away half your life in Hadoken combos if God forbid he tagged you unblocked. His Sengokugoshoha (the dashing palm attack) is also MUCH faster and has more invincibility. He may not be the worst boss ever, but you can't sleep on him as previously implied.
** ''Arcade Edition'' ups the secret boss count to 4. But first the bosses proper:\\
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Seth uses ''ALL'' of his moves, including Ultras and Supers, in round 1, and in round 2 he does combos which professional players already know, such as jumping MP into Toe Taps into Dive Kick for a reset.\\
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Fulfilling the conditions for Shin Akuma and Gouken while [[spoiler: beating Seth with a Super or Ultra]] will give you Shin Evil Ryu and Shin Oni, respectively. Shin Evil Ryu can have more than 1 Hadoken on the screen at the same time, has a more invulnerable and longer teleport, and from that teleport he can cancel it into any move he wants, including his Raging Demon and Ultras. Shin Oni's Hadokens are now already charged, and he has a vicious AI pattern that puts all the other bosses to shame. And they both have normal character health and stun (1000).
* As well as their CapcomVsWhatever series:
** ''VideoGame/XMenChildrenOfTheAtom'' had the Juggernaut and Magneto.\\
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Juggernaut hits like hell and took a few blows to remember he had a hit stun. Just to put into perspective for people who didn't get it about Juggernaut. Many people argue that he is harder than Magneto, and with reason: In this game, he is a LITERAL JUGGERNAUT. If you wanted to die fast, you just needed to make your Full-special-bar-super-duper-stringy-combo. Juggernaut will take his time to do a full charged attack just because he won't flinch, no matter what. This works for hilarious effect if he starts using his Bum Rush while you are spamming him with Optical Blast at the farthest distance possible; He will PLOW THROUGH THE BEAM and will reach you with enough momentum to cause massive damage.\\
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Magneto's AI is complete bullshit and seeks to royally piss you off at the worst possible time. He has a projectile which has absolute priority, can fly well beyond your character's reach (except if you're using Storm or Sentinel), and has a move which sends four magnetic orbs that ''home in'' on you and keep you stunned in the air if they connect. To top it all off, he has ''two'' super moves, a trait which no other character has. One of them sends a bunch of rocks flying at you, while the other sends a bunch of energy pillars that cancel all projectiles. Also, Boss Magneto's X-Bar fills up automatically without him actually having to do anything, and will go from empty to full in the span of about 5 seconds, allowing him to use his super-moves all he wants. And he has an energy shield!
** VideoGame/MarvelSuperHeroes had Doctor Doom and Thanos.\\
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Dr Doom is absurdly good at keep away. Plasma Beam has priority over a lot of projectiles and lingers long enough to make it difficult to jump over. Photon Shot will stop you from advancing at all against him. He can make it even worse with his flight and air dash, allowing him to perform his air projectiles which can very easily interrupt you and have a huge range. Not to mention that Specials and Supers will knock a gem off your character. Try to move at the wrong time, and Doom can easily knock half or more of your gems out without you even getting close to him.
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Thanos was surprisingly not that hard despite being one of the most powerful villains in the Marvel universe. That said, his moveset has a number of attacks which would make him an outright dickhead to beat if the AI bothered to take advantage of them. For example, his bubble special stuns you if it hits, leaving you open to a deadlier attack. Not only that, but his three most-abused ranged moves are actually NORMAL moves. While you don't have to worry about chip damage, Thanos's super gauge builds like CRAZY, meaning he can catch you with one of his six supers. Speaking of his supers they range from having two stone slabs crush you to death to hurling a miniature sun at you and two which cause InterfaceScrew. And surprisingly, his supers are a double-edged sword. The AI isn't smart enough to realize that Thanos doesn't need the gem in question to do the particular super. (Or maybe that's the point.) Knock a gem off of him and you're a step closer to kicking his ass.

** ''VideoGame/{{X-Men vs Street Fighter}}'' had Apocalypse, who surprisingly subverted this trope due to him growing to gigantic size and having easily-avoidable attacks. ''VideoGame/MarvelSuperHeroesVsStreetFighter'', on the other hand, had a TrueFinalBoss fight right after Apocalypse - Cyber Akuma/Mech Gouki.
*** Cyber Akuma is basically Akuma but with a more infuriating AI, completely blown-out-of-proportion-overpowered moves, and a homing RocketPunch just to add more injury to injury. His fireball/spinning kick/rising punch struck you and you knocked back? His Rocket Punch will hit you just before landing. Because, you know, when you just survived his special attacks, thus, failed to die in a glorious and flashy way, you deserve to be ''cherry tapped at long range''.
** ''[[VideoGame/MarvelVsCapcomClashOfTheSuperheroes Marvel vs. Capcom 1]]'' has Onslaught.\\
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He has Juggernaut's invincible bum-rush, can create missiles to prevent you from doing air attacks, has a larger version of Magneto's E.M. Disruptor along with his Magnetic Tempest, can instantly teleport, and to top it all off, he can summon random {{Brainwashed}} characters to do his bidding while he sits in the background ''healing himself''. As if all that isn't enough to infuriate you, he has a constant Super Armor effect, which means even when you nail him with a Hyper Combo, he can just counter out of it by using one of his own specials, or worse yet, teleporting to negate a good chunk of your damage!\\
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And just when you think you've beaten him, [[OneWingedAngel he grows to Apocalypse's size and takes off his helmet]]. Now he has Apocalypse's moveset as well as Magneto's Hypergrav stun move and a bigger, more powerful version of his Magnetic Shockwave super.
** ''VideoGame/MarvelVsCapcom2'' has Abyss, who surprisingly subverts this trope somewhat.\\
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His 3 forms can be easily beaten by following his pattern of easily telegraphed specials and supers. The second form was particularly easy to beat, except when you have an all-melee team... what with having nearly no hit-stun at all and so able to use any of its attacks at you during your combos. Not to mention that if it decided to simply spam green-bubbles-of-death you can do little but get captured and receive its attacks in the ass.\\
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Also, the last form can be infuriating. Of the three he is the least predictable, does the most chip-damage, disappears all the time and has knack of completely vanishing from your screen and attacking from afar, where you can't see which attacks it is doing (and some of them can nearly kill an average character). Or, better yet, he may decide to just get out of the arena altogether and start spamming its ranged attacks from off-screen.
** ''VideoGame/MarvelVsCapcom3'' has [[PlanetEater Galactus]] ''and'' his two heralds.\\
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First, you fight against Galactus' heralds at the same time, while you can only have one character on at a time, and they have infinite-use supers. However, they share a lifebar.\\
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After they go down, you fight Galactus himself, who has extremely high health and defence, and does a ton of damage with his screen-filling attacks. When the fight starts he'll go easy on you with mildly telegraphed but deadly strong physical attacks, one of which is a finger flick that counts as a Snap Back, wherein your current fighter is booted off the field and another one forced into play, a grab that must be super jumped or button mashed to avoid, and a vicious MegatonPunch. Once he's down to half health, depending on if you wailed on him hard enough, he'll stagger, signifying that he's not pulling his punches and starts using his Power Cosmic on you consisting of various beams. Hilariously his eye laser can be avoided by getting right in front of him, but his other lasers aren't so easy, two of which (A BeamSpam from each finger and an array of beams that cover the screen) have to be blocked if you're not using a character who can fly, and they still cause massive chip damage, pray for help you if you're using [[MegaManX Zero]], Akuma or [[Franchise/{{X-Men}} Phoenix]] who have the lowest stamina in the game. Once you've hit him hard enough he's likely to use a Sphere of Destruction that can [[OneHitKO instantly kill you if you don't deal enough damage to stop him]]. Plus, if you lose against him, he [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt destroys Earth]] ('''EARTH K.O.''').\\
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To make his SNK Boss status even more apparent, the Ultimate re-release allows you to unlock a mode where ''you can play as him''. (And before you ask, it's single-player only, obviously) Put simply, even a novice player has to explicitly ''try'' to lose in this mode, which is easier said than done, as [[SpitefulAI he wins if the timer hits 0.]]
** ''[[VideoGame/CapcomVsSNK2MarkOfTheMillennium Capcom vs. SNK 2]]'' has both Shin Akuma and God/Ultimate Rugal, both of them the result of one absorbing the other's powers. Like any other SNK Boss, they're extremely difficult to beat and have overpowered super moves, but they actually follow the same rules that the player is bound by. They're playable and balanced for human vs. human combat because they [[GlassCannon take significantly more damage when hit]]. Their difficulty comes primarily from the fact that the AI will use [[PerfectPlayAI every dirty trick in the book]] regardless of what difficulty setting is chosen. That being said, you know that a boss is going to be a nightmare when each one's opening involves absorbing the other. Shin Akuma's opening involves him absorbing the last of the Orochi power from Rugal's death, while God Rugal has Akuma ''over his head'' at the start of the match, then tosses him away like so much garbage. Note that both of these characters are SNK bosses in their own game.
** And finally, we have ''VideoGame/TatsunokoVsCapcom''[='=]s [[spoiler:[[{{Okami}} Yami]]]], who has three forms.\\
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In his first, red, spherical form he's happy to spam a jumping hammer strike attack and a buzzsaw special, and in some cases will launch homing missiles to get on your nerves whilst hammering you. He loves spamming his stock-stealing super wherein he exudes a red force field, steals a super stock from you AND crumples your character for a potential free hit. Put simply his first form prefers to AttackAttackAttack.\\
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His second form, the yellow, armed biped form is easier since his attacks are more easily avoidable, even his fire wave super.\\
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His final form goes back to the red sphere, now with a large arm coming out of it. He'll be lobbing meteors and tornadoes a lot, and his supers are a lot more dangerous. One summons a torrential downpour of fire, though he doesn't use that often. Another is a sweeping fire wave, though his final super, grabbing you and blasting you point blank with a fire beam does tremendous damage if he connects it. To be nice, however, you at least get your partner character back if they were defeated in any of the previous rounds, with a small amount of health.

* [[GundamVsSeries Gundam Vs Gundam NEXT]] had [[Anime/MobileSuitGundamSEEDDestiny Kira Yamato in Strike Freedom]] (In EX Stage final, where you have to in single player not only obtain a certain amount of points but also not die at all) whom first attacks you in Strike Freedom Form, Then in his Meteor where he gets a set of new moves and an annoying powerful attack that will smash most 1000 class mechs before losing the meteor and enters permanent SEED mode, which mean he can [[BeamSpam HIMAT burst to his heart's content]]. He was available in the next update but lacked the Meteor ability and can only go into SEED mode for a limited time. Some people thought he was worse than Devil Gundam, at least he stood still.\\
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Also, his normal attacks are not to be sneezed at, his charge shot is pretty much dyname's sniper beam upgraded to hit you instantly and if you get caught in his melee, he will deliver an 5x Issen followed by Dragoon spam. This becomes painful when you fight against Destiny as well who has level 8 AI to back it up and denies your precious charge shot attacks.
** [[Anime/TurnAGundam WaDom]] earns the SNK boss award, a constant melee involving its legs, a counter grab. and you gotta kill two of them. Or the stage with Char, Quattro and Sazabi boss stage. Char carves you a new one with his speedy melees, Quattro does you in with its WaveMotionGun and Char spams funnels and the beam shotgun.
** ''Extreme Vs'' has the Extreme Gundam. Normally, he's tough but manageable, but in Tachyon Phase, with its heavy focus on melee, he gets this honor. Hyper-aggressive, nigh-undodgeable melee combos, a stun move that gives you maybe half a second to block, and the ability to supersize his sword in an instant. Even if you try to avoid 80% of his attacks by keeping your distance, he has a dash that lets him outrun any other suit in the game.
* PowerStone has Valgas. Aside from the fact that beating him may require several tries with difficulty set to 1 (with a maximum of ''[[SerialEscalation eight]]''), what makes him so cheap is that not only his grab can make you lose ''two'' Power Stones at once, but said stones also tend to ''bounce out of your reach '''and''' right next to him'', with him usually entering his SuperMode while you're still getting back up. The fact his OneWingedAngel is actually ''[[ClippedWingAngel weaker]]'' than him [[AnticlimaxBoss (with obvious results:]] "Final Valgas" can be easily beaten ''at the first try'') shouldn't surprise anyone.
* ''VideoGame/{{Darkstalkers}}: The Night Warriors'' has Pyron, an EnergyBeing made out of fire who will put ''you'' on fire very quickly. He's fast and when combined with his [[TeleportSpam teleport]] can make him very difficult to catch, plus he deals very high damage and has a projectile that takes up a large portion of the screen. When he became playable in the next game he actually didn't lose many of his tools, however.
** Jedah in ''Vampire Savior: The Lord of Vampire'' can be tricky, thanks to his wheel attacks, flight mode and long normal attack range. He also has some incredibly damaging supers and [[WombLevel another reason]] you should beat him quickly. but from the get-go the player has access to just about everything the boss character is capable of.
* StarGladiator's Bilstein is one evil bastard in the TrueFinalBoss fight of the game (in which you must get to him from within a specific time limit or else risk getting a false ending). This form of Bilstein, called Ghost Bilstein, is an overpowered and unfair boss (imagine KOF '94's Rugal having the POW Meter maxed out and that it stayed on for the entire match!). His broadsword has a much larger range and that any strike from him can literally shred a huge amount of health from your character. His Plasma Revenge is very brutal and that it can outright kill a character if their health is very low. Also, he can't be ringed-out and that he seems to have a nasty habit in moving around real fast. Lastly, Ghost Bilstein has an exclusive move from within this form in which he summons an unblockable wave of Plasma explosions throughout the entire ring and much like the Plasma Revenge, these explosions can kill your character in an instant if their health is low. By the way, you only get one shot when fighting against Ghost Bilstein and that you have to defeat him in order to see your character's true ending. Losing to Ghost Bilstein gives you both an automatic bad ending and a game over.
* From MegamanBattleNetwork number 5, Double Team DS, we have BassXX... with 4000 hp, ridiculously overpowered attacks (his Darkness overload does at least 700 damage!), and a regenerating aura that takes 150 damage to get rid of for just a few seconds, he is EXTREMELY difficult to defeat.
* In the ''VideoGame/AsurasWrath'' DLC Lost Episode 1 and 2, Ryu and [[spoiler: Akuma]] can be quite frustrating in the ''Franchise/StreetFighter''-styled portions of the DLC on the Highest difficulty and can do K.O.s with just a few good combos. They are really hard in the ''Asura's Wrath'' styled portion of the game, too, but only on Hard mode diffculty. It can, however, be made (even) worse with the [[GlassCannon Mortal Life]] gauge.
* ''Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventure: [[VideoGame/JojosBizarreAdventureHeritageForTheFuture Heritage For The Future]]'''s Super Story Mode has some exclusive enemies that can bring a lot of pain if you're not careful. Death 13 is an example, as he's a annoying flying character and has good range and power with his scythe.
** Vanilla Ice, who is just the sub-boss, is actually much harder than the final boss. All he does the entire match is vanish, appear on the corner as a void ball that crossses the screen in a erratic pattern and then fall from the roof. This attack is unblockable, takes 1/5 of your life (yeah, five hits and you're history), and sends you to the wall. If you don't dodge, you'll miss the only opportunity to hit him, which is when he's falling, and that is just a split second before he recovers and starts the pattern again. Every now and then (and surely, if [[TurnsRed he's left alone at low health]]), he will use one of his two supers, one where he make three huge voids at random points on the screen, and other where he circles around the entire arena while shaking it, which is very hard to dodge.
** The final boss, Dio Brando, actually subverts it. In the first round, he will just teleport and use his MUDA-MUDA while randomly clapping, and if you're at full screen distance he will use his Space-Ripper-Stingy-Eyes, which is unblockable, but he doesn't even bother to block or counter your attacks. In the second round he takes off his coat and starts actively using his stand. While he is very aggressive, he still plays by the same rules of the player.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Arc System Works]]
* ''VideoGame/GuiltyGear'' has Justice. Most of her attacks have long reach, a typical Punch-Slash-Heavy Slash combo could take off a large chunk of health off.\\
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She also has an attack called Gamma Ray which racks up an [[{{Combos}} excessive number of hits]], and getting hit guaranteed that you would be dizzied and thusly vulnerable to another blow (Or worse, ANOTHER Gamma Ray if her life was low enough, which means 50% of her life). This attack even does a huge amount of damage if you ''block'' it, and she is not above throwing it out after knocking you down, forcing you to block.\\
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And you know her Imperial Ray attack, where she fired a red laser which went across the whole screen in a vertical circular motion? The attack that was a super in her later appearences? That beam which covered a lot of ground and ensured you'd have to stop what you were planning to do and block it, especially up close? [[OhCrap In Guilty Gear 1, its a standard special she can spam however much she wants no matter her health or tension level]]. Not to mention at some ranges, it can fill up her Tension meter in about a fraction of a second. Even worse, she can do a dashing version of it, where she will inevitably end up at point-blank, racking up more than 10 hits for a good chunk of your lifebar, instantly dizzying you and filling her Tension Gauge with that single move. Followed up by a Gamma Ray, this is a stun loop that can kill you no matter the amount of life you have.
** ''Guilty Gear X'' has Dizzy, which has the same attack as Justice. Her strength and defense are artificially increased in computer-controlled mode.
** ''VideoGame/GuiltyGear XX'' has I-No, whose boss version has a CPU-only (until ''Accent Core'') move called Megalomania in which the background goes black, a bunch of warning signs appear as I-No sprouts wings, and she fires off a shitload of weird heart-shaped balls that detect movement and rape your health bar if you are unlucky enough to get hit (around 70-80% damage, depending on the version and how many of them hit).\\
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Also, when fighting Dizzy in Story Mode or in Gold Mode, she gains a new super as well, called Hikari no Tsubasa (Wings of Light), where she [[FanService suddenly becomes naked]] [[OhCrap while laser beams sprout out from her body]]. This super has 3 versions, one of which is an Instant Kill (in all versions before Accent Core, the screen pops up as SLASH, but in Accent Core it's DESTROYED). Whichever version you get depends on what distance you're at when she enters the crouch stance. If you're very far away, she will attempt to trap you in an inescapable ray of light from underneath as she fires out a circular laser (think Justice's Imperial Ray on steroids). If you're about mid-screen she'll do the circular laser, but it will randomly slow down and speed up. If you're unfortunate enough to be close to her, you get the Instant Kill version where she fills the entire screen with lasers that cannot be blocked.\\
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There's also Gold and Black modes for individual characters, and are a ''great'' way to artificially increase the difficulty when fighting the CPU. Black Mode grants unlimited super meter, and Gold Mode's bonuses vary based on the character who's in Gold Mode; for example, Gold Johnny's [[IaijutsuPractitioner Mist Finer]] ''becomes a OneHitKill if it connects''. Both modes also appear in Story Mode, disguised in the normal palette for the character.
** Robo-Kys, in Story Mode, are usually not the Gold Version, but their psychic AI plus the fact that only Overdrives deal damage to them makes them hard to beat. Luckily, your character gets to damage him in some opening intros, meaning Robo-Ky doesn't always start at full health.
** The final Mission of ''VideoGame/GuiltyGear XX Reload'' features a half-health Ky versus a [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NQyyS8W1Fo&feature=related Gold, Infinite Tension, EX Sol with regeneration]]. Yeah, that's a fun one.
** ''VideoGame/GuiltyGear XX Slash'' added Order Sol, whose boss form (fought randomly in place of I-no) was not only obscenely fast and strong, but had a CPU-exclusive move called Flame Distortion (basically a chemically-enhanced Dragon Install) that further increased his strength and speed, regenerated his health and gave him a nigh-infinite charge meter for a set time, and recharged his super meter.
** ''VideoGame/GuiltyGear XX Accent Core'' makes it even ''worse'' - it has both Boss I-No ''and'' Boss Order-Sol, fought in sequence. Instant Kills are unusable during the fight with I-No, and you can't continue against Order-Sol - lose one set and it's game over. Not to mention that you need at least 10 Overdrive finishes and use no continues to fight Order-Sol after beating I-no.
** There's also Kliff Undersn. First, his foward+Heavy Slash takes off a good 2/3rd of your health bar. Secondly, Zugaisai now hits 26 times and takes off half of a health bar. Every attack with his sword does an unreasonable amount of damage. Oh, and there's a mission where you fight him as a half health Eddie. Yep, one Zugaisai is all it takes.
* Arc System Works, the people who made the ''VideoGame/GuiltyGear'' games also demonstrate their penchant for adding ridiculously cheap bosses into other fighters as well in ''Manga/DragonBall Z: Supersonic Warriors 2'', where you can fight superpowered versions of Cell, Broly and Goku in the Maniac difficulty Maximum mode. They all move twice as fast as anyone else, take half damage from all attacks, do double the damage of their normal counterparts, have infinite ki and possess special attacks that would make their anime counterparts stare at them slackjawed with drool dribbling out.\\
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Cell can summon tons of ki orbs around him that turn into ridiculously fast lasers that home in, has energy balls that never stop and spams a superpowered warp Kamehameha.\\
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Broly uses the huge ki sphere attack 5 times in a row(one is a super in normal conditions) which each one doing as much damage as a single one would normally do, and can fill half the screen with energy blasts faster than most characters can shoot one.\\
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Goku has an oversized Kamehameha bigger and faster than Super Saiyan 3's and can fire two different, seemingly endless streams of ki blasts...one comes in the size of most special attacks with each individual blast and both are homing. He can also use an unblockable grab move across the entire length of the screen. You can only thank the programmers for being merciful enough to not let the AI realize they don't have to charge their ki and only having to fight them one at a time.
* The ''FistOfTheNorthStar'' FightingGame has a superpowered version of Raoh at the end. Renamed Ken-Oh (After his tyrant persona in the source material), the boss version has all of his powerups active, can [[FlashStep Musou Tensei]] at will, and has a new super which fires a [[FrickinLaserBeams HUGE FUCKING LASER]] (Basically the true version of Tensho Honretsu or Heaven Command Charge) at his opponent.
** It gets even worse. [[http://youtu.be/mAbs0IUSGbA?t=1m35s If you use a combo to summon the Death Omen star on him in the final round, he will heal back all of his health and his stars]] and there isn't a damn thing you can do to stop it, unlike with Gill. Also, he overrides the music from the OP of the anime to the Fatal KO music. Just as a fair warning to what will happen.
* ''VideoGame/BlazBlue'', also from Arc System avoids this somewhat as both bosses (Hakumen and Nu-13) are considered generally balanced. However, they (as well as two other characters, Rachel and Ragna) have "Unlimited" versions which fit this trope to a tee, with the exception that they can be unlocked and played.\\
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''Unlimited Hakumen's'' damage output and speed are increased to the stats that he has when in Mugen mode, and his super meter gain is sped up to 3-4 times the normal speed. He is the penultimate boss in most character's Arcade Modes.\\
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''Unlimited Nu's'' drive attacks summon two swords at once instead of one, her Legacy Edge summons out more swords from the gate, her Calamity Sword fires 4 swords instead of one, and she has super-meter auto-gain. She is the final boss in most characters' Arcade Modes. She comes back in ''Continuum Shift'' as Unlimited Lambda, with everything stated above and more now that Lambda has more moves at her disposal.\\
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''Unlimited Rachel'' can do Sword Iris without the Lobelias as a requirement, and both it and its super version go in either two ways: one summons four in a row in front of her, and the other one is a delayed strike in which the second lightning bolt tracks the opponent. Her strikers also last longer and she has super meter auto-gain. She is the final boss in Nu's Arcade Mode.\\
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A quick mention must be given that the end of almost everyones arcade mode you have to beat Unlimited Nu. The exception being the two boss characters of the game. On the PS3 version, the earlier bosses give you bronze trophies. Unlimited Rachel gives a Silver Trophy when you defeat her, and she lives up to the challenge. If you do really well though, you can fight Unlimited Ragna as a BonusBoss who will give you a gold trophy. Speaking of which...\\
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The worst of them all is ''Unlimited Ragna'', who is always in Blood Kain, is faster, and stronger. And he also has super meter auto-gain as well as his drive moves healing him even more than usual. And '''Triple Health!''' He is the TrueFinalBoss of ''Calamity Trigger's'' Arcade Mode and the final boss for Hazama/Terumi's Arcade Mode in ''Continuum Shift''.\\
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In the console version's Story Mode, whenever a opponent needs to be more boss-like for story purposes, the game simply gives them an unlimited super bar.
** The PSP version and 2010 DLC for the PS3 and 360 versions have Unlimited versions of ''everyone else!''\\
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''Unlimited Jin'' has enhanced Drive attacks that summon up more ice pillars. His normal specials are now the EX versions and ''all'' of them freeze you. On top of that, his D Ice Sword fires 3 at once, and his Icecar now has bouncing properties, meaning you can juggle after them now. And his Ice Wave super now fires 2 at once and his Ice Arrow super keeps you in the air longer while he recovers at the same rate.\\
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''Unlimited Noel'' is faster, can fire all 3 versions of her Optic Barrel in succession, fires 3 missiles if the gun hits with Fenrir, fires 5 missiles without bullets with Thor, and her Chain Revolver moves can now be done more times.\\
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''Unlimited Taokaka'' has faster Drive attacks, can chain any move into any other move, and her "This is for the tuna!" super now does [[FistOfTheNorthStar 100 hits]]. Also her Hexa-Edge can now be done in the air.\\
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''Unlimited Tager'' gets wheels installed in his boots, allowing him to run at super fucking fast speeds and able to go across the screen in 30 frames. He also has autoguard against all mid and high attacks while he's running, and his Genesic Emerald Tager Buster sucks you in hyper-fast when magnetized. Speaking of which, his magnetism now lasts for 30 seconds instead of 7. '''THE POWER OF SCIENCE!'''\\
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''Unlimited Litchi'' has enhanced versions of her Three Dragons move that move farther and deal multiple hits, and her All Green now makes 3 energy geysers appear.\\
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''Unlimited Arakune'' can now run, is really fast in the air, and when the opponent is cursed he now summons 3 of every bug.\\
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''Unlimited Bang'' has 20 Nails instead of 12, can now autoguard '''everything''' with his Drive attacks, and can use his B and C shuriken the same way as his A and D shurikens. All of his special moves except his nails now add to his Fu-Rin-Ka-Zan meter, and his command throws add 4 symbols instantly, as well as the ground version teleporting him a short distance to reach the opponent. And his Heavenly Phoenix goes across the screen. He's basically ''Continuum Shift'' Bang but with benefits.\\
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''Unlimited Carl'' becomes slower and takes a LOT more damage, but in exchange Nirvana becomes hyper fast, does not drain health when under Carl's control, and has enhanced attacks.
* The upgrade to the console version of ''Continuum Shift'' changed every Unlimited character from Calamity Trigger. And Continuum Shift Extend also adds even more movesets to these already horrible characters (seen [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aF6_wI3_w-w here]]).\\
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''Unlimited Ragna'' no longer has triple health, but he still has his insane movement speed and his other attributes. To make matters worse, any attack that involves his sword now drains health like his D moves. He also has a new followup to Dead Spike to make it more useful, which can be easily comboed after his Hell's Fang followup for massive damage. But none of that compares to the worst part about him - ''he can do Devoured By Darkness without meter''. Extend gives him a Distortion drive where he launches towards the enemy in an attempt to grab them ForMassiveDamage. He is the final boss in Jin's and Hazama's Arcade Modes.\\
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''Unlimited Jin'' is pretty much the same except with the new freezing system, certain moves can freeze multiple times, some as much as '''10'''. His Arrows of Ice super now has a Yukikaze followup afterward, and speaking of Yukikaze it now comes out regardless of whether it countered something or not. Extend allows him to use his Ice Arrow distortion (plus the auto-Yukikaze) mid-air.\\
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''Unlimited Noel'' now has the old versions of her supers as regular moves, and Thor shoots the normal spray of bullets before the 5 missiles. Extend gives her a new distortion where she dashes on her opponent, and if she hits, she'll blow them up.\\
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''Unlimited Rachel'' fires out 3 Lobelias from her cannon instead of just 1. She also has her old Sword Iris back from before which goes in a random pattern. And her Tempest Dahlia now fires out even deadlier objects than before and does not depend on the Silpheed gauge. Extend gives her a homing Sword Iris-esque distortion that doesn't consume her Lobelias at all.\\
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''Unlimited Taokaka'' now has a new special and two new supers. One of them summons a bunch of Kaka kittens to stampede upon the opponent, and the other throws a series of objects at the opponent. All of her attacks that can be charged are now unblockable when fully charged, and do an insane amount of damage. Her projectile-throwing moves throw 3 objects at the same time, and the bowling ball she throws with the C version of the move doesn't disappear until it goes offscreen and can combo opponent endlessly if it hits a grounded opponent. Her Drive attacks have a much slower startup and thus are much harder to combo and can't be aimed to as many directions but they move much faster once they actually begin and if they connect, do absolutely ridiculous amounts of damage and can kill any character in 2-4 hits. Extend gives her yet another distortion where a Kaka kitten will bring a bomb and try to stay close to the opponent until the bomb goes off.\\
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''Unlimited Tager'' is the same, but Gadget Finger no longer requires the opponent to be knocked down. His drive attacks and 6A can also be charged, and his Astral Heat is now performed with [=1D=], as well as his super which is [=1C=]. His super-fast magnetic projectile now consumes only half of his magnetic gauge instead of all of them. Extend gives him a MegatonPunch as a new super.\\
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''Unlimited Litchi'' is a unique case, as her play style is completely changed. Her teleports and stuff from ''Calamity Trigger'' are still here, but she now has a new Chi Gauge instead of using 6B to charge up her moves. Extend allows her to use her Chi attack Distortion at close range rather than at a distance (this one is taken straight from Jam Kuradoberi's uppercut super), and All Green generates 3 geysers, starting from right in front of her. She can also parry with [=1D=], and doesn't dash. Instead she {{Flash Step}}s.\\
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''Unlimited Arakune'' has a new super move which summons a bag of insects. If the opponent hits it, small red bugs pour out of it, and if the opponent touches any of them, they are instantly killed (complete with an amusing 5-second snippet at the end of the normal Astral Finish theme, which fittingly enough is the part which says "until the world is covered in Azure"). Also, that new Fever Mode gauge he has is now a thing of the past, as he now curses instantly like old Arakune. Extend gives him a stronger version of his crawling special move as a distortion.\\
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''Unlimited Bang'' borrows the 3-hit command combo and teleport from Chipp Zanuff. He now also has a multi-hit aerial auto-combo as a new super (which is also based on Chipp's super, Zansei Rouga).\\
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''Unlimited Carl'' is exactly the same as before. Extend gives him one of Relius' supers.\\
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''Unlimited Hakumen'' is completely different from before in that he has ''actual changes''. All of his specials now cost only 1 magatama (not his supers), Enma can be canceled, the dash preceeding it works much like wavedashes in VideoGame/{{Tekken}} in that just inputting the motion causes Hakumen to dash, it can be done repeatedly, pressing A at a precise time gives performs a better version of Enma which is faster and can be jump cancelled and neither it or Enma itself cost any magatama to perform, all of his counters end in Yukikaze or Tsubaki, his actual Yukikaze comes out instantly like Jin's, and as a bonus his version is both invincible and unblockable during execution unlike Jin's which is only unblockable, and his Shippu now does multiple hits and stuns the opponent for a long time if they block it, leaving them open for Yukikaze if you have the meter to spare. Extend gives him a new all-kick autocombo super.\\
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''Unlimited Lambda'' is another unique case in that technically it isn't Lambda. When you attempt selecting her Unlimited form, you'll find that it's none other than '''Nu'''. That's right, the bitch is back, and worse than ever. She is exactly the same as original Unlimited Nu, except with the added moves from Lambda and more cancel fun. Although it sounds lame, it actually makes her cheaper than before. Extend gives her a new autocombo super.\\
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''Unlimited Tsubaki'' is now the new ''Calamity Trigger'' Unlimited Hakumen. She has literally no changes except that she now has a Quick Charge function like Order-Sol (her technical predecessor) and charges her Install quicker. Extend gives her a diving attack as a new super.\\
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''Unlimited Hazama'' is about 3 times as fast as he is normally is and has super meter auto-gain, as expected. What isn't expected is that he has a green force field around him that, if you get caught in it, drains your health and adds it to his. Extend also gives him a new Distortion where he grabs then flings his opponent all over the screen with his Ouroboros. He is the final boss for most characters in ''Continuum Shift''. The console version changes him up a bit in that all of his specials which require a certain move to be performed before it no longer require it, he has a new kicking move (a weaker version of Jayoku Houtenjin that still fatal counters), and his command throw leads into a ''stronger'' version of his Mizuchi Rekkazan.\\
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''Unlimited Mu'' has an exclusive super which is a carbon copy of Dizzy's Imperial Ray super from Guilty Gear, and the {{Attack Drone}}s that she summons can now move freely and fire at will. And you can also continuously summon as many as you want, essentially making the battle a BulletHell shmup. Extend allows those attack drones to cause CollisionDamage, and Mu now has two more Distortions: One is a grab-range distortion and the other one fills the screen with electric orbs.\\
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''Unlimited Makoto'' is unique in that the majority of her movelists has been changed. It's a combination of [[VideoGame/StreetFighterIII Dudley's and the other Makoto's]] moves. The one thing that makes her broken, however, is her new 100-heat super, which makes you mash B in order to get '''[[MemeticMutation OVER]] [[Manga/DragonBall Z 9000]]''' damage! Extend gives her a multi-punch auto-combo super.\\
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''Unlimited Valkenhayn'' has a new battle stance where he waves his arms around similarly to [[VideoGame/MarvelVSCapcom2 Magneto]]. He starts out unable to transform into a wolf, but once he transforms he can pretty much infinitely switch in and out of wolf form with impunity, and he also gains the ability to use his wolf transformation to escape many normally guaranteed combos, much like Bursting, but not limited in the number of times he can use it per round. His Beast Spiral can now be done 6 times in a row just by mashing A and it automatically homes into the opponent, and he has a new SpinningPiledriver super which always does a fixed amount of damage and can be easily comboed after latter. And now he also has an aerial-ramming super.\\
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''Unlimited Platinum'' can choose which one of her Magical Weapons she wants to summon next (instead of the order being randomized with the ability to see the next one in the row), and they're always the powered-up versions she normally only gets after using a Distortion Drive to power one up. She has a new DD that breaks 3 Guard Primers on block, more than any other move in the game (besides Arakune's Astral Heat, which doesn't really count), and her Cure Dot Typhoon summons a colossal cat missile followed by a rain of cat bombs if it connects. Extend gives her a short range super which attacks upwards.\\
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''Unlimited Relius'' has an infinite Ignis gauge, meaning he can use his puppet whenever he wants. He also has two new supers. One of them is a high-damaging variant of Venom's Dark Angel from ''Guilty Gear'' (a fireball super, and he can fire two rapidly if his gauge allows it), and the other is an instant autocombo with Ignis.
* ''Chronophantasma'' has brought them back yet again, and now they have even more new moves to bring out the salt. Every Unlimited character can use a maximum-time [[SuperMode Overdrive]] no matter what their health is, and the Overdrive versions of their normal Distortion Drives become their default ones.\\
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''Unlimited Ragna'' now has a new Distortion Drive inspired by [[VideoGame/GuiltyGear Sol Badguy's]] [[SuperMode Dragon Install-enhanced]] Volcanic Viper.\\
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''Unlimited Jin'' now has more opportunities to freeze the opponent, and has a new autocombo super.\\
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''Unlimited Noel'' gets a super version of her Silencer.\\
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''Unlimited Rachel'' is no longer the cripple she was in [=CS1=], meaning she is now actually a threat. Especially now that both versions of her Sword Iris (the normal and the special boss version) have '''0 cooldown frames''', meaning she can spam them with gusto. She also gets a new super where she rains bats down from the sky like Storm in VideoGame/MarvelVSCapcom3.\\
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''Unlimited Taokaka'' has Almost Becoming Two as a super move again, as well as two new supers where she performs Sabretooth's Berserker Claw X super from VideoGame/MarvelVSCapcom2 and summons a Kaka kitten riding a bowling ball like [[Persona4Arena Teddie's]] Circus Bear.\\
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''Unlimited Tager'' can now store up to 3 Spark Bolts, gets [[TheKingOfFighters Maxima's]] Bunker Buster super, and a super version of Atomic Collider.\\
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''Unlimited Litchi'' gains a lot more from Jam's arsenals (the sidestep backhand maneuver), changes her All Green property that it works like an All Green version of Tsubame Gaeshi, and worst of all, gains a new Distortion Drive which is basically ''[[VideoGame/MarvelVsCapcom3 MVC3-class]] [[StreetFighter Shinkuu]] [[KamehameHadoken Hadoken]]''\\
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''Unlimited Arakune'' still instantly curses the opponent and summons 3 of every bug, but his Curse meter no drains much more slowly, allowing him to transform the game's genre to a BulletHell.\\
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''Unlimited Bang'' gets his Fu-Rin-Ka-Zan as a Distortion again, while his Overdrive has been replaced with a regular one. He also has [[LastBlade Zantetsu's]] Yami Kari [=SDM=] as a new Distortion.\\
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''Unlimited Carl'' gets his old Astral as a super.\\
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''Unlimited Hakumen'' gets his own version of Hazama's Serpent's Infernal Rapture super, as well as a new autocombo super.\\
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''Unlimited Nu'' can now delay the activation of her [[StormOfBlades Legacy Edge]] super, and summons two blades when using Crescent Saber. She also has a new autocombo super where the opponent is [[DeathInAllDirections impaled with miniature swords from all directions]].\\
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''Unlimited Tsubaki'' gets [[Persona4Arena Chie's Agneyastra]], and her command grab charges the entire Install gauge rather than 2 segments.\\
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''Unlimited Hazama's'' Serpent's Infernal Rapture now '''teleports him to the opponent'''. He also gets a new autocombo super that also teleports him to the opponent... This might seem hopelessly unfair, but keep in mind: Hazama is a HopeCrusher and god can't help you now; Hazama made sure of that in the last game.\\
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''Unlimited Mu'' can now use her Steins in three different ways. They can instantly fire a powered-up laser, fire multiple smaller lasers while rotating 90 degrees, charge forward like [[VideoGame/GuiltyGear Dizzy's]] Ice Fish. She also has a new Distortion Drive, in which four Arrows of Heaven rotate around her for a set period of time in a manner similar to [[VideoGame/{{Strider}} Strider Hiryu's]] [[VideoGame/MarvelVsCapcom Ouroboros]].\\
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''Unlimited Makoto'' ditches [[VideoGame/StreetFighter Dudley's]] moveset, but all of her Drive Attacks become Level G, and she gains a larger [[EnergyBall Comet Cannon]] and a new autocombo super.\\
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''Unlimited Valkenhayn'' may have just become the most broken Unlimited character ever made, for he gets a new super where he howls at the moon, and then gets a glow of energy particles around him. He gets locked in Wolf Mode until the gauge runs out, but now he has Guard Point, better known as ''Super Armor'', '''on his entire body'''. With this new "Wolf Install", he becomes an absolute juggernaut, pinballing across the screen like crazy while there's nothing you can do to stop him.\\
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''Unlimited Platinum'' has a new Distortion Drive in which multiple bells fall onto the opponent, followed by a guard-breaking cat missile that takes up the entire screen.\\
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''Unlimited Relius'' gets Venom's other super, Red Hail.\\
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''Unlimited Amane'' has a constantly maxed out Drive gauge, meaning that if you block his Drive attacks you will take '''''insane''''' chip damage, and if you don't block you will take insane '''''regular''''' damage. He also has a new super where he turns his scarf into a pinwheel that also causes chip damage and deals a lot of hits.\\
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''Unlimited Bullet'' gets [[FatalFury Terry Bogard's Buster Wolf]] super, and her Drive makes her instantly charge towards the opponent no matter how far away they are from her.\\
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''Unlimited Azrael'' is just one big ShoutOut to the brokenness that was the ''FistOfTheNorthStar'' fighting game. Many of his moves have altered properties that make combos easier in addition to opening up possibilities for infinites. He also gets a new special similar to the All-Out Attacks from ''Persona4Arena'', and a new super which is basically Raoh and Kenshiro's Musou Tensei from the game, which lets him parry any attack 7 times.\\
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''Unlimited Izayoi'' is not much different from her regular version other than she's faster and her teleport shenanigans have been buffed in ways that would make [[MarvelVSCapcom3 Wesker]] proud.
* The console release has [[spoiler: a TrueFinalBoss fight in the form of]] Take-Mikazuchi, a gigantic KillSat EldritchAbomination that's similar to the [[MarvelVsCapcom2 Abyss]] fight mentioned in the Capcom section. Its attacks are pretty telegraphed and hitting it enough times causes it to flinch, letting you wail away at it, but that doesn't stop attacks like flying discs covering the entire lower portion of the screen erratically and a laser that blows up the entire ground doing a ton of damage both on hit and on block. Oh, and you also have to deal with its AssistCharacter [[spoiler:The Imperator[=/=]Saya[=/=]Izanami]] who shoots out energy balls that track you even when you manage to hit it, which becomes even worse during its overdrive. Also, it is immune to LifeDrain, meaning Ragna's Soul Eater [[spoiler:like in the plot-mandated fight]] has no effect, and immobilizing attacks and Distortions are useless, too. The best part? This giant thing has an ASTRAL HEAT. You know, that OneHitKill move that most people deem too risky to use unless you want to show off against your opponent. The computer doesn't care about that and will use it when you're ever open, so ''pray'' that your health doesn't get to the point where he can use an Astral during this fight.
** There are some consolations for this fight, both in the plot and in ''Gigant Assault'', however. First, both of its distortions can be nullified. [[BreakMeter Wail on the head during one distortion, and it will crumble to the ground,]] [[AttackItsWeakPoint leaving the orb on its chest open for a pounding]]. For the other, a piece of debris will be raised and glowing green; get behind this to dodge the screen-filling explosion altogether. Second, your character is given an inflated health meter. Third, both of its Distortions require a full 100 Heat, so if it uses one, you're safe from the Astral for a moment. Trust us when we say ''you will need all of these'' for a chance at victory.
* And ArcSystemWorks has done it again in ''VideoGame/BattleFantasia'' with its end boss, End of Deathbringer (like the original, except constantly [[AC:[[ManOnFire on fire!]]]]) Though he lacks a Super Move meter, his lone super-special attack, Apocalypse Flame (activated after an unpredictable countdown), almost completely fills the screen, and will burn off a large chunk of HP to anyone who hasn't mastered Gachi counters. This, of course, is provided you manage to survive his regular special attacks, which deal a lot of damage and have insane priority. And unless you go into "Heat Up!" mode, you won't be able to cause anything but chip damage to him. Also, half of [=EoD=]'s moves are unblockable ''and'' make him immune to stance break (ie, you can't knock him out of them), and on top of that, his Apocalypse Flame ''can be comboed into'', which basically spells instant death if he does it. For all that Arcana Heart 3's Parace L'sia (another boss done by Arc System) is incredibly cheap, she's got nothing on End of Deathbringer - at least she can be hurt with normal moves and hit out of her own attacks, and her lifebar is normal. This... monstrosity... on the other hand, is completely and utterly unfair to anyone who isn't a master. And even to the masters, too. For an amateur, beating End of Deathbringer at anything above the easiest setting is wishful thinking.
** It's not too difficult to beat him without the Gachi counter. For one, your own super meter builds up much faster against EoD- it can be filled a whole stock within two or three hits! Your charge rate was probably added to ease having to spend a single stock to enter "Heat Up!" mode in order to damage him.
** Really, EoD is the kind of boss that scares players at first with his overpowered Apocalypse Flame super, but is ridiculously easy the moment you discover how to play his AI like a puppet. Want to keep him from using his super? Don't retreat from him. Want him to do the easily Gachi-blocked dash attack (that fills all three levels of your super meter when you do Gachi counter it)? Stay half a screen away from him. With a boss that is stupid enough to broadcast its moves to you and do you the favor of keeping your super meter full for most of the battle, End of Deathbringer is one of the easiest SNK bosses on here. It's less cheap-super-powered-attacks and luck-based-victory, and more memorization of his move timings and taking advantage of his less-than-intelligent AI.
* Score Attack returns once more in ''Persona4Arena'', but it may as well be called [[SNKBoss SNK]] BossRush Mode. Why? ''Every character you fight becomes an SNKBoss''. That's right: you must fight every character in the game, but they have special attributes that essentially makes them equivalent to Unlimited characters. For the purpose of these descriptions they shall be referred to as ''Awakened'' versions of the characters.
** ''Awakened Yosuke'' is first, and has Sukukaja active at all times, making him extremely fast and hard to hit.
** The 2nd match is ''Awakened Naoto'', whose every attack now lowers the Fate Counter (When the counter hits zero, Naoto can start spaming Light and Dark insta-kills.)
** The 3rd match is ''Awakened Yukiko'', who has permanent Fire Break and is always at level 8 Fire Boost. Eat one Maragidyne and you're dead.
** The 4th match is ''Awakened Teddie'', whose Circus Bear Awakening super has been drastically altered. Teddie now comes charging in twice as fast, and also does it 3 times instead of one. It also juggles, and does 6000 damage per hit, so if you get hit by it you die because it juggles and is unblockable.
** The 5th match is ''Awakened Kanji'', whose grabs deal damage equivalent to a '''[[VideoGame/BlazBlue GIGANTIC TAGER]]'''.
** The 6th match is ''Awakened Chie'', who is stuck in permanent Level 3 Power Charge, meaning her attacks do insane amounts of damage.
** The 7th match is ''Awakened Mitsuru'', whose attacks now freeze and cause charm, as well as do triple damage.
** The 8th match is ''Awakened Akihiko'', who always has Level 3 of his Cyclone Gauge and is in permanent Electric Fists mode.
** The 9th match is ''Awakened Aigis'', who has 999 ammo and unlimited Orgia Mode gauge.
** The 10th match is ''Awakened Yu'', who can cancel all of his specials and supers into one another.
** The 11th match is ''Awakened Shadow Labrys'', whose Persona attacks all deal massive damage and are faster.
** The 12th match is ''Awakened Labrys'', whose Axe gauge is always red.
** If you somehow manage to make it through all 12 of the regular opponents, you fight a special [[ThirteenIsUnlucky 13th]] opponent in the form of ''Awakened Elizabeth'', who is by far the cheapest and most infuriatingly ''evil'' TrueFinalBoss that ArcSystemWorks has ever created. To start, her meter regenerates much faster than normal (in about 5 seconds she instantly has 100 meter), allowing her to spam her supers. Two of these supers are instant kills, and unlike the player version come out instantly. Also as soon as she enters Awakening or activates Mind Charge, she will automatically heal herself with Diarahan, which now fully restores her health. Last, but certainly not least, her Instant Kill no longer requires a 3-hit activation. One hit is all it takes for her to Megidolaon you.
*** And in true BossRush tradition, if you lose to any of them it's an instant Game Over.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Namco]]
* Heihachi in the first ''VideoGame/{{Tekken}}'' is much harder and faster than his later incarnations, due to being the boss of the game. This has been written into canon with ''Tekken Tag 2'' supposedly featuring a return of his younger self, when he was much tougher.
* ''Tekken 5'': Jinpachi Mishima (unavailable to players), who can interrupt any attack you throw at him and possesses a fireball that takes away two-thirds of your health with a single hit (which he can also fire rapidly in case you try to sidestep it). Yes, the final boss of a hand-to-hand fighting game is best known for his nigh-unavoidable magic stun and long-range fireballs. In addition, he can heal himself by stealing your life bar and phase around the stage so not only can he make it impossible to hit him if he so wishes, it is possible you may hit him and still get a "perfect" loss.\\
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If you are jumping in the air, the stun will drop you down to the floor and you will reel from it. If you are as far away from Jinpachi as the game will allow, the stun will hit you and you are unable to move. If you are blocking, you are stunned and unable to move. If you are on the floor, the stun will hit you, make you stand, and have you reel.\\
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Also, there's one thing that gets you no matter what - The stun/fireball combo. Go go, random stun counter followed by avoid-this-or-die fireball. Both mechanics are fine on their own, but when combined, there's nothing you can do.\\
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Ask any Tekken player you know how bad would it be if you couldn't move for six seconds, given that Tekken's claim to fame is juggling and combo-ability. Then add to the fact the weakest of Jinpachi's moves will take off a fifth of your lifebar and is combo-able. And you have the equation for a true SNK Boss.
* Azazel, [[OurDragonsAreDifferent the literal Dragon]] of ''Tekken 6'', is ''much'' worse than Jinpachi. He's got Devil's EyeBeams, Jinpachi's stun, plus even more ridiculous moves such as raising boulders out of the ground, throwing barrages of ice projectiles, and the ability to regenerate. Not to mention he doesn't even stagger on normal basis, and when it happens, he takes no damage. May be the Grand Champion of SNK Bosses.
** The BonusBoss [=NANCY-MI847J=] has ten times the energy bar of other fighters, cannot be stunned or juggled, attacks with lasers, machine guns, and missiles, and has an EyeBeams attack that cuts holes in the floor, killing you instantly if you're standing there.
** Boss Jin, whom you fight before Azazel, and right after Nancy. At the start of the round he automatically activates Rage Mode, meaning he deals twice the amount of normal damage. Not only that, but his AI suddenly increases to that of an expert player, no matter if you're fighting the CPU or a ghost, and will counter your strategies at every turn.
* ''Tekken Tag Tournament 2'' gives us a three-stage BossRush featuring the return of young Heihachi and Jinpachi Mishima at Stage 7, Ogre at Stage 8, and finally fan favorite [[MissingMom Jun Kazama]] for the Final Stage.\\
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The first two stages are warm-ups for the battle against the latter. She starts off as a defensive beast, completely at home in blocking most of your attacks. Take into account that [[ArtificialBrilliance she had been spending the game learning your moves and tactics]] and this is made even worse. She also uses her Attack Reversal every now and then, which is considerably rare for Tekken AI. Since she is a solo fighter, her entire health bar is doubled and must be depleted to knock her out, including her recoverable health. Once you win the first round and defeat Jun, the fun begins...
** ... and Jun transforms into [[SuperpoweredEvilSide Un]][[OneWingedAngel known]], effectively ending the [[EpilepticTrees decade-long debate on the character's identity]] [[note]]well, sort of; Unknown in the first ''Tag'' was originally meant to be Jun's younger sister[[/note]]. Unlike her ''Tag 1'' incarnation, she does not mimic other cast members a la Mokujin. Instead, she retains Jun's moveset as well as gaining a damage output increase and a few boss-exclusive moves that borderline on downright unfair, including a call back to Jinpachi's infamous stun. There are no guarantees in this fight; if she wants to, she'll either initiate a simple combo that shaves off roughly half of your health or reverse your attacks to death. One of her most dangerous attacks is a [[VideoGame/MarvelVsCapcom Snap Back-esque]] move where a portal appears on the ground. If you get hit by it, a huge hand surfaces from the stage and splats you, forcing you out of the arena and leaving you with only a pixel of health remaining and a large chunk of recoverable health. Did we mention that she can combo into it? Good luck when she pulls ''that'' off. Only plus side is Unknown is not as defensive as Jun, so it's really a toss up on which side of her is worse. It depends on your play-style. More aggressive players will find Unknown to be much easier than Jun, but that's like the difficulty going from impossible down to joystick snapping.
* An update for the free-to-play ''Tekken Revolution'' added a special version of True Ogre that can be fought in Arcade Mode, known as Gold Ogre. This version of True Ogre has had its AI buffed and its moveset modified to make it more boss-like. The computer will read your inputs and counter with the exact move necessary to counter it, which is usually its extremely damaging Invincible Move, now made faster than the regular version of Ogre and also safer when blocked. It can also teleport during a juggle like Azazel and appear on the other side of the screen to ram into you or breathe fire at you.
* The first game in the ''VideoGame/{{Soul|Series}}'' series, ''Soul Edge/Blade'' has Soul Edge, who would later become Inferno. He is a much tougher version of Cervantes who is able to teleport and use flying unblockable attacks, seemingly from anywhere on screen. His difficulty is so great that the original arcade version of the game had to have its difficulty lowered for a rerelease, because him and Cervantes (who you face before him) were considered impossible to beat. It can still take several retries to defeat him and that's only if you're lucky, as he's utterly unpredictable. And note that "lucky" here means you happened to not be in the way when he used one of those flying attacks and [[ArtificialStupidity he launched himself clear out of the ring]].
** If you did beat Cervantes and Soul Edge using Mitsurugi, you'd find yourself up against [[MeaningfulName Tanegashima]], a BonusBoss who starts the fight with a matchlock rifle, fully loaded, primed, cocked and pointed at your face. You have a split second (1 or 2 frames, at most) to dive to one side or his bullet will result in an unblockable OneHitKill. Of course, if you manage to do that, you've got plenty of time to run up to him and hack him apart while he reloads, but occasionally he does manage to block your attacks (which somehow doesn't interfere with his reloading) long enough to get off another shot.
* ''Soulcalibur II'' makes use of this trope with Inferno, a final boss who uses random move sets of other characters. This final fight carries the deceptive appearance of a single-KO battle, but Inferno's life bar is in fact 3 times normal size. He also receives a damage bonus, a special throw that knocks off more than half of your life gauge, and changes move sets when he hits 2/3rds and 1/3rd of his total life (and if you deal extra damage, it always truncates it, so Inferno starts each "round" with that amount of life). Additionally, flames blanket the stage and cover Inferno's body, making it harder and harder to discern his movements. Definitely a joystick-snapper.
** Fortunately, Inferno is [[AIBreaker surprisingly susceptible to throws.]]
* ''Soulcalibur III'' utilizes this to a degree even with ''non''-boss characters, although there are [[AIBreaker certain moves]] that can be used to circumvent the seemingly [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard precogniscent AI]]. But the [[BonusBoss secret boss]], Night Terror, is absolutely batshit ''insane'' in this regard, with EyeBeams and a stance which renders him immune to damage; unless you're using one of the aforementioned AI-killing attacks (or a few more that take advantage of Night Terror's absurd size) it appears that you can only beat him if the CPU decides that you can. Oh, yeah... you can't beat him by "ring out", either, because he'll just fly back in. Thanks God he isn't playable, at least if you're not using a cheating device.
** The story mode only character Ceres is supposed to be this - he blocks pretty much every move you use against him, and the story moves on if you lose the battle. Beating him results in nothing.
* ''Soulcalibur IV'' actually ''averts'' this, believe it or not, with its final boss, Algol. While he's fast and strong, he never feels impossible, and his projectiles are not only blockable but they can be ''parried'' to reflect them back against him. In the Tower of Lost Souls Mode, he actually does appear to fight like an SNK Boss, until you figure out [[ArtificialStupidity the bug in his AI]]. In the right circumstances, he'll ring himself out, every time those circumstances are presented to him.
** In Tower of Lost Souls mode he has a 50% chance each SECOND of "unblockability" - which includes being impossible to parry - being granted to his next attack, takes 30% normal damage, does double normal damage, has two health bars, and drains life with every attack? Essentially, if he hits you the battle is probably lost.
** He also boasts some ''stupidly'' broken infinites, although the A.I. never seems to make good use of them.
** [[VideoGame/TheForceUnleashed The Apprentice]] in Arcade. While not ''quite'' SNK level, he does seem to have an uncanny knack for sidestepping verticals, vert-jabbing horizontals, air-juggling and... to cap it all off... a truly ridiculous frequency of Just Impacts.
* ''Soulcalibur V'' has the honored privilege of granting us not one, not two, not three, not four, not ''five'', not even '''six''', but '''''seven''''' SNK Bosses, all fought in a row, in [[BonusLevelOfHell Legendary Souls mode]]. This, ladies and gentlemen, is the new [[VideoGame/BlazBlueContinuumShift Score Attack]]. The AI becomes demonically possessed, reads your inputs and reacts with unbelievable timing, and does not let you so much as breathe when it goes on the offensive. It can also perform any move requiring a Just Frame perfectly, resulting in combos which are completely impossible unless you have close to exact timing.
** First up is Kilik. Despite being a mimic character normally, in Legendary Souls he is stuck using Xiba's style, which was originally his own from previous games. The second you let him get momentum, he starts comboing you like a maniac with ambiguous mixups, and doesn't stop.
** Next is Nightmare, who uses an exclusive costume just for this mode, his ''Soulcalibur IV'' outfit. With his immense range, he will constantly knock you down and take away about 50-70% of your health bar using his Brave Edges and comboing into his Down+A+B attack while you're on the ground, resulting in a special command throw.
** Your third opponent is Siegfried, who also uses his ''Soulcalibur IV'' outfit exclusive to this mode. While he doesn't have the damage output of Nightmare, he does have the momentum and mixup game of Kilik, and is also a massive block-whore. Be prepared for ring outs several times over, and good luck trying to break his defenses.
** Contestant #4 is Cervantes, decked out in his Inferno costume from the very first game. While he's a bit easier than the first three opponents, your jaw is guaranteed to drop as he juggles you with Instant Geo Da Rays[=/=][[Franchise/StreetFighter Psycho Crushers]] for insane damage.
** After Cervantes, you fight Edge Master. Just like Kilik, in this mode he gets stuck with one set style - Alpha Patroklos', who in turn uses Setsuka's style. If the AI blocks you even ''once'' you will be punished with either a combo into his Critical Edge which can be done off of pretty much anything due to how fast it comes out, or a Just Frame Sakura Twister, which is so fast it can be done ''twice in a row'' and deals amazing damage for a combo ender. For many, this is the breaking point, but there's something even worse after him.
** That "something worse" is the 6th battle against Elysium. Again, she uses a set style - Pyrrha Omega's, to be exact. And this just so happens to be Sophitia's style, who Elysium takes the form of. Unfortunately, this version of Sophitia's style is faster, and about 10 times cheaper, making Elysium a total bitch to fight against. She spams Angel Strike (her signature stab) like it's going out of style, and will always end it with the Just Frame ender. She will also use her exclusive Critical Edge, which is a 20-hit full-screen attack, at the worst possible moments. Have fun.
** Your last opponent is a familiar face - Algol from ''Soulcalibur IV'', who seems to now be taking fashion advice from [[VideoGame/StreetFighterIII Gill]]. This time he's gotten smarter and doesn't ring himself out on accident anymore, which is bad news for you. Luckily, he's easier than the first 6 opponents put together, making this an AntiClimaxBoss.
*** The catch is that, while manageable compared to the other six, Algol is still a force to be reckoned with, even after losing the infinites that banned him from TournamentPlay in ''IV''. If he builds up his meter, Algol ''will'' use his Brave Edges and [[LimitBreak Critical Edge]] with sadistic glee, all of which puts you in position for [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyE2bwBHQlU more combo madness]] like rebounding you off of his levitating throne for ''an untechable juggle'' and then using his projectiles to pop you off of the ground, air controlling your position as a setup for combo finishers that allow him to further press the assault on wake-up. And if Algol is feeling ''especially'' malicious, he'll store up his meter and ''use all of it at once''. Nothing quite says frustration like a 10+-hit, touch of death combo. Or Algol using his ''complete'' Critical Edge at full meter, ''which is among the most-damaging single-hit moves in the entire game.'' Moral of the story: never let Algol gain momentum. ''Never.''
* ''VideoGame/FightingLayer'' has Vold Ignitio, the final boss. The first round is no big deal, even if he's tougher than most of the previous fights. If you win a round against him, he goes LimpAndLivid, and the difficulty skyrockets. When you attack him and he's not trying to get up or in the middle of an attack, he will swap places with you and counterattack with your own move. He also has an unblockable diving attack that is guaranteed to hit if you can't get out of the way. Finally, his gun super is fast, unblockable, and heavy hitting.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Midway/Netherrealm Studios]]
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJPLDR8DWmI Mutilator]] from ''Bio F.R.E.A.K.S.'' It's a bit like fighting [[VideoGame/MetalGearSolid Metal Gear Rex]], only it's a FightingGame. And the arena is [[DownTheDrain flooded]]. And the water is full of [[EverythingsEvenWorseWithSharks sharks]].
* Midway's 1997 ''VideoGame/WarGods'' on Nintendo 64 features two SNK bosses in the progressive fighting mode: Grox and Exor.\\
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Grox was the first big green blob thing, who looks like a joke but takes basically no flinch damage when hit and has a variety of moves which take 15-30% of your health in 1 hit.\\
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Exor's name is not even given, and he basically has a bunch of moves no other character can perform, others that no other character cannot perform efficiently and also takes no flinch damage, combined with teleportation abilities and a very high speed. Even on the lowest difficulty, this boss is impossibly hard.
* The ''MortalKombat'' series is notorious for its SNK-like sub-bosses, starting with ''VideoGame/MortalKombat2''[='=]s Kintaro and ending with ''VideoGame/MortalKombatDeadlyAlliance''[='=]s Moloch. Not only are they super-powerful, but they're unthrowable, unjuggleable (for the most part) and - with later games - immune to projectile attacks.
** In ''VideoGame/MortalKombat'', we had Goro and Shang Tsung.\\
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Goro had the highest defensive and attack stats of any character in MK1, and his stomp could get heavily annoying. He also had an ''unblockable'' fireball that came out very fast, and an overpowered throw that did almost 40% damage.\\
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Shang Tsung also had unblockable and cheap fireballs, and could morph into any character at random, [[OhCrap including GORO]]! If he just so happens to morph, the character's AI will be at the maximum level, meaning it'll be extremely difficult to land a hit. He's also floating along the ground so sweeps and Sub-Zero's slide special will not work on him.
** Then came ''VideoGame/MortalKombat2'', which introduced us to Kintaro and Shao Kahn.\\
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Kintaro is basically Goro but taken a step further in difficulty. His fireball is slower, but still unblockable. His stomp is more easily telegraphed, but now it has a shorter version which stuns you for a LONG time.\\
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Should you beat Kintaro, you go on to fight Shao Kahn. The first thing you'll notice is that he has a head start at the beginning of the round, and overrides the "FIGHT!" message from appearing with his taunt (since he's the announcer after all). What differentiates him from the previous bosses is that ''all of his moves, when blocked, put your character into hitstun, and have no lag time inbetween''. The only way to defend against him is to dodge his attacks, which is easier said than done. He can throw an energy spear, ram you with a shoulder charge, [[PunchedAcrossTheRoom Sparta kick you all the way to the other side of the screen]], and throw a mean right hook that also sends you the same way.
** ''VideoGame/MortalKombat3'' decided to drop the traditional 4-armed Shokan sub-bosses in favor of Motaro, a demonic Centaur. He easily outshines the previous sub-bosses in cheapness, and is the grand champion of SNK Bosses in MortalKombat. Projectiles thrown at him bounce right back at you, he teleports like crazy, his attacks (throw included) do WAY too much damage, and he can fire an infinite number of energy balls from his metal tail in any direction. You'll need an extensive knowledge of your character's bread-and-butter combos in order to win against him (or you can crouch the whole time and uppercut every time he gets close enough - he'll tail swipe you a couple times, but not enough to put you in danger).\\
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Should you beat him, you will have to once again fight Shao Kahn, but this time he is ''much'' different than before. This time he's ''really'' pissed off about your defeating him in [=MKII=], and can now utterly destroy you in a few seconds. He button-reads, he's faster than he was in [=MKII=], does more damage while taking less, traded his energy javelin for an unblockable {{Eye Beam|s}}, has an upwards version of his shoulder charge in case of jump-ins, and he can [[{{Hammerspace}} pull out a giant metal hammer]] [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard which automatically dizzies you regardless of whether you blocked or not]]. "It's official: '''You suck!'''"
** ''Videogame/UltimateMortalKombat3'' isn't much tough, right... But play the Game Boy Advance port. Not only the AI uses every dirty trick and secrets, but also brutally beats you down EVEN ON LOWEST DIFFICULT. Now imagine how tough the boss must be. Good luck.
** ''VideoGame/MortalKombat4'' didn't offer anything, but ''Deadly Alliance'' gave us Moloch, a [[RedOniBlueOni blue oni that acts like a red oni]], with GlowingEyesOfDoom and a ball-'n-chain strapped to his hand. He takes roughly half-normal damage, and has ridiculous attacks such as a non-telegraphed bum-rush. The worst thing about Moloch is if you win one round against him, he just stands there and roars. If you want the satisfaction of seeing him fall, you need to win the match.
** ''MortalKombat: Deception'' introduced Onaga, the mighty Dragon King, for the first time, and he lives up to his name. The game foreshadows Onaga's immunity to projectiles in the opening cutscene: he walks through sustained fire from Shang Tsung, Quan Chi, ''and'' Raiden at the same time.\\
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First off, he's bigger than Goro, Kintaro, Motaro, and Moloch combined. Secondly, he breathes fire that causes massive hitstun. Third, he's immune to projectile attacks, and while he can't crouch, his guard is both high and low at the same time. Fourth, he can use his wings (which are even '''BIGGER''' than his body) to backdash away from combos, while doing some of his own. And fifth, his throw is really powerful, and cuts off about 40-50% of your health. And if that wasn't enough, the stage where you fight against him has a Death Trap (the spikes surrounding the arena) which you can't knock Onaga into, but ''he'' can knock '''you''' into it. Your only saving grace is that his weakness is spread across the arena, and if you take down a kamidogu, he becomes immobilized and much weaker.
** Finally, we come to ''MortalKombat: Armageddon'', which gives us the fire elemental Blaze as the FinalBoss. Some of you may remember Blaze as the fiery-looking secret character from Deadly Alliance. Yeah, that version's gone. Instead we get a giant lava titan that can do a rolling attack, teleport, and do overpowered combos.
** Shao Kahn retakes the throne as of ''VideoGame/MortalKombat9''.\\
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The main thing that makes him a pain in the butt is his ability to turn off hit stun on himself whenever he pleases. So you can just punch him as much as you want but you're still eating a shoulder to the face. All the bosses seem to have this property but Shao Kahn certainly makes the best use of it. He can also fling his hammer at you, which is unblockable and has a considerable hit stun. And God help you if his X-Ray attack hits you, though, since it does 54% damage. Oh and all the damage he takes is reduced by 50%, effectively doubling his lifebar. Overall, a very challenging boss at least and SNK Boss at worst.\\
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And things are even worse in the Challenge Tower, where you fight him a bunch of times. Some are just straight one-on-one matches (though you don't get to choose your character), but most stack things against you even further, such as making you go solo against Shao Kahn and two other opponents, or go solo against [[UpToEleven three Shao Kahns on one lifebar.]]
* With InjusticeGodsAmongUs, there are two examples. First up is Regime!{{Superman}} in Classic Battle mode, who takes only half damage of whatever you throw at him (Meaning if you character has a Character Trait that gives you a damage boost, turn it on before using a super move, you'll do 100% of the damage for the move), constantly will spam his special moves or combos (Yes, even at Medium). And the real kicker, not only does his character trait (Which makes his attacks ignore armored hits and inflict increased damage for a short period of time) runs out slower than normal, but after it runs out, it ''immediately fills back up.''\\
\\ Then there's Lex Luthor in some of the S.T.A.R.S Labs missions. May not sound as bad as it does. You're wrong. He gains a shield for a couple seconds during the match that not only protects him, but rebounds the damage you inflicted onto him ''back to you''. And not only that, Lex will go special move crazy sometimes with and without the shield, killing you easily, making the gamer wanna slam the controller down to the ground, especially in the mission where you play as Black Adam.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Other Commercial Fighting Games]]
* ''Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers: The Fighting Edition'' has [[Film/MightyMorphinPowerRangers Ivan Ooze]]: he's unaffected by gravity, can't be thrown, has a normal attack which knocks the opponent clear across the screen if not blocked, his other moves (3 normals and 2 specials) are all projectiles, with the specials being multiple homing projectiles (with priority over ALL OTHER FIREBALLS), and one of his specials makes him invincible for about 2 seconds. So what's supposed to offset these advantages? He can't block, and he has no super. Too bad his invincibility special more than makes up for not being able to block, and his specials do so much damage that he doesn't need a super.
** To wit: Ivan Ooze can do his invincible DP out of hitstun. You HIT him -- and he hits you right back.
** Lord Zedd, who you fight before Ooze, could simply teleport whenever he wanted, even when he's blocking or being hit, meaning combos and hypers were useless against him.
* Alpha-152 in ''DeadOrAlive 4'', a superpowered Kasumi clone made of... [[WhatMeasureIsANonHuman something]] (Jello? Cool Mint Listerine? Just [[EnergyBeings plain energy?]]). She's unplayable and has a unique move set including combos (both combo melee attacks and combo grabs/throws) that can take down 2/3 of your health in one shot; even on "[[NintendoHard Easy]]" difficulty she takes serious players multiple attempts. She also has the annoying tendency to teleport out of your combos and launch into one of her own.
** Certain characters have an easier time fighting her than others. Quicker characters and characters that are difficult to read (Helena, Brad) can adjust to her teleport attacks quicker, not to mention the ability to just rush at her and get a few moves off before she teleported again.
** The worst part about her, not yet mentioned, is her abuse of attack range and PerfectPlayAI. She stays just out of range of your (standard) attacks. When you try to hit her and your attack falls short, she'll nail you for the aforementioned 2/3 of your health while you're in cooldown. If you (try to) run in and attack, she'll either nail you before you get to the "attack" part, or teleport away. If you sit in defense, she'll move forward in a split second and hit you with a similarly overpowered grab combo before you have a chance to hit her.
*** This makes the best way to beat her a (partial; she's still not stupid) AIBreaker - attacks she doesn't think can hit her at the current range, but actually can. Typically, attacks involving some form of lunge. Strafing sideways before running in can also trip up her ranging avoidance.
** Before Alpha, there was Tengu in ''DeadOrAlive 2''. He returned in ''4'' as a balanced secret character, but in his original debut game he was a bastard. His AI was almost completely omniscient and would counter '''everything'''. His moves did tremendous damage, yes, but he had one move that skyrocketed him to boss territory: he charges up and creates a giant gust of wind around himself, knocking the opponent away. He would do this move ''all the time'', and it was also unblockable.
*** Tengu was actually really easy to beat if you learned his weakness: while the wind-gust maneuver cannot be blocked, it ''can'' be countered via the middle-punch counter, so long as you are somewhat close to him. The gust has a long wind-up time, giving you plenty of time to close the gap. What's more, Tengu loves spamming the gust when you're at range. So just counter the gust, back up so that you provoke another gust, run up during the wind-up and counter again, back up some more, etc. With this technique, you can easily beat Tengu with any character. Yes, exploiting the AI is cheap, but then so is Tengu.
*** In the UpdatedRerelease, ''DeadOrAlive 2 Ultimate'', he gains a new CPU-exclusive move for his exclusive stage which cannot be accessed: he can change the weather. It's ''really'' distracting and it can hurt your eyes if you're not prepared for it. And while he's doing this he can charge at you freely.
** After Tengu, Ayane's foster father Genra/Omega made his debut in ''DeadOrAlive 3''. First, you fight him in [[InterfaceScrew a really weird camera angle]]. Secondly, the fire around his stage makes everything super-blurry so you can't see his attacks. Finally, one of his attacks has to be jumped over, which is easier said than done.
*** Not to mention - trying to use a throw on him lowers YOUR health. Also, if he gets hit and falls, he unleashes a short flame wave, which takes some of your health, if not blocked.
** This all falters in the face of Dead or Alive: Dimension's brand new "Tag Challenge" mode. It starts off innocuous enough, but the final five fights have you play against a beefed-up Kasumi clone named Kasumi Alpha, all of the bosses in Dead or Alive history, AND a brand new boss in the form of [[spoiler: supreme Mugen Tenshin clan badass and father of basically every ninja in the game, Shiden, who pulls so many moves out of his ass it's sheer baffling.]] Add to everything that they take majorly reduced damage and can take away up to 75% of your health from an accidental tag, and the fact that you have two characters to even the odds barely matters.
* ''BushidoBlade 2'' has, if the player plays the story mode as a Shainto clan character, a penultimate boss that instantly teleports away, without a scratch, if 'hit'. The only way to kill him is to keep making him teleport, as each time he does, he reappears closer and closer to the player, and you have about a second-long window to gut him before he stands up and readies himself. Of course, if you die (which is easy, since your character is a potential OneHitPointWonder) the process starts over. Almost as if to make up for this pain-in-the-ass opponent, the Shainto's final enemy is [[AntiClimaxBoss an unarmed girl who doesn't even fight back]].
** All characters, Shainto or not, eventually have to go up against someone armed with a gun, while the player has only a melee weapon. The guy with a gun was in the original ''Bushido Blade'' as well, and had this irritating tendency to backflip away if the player got close. The trick was simply to run around until he'd fired six times. Guns need reloading, swords don't, and his defense is pathetic. But be warned. The first time you fight him, he ''will'' [[WhyDontYaJustShootHim Just Shoot You]].
* ''Matrimelee'', the revival installment of the ''VideoGame/PowerInstinct'' series, replaces Angela with a [[BewareTheNiceOnes not even less 'cutie']] [[RichBitch Princess Sissy]]. A seemingly harmless young girl, she can conjure many different things from her magical box. One of her most annoying tactics is constantly bringing out [[LiteralGenie Abubo]] from ''Rage of the Dragons'' that swings his fists around, so they would get you in '''both''' air and ground. She regularly does this when the opponent is anywhere nearby her. This guarantees that you will be unable to get close to her unless you keep trying incessantly, are a pro and/or exploit her rather simple AI. But it doesn't end on Abubo. She also has [[strike:drill]] [[ChainsawGood chainsaw boots]], a purple bomb, an uncancellable frog projectile and even a [[strike:booby trap spike]] sword. And, to finish your attempts to marry her '''off''' once and for all, Sissy's arsenal includes a '''FUCKING''' annoying and unblockable [[spoiler:(Although, you know... it's [[DoubleJump overjumpable]], thankfully)]] super where she shoots a raygun at you and turns you into a '''FROG'''. ...oh, and she's [[strike:almost]] [[HitboxDissonance unhittable when she attacks]].
** On a side note, she's still damn hard to beat even if you're playing at the easiest difficulty. Yeah, even '''as''' Sissy. And even in Bloodlust Fight mode.
* Groove On Fight has Bristol, the final boss. His first form is fairly harmless - does high damage with leg-based attacks, but nothing too terribly nasty. Then he turns into a demon after being [=KOed=]. And things get worse, as he gains a slew of attacks that have incredible priority, come out monstrously fast and do entirely too much damage. His Super does a ton of damage and can chip you away if you block it. And he buttonreads. Welcome to hell.
* ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBros. Melee'' has '''Giga Bowser''', a character who not only exceeds all playable characters in size, weight and reach, but also ''cannot be grabbed'' like regular characters.
* ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBros. Brawl'''s Adventure mode did an acceptable job with bosses, right up until the last one, [[spoiler: Tabuu.]] He has moves that do an insane amount of damage, can teleport, usually right before you get to him after recovering from said attack, has an insane amount of health, and has a move that some StreetFighter players might recognize from Gill. It looks exactly like his Seraphic Wing attack, and it does the same thing - instantly kills you (though you can avoid it if you dodge ''three times in a row'', expertly timed and all). (This attack is officially called "Off Waves".) It's interesting to note, though, that all of his attacks bar the latter come from the Kirby character, Marx. At least you get SIX lives/characters in Subspace Emissary to tackle him. However, Sakurai had to be a bastard. In BossRush mode, you only get one life. Good luck beating it on Intense, as per one of the [[HundredPercentCompletion challenges]] that can't be bypassed with a Golden Hammer (except in the PAL versions). The only saving grace is that, in Boss Rush mode, the bosses are toned down from the same difficulty equivalents of Subspace Emissary mode. That is, fighting Tabuu in Intense in SSE is even harder than doing it in Intense in the Boss Rush mode. This is ''because'' of the aforementioned extra 'lives' thing you get in SSE. This manifests in the form of increased health and speed for the bosses in SSE.
* The eponymous Eternal Champion from the [[SegaGenesis Genesis]] fighter game ''EternalChampions''. Not only is he as strong as him being on this list would imply, you have to beat him five times in one round, and each time he uses a different (but equally painful) move set.
** And if you were lucky enough to get ahold of ''Eternal Champions CD'', the Sega CD version, you had to do it not once, but ''twice''. ''Then'' you also went up against the Dark Champion, who had the same annoying multiple-self-resurrection abilities, complete with moves relating to natural disasters with which he just wouldn't let up at all. Oh, and that's without mentioning the fact that the computer in the last game [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard can ignore the game's rules]] by spamming their special attacks, despite having an apparently functional "Inner Spirit" gauge, which was thankfully taken out in the second game. The Champions in particular like to repeatedly Insult you, destroying your ability to use special attacks while using their own invincible-ground-sweeping abilities... over and over and over.
** Getting to the final set of fights on Champion mode leads to the Dark Champion [[BadassInDistress kidnapping the Eternal Champion]]. You get to fight the Dark one as the Eternal one in what can be an absolutely epic fight, were it not for the Dark Champion being damn hard. The worst part is you only get one chance to win the last battle, or you have to start the whole game again.
* From the ''VideoGame/ArcanaHeart'' series:
** Mildred. In her first form (from story mode), you have one round to beat her or lose. She doesn't actually '''move''', but she effortlessly attacks you from across the screen with massive knockback attacks that are undodgeable (but, fortunately, not unblockable) and has an insanely high defense -- if you can actually manage to get close enough to damage her beyond projectile chipping. If you lose against this form -- which is essentially inevitable if you have a character/arcana combo that has useless projectiles or none at all -- you get a second form where she has access to all the best moves in the game, (including giving her regular special moves that are supers for anyone else that uses them) she has a dangerous new super that does nearly half a health bar in damage if not blocked and hits the entire screen, she has mid-air and ground recovery that instantly leaves her standing up on ground level, she starts with a full super meter and she has a defense nearly as good as the first form. Oh, and you can't win via time-out. Otherwise, she [[spoiler:merges the two worlds, resulting in the implied deaths of millions.]] Of course, you can avoid this just by setting the game timer to infinite. A catch, though: if you ''do'' beat the first form, you instead get... the exact same battle, but the boss starts out with an empty super meter instead. Long story short: if the MarySue trope could be applied to an SNK Boss, Mildred would be A-number-one on the list.
** ''VideoGame/ArcanaHeart 2'' gives us the somewhat less frustrating Angelia. In arcade mode, she simply plays like a smart computer opponent (including her annoyingly effective but technically sound "Halo Dash->Halo Super" tactic) and doesn't seem to use her arcana ''at all''... but she still [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard doesn't seem to have charge her halo dash attack]], since she can and does use it ''constantly'' (especially during attack clashes). In ''Story mode'', on the other hand, she uses the same tactics, but her arcana (Mildred, incidentally) is always active, meaning Mildred launches attacks on her own pretty much independently. In addition Angelia also has a certain unavailable-to-players super where she... drops a building on you. Seriously. Needless to say, it's unblockable and does over half a health bar of damage, though she thankfully only uses it infrequently.
** In Sugoi! Arcana Heart 2, players can use Angelia's building drop super. Also, in Story Mode, there is a new hidden boss named Parace L'Sia, who makes Mildred from the original look like a gigantic joke. She fires projectiles with reckless abandon, has absolute priority on all of her moves, regenerates damage, and most of her supers are a ''OneHitKill''! One of her supers is a projectile that goes off five seconds after it hits you, suddenly dealing insane damage and putiting you into hit-stun - even when you're in the middle of a combo or blocking a multi-hit attack. Just to make things worse, she continuously regenerates her super meter, and has another move where she goes into a cocoon to accelerate its regeneration. The cocoon move only ends when her super meter is completely filled (at nine stocks) or if you attack the cocoon enough times to break her out of it - and none of your attacks will do any damage during this time. And she's still regenerating her health. She goes well beyond a typical SNK boss and acts more like a overpowered horrible MUGEN character.
** Arcana Heart 3 tops it off with first having you fight mid-boss Scharlachrot, who plays like Hazama with robot tigers that fire beam spam cannons. To wit, she attacks really aggressively, her Arcana (said robot tiger) can interrupt your combo by shooting you in the middle of it and set her up to combo you (and it will happen often). One of the Arcana supers are to fire a super powerful bullet capable of wiping out nearly 50% of your health, and her Arcana Blaze is to fire a frigging huge beam that goes upwards and will take out 50% even in chip damage. Oh, and beat her on the first round and she goes to activate PERMANENT Super Mode with boosted attack and defense. And did we mention that her Arcana bar usually regenerates in an unusually fast rate so you'll find yourself often facing that near-50% health powerful bullet? Win against her? Then prepare to fight Ragnarok, a HumongousMecha bent on destroying Japan and plays differently from the rest of the game on a 3-tiered battlefield - if you do not understand how to fight bosses like Onslaught, you're pretty much done for, and his main offense are two annoying flying funnels that constantly fly around you and interrupt your acts, not to mention BulletHell gallore or a beam rain unblockable. Much like Mildred, this is Do Or Die - run out of time and Japan gets blown sky-high. In short, the final boss is essentially made (overly) difficult not by its moves or its strategy, but by the fact that it basically converts the game into a side-scrolling platformer, while you're still saddled with the control scheme of a fighting game. If the spam attacks don't get you, the clock will simply run out while you're trying to jump up and hit that last weak point.
*** And if that wasn't enough, Parace comes back in the Score Attack mode of the Arcana Heart 3 console port. The good news is, she doesn't do nearly as much damage this time around (no more one-hit kills, at least). The bad news is, she doesn't ''need'' to because now she teleports around the arena like she's on crack, and can (and will) do long combos that will take out a huge chunk of your life! Worse, her AI is even more aggressive than before and she seems to button-read as well, since nearly any attack you do will be met with a better one that will set you up for a long combo. Fighting Parace in this game is like fighting [[{{MUGEN}} Rare Akuma]]. The only good thing about this fight is that if you actually manage to somehow ''hit'' Parace, you'll find she takes more damage than usual, but she still has auto-regen for her health. Its safe to say that Parace manages to take this trope to SerialEscalation levels, and considering most of what {{SNK}} themselves does with their bosses, that really says something.
*** One other thing. Unlike in Other Score attacks by arc System works, you have unlimited continues and with each try, Parace's health goes down with each one little by little. However, considering the above, '''You. Will. Need. Them!''' And the lower her health is, the more agressive she gets. Basically it's as if the development team ''knew'' how hard she would be and did that to try and compensate. If the score attack acted like other games, Parace would more then likely be downright unbeatable!
* ''Battle K-Road'' claims "Super Real Fighting". And who do you fight at the end of this game which features takedowns and such? A bear. Yes, a {{bear|sAreBadNews}}. Named Mr. Bear. Who has a Dragon Punch. And can knock most of your life off in one hit. Where's ''Tekken's'' Paul Phoenix when you need him...?
** Similar is ''Fighter's History Dynamite's'' hidden boss: you fight...an ox. And like Mr. Bear he'll likely stomp your rear end.
* Greed from ''VideoGame/TheRumbleFish''. The game and the character have to be described before going further. In ''The Rumble Fish'' there are two main gauges, Offense and Defense. The Offense gauge fills up as you attack, once it's maxed out you can initiate an Offensive art. You can also do Advanced Attacks, which takes half of the gauge and allows you to extend a combo. The Defense gauge fills up passively or by blocking attacks and Defensive arts are initiated from said gauge. It also allows for Impact Breaks, which is basically a counter, for half the gauge. Once both gauges are maxed out, they merge and become the Critical gauge. That allows for Critical arts, which are really strong super moves. Greed's Offense art allows him to combo his special moves into another one for a short period of time. Once you encounter him in Story Mode, he's just like his playable version. Until he literally ''TurnsRed''. From that point on, his gauge turns into the Critical gauge and is in a permanent state of his Offense art. Cue the SNK Boss: He can counter any of your attacks if he feels like it, combo from said counter with an Advance Attack and shell out a lot of damage by chaining his special attacks. Oh yeah, and he can also chain his Critical art from his specials. And if you corner him, he can just ''WallJump'' his way out to safety.
* Dural, in any given ''VirtuaFighter''. On one hand, it still counts if you beat the game without defeating her, but if you want to see the ''good'' ending, you have to win, and in ''4'' you only get one shot.
* The Jester from ''VideoGame/{{Ballz}} 3D'': teleporting, attacks from a long range, various tripping moves, and he resurrects himself when you knock him out once.
* The ''DynastyWarriors'' series' Lu Bu averts this trope in the same way that modern Akuma does -- he's an example of ThatOneBoss, but the only gameplay aspect unavailable to players is "hyper mode," which is not exclusive to him.
** His AI in ''[=DW3=]'' is actually worse than average: while he knows to use his first charge attack to make you stumble, almost every time he waits so long to attack you again that you can recover first. (Then you need only have low health for free Musou and the victory.)
** In Dynasty Warriors 4 they also start his incredible weakness to arrows (they murder him). This actually extends to the AI where in one situation he actually turned away from the player controlled max level Zhao Yun to brutally murder a random body-guard that shot him in the back of the head with an arrow.
** ''WarriorsOrochi'' series seems to make Lu Bu's AI even stupider. In the first game, he can easily be tricked into giving up Red Hare, and any decent player should have the cavalier up high, making your basic attacks against him pretty good. In the second he's worse as he will start laying into the Redshirts following once you've dismounted him, stolen Red Hare and given him distance. He'll use up Musou on these guys before coming at you.
** in DynastyWarriorsOnline every musou general, the playable character from the dynasty warriors games rather than a custom character, are SNK bosses for their unique bonuses, that are all achievable by players but not all at once. They are horribly dumb, and don't really pose a threat by simply being on the map, making it much calmer when they are around, but when you face one it's hell. Every single general has at least 3 advantages. 1. They all have at minimum hyper armor, meaning they only flinch at LimitBreak, and some have stronger, like Lu Bu, that means they don't flinch at even that. 2. Their stats are through the roof, they cause massive damage and can take attacks great, making them really lethal to be around, as they don't flinch easily it's hard to keep them from attacking and they are damage sponges. 3. They have flunkies that are not as powerful as them but still have the same resistance and rather upgraded stats for a mook. After all of that, they are hard to defeat, but they do have weaknesses, such as not having any special resistance to elements allowing them to be forcibly stunned or pushed. They can also be distracted easily, and you can get them off you by running into a crowd of either your own or bandit (hostile to both sides) mooks.
* The prototype of all 2-D {{Fighting Game}}s, ''KarateChamp''. Once a player reaches 8th Degree Belt level, the computer-controlled opponent becomes practically unbeatable, anticipating and countering a player's every move with frequency only a literal god of fighting could be expected to pull off.
* ''[[PunchOut Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!]]'' ups the difficulty to ludicrous levels for the fight against the eponymous boxer--for the first two minutes of the fight, a single punch from the guy KO's you, and his weak spot is only exposed very rarely. Not to mention he acts lightning fast, giving you very little time to dodge and fight back. And there are no saves.
** When ''Punch-Out'' was re-released in the 90s, it replaced Tyson with a sprite-swap named Mr. Dream because Nintendo's contract with Tyson expired. His [=AI=] was replaced, too, but not in the good way. This was the version released on the Wii's Arcade.
** The {{Retraux}} remake of ''Punch-Out'' for the Wii does not have Mike Tyson (obviously, considering several controversies), but it has something even better. [[spoiler:VideoGame/DonkeyKong.]] Mr Sandman also seems to have carried over Tyson's mannerisms for the fight against him.
* The final incarnation of Rahu in the Gamecube ''VideoGame/CustomRobo''. Takes single-digit damage from nearly all weapons, moves fast enough that it can't be hit unless standing still, does ludicrous damage with his main gun that can't realistically be avoided unless you use one of the four pieces of cover in the holosseum, AND recovers ''instantly'' from all knockdown effects. That last one is the worst, because in this game, recovering from knockdown grants a few seconds of MercyInvincibility. Rahu gets all the benefits and is immune to the stun time normally associated with knockdown. Even outnumbering it three-to-one your chances of victory are slim. God help you if it decides to focus its attacks on you.
** "God help you"? No. You WANT Rahu to come after you. If he doesn't, he'll stomp your allies, and when he does finally come for you, you'll be powerless to stop him one-on-one. At least his attacks CAN be dodged (as difficult as it is).
** Any enemy with illegal parts can count as this to varying degrees. In-universe, illegal parts are illegal because they apparently put too much of a strain on the user's mind. Gameplay-wise, though, they're illegal because they're purposefully broken and unbalanced (naturally, every part used by Rahu's different stages are all illegal parts.)
* Chaos from ''DissidiaFinalFantasy'' is a great example of this trope. He attacks faster than any other character in the game by a wide margin, his attacks massively lower your Brave and increase his own, he chains his Brave attacks into his HP attacks, and while most of his Brave attacks are "melee", they send out shockwaves that exceed the size of the area where you fight him. When he uses Divine Punishment and Scarlet Rain, once he starts the attack, he becomes invincible. His Demonsdance attack chains together a massive string of bonecrushing hits, with several HP attacks ''in the combo!'' He also gets the Shinryu summon, which, unlike the player's summons, can be called as often as Chaos wants and his effect varies, because Shinryu mimics the other summons in the game! And he also has three forms, fully recovering HP each time while you're left at the amount you had. There's a catch, though: there's a flaw with his AI that makes him unable to avoid the final hit of [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII Sephiroth's]] octoslash HP attack, he'll dodge every slash except the one that actually does the HP damage, so if you feel like going slow and steady against him, you can turn even his [[HarderThanHard Inward Chaos form]] into a joke.
** Another way to make his Inward Chaos form disappointingly easy is to use Exdeath. Chaos's AI is so aggressive, that if you pull off an attack right at the start of the match, he'll counter with his own longer-ranged attack that probably overrides yours. Usually this is bad. However, it's funny to see him try this with Exdeath's Delta Attack, which forms a large barrier in front of Exdeath that blocks incoming attacks and staggers the enemy before striking them with a short beam for damage. This attack's beam is usually slow, unless it blocks and staggers with the barrier, in which case it'll fire off the beam a second later for a guaranteed hit. Equip Exdeath with every item you can that will get his starting Bravery to 9999, and just use Delta attack for each of the three rounds. Is Chaos really stupid enough to always instantly swipe into your staggering defensive barrier and get ravaged by a max-power Delta Attack, meaning you can beat him simply by pressing one button each round for three one-hit-K.O. victories? Spoiler: [[spoiler:Yes. A thousand times, yes.]] You will spend more time in the loading and victory screens than you will actually fighting Chaos.
** The second game features [[spoiler: Feral Chaos]] as the penultimate boss of the story mode's extra scenario, he defines unbelievable, most of his attacks have huge hitboxes, making them difficult to avoid, only one or two don't crush your guard. As if that's not enough, in a game where 9999 damage is the most you'll ever be able to do, he has '''60 THOUSAND HP''', and naturally, you can't use any of your items in the gateway you encounter him in, so cheaping out is impossible. His HP attacks drain your EX-gauge to emptiness, so using it is diffuclt. The real kicker comes after you finally manage to beat him, [[spoiler: the first fight was just a manikin]] you have to fight him again, this time he has more moves, an assist, and ''125 thousand health!'' (ironically, this form is actually weaker because he doesn't have as much defense). To top it all off, ''He's unlockable''. And in a frustrating case of TheComputerIsACheatingBastard, has all of the same limitations as a player character usually does, and more (No assists, ex gauge, and brave constantly depletes until you get abilities that fix that).
* General from Taito's ''GlobalChampion'' [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aod5YACZ5vI versus a ''Guilty Gear XX'' champion from Japan]]. [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Lhgx14NReA Even SSFII Turbo's Shin Akuma isn't comparable to him]].
** Forget MUGEN, this guy is basically '''the''' hardest boss throughout all fighting games since its release. [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lcn7LuXSrD0 Observe.]] For further proof? Even the writers from game magazines ''gave up'' to write strategies against him.
* Ohga from Technos Japan's ''VideoGame/VoltageFighterGowcaizer'' is bastardly.\\
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He has absurdly quick recovery time. His basic special moves consist of a very damaging triple uppercut, a teleport that causes damage if your character is in his path (and you will be), and a Kaiser Wave-esque projectile. This projectile is quite large, and can only be blocked or jumped over; attempting to cancel it out with your own projectile will cause it to burst into five seeking fireballs. Jumping over it also leaves your character to be a sitting duck for his triple uppercut. And his defense points are bigger than any normal characters and he may even do a sweep-triple uppercut combo which may as well take 80% of your health. Ouch.
* ''RumbleRoses''. When you play through the story mode of any character, eventually you fight someone called Lady X. Which looks like a woman in a pantsuit with a metal mask and metal gloves. While she's obviously strong, has strong moves and is hard to humiliate (yeah, that's part of the game); she's not overpowered. Then when you beat her, the pantsuit comes off... [[RoboticReveal and you realize it's a cyborg]]. Now Lady X Substance is suddenly way stronger and almost impossible to humiliate... and can do weird cyborg stuff. She has unique moves that other characters couldn't do as they involve her upper body turning 180 degrees, her fist can detach from her arm and let her do a [[RocketPunch ROCKET PUNCH]]... and here's the worst part: All characters have "taunts" which build up their special meter a little but cause no harm to the enemy. HER taunt involves her body [[SpinAttack turning around like mad (and playing an alarm) and she quickly runs around the ring]]. If she touches you, you fly off with HIGH damage... and all you can do is avoid her. AND the taunt fills her meter completely.
** You get a few seconds to step out of the ring when you see her preparing the taunt.
* Young Toguro is the final boss of the generally substandard ''Manga/YuYuHakusho: Dark Tournament'', and has powers to match. Bear in mind that the previous fights were against very strong characters, but ones with normal restrictions. Toguro has [[LightningBruiser insane speed and power]], about a two-head height (and therefore a very large reach) advantage, a three-kick counter, and at least two combos that can put you down in no time flat. Both include low blows, forcing you to block while crouching - a difficult position from which to retaliate. And once you deplete his first health meter, he [[SuperMode powers up]] with a second one and becomes much more aggressive.
* ''VideoGame/DragonBallZBudokai 2''. Dragon World mode and Kid Buu, who among other things, was pretty much unblockable.
** It got worse in ''Budokai Tenkaichi''. Kid Buu has a Blast 2 move which is a long and crazy combo with nasty priority that the AI LOVES to spam in BT2. Then there's Android 13, whose super form has a normal Blast 2 that is XBOX HUGE, there's Broly who is surprisingly fast for a huge guy, Syn Shenron/Omega Shenron/Yi Xing Long, whose attacks have vicious priority and worst of all, Cell, who is just plain horrible.
** In ''Budokai 3'' Kid Buu not only gains an Ultimate Attack, but the new Ki system means he starts with 6 bars (whereas you generally start with 3). And to top it all off, to unlock Uub, [[GuideDangIt you must fight him down to 1 bar (difficult itself on later difficulties), then go back to Kaioken or base form (unless you'd been fighting there the entire time. Again, difficult), and THEN use the Super Spirit Bomb technique and WIN the power struggle.]] Note: If you lose the power struggle, he dies anyway. And you don't get Uub.
*** And that's not even to mention Uub vs. Omega Shenron on the hardest difficulty... or Omega Shenron in any of the story modes, for that matter. "30 Seconds to kill him AND do it using my Ultimate Move? WTF?!"
* Final Boss Gaara from ''[[Manga/{{Naruto}} Clash of Ninja 2]]'', who, among other things, [[ImplacableMan could not be staggered]]. No, not by any hit. No, not even then.
** Then, in Clash of Ninja Revolution 2, we have Kabuto as the final boss. He staggers. SOMETIMES. He'll usually knock you out of any combos, and even when you DO make him stagger (usually a low or high attack does it) he'll Substitute out of it, THEN combo YOU! Also, not mention he has a HealingFactor, which is actually normal, but the fact that he can't be staggered DRASTICALLY increases the effect of it, since usually the amount of HP he can recover goes down upon waking up from knockdown. Also, you need to finish him with Rasengan, which is hard to hit with and surprisingly weak.
** And Kabuto again in Ultimate Ninja 2. Fucker heals himself, stays out of your reach and god help you if you're using Kakashi, who as of the game's storyline, is unable to use any of his ultimate jutsu.
** And then we have Deidara from Clash of Ninja Revolution 3. You play as One-Tailed Naruto, which sounds like it should be easy, but it's not, because you're health goes quick and Deidara likes to spam his bug "art", which does a lot of damage. And if you're on hard mode, prepare to eat your Wiimote. And unless my copy is glitched, you have to beat him WITH your Ultimate, which means you have to be close. If you kill him with any thing else, you still lose! Damn it Deidara!
** In ''NarutoShippudenUltimateNinjaStorm2'', we have surprisingly, the Boss fight with Kakuzu, and the last phase of the boss fight with Pain:\\
\\
Kakuzu starts off relatively easy, but then he goes OneWingedAngel, and you have to be able to reach up to him while he's attached in between two trees, while he's spamming projectiles, like wind blasts, fire balls, and tentacles made of his Earth Grudge Fear bloodline that pop out of the ground really quickly, then finishes off with a Fire and Wind combined technique that's basically a Humongous LASER that can do a severe amount of Multi-Hit damage if it hits. And the fact that it takes much longer is more Dragged out than the other boss fights before it shows how hard it is. Unlike Pain, who's supposed to be hard as a final boss, Kakuzu's Surprise Difficulty also makes him ThatOneBoss.\\
\\
For Pain, the full amount of difficulty really starts to show. Pain is now in full awakening mode, but to tap it all of, because Bosses have infinite chakra, they can spam [[ScrappyMechanic Substitution Jutsu]] as many times as they want, as a Substitution bar didn't existed until Generations, and unlike the previous boss battles, [[OhCrap he will take advantage of this.]] His attacks also do ridiculous amounts of damage, and his AI goes up several times in level regardless what difficulty the AI is set on. He gets even harder when you loose [[SuperMode Sage Mode]], and your attacks start doing less damage.
** The final opponent in ''NarutoShippudenUltimateNinjaStormGenerations'', in [[JokeLevel Killer Bee's story]], is Kisame, with +100 attack. This roughly equates to all his attacks having the strength of an Ultimate Jutsu. Your best bet is not to let him hit you at all. And don't think you can relax once you've gotten his health down to 50%: his [[ComebackMechanic Awakening]] is... nasty, to put it mildly.
** And then ''Storm 3'' tops them all with the Reanimated Second Mizukage. Yes, '''[[FanNickname Trollkage]]''' is the game's SNKBoss, and his nickname has never been more fitting than in this game. Unlike the other characters above, he's an explicitly unplayable boss character, so the devs didn't even need to balance him. He basically takes all the annoyance of [[GetBackHereBoss Deidera]] and [[DopplegangerAttack Itachi]], ''combines them'', and [[UpToEleven somehow manages to makes them WORSE!]] He loves to spam streams of long-ranged water projectiles that go on ''far'' longer than any other ranged barrage (to the point where trying to block the the whole thing ''will break your guard''). Think you could stop that by getting close to him? Think again. He has an exploding Water Clone jutsu that works a lot like Itachi's (basically a moving barrier that explodes if you touch it), only ''it gets bigger the further it goes'', and it can chase you the entire length of the arena. And he also has a ''second'' clone attack that's easier to dodge, but much faster. The one saving grace the game gives you is that he does not appear to have an Ultimate. To top it all off, you have to fight him in essentially the middle of a BossRush with the ''other'' revived Kages, who are only marginally weaker than him. And after that you face (with no oppertunity to save)...
*** [[spoiler: The real]] Madara Uchiha, who has near PerfectPlayAI and some devastating attacks. Then again, this guy is practically an SNKBoss in-canon, so it's justified in his case. In fact, he's actually LESS of an SNKBoss in the game compared to in-canon, considering this version lacks [[spoiler:multiple massive meteor drop, instant knock-out plant pollen, and other moves.]]
* In ''Daraku Tenshi'', you get the wonderful chance to play against two powerful bosses. First, you've got Trigger, who has a gun. Keep in mind that only two playable characters have projectiles....but only ONE can use it infinitely, so just dealing with him alone can be a pain. And finally there's Carlos, who has a huge freakin' sword that can kill you in three or four hits alone. And if he hits you with his super, it's basically instant death. Yeah, did you know that people who worked on this game went to work on ''KingOfFighters 99''-2003? Not surprised?
* Rouge from ''Ranma 1/2: Battle Renaissance'' on PS1: Not only do her attacks have priority, but she has two degrees of a normal special attack where she flings countless projectiles at the player along the entire vertical axis. These WILL carry you up and back across the entire screen. Good luck surviving long enough to even get back into attack range.
* ''[[VideoGame/AsuraSeries Asura Blade]]'' has the sub-boss, Curfue. The best way to describe him is Cable on massive steroids and crack. He's got a laser rifle, grenades, a combat knife and at least two sidearms, and he uses them all to horrifically great effect. On you. A typical battle with Curfue is not unlike playing ''[[VideoGame/DonPachi DoDonPachi]]'' - there's so many lasers, bullets and apocalyptic explosions rocking the screen and turning you to ash, you have trouble figuring out what's going on. As if the chaos wasn't enough, Curfue's most damaging move must be blocked low or it'll wipe you out, and he's got a massively damaging close range grab that can take off nearly half your health. And he can use his super attack in midair, too, which is bad since it has no startup and comes out of nowhere.
* Kron, the final boss of PSX FightingGame ''CardinalSyn'', is a particularly ruthless example. The [[OneWingedAngel final form]] of the game's BigBad, [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Syn]], Kron is a ''freaking huge dragon'' who, in addition to sporting ridiculously powerful attacks (fire bombs, anyone?), possessing the ability to fly, and being so huge and powerful she takes ''much'' less damage than any other character, she also has a one-hit kill move (in which she ''bites the player character in half'') which she tries to utilise quite frequently. Also, the stage in which you fight her has an infinite time limit, which means that the player is unable to be a cheap bastard by simply getting a few hits in and staying out of her way until the timer runs out, out of pure desperation.
** Even worse, Kron can be unlocked as a ''playable character''. And when she's unlocked, the player can face her in ''any'' play mode. ''Including Survival Mode''. In which she's just as frustrating to fight as she is in Arcade Mode. Yup. Just ''try'' getting a good Survival win rate when you're facing her.
* Bloody Marie, the final opponent of VideoGame/{{Skullgirls}}. She can't block and she can't move while over 50% health, but she has [[ImmuneToFlinching permanent super armor]], meaning her attacks don't stop even when she's hit, she can't be grappled and soaks damage like crazy. But the worst is that, when very low on health, her hitbox becomes '''''minuscule''''', to the point that you can't hit her with most standing attacks and specials, which is a very big advantage for her since most of her moves are good anti-airs making a nearly impossible boss to beat with most characters (except Peacock fittingly enough) in the Pre-Patch version of the game. Even after the patch, however, which adds hitstun, and more visibility to her attacks, she remains a difficult boss to defeat.
* Metal Sonic of ''VideoGame/SonicTheFighters'' will grind you into the steel floor of his stage. Faster and stronger than regular characters, his grab involves dropping you from the air to take out a little more than a quarter of your health, and he even rips off [[StreetFighter M. Bison's]] Psycho Crusher for devastating effect. Think you can cheese your way past him by breaking all of his barriers? Doing that only [[TurnsRed pisses him off]] to the point where he spams the aforementioned Psycho Crusher (which is unblockable, by the way). Makes it all the more satisfying when you achieve Super Sonic and smash his face in. Robotnik? AnticlimaxBoss.
** Oh, yeah, and he has an attack that ''takes off half your health in a single strike''.
** Interestingly, Robotnik (or "Robotonic" by the intro) actually has some devastating moves, as evidenced by using a cheat device to unlock him. His status as an AnticlimaxBoss may have actually been a case of AI Stupidity. This is [[AllThereInTheManual explained]] as being because Robotnik has never used this particular machine before, so he doesn't know the controls yet. You also have only 15 seconds to beat him or you get a DownerEnding where the Death Egg blows up ''with you inside it.'' They ''had'' to make him a joke in order for it to be possible to ''win''.
* In the SD Hiryu mode from the N64 RPG/Fighter hybrid known as Flying Dragon, there's a boss known as Shin Ryumaou. Not only is his moveset cheap (featuring a speedy fireball move and a triple jump kick that almost always counters your combos), he's also equipped with a rare item that can hit you no matter where you are, is unblockable, and absorbs your HP. It doesn't stop there, because he also has three forms, and his second form is the worst. In his second form, he cannot be stunned half the time, none of your combos work on him, and above all, '''he revives nine times'''. Granted, the amount of HP restored decreases after his first revival, but this guy is an unbelievable hassle.
* Felden, from Sunsoft's fighting game ''Galaxy Fight'', was totally unbeatable. All his attacks had absolute priority and he could hit you from a character's lenght, while taking good chunks of healt.
* Makaitaitei Fernandez/[[SpellMyNameWithAnS Fernan]][[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast death]] from WakuWaku7. While he was a big target, he could hit you from a distance with all his attacks and they all hit hard.
** While all other characters had to charge their Hara Hara (unblockable max level super) attacks, Fernandez's Hara Hara comes out instantly, and he will use it whenever he feels like it.
* ''VideoGame/MagicalGirlLyricalNanohaAsPortable: The Gears of Destiny'' has [[{{Moe}} Unbreakable]] [[BadassAdorable Dark]] in her FinalBoss form. Her attacks has ridiculous priority and does serious damage, her melee attacks has more reach than most of your characters, her ranged attacks cover a wide area, both her melee and ranged counters hit fast and hard, and unlike the player, her ManaMeter isn't drained by dashing or casting spells. The first round is particularly brutal as her game-best defense is augmented by a Super Armor that grants her a ManaShield and makes her ImmuneToFlinching while it's up, giving the player a sudden and overwhelming urge to introduce their PSP to the floor the hard way. The second round is a bit easier since it starts off with U-D without the Super Armor, but once you get rid of her life bar, [[TurnsRed she replenishes her health to full and gets her Super Armor back with two mana bars to blast through this time]], and she's effectively invulnerable for several seconds due to being in [[SuperMode Full Drive mode]]. However, the game shows some mercy at this point, as she has [[GlassCannon paper-thin defenses]] on this part of the round so the player could take her down before the timer runs out.
* In ''Battle Assault 3: Featuring Gundam Seed'', we have the FinalBoss, Rau Le Creuset and his Providence Gundam. Now you fight him on the stage before, but you had an ally backing you up and it was just him with no time limit. This time however, you have no ally, there are about 4 of the strongest enemies preceding him and you have a time limit of around '''2 and a half minutes'''. Oh and just like the many examples above if you time out against him, even if you have more health than him, you lose because [[spoiler: the [[KillSat GENESIS]] fires, destroying the Earth]]. And even though he himself isn't SNK boss material, albeit he does love to use BeamSpam with his funnels and frequently uses his more powerful attacks, the fact that by the time you kill the previous enemies you're already scrambling for time and likely to make mistakes fighting him, causing him to kill you easier.
* ''VideoGame/{{Divekick}}'' features S-Kill as the final boss of story mode. He is playable normally, but the boss version has permanent Kick Factor, granting him infinite access to his Trick and Parry special moves. Trick instantly teleports him to the most optimal angle where his kick can reach you, while Parry allows him to block your attack and get a guaranteed Headshot, which dizzies you in the next round.
* The licensed games of ''Series/KamenRiderDragonKnight''
** In the Nintendo DS version of the game the final boss of every mode is Xaviax. He is constantly protected by a shield that reduces the damage of all of your attacks by over 50% and prevents him from flinching when you attack him and he has 3 super moves where he fires giant lasers at you that are nearly impossible to dodge. His third and most powerful laser attack WILL kill you in one hit. He fires five lasers; the first knocks you down- the other four hit you while you're down and helpless. Fortunately Xaviax can be unlocked for use without any decrease in power when you use him.
** The Wii version of the game will almost always have a fight against a Rider who is always in Guard Vent mode near the end of the Mirror World mode- the Rider in question will almost always be Strike or Sting; sometimes Thrust. Enemies in Guard Vent mode take half the damage from your attacks and never flinch when hit by your attacks. If you throw a punch, they will throw a punch without stopping and before you can react. Summoning your Advent Beast or using a Strike Vent card (if your character has one) can cause an enemy to flinch while in Guard Vent mode, but doing both requires using a lot of your special gauge and the latter can only be done once per fight.
* Wrestling/TheUndertaker, from the "Defeat the Streak" mode of ''WWE 2K14'' definitely qualifies. The match starts out normal, but the more damage you hit him with, [[AssPull the more powerful]] [[NewPowersAsThePlotDemands he becomes]]. Examples of this are the lights going out, 'Taker [[TeleportSpam Teleporting after being hit with a finisher]], countering pins into a chokeslam (as Retro 'Taker) or the Hell's Gate submission hold (as Modern 'Taker) and losing all damage inflicted to him. Fighting him with Batista, Wrestling/ShawnMichaels or even [[Wrestling/KevinNash Diesel]] is difficult as it is; trying to take him down with King Kong Bundy is damn near impossible.
** Retro Undertaker is slightly less SNK Boss-like than modern-day Undertaker -- he only counters pins into a chokeslam (as mentioned above) and can, in fact, be beaten in less than 10 minutes -- but the current Undertaker is damn near impossible. Oh, and both 'Takers can easily hit you with a finisher [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard REGARDLESS OF WHETHER OR NOT YOU HIT R2 TO COUNTER]] a microsecond after picking you up off the mat. Oh, and he's also just a smidge faster than Modern 'Taker, so it's truly a case of Pick Your Poison---especially if you intend to unlock all the WrestleMania photos by beating him with Wrestling/TripleH, Edge, Wrestling/CMPunk, [[MightyGlacier Big Show or King Kong Bundy]].
** Oh, and for those of you thinking you can just beat Retro 'Taker instead of Modern 'Taker to earn [[AndYourRewardIsClothes the alternate attires]] you get for ending the streak? You HAVE to beat Modern 'Taker with either [[Wrestling/KevinNash Diesel]] or King Kong Bundy to unlock Retro 'Taker. Yeah...[[SarcasmMode have fun]] [[ThisIsGonnaSuck with that]].
* In ''[[{{VideoGame/Aquapazza}} Aquapazza]]'', the final boss is Ma-ryan and a main character of her choice depending on who your main character is. In addition to her normal partner attacks, she has [[SecretAIMoves Super Move variants of those attacks]] that she can unleash at any time. Her partner is an emotionless shadow clone of one of the main characters and doesn't experience any fluctuations in strength during the match like your character does. Finally, if she winds up on the losing end of a beatdown that would otherwise decide the match, she can ''rewind time'' to recharge her main fighter's health to 50% to delay/deny your victory.
** Then you face Chizuru in Another Story mode, who is by far the strongest LightningBruiser in the game. One of her special attacks even involves a textbook SpeedBlitz. If you're not careful, she can combo and fling you all around the screen to your death in a matter of seconds.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Not Fighting Games]]
* ''VideoGame/GodHand'' does this when you fight yourself in Stage 51 of the Fighting Arena.
* In the original ''AdvanceWars'', the final "boss" CO Sturm is an unlockable character to use in Versus mode. His units do more damage ([[GlassCannon though they have weaker defense]]) and his CO power makes a meteor smash onto the largest concentration of units in a 5x5 diamond shape, which does 8 damage (out of 10). Versus mode Sturm however has a greater defense and less attack power, and aforementioned CO power does just 4 damage.
** In ''Advance Wars 2'' Sturm now has an insane defense as well as insane attack power. He is either banned or tag teamed played in 2 vs 1 matches.
** Though oddly enough, his units receive a larger move penalty when it's snowing than any other CO does (only comparatively, he has the same movement costs as everyone else, but given that he has no movement penalties usually, it hits him a good deal harder than other [=COs=]). However, since there's only one CO (Olaf) that has this as his powers and the [=COs=] you take into the final battle are determined by certain conditions and not by choice.
*** You could choose who you take into the final battle in Advance Wars 2 (the game where Sturm is really, ''really'' cheap, but still). And for the weakness to snow, since 1) the only CO able to use that (Olaf) is not one of the strongest or easiest CO to use (to say the least) ; and 2) the snow will bother your troops as well...Let's say that's not a painful weakness for him.
* ''VideoGame/StarWarsBattlefront Elite Squadron'': [[spoiler:X1, the player's clone twin brother]] at least [[NintendoHard in the DS version]], considering how little damage he takes from anything you do.
* Various RTS games face a campaign only "boss" unit, or the enemy has some special thing(s) that is unique to the campaign.
** In the original ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquer'', the temple of Nod at the end of the GDI campaign can fire multiple [[SlapOnTheWristNuke nukes]] during the mission. This is compared to the nuke silos players can build, which fire ''one'' nuke and can never be used again.
** ''[[VideoGame/CommandAndConquer Tiberian Sun: Firestorm]]'' has CABAL's army fought in the [[EnemyMine last mission of both campaigns.]] CABAL fields mostly Nod units, but also includes [[CyberneticsEatYourSoul Cyborg]] [[SpiderTank Reapers]] which can render most infantry helpless and make for mean anti-materiel weapons. Once you've finally wrapped up the multitude of bases that span the entirety of the ''very'' large map, CABAL himself is guarded by the titular Firestorm defense system (think "literal firewall"), which in a rare instance of smart villainous planning holds its power source within the 'Wall. Take ''that'' out and CABAL deploys the Core Defender. It can shrug off your [[KillSat Ion Cannons]] with little effect, can kill ''anything'' in two shots or less, and will completely wreck your shit unless you're prepared for it. Its one weakness is [[DeathFromAbove the aerial option]].
** In Tiberium Wars: Kane's Wrath in one mission you will face up to 3 MARV Tanks, two of them at once. Players can only build one MARV unless they capture a Construction Yard of an opposing GDI faction (it has to be a different GDI faction, not just any one mind you). Inverted during the final mission, where it is possible to build 3 Redeemers, but it's highly unlikely that you'll use them since the [[TimedMission level is going to end one way or another at that point]].
*** You ''can'' build 2 [=MARVs=] but not in the campaign. In the Global Conquest mode, as GDI you can deploy the most powerful army, which will include a MARV by default. During a mission, you can build another MARV. You can't keep the second one beyond the mission, however. This applies to all epic units.
** In Tiberian Twilight's final Nod mission the final 'boss' is the enormous Arcus Bomber. In the introductory cutscene it eliminates your allies' Crawlers and can obliterate most of your forces with just a few shots. Since the game unlocks more advanced units as the player gains experience, the player may not yet have access to the only units powerful enough to do any real damage making the game impossible to complete without spending hours player multiplayer and Skirmish mode games in order to unlock the necessary units.
** Blizzard had something of a fondness for super strong units in Warcraft III. First case is in the final level of Orc campaign where you face off against Chaos Orcs - essentially your own units with far more impressive stats, and a unique damage type that does full damage to ''everything''. The final level of the Night Elf campaign pits you against an Undead enemy that cannot be conquered and fields units that players normally cannot control, in escalating numbers. Among them are [[{{Golem}} Infernals]], which are immune to magic and deal damage to all nearby units every second, and Doom Guards, which while weaker than Infernals are still stronger than any ground units you can field. The computer will also send hero units with some unique abilities at you, most notably [[BigBad Archimonde]], who ''alone'' is capable of tearing you apart. Thankfully, he only shows up in the last couple of minutes and your task is to merely ''delay'' him. Incredible stats, unstoppable skills, and Divine armor (only vulnerable to an attack type normally found in high level creeps). In the unlikely event you can kill him once, he has an item that revives him with full health and mana.
*** This was kind of the trend after Warcraft 3: Reign of Chaos, where the campaigns would always end in some overly powerful boss that was a modified unit. Not surprisingly, this eventually gave way to WoW, whose MMORPG style basically makes this mandatory for its Raid Bosses.
** The original campaign in ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}: DawnOfWar'' had you fight a Deamon Prince at the end, who was way stronger than even the game's unique super units. Even when he finally becomes a usable unit in later games, his damage got nerfed from the unholy damage [[spoiler: Sindri]] will wage.
*** Considering the game it's based on, it's probably still better to fight it here than the original, and infinitely more survivable than being a character in the flavour text....
*** Dark Crusade and its sequel Soulstorm both had this whenever you attacked a stronghold. While you had caps on many units limiting their deployment, no such exist for the enemy. In the assault on Victory Bay, expect to face no less than 4 Leman Russes and at least 2 Baneblades, the former of which can and will be rebuilt until the enemy is dead (normally, you're only allowed 2 russes and 1 baneblade). Stronghold missions also often give Honor Guard Units to the AI in ways you can never dream of, such as entire squads of Daemonkin Obliterator, or Honor Guard Predators.
*** Soulstorm's [[ChurchMilitant Sisters of Battle]] stronghold has a version their [[OurAngelsAreDifferent Living Saint]] super unit that can't be damaged until you destroy four icons on the map, and the AI is smart enough to keep it near one.
** And in ''Dawn of War 2'', the extension ''Chaos Rising'' tops it with a [[spoiler:Great Unclean One]], a DamageSpongeBoss with devastating attacks and that can see infiltrated units. He also has an aura of decay that will automatically detonate any explosives you have Cyrus set up, forcing you to get up close with the abomination.
* King Famardy in ''VideoGame/KingOfTheMonsters 2'' (which, surprise surprise, is made by SNK). He is ridiculously huge, moves very fast, can use the projectile attacks of every other bosses in the game and he is the only one that can hurt your character simply by [[CollisionDamage touching]] you, whereas being touched by the others bosses would atleast locks you in a random but potentially successful grapple.
* Midas from ''AgarestSenki''. Doesn't play fair with his LimitBreak meter. Has attacks that one-hit kill all characters in a 2-cell radius, [[DamageSpongeBoss too much HP]], regenerates health at an absurd rate. Has a LimitBreak that can guarantee a TotalPartyKill if you party isn't spread out far. And did we mention you fight him halfway through the game, before many of its {{Game Breaker}}s become available?
* ''KingdomHearts'''s {{Bonus Boss}}es often edge into this, due to their [[OneHitKO abhorrent]] attack power and incredible speed. One of them even has attacks that bypass the abilities to stop instant/combo induced death, this is all made much worse by the rest of the game's relative ease, making sure the player's blindsided by the DifficultySpike.
** The North American and later revised Japanese releases of the first game feature Sephiroth, whose attacks not only come out fast and hard, but also has absurd range. His Heartless Angel brings you down to one HP and depletes your entire MP gauge. Unlike some other bosses, he can actually use one of his desperation attacks before he actually gets desperate which is basically his version of an Omnislash. You can only hope to block it, or if you have near superhuman reflexes, dodge each and every strike with absolute precision. His actual desperation attack, Supernova, can hit you from anywhere when he actually throws it at you, and it can't be blocked. During his desperate state, he starts pummeling you with spinning strikes which he whips out immediately after coming out of a teleport, and it's almost always behind you. And when he does so, he leaves behind a wall of Shadow Flares. Some argue that this version of Sephiroth is the hardest incarnation yet. Also, the player has to fight him one on one.
*** In KHII, he uses the Omnislash-like attack more frequently, especially to stretch out the part where it's his NORMAL ATTACK. Unless you've leveled up your Drive Forms up to this point, be prepared to eat a lot of Heartless Angels because he friggen floats out your range when he powers it up this time around. When he gets desperate, he goes so far as to actually SLIDE BEHIND YOU when he attacks. He also tends to poke you by quickly gliding around the arena and then smacking you. Lastly, his Reaction Command attack, while easy to see coming from a mile away, going so far as to start every bout doing it, do NOT get hit by it. It will hit you from anywhere and everywhere, so be sure to have your feet planted firmly on the ground because you CANNOT block it in the air. However, the real hammer on the nail is the fact that even though Goofy and Donald are explicitly present before AND after the battle, they are completely absent during it, so no Drives or health refills.
** Then there's KH Final Mix's Unknown/Xemnas, who bashes you with swift and powerful strikes and uses a multitude of powerful spells that will absolutely demolish you and he is almost always constantly doing so. He can suspend energy bolts in mid air while, after a second, come at you in a rapid fire fashion, generate large energy orbs AND can guard against your attacks by putting up a large shield which can also damage you and knock you back. He also has an attack where he places a unique status ailment on you that will gradually drain your health unless you use the proper command when prompted to. You will be doing quite a bit of rolling around until he bothers to actually give you an opening. However, unlike with Sephiroth, the player does have Donald and Goofy for the fight.
** KHII Final Mix has two of these, unfortunately. First up is the full Roxas fight. Unlike the playable version of Dual Wield Roxas, this guy is completely batshit insane and uses his real powers to their fullest.. His standard attack combo consists of him constantly shifting left and right as he attacks and before you have a chance to immediately counterattack, he jumps right back and comes at you. After recovering from any attack, whether or not its a combo, he will retaliate immediately by jumping in the air and coming at you with you a rolling attack that will track and hit you, no matter how far you are. He also has his own version of the The End Reaction Command and if you can get it, you can snag his Keyblades from him to amp up your attacks. The catch however, is that he'll actually become even more aggressive and start throwing [[BeamSpam friggin laser beams]] at you until he manages to steal his Keyblades back from you. But at this point however, he'll start buffing his attacks with constant beam attacks in varying patterns. Not even getting into his desperation attack, he has another attack where he constantly spams Strike Raid while constantly buzzing around you. And it hurts. A lot
** Ugh...the Lingering Will is an absolute nightmare. This is the only superboss in the entire series who CANNOT be knocked out of his attacks and at the beginning of the round, he's usually flying all over the place at high speeds at which Sora can't even hope to match. Invincibility frames on every attack he does. They all involve his Keyblade taking on a multitude of forms and they come out quick. Even when he's running straight at you, you can't hurt him. At all. Your only bet is to hit him after an attack. He has actually has an attack that breaks him out of any your combos by immediately countering with a whip attack which you cannot get out of. He has two variations of a magic seal attack that either seals your attack or magic commands, forcing you to hit LW a number of times to break out of using the command that wasn't blocked. And then there's his desperation attack that requires a specific set of maneuvers to perform to survive it, because it's not only lengthy, it's pretty much guaranteed to kill you. And the best part: His number of health bars span the size of the longest possible gauge in the game, surpassing even Sephiroth.
** If you thought the Lingering Will was bad, wait until you fight Vanitas Remnant. While he has only one bar of health, be very very prepared. He has an absurd amount of defense and even if you managed to max out your character, your combos won't be doing a lot of damage like on other bosses. He is basically a souped-up version of Vanitas at the end of Ven's story, his attacks do fatal amounts of damage, usually almost one hit kills, even if you've leveled up excessively. He also has a new attack where he encases himself in an invincible sphere and launches shadowy versions of himself at you which fly quickly at you and deal insane amounts of damage and if you get hit, you'll be inflicted with Blind which [[InterfaceScrew obscures your line of sight almost entirely]]. Don't even try to use Cure spells, because he will go right ahead and do he same, so actual potions and exlixirs are essential. Like an actual SNK Boss however, he's not very smart and will blindly run into Mine spells without changing his path.
** And then there's the other secret boss introduced in the North American and Japanese re-releases, the Mysterious Figure. Drop all of your uberpowerful commands and spells in favor of quick ones that offer invincibility frames because this guy will ruin your day hard. Everytime he is in motion, running or walking, he is constantly warping and darting around, so forget your Shotlock. Instead, don't use Shotlock at all because he actually has access to the Heal Block command which transfers any usually incurred damage into health. He has a long combo not unlike Xemnas, but it is far far longer and it WILL deplete your health to zero, unless you have the Chance abilities equipped. He also has access to a projectile version of Tornado that will literally blow every command in your immediate deck out of your body, forcing you to try and pick them back up while he finishes you off. Gets even worse when he jumps into the air and throws out an energy whip. If you get hit by this, you will assuredly die because not only does it almost take out almost all of your health in one sweep, he will not hesitate to spam it over and over again, AND it negates your Chance abilities. Aside from his Beam Spam attack and Doom attacks, he has the annoying ability to actually recover bits of lost health by turning back time if he gets hit by a powerful attack. And then when he actually gets desperate...
** Don't even get me ''started'' on Iron Imprisoner, the ''constantly evolving'' SNK boss from the Mirage Arena. The Mirage Arena is designed for multiplayer, but they don't drop the difficulty if you try and tackle it solo and ''damn''! Stage IV is the worst: absurd health levels, incredible attacks, trapping you in a ''flaming cage'' that'll kill you in three turns, and ''taking over the arena'', holy crap.
** And now Dream Drop Distance introduces us to [[RunawayBrain Julius]] of all people. Unlike the preceding blade-wielding counterparts, he's all about brute strength...and is exceedingly effective at it. Basically every single action he does will hurt you. If you do not have a high-leveled character or Once More/Second Chance, you'll die quickly. When he's not charging at you with a barrage of punches that cover a lot of ground, he'll try throw his weight at you, whether it's a sliding elbow drop or a free fall from an elevated height and either can destroy the poles that allow you to do Flowmotion attacks. If he hits you with the latter, the currently selected Command will be disabled for a little while. Even going into his powered up state is designed to kill you since he summons lightning bolts that randomly strike anywhere and all you can do is block and pray. When charged up, his attacks become unblockable and gain an increase in range. He also only ever flinches after several hits. Fortunately, Julius isn't in constant motion like his Square predecessors and leaves himself open on two accounts, both usually right after finishing an attack and he only has one projectile attack (no magic spam). Since he only charges at you, you can pretty much repeat the strategy employed against Vanitas Remnant using this game's version of the Mine spell, Balloon. Riku stands a better chance surviving his attacks thanks to his unique action commands Dark Roll and Dark Barrier.
* In the JRPG ''Dragoneer's Aria'', to get to the Earth Dragon, you have to Battle against Ruslan L'avelith. While fighting against him, he can easily kill your entire team. Once you beat him and he joins your team, he's nerfed like hell.
* ''[[FireEmblemJugdral Fire Emblem Thracia 776]]'' is already the hardest FireEmblem game in the series (or heck, it's probably the hardest game in existence!) Then along comes Chapter 22, which has several factors working against you as it is. Once you cross the second bridge, however, the first one collapses, and the mini-boss, Reinhart, starts attacking you. He has Daim Thunder, a weapon [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard normally only available to]] [[MagicalGirlWarrior Olwen]], which allows him to attack twice, and has FOUR skills: Continue (randomly allows him to attack twice in one round) Ambush (ensures that he attacks first no matter whose turn it is), Duel (forces another round of combat without allowing the unit that just attacked a chance to heal) and Big Shield (will randomly block one of your attacks entirely). With all these power-ups, it is literally and completely impossible to beat this asshole without resorting to status effect wands, which are rare. Silence keeps him from using magic, so you can thankfully use ranged attacks against him (he also has a Brave Sword) but the most reliable way to beat him is to put him to sleep, and yet both options are only achievable with a M-Up wand or a Holy Water, since your wand user must have higher magic than he does, and all stats except HP cap at 20 in this game! Reinhart's mere existence might just cause your file to become unwinnable if you don't have Warp wands, which most people use to kill the real boss on the first turn (He also has Big Shield, so [[LuckBasedMission good luck with that!]]) and warp Leaf to the castle and [[TheEnemyGateIsDown seize it for an instant win,]] but then you miss out on the chapter's other goodies. In fact, the first house on the map ''gives you a Warp wand,'' as if to say, [[ViewersAreMorons "Yes, you dumb fuck, that's how you're supposed to clear this chapter."]] To add insult to injury, you have to have the above mentioned Olwen talk to him to obtain a rare weapon. Oh, and during the course of this chapter, you have to deal with the combined leadership stars of Reinhart, Ceon, and CYAS. Cyas alone has 10 leadership stars, and together, all 3 bosses have 19 leadership stars. This means every enemy on the map gets +57 to hit AND evasion. These bonuses also apply to the bosses themselves, so...good luck.
** Then there's [[FinalBoss Medeus]] on [[HarderThanHard Lunatic Mode]] in ''New Mystery of the Emblem'', who takes "blatantly unfair" UpToEleven. He has all his stats maxed out, which equates to:
*** 99 HP (the most you can ever have is 60)
*** 40 Strength (more than anyone on your side can ever have. Combined with his 20 might weapon, he has an attack of 60. The highest possible defence you can have is 30. 60-30 is 30. That's the ''bare minimum'' damage he can do. [[OhCrap Now go back and read what the most HP you can ever have is.]])
*** 40 Skill (meaning a base critical hit rate of 30%, i.e. only a maxed out LuckStat is enough to totally negate the chance of a critical, and a critical WILL kill you, no exceptions.)
*** 30 Speed (by far the worst of the lot, this means he'll double attack anything up to and including Heroes [26 Speed] and looking at the previous points, you should be able to put two and two together. Yes, NOTHING can possibly survive 2 hits from him, meaning anyone with 26 or less speed who attacks him is [[YouAreAlreadyDead already dead.]] )
*** 40 (actually 42 due to GeoEffects) Defense and 30 Resistance (not the worst thing about him, maxed out Marth still hits 21 damage with the Falchion. [[ScratchDamage Everyone else on the other hand...]])
*** Furthermore, he has a range of 2 spaces, meaning not even Archers are safe and any Staff users trying to heal a melee attacker [[OhCrap will be in his attack range.]] Oh, and did I mention you have to deal with him ''AND 20'' odd [[BossInMookClothing Bosses In Mook Clothing]] at the same time??
** But, Medeus and Reinhardt are nothing compared to a BonusBoss in FireEmblemAwakening: [[spoiler:Anna]], from the Apotheosis DLC. The boss has stats [[UpToEleven far above your own maximum stats]] unless you spam Rally skills AND buy the DLC for the skill that can raise your maximum stats by 10. And of course, an absolutely broken skill set with Vantage+ (which allows the boss to always go first in a fight), Dragonskin (halves all damage), Counter (damages any attacker for the amount of damage they've dealt), Aether (a skill that deals two hits, one that deals regular damage and heals HP equal to half the damage dealt, and another that halves the opponent's Def), and Rightful God (raises skill activation chances by 30%. That Aether has a '''65%''' chance of activating) And finally, you fight this boss after a marathon of the other bosses from the chapter who are also all ridiculously difficult. Thankfully, this map has the same difficulty on Normal, Hard, or Lunatic(+). It'd be impossible to imagine this any harder.
* ''Franchise/MagicTheGathering: Duels of the Planeswalkers 2012'' (a game based on a CollectibleCardGame) has Karn. While most of the cards you can get for your decks can be described as "strong, but fair", Karn has cards in his deck ''culled from the [[http://www.wizards.com/Magic/TCG/Resources.aspx?x=judge/resources/sfrlegacy Legacy ban list]]''. God help you if he uses a Mox to Tinker for Darksteel Colossus on turn 2... your only response is pretty much Counterspell. Or concede. (Or Unsummon the Colossus.)
** Arkazon, the end boss of the Shandalar computer game from the 90s, turned up with an enormous five-colour deck and would open with huge amounts of life and several permanents already on the field...sadly for him, he ended up a subversion due to poor construction and coding: the deck's sheer size and lack of dual lands, dedicated landsearch and so on made it extremely cumbersome, and the AI was not particularly impressive even for its time.
* The final fistfight with General Kim in the true ending of ''TrueCrime: Streets of LA''.
* Starting in ''Armored Core: Master of the Arena'', the ''VideoGame/ArmoredCore'' series would include a boss AC called Nineball Seraph. Most up to the point you meet this thing, all enemy ACs are simply [=AI=]ed controlled versions of ACs you could build yourself if you really wanted to (except for an end boss in Project Phantasma, but GameBreaker machine gun made the thing a pushover), but Nineball Seraph is constructed entirely from parts you can't use. The thing is extremely fast, and has way more armor than an AC for its speed would allow, really strong machine gun arms that both have laser blades (if you use gun arms you can't have laser blades) that have a higher attack rate than yours, since it has two, and a couple of back mounted homing missiles that are very accurate and really hurt. For added speed it can transform into a birdlike mode that makes it even faster, though in that state it will only use its missiles. No matter how you build your AC, this will have you heavily outgunned and kill you a few seconds, even though your armor is fully restored before you fight it.
* ''[[{{Seihou}} Kioh Gyoku]]'''s FinalBoss is entirely unfair. Muse, as a playable character, is one of the best characters in the game to begin with. But that wouldn't be epic enough, so the designers did horrible things to her stats. The increase to her defence is at least understandable, since the AI sucks and she'd have killed herself before the battle really started if it hadn't been increased, but they overdid it to the point where the fight with her takes longer than the rest of the story mode combined. But the real problem is that her attack ranks[[note]]every time a player uses an attack the rank for it goes up by one, making it slightly stronger. They normally start at 1[[/note]] are increased, with her non-boss attacks at ''12''. Which is a serious problem, since, at that rank, her level one attack basically requires you to stream it across the entire screen to avoid it, and will most likely [[LastChanceHitPoint guard break]] you if you screw up. Which you probably will if any of her other attacks are on the screen. The fight basically comes down to hoping and/or praying that she dies before the AIRoulette decides to use that attack a third[[note]]you have two screen-clearing bombs[[/note]] time.
* ''DynastyWarriorsGundam 3'': Knight Gundam at the end of the story mode. Assuming you're using a fully-upgraded and customized suit with a high-level pilot, you will still do only minimal damage to him, and he can kill you in two hits from any attack (that's ''if'' your defense stat is higher than 350... otherwise he {{One Hit Kill}}s you). Also, Knight Gundam is one of those Gundams with a "Super Mode" that he enters into after using an SP attack. Except for this battle... he's in his SuperMode for the duration of the fight, and it never runs out. Good luck.
* The ''Franchise/{{Disgaea}}'' series usually averts this, as with the AbsurdlyHighLevelCap most bosses are just the same as highly leveled and well equipped normal enemies; they're tough, but the follow the same "rules" as everyone else. Even some bosses where you must lose to advance the story can technically be beaten if you don't mind a NonStandardGameOver. But ''VideoGame/{{Disgaea 4|APromiseUnforgotten}}'' gives us the DLC battle with Baal; he has the power to get a free attack on your characters from any distance ''as soon as you remove them from the base panel''. Since he's incredibly strong, this means he can literally kill your entirely party before he even gets a turn. They just die as soon as you try to use them.
** His incarnation in ''VideoGame/DisgaeaDimension2'' is even worse. His stats are so insane it requires the abuse of mechanics to max out the game's stationary attack bonus to do any real damage to him, he's never resets, so as they fight goes on his attacks do more and more damage, along with now possess an Evility throughout the fight that grants him immunity to any skills used on him after the first time, plus his Evility from ''Disgaea 4'', and after taking damage, he'll switch to other evilities, the last one which destroys your base panel. Thankfully, his immunity to skills resets everytime he changes evilities.
* ''VideoGame/CrashTeamRacing'''s final boss N. Oxide has access to a nauseating amount of surplus; to be specific he's [[NoSell unaffected by any of your attacks]], when he's in front of you he drops Komodo Joe's instantly-exploding TNT Crates, Nitro Crates, Bowling Bombs, and Green and Red Beakers (moreso than the previous bosses) on top of being fast enough to easily catch up to characters that focus on speed such as Tiny and Dingodile. Adding insult to injury he leaves the finish line before you do ensuring that there will be a huge minefield between the two of you when you take off. In comparison the final boss of ''Crash Nitro Kart'' is a bit easier to outperform.
* Strike Freedom in the bonus stage at the end of branching routes in ''Gundam vs. Gundam Next Plus''. Has the same functions as the playable version but has a health gauge way longer than any of the bosses you fight in the game, at least as long as Devil/Dark Gundam's. He also has an exclusive attack involving a rushing attack with his Wings of Light and Super [=DRAGOONs=]. After he's sustained a good amount of damage, he'll immediately strap on METEOR and then shit gets real; dual plasma cannons that can knock you down in one hit, plus missile spam and his strongest attack brings both BeamSpam and MacrossMissileMassacre together for a speeding wall of death on top of uber beam sabers. And to top it all off, his Assist is a METEOR-equipped Infinite Justice who will do the exact same thing when called on. If you've managed to hit him hard enough, he'll ditch the trashed METEOR and start fighting like "normal", except he'll have infinite [[SuperMode SEED factor]], giving him insane boost dashes, reduced boost usage and Full Burst Mode. Making this all significantly worse is whatever you have to fight before and during the battle with SF which are usually powerful suits like Wing Zero and 00 Raiser and if you followed a particular route to get to this stage, you have to fight all alone.
* In ''VideoGame/MegaMan8BitDeathmatch'''s single player campaign, normally bosses are considered "monsters" by ''VideoGame/{{Doom}}'' engine standards, there are a few bosses that are considered normal bots but with special weapons and stats; three are {{Bonus Boss}}es while one is a mandatory chapter boss.
** The first BonusBoss, [[spoiler:Enker]], runs around in an erratic pattern, causing CollisionDamage if he runs into you, stopping ocasionally. If you hit him while he's stopped, it increases his projectile in power.
** The second BonusBoss, [[spoiler:Punk]] may be considered the hardest. His normal projectiles travel at lightning fast speed, and he also has a hard to dodge ram attack that can take off nearly your entire health bar.
** And the last BonusBoss, [[spoiler:Ballade]], has an insane amount of health and he can lay damaging mines around the arena. To top it off, you can [[RingOut fall off and die instantly]] while [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard he can't]].
** And then there's Dark Man at the end of [[VideoGame/MegaMan5 chapter 5]], who has a deflector shield circling him. Oh, and [[GoombaStomp his jumps can damage you if he lands on you]].
** And the icing on the cake? [[spoiler:Evil Robot]], the V3A (Current) Final Boss. He doesn't only have invulnerability while attack, but he also has absurd attack patterns and can only be hurt when trying to tackle you, and that vulnerability frame is ONLY WHEN HE IS DANGEROUSLY CLOSE. Also, did I mention he combines two attack patterns when his health falls below 50%?
** And now there's their version of Saxton Hale Mode. Suddenly, facing campaign bosses seems so easy...
* Lord Bloodcrown, the FinalBoss of ''VideoGame/ClashOfHeroes''. He has double the hit points of any other boss in the game, attacks solely in devastating charged attacks (the charge spheres of which will intercept any but the most powerful attack, save for a small window between them) and he's stationary, meaning about a quarter of your playing field is useless). Not to mention you're forced to fight him with Nadia, who is likely to not even at the Level Cap when you face him and whose special attack [[UnpredictableResults is random]], turning him more of a LuckBasedMission than a BossFight.
* The final two levels of the browser-based game ''Slime Volleyball: One Slime'' fit this trope. The second-to-last opponent, Psycho Slime, moves faster than the player-controlled slime or any other slime in the game. The last opponent, the Big Blue Boss, is substantially larger than other slimes (filling up most of its side of the arena an thus making it difficult to score).
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Doujin Fighters/Fan-made Games]]
* ''EternalFighterZero'', an otherwise very balanced doujin game, has [[VisualNovel/{{AIR}} Kanna]] as the final boss. Her melee attacks have immense range and her projectiles are fast and cover a lot of area. Her AI is also incredibly skilled at blocking attacks, making it difficult to land any normal hit. Her character is available to the player as well, without any nerfing at all, which is why she's banned from tournament play.
** Kanna's only banned because players acually use the insane damage, comboability, and priority of her attacks, whereas the AI only defends well. Unknown[[spoiler:/Mirror Mizuka/Eien no Mizuka]], however, has been a source of frustration, as she (in her boss mode) takes full advantages of her moves' invincibility frames and spams high-priority projectiles that do almost as much damage blocked. (Thank god for the fact that you can't be chipped to submission in this game.)
* ''SuperCosplayWarUltra'''s Zenka, based on the (in)famously badass [[VideoGame/SuperRobotWars Sanger Zonvolt]], has full screen specials, supers and [[FinishingMove EX Super]] (some of them unblockable or do massive chip damage), high priority, is much faster than her range would imply and tends to exploit these advantages to the fullest.
** Next, comes Zmega, based on [[KingOfFighters Rugal Bernstein]], but in Story Mode, he's weaker than what you'd expect from a ShoutOut to one of the greatest {{SNK Boss}}es out there. Still, the game plays it cruelly in that there's only one round against him: should you lose, you automatically lose the game, but given the stand in Zmega's difficulty compared to Zenka, it's rather relative. However, this trope applies to his form taken at the end of Battle Royale Mode called Shin-Z, so much that even if you have an allied CPU still standing to fight with you, his sheer tendency to combo his specials directly to a super absurdly well, no thanks to crazy priority, turns frustration and keyboard breaking UpToEleven. Should you lose against him, you have to engage a survival battle against 5 enemies first before he pops out again.
** Finally, in comes Alpha, based on TheFourGods from VideoGame/SuperRobotWars. The TrueFinalBoss in Story Mode, Alpha carries the '''WORST''' use of super and EX Super spamming possible, moreso than Zenka. In fact, he will often combine them in a normal combo or interrupt them in the worst timing possible, but that's not to mention Alpha can interrupt during ''your'' combo into his supers. Said supers are like taking the full brunt of Zenka's supers (though Alpha's EX Super is far worse than Zenka's).
*** The newest edition of the game now gives Alpha [[StreetFighter Gill's]] Resurrection super (full hit point restoration, unless interrupted), provided Alpha's POW bar allows him to use it if KO'ed for the round.
*** It's worse than Gill's Resurrection. With Gill, you could just stand in front of his body and jab repeatedly to interrupt it and easily leave him at 25% health. But Team FK apparently took notes and made it so Alpha's Resurrection pushes the player away to keep that from happening, making it harder to hit him quickly.
* Nightmare Cat, from ''Azumanga Fighter'' (a doujin FightingGame based on ''Manga/AzumangaDaioh''), is a permanently Burst Moded version of Kamineko. Now bear in mind that Burst Mode normally has to be triggered manually by filling all 5 bars of the special gauge, AND being at low health, but that gains access to that specific character's ultimate move, and having infinite uses of the super moves. Kamineko is one of the more annoying (but balanced) characters due to its height (it's a cat, as opposed to the rest of high school aged cast), however Nightmare Cat fires off super moves rapid fire, and uses its short height to its advantage, ensuring you can barely land a hit. Fortunately, [[HopelessBossFight win or lose you progress to the next battle anyway]].
* The flash game ''South Park: Tokugawa'' has a final boss that is essentially, if not completely unbeatable, though this is in part due to poor game design in general, all of the unblockable moves and teleporting don't help.
* Shizuru in ''{{Mai-HiME}}: Fuuka Taisen'', when fought in Natsuki's Story mode. Shizuru loves to use her Super Special summon less than ten seconds into every battle, which fills the ground with slowly-advancing Kiyohime snake heads that are very hard to block, and will keep going indefinitely until they reach the edge of the screen. In addition, her "evil mode" lacks a block animation, which makes it complete guesswork to determine whether or not your hits connect, and has no problem spamming her whirling spear attack up close or whenever projectiles come her way. So, in essence, she's almost like her anime incarnation. [[spoiler:Good thing her "good side" is an unlockable character]].
** Natsuki may be better since she has ranged attacks. Consider Haruka the headbutt-main fighter...
* {{MUGEN}}, the fighting GameMaker, obviously has several hundred of these. It's a good place to find most of the other entries on this list. There's also an entire cottage industry devoted to producing overpowered, nigh-invulnerable characters, many seemingly written for the express purpose of beating someone else's overpowered, nigh-invulnerable character. This makes for an SNK Boss Arms Race of sorts. Some of the most noteworthy examples include:
** [[Manga/DragonBall Z Hyper Gogeta]] by Supermystery, with his screen-filling Kamehameha.
** The Legendary [=SSJ3=] Nightmare, probably one of the more infamous examples. Broly has a minute long intro of him powering up that knocks the opponent down and into a wall. If you've managed to survive that you have to deal with an annoyingly sturdy shield, shitloads of ki blasts and noisy shouting. And when he wants to, he can go straight to [=SSJ4=] where he becomes literally invincible and coats the screen with explosions.
** Master Geese by Cannon Musume, an MVC-styled version of Geese Howard that has been nicknamed "Master Cheese" for his unblockable and cheap super moves. Not to mention his Deadly Rave is a OneHitKill.
** [[SuperMarioBros Hyper Neo-Kamek]] by Kamek, who gives a new definition to the phrase BeamSpam.
** Light Yagami from ''Manga/DeathNote'' who, well, has [[OneHitKill a Death Note]]. (and [[MediumAwareness CAN READ HIS OPPONENT'S NAME FROM THE TOP OF THE SCREEN]])
*** Mitigated slightly by his [[GlassCannon low defense.]] Doesn't excuse him from this trope, though.
**** Also leads to a couple of moments of rage, where he shouldn't be able to tell the name. For example, VisualNovel/FateStayNight has a character in Mugen called Archer, only his real name is [[spoiler: Shirou Emiya]], only that isn't his birth name, and is actually the name he was given [[spoiler: after the grail fire of FateZero wiped out a large portion of the city he lived in, with him as the only survivor who can't remember anything before the fire.]] Meaning Light can kill characters using an alias of an alias of a completely unknown name.
** Dark Reiko Hikari by Kamek, a crazy, blisteringly fast teenage girl who also hits you with a bus, and has TWO OneHitKill moves. Voiced by [[VideoGame/DisgaeaHourOfDarkness Flonne]].
** The Rox Howard Clones, who turn a one on one into a one on seven.
** Just about any 'Evil Ken' type (a wide variety of Ryus, Kens, Akumas, and Dans which began, apparently, with a certain build of Ken), who all try and outdo each other with ridiculous priority moves, combo capacity, and overpowered super moves.
*** Combine this with a lot of [[ThisIsYourPremiseOnDrugs impressive chemicals]] and crank it UpToEleven, and you have Rare Akuma.
** Hyper Akuma also deserves a mention. To break it down completely, he has:
*** Ability to almost completely ignore attacks from other characters.
*** Ability to gain energy from being hit.
*** Insane attack speed. Racking up combos into the double digits is common when he is in play.
*** Very high strength. With the right moves he can wipe out an opponent within 10 seconds.
*** High movement speed. Capable of traversing the screen very quickly in a single leap.
*** A move which lets him cross the screen within 1 second and usually ends up behind the opponent. Also, he cannot be hit when using this move.
*** Another move which lets him cross the screen quickly. When he passes his opponent, it counts as a 7-hit combo. Spammable.
*** Projectile attacks which act as 8-hit combos. Also spammable, especially in air.
*** A healing factor that would put Wolverine and Deadpool to shame. Heals through super attacks.
*** Supers which often cover the screen, cannot be interrupted, have combo numbers ranging from 20-999, and eat up at least a third of the opponent's health bar. In addition, some of the Supers cost very little energy and some even recharge your energy bar.
*** Ability to SPAM super moves by mashing buttons at the right time while a super move is being performed.
*** And to top it all off, an aura which can reduce the opponent's health bar to nothing in seconds. Hyper Akuma has this on BY DEFAULT.
** Neo-Reaper Isabeau [=SSJ9=], for an unblockable near-insta-kill fire attack.
** [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII Sephiroth]], whose melee attacks cover half the screen, has 200% health as well as 220% defense, has three instant-kill moves (two of which are unblockable and unavoidable), can teleport with invulnerability, as well as charging his super energy invincibly, and is un-comboable.
** What about the [[{{Bionicle}} Toa Mata]]? Instead of being something like Pain from Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm, each button is a different Toa attack. But Only Tahu is playable from the start, and pressing a button while the Bar is at halfway will summon a different one. This is not the end however:
*** You have to hit Tahu in order to damage them, and he is usually elbow deep in his spamming teammates.
*** So Many ultimate attacks, that you don't understand the meaning of cheap.
*** Each Toa has an ultimate, which is Telegraphed by a a white sheen, and usually takes chunks of health off of your bar.
*** Then using the TAUNT button, you cause them to do ALL their Supers, at once.The textbook defeinition of bad Sportsmanship.
*** Then there are fusion attacks, where two Toa do a new super attack, which again, takes chunks(Tahu and Lewa= Fire tornado, Hali and Pohatu, water stream= with a rock willing Onua and Kpaka= Ice shard blast, then a earthquake launching up MORE ice spheres.). And they [Take it up to Eleven] by going into a Kata form, where elemental fury is rife.
*** Though they need their supers to do most of the afromented, a palette allows they to have all six pre-summoned, and will a constantly full bar. You may soil your clothing now.
** And while we're at it, there's Gustav Munchausen from the K.O.F. Memorial game, who features insane chip damage, full-screen supers, and a brutal AI, and gains super energy ultra-fast. Most critically, unlike most SNK bosses which reverse your moves with one hard-hitting move, Gustav opts to execute a 15-hit melee combo that fills his super bar, then uses one of his energy pillar supers for half your health!
*** The midboss Psyqhical is widely considered to be even more broken than Gustav himself. He possesses all of Gustav's traits, but also has ''full-screen specials'', abuses counter moves that do ridiculous damage, can slow time down, and even trap you in a cube to take out 80% of your health. To top things off, the rest of his moveset is basically BeamSpam.
*** Someone thought it would be a brilliant idea to fuse the above two bosses, producing the edit known as Gustav M Type-F. He has a combination of both bosses' moves, and those belonging to Gustav have improved juggle qualities. But what makes him stand out is his infinitely chainable, lightning quick, invincible teleport which can be canceled from and into anything - a counter, a throw, even his highly damaging grab super! Worst of all, his AI really knows how to juggle and knows an infinite with his anti air strings move and his energy pillar supers, and it will happily abuse it!
** The second K.O.F Memorial game brings us Element. Element moves at absurd speed, possesses several annoying grabs and slashes that take off large sections of your healthbar, spams a variety of multi-hit infinite priority projectiles, can summon explosions UNDER YOUR FEET and best of all, has White's instant-kill desperation move, complete with fake KO message!
*** In addition, Element is less a unique character than a class of extremely broken Iori edits. Since he was introduced at the ending of the first K.O.F Memorial game, people started speculating about him and making their own versions. This class of bosses has very flashy super moves that tend to revolve around elemental attacks, and when they get a hit on you, they will empty their extended super bar on you for an instant kill.
** A Japanese imageboard took it upon themselves to make a Mugen game starring practically all their memes; as you may have guessed, [[HilarityEnsues insanity ensues]]. Still, ''nothing'' can prepare you for the final boss, Hato Sabure. To start, it's what appears to be a giant chocolate peep with GlowingEyesOfDoom. Who can fly via a jet engine and drop on you ForMassiveDamage, randomly counter physical blows by knocking you to the other side of the room, and is an absolute ''master'' of projectile spam-it has eye lasers, bombs, missiles, and fireballs, which all fire out of mechanical hatches that appear from its body. Fortunately, as with the rest of these bosses, the wide variety of characters allows a huge amount of ways of beating him to death.
** Gold [[EternalFighterZero Ayu]] [[{{Kanon}} Tsukimiya]]. She's a little angel girl. The first fight with her is like fighting a tough (but not horrible) AI opponent. Take her out once though... and she gains a massively fast regenerating super bar, regenerating health, and [[VideoGame/GuiltyGear I-no's]] infamous Megalomania attack.
** Cheap Boss Type, is a parody of these. You think fans would know better than to complain about it [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin given the name]]. Also brings up the question of why M.U.G.E.N. players simply don't delete crap characters and move on to better ones.
** Zeeky H. Bomb, if only due to the fact that all his moves are strikers bar two. The saving grace of this fight is that Zeeky has no custom AI, and as such will constantly move randomly back and forth, leaving himself open.
** Don Drago has made Geese, Yashiro, Takuma and Goenitz, and has a habit of including all their movelists into seperate modes. Do the maths.
** [[MegaManZero Omega.]] He's a ''fair'' and very well-done example compared to the rest, sure, but the thing is, in the original games he appeared in, you can run away and take advantage of his AxCrazy fighting style. This time, you can't. He has MercyInvincibility which makes him almost immune to combos and can easily heal himself anytime he wants. On top of that, he has new supers. OhCrap. The only thing he ''can't'' do is rapid firing his Z-Buster. Because ''that'' would be cheap, [[WordOfGod says his manual.]]
** And then there was "[[ScaryScorpions Mecha Scorpio]]". Even the author is now ''[[OldShame ashamed]]'' of it! Here's all the things wrong with it-
*** Short, making it hard to hit with high attacks.
*** Huge damage with its infinite priority claws, tail, fire and earth based attacks, as well as fast power gain from just using them.
*** It could poison the opponent for the round every time it hit with its [[BewareMyStingerTail stinger tail]], causing them to flinch and take damage every few seconds (the poison effect was stackable too!). Worst of all, the poison never went away!
*** Countered all grabs with a powerful move, not only did it take off a quarter of the opponent's health, it also gave them the poison status too.
*** A OneHitKill that it WILL use if it got up to max power, and it could only be avoided by crouching and blocking. If the opponent didn't do so, they would be sucked up by a sandstorm, dropped into the middle of a desert, crushed with four rock pillars, then blown up.
*** Finally, if most of the above-mentioned {{Game Breaker}}s were used against it, it would turn invincible and all its attacks would become {{One Hit Kill}}s!
** ChuckNorris. If anything, the internet rumours understated his power.
*** He's ''[[GameBreaker way beyond]]'' SNK Boss. At least the player has a small ''chance'' to defeat an SNK Boss... as for fighting against Chuck Norris, no such luck - The Heart Attack Button doesn't even work on him! If you didn't think to place Norris outside the normal fighting order, [[UnwinnableByDesign the jig is up when you run into him]].
** Most ''VideoGame/{{Touhou}}'' characters can become this if their movesets are ported directly. The original fighting games are built around ''BulletHell'' as opposed to melee and movesets are balanced accordingly, giving each character massive barrages and means to counter the same. Contrast this with the average fighting game character who is almost melee exclusive.
** Finally, speaking of edit characters, many of the above mentioned SNK bosses have been ported into MUGEN. Some authors will port them exactly as they were in the original game. However, many authors will edit them to tack on new supers and special moves, making them an even worse pain in the rear to fight. Using the King of Fighters Memorial edits as examples:
*** Goenitz gets a couple of screen filler supers where he fills the screen with tornados and a version of Yonokaze that travels towards his opponent and combos them for 8 hits.
*** Orochi receives several Marukare variants, solely for the purpose of being cancelled into each other to obliterate his opponent's lifebar. It is also almost impossible to see when he uses his counter moves!
*** Krizalid gets a MegatonPunch super that does serious damage, souped-up versions of Desperate Overdrive, a super grab and a MAX move where he fills the screen with explosions.
*** Original Zero and Clone Zero have their movesets combined, allowing the former to use both his strikers and Clone Zero's Shadow Arts. As with Orochi, he receives a couple of variants to his Black Hole.
*** Igniz gets a full screen version of Chaos Tide (the quad-energy blast), a screen filler, Krizalid's End of Heaven super, the Zeroes' Black Hole and a super where he charges up a large energy ball that is an instant kill if not blocked.
*** Sinobu returns, but several times as cheap; he uses lightning and wind element attacks simultaneously, has TWO 4-hit one frame projectiles and is very fast on foot. Most critically, remember those orbs that surrounded him in his official appearance? They're now a super that forces you to block, allowing Sinobu to back you into the corner and chip you to death!
*** Not even the relatively balanced midboss Kusanagi is immune. He's mostly the same... except that he now runs at 50 miles an hour for continuous mixup pressure. Have fun escaping the corner!
* In the first renditions of ''MeltyBlood'', we had Aoko Aozaki. She was pretty much a FightingGame version of a VideoGame/{{Touhou}} character, BeamSpam included. She was later balanced as a normal character and given a new moveset. There was also the secret boss Giant Akiha, who was a parody of [[VideoGame/{{X-Men vs Street Fighter}} Apoca]][[VideoGame/MarvelSuperHeroesVsStreetFighter lypse]], who did an insane amount of damage. A later revision replaced G-Akiha with Neko-Arc, a small, deformed cat version of Arcueid which had attacks with absolute priority. Also, she was small and very hard to hit.
** Act Cadenza introduced White Len, an alternate version of Len that easily takes Aoko's former place as the SNK Boss. She had a drastically different moveset than in the Ver. B update, and most of her attacks had absolute priority and did a lot of damage. Neko-Arc also got an alternate version called Neko-Arc Chaos, who parodied Nrvqnsr Chaos' moveset but with the same attributes as the original Neko-Arc.
** Ver. B of Act Cadenza introduced a new hidden boss: Neko-Chaos Black G[[NumberOfTheBeast 666]]. Created by Kohaku in an alternate story mode for Neko-Arc, this is a true successor to G-Akiha who loves to abuse BeamSpam, but also has other attacks like a drill and a missile arm. It's extremely hard to beat due to the large amount of damage it does. At first it can only be fought in Neko-Arc Chaos' secret story, but if you beat it you unlock Giant Attack Mode, which lets you beat it with any character. The catch with Neko? He's pretty susceptible to multiple-hit attacks after he attacks, so you can pretty much punish his moves with a combo or two.
** Actress Again gives us Dust of Osiris, only available to certain characters. It's an alternate-reality version of Sion, and it's pretty cheap in its own right. Look it up on Website/YouTube and see for yourself.
*** And then Current Code made her even '''worse''': She now has an Arc Drive, which makes her invincible for a few seconds, after which, she ''nukes the entire screen with an unblockable attack''. It is possible to dodge/shield it, but you need a good timing.
** Also in Actress Again, if you beat Boss Rush mode without losing a round, well... you get to fight Archetype Arcueid, who can ''kill you instantly.'' And is then unlocked as a playable character... ''with all her moves and damage intact.''
* ''VideoGame/{{Touhou}}'' (fortunately the Touhou fighting games avert this trope in multiplayer by keeping story mode spellcards separate from multiplayer):
** ''Immaterial and Missing Power'' has preliminary boss Yukari Yakumo and her ''Infinite Speed Flying Object''[[note]]unblockable and ungrazeable beams that give you about half a second to read and dodge[[/note]], and FinalBoss Suika Ibuki's ''Pandemonium''[[note]]DeathInAllDirections at its finest[[/note]].
*** Everybody is a more dangerous opponent in Story Mode (where these two are bosses); the gameplay consists of bouts of normal combat with your adversary interspersed between trying to dodge one of her souped-up, perpetual-use spell cards while getting enough attacks through to knock her out of the casting trance. They also get more life and some armoring. Yukari and Suika simply take this well beyond any of the regular Story Mode characters.
** Tenshi Hinanawi of ''Scarlet Weather Rhapsody'' eventually fits this trope. While at first she's only a little stronger than most of the enemies you've fought so far, her final attack is absolutely brutal. If you don't knock her out before she starts doing it, she starts spamming almost impossible to dodge lasers. Oh, and if you get hit by one, she starts another one before the first one finishes, so if you ever get hit by one of these lasers, there's a very good chance that you'll just die.
*** In [[HarderThanHard Lunatic mode]], she fires 3 at once which actually is quite unfair. However due to the limit system it will only do about 3k damage, which is still a lot but not enough to kill you. The gimmick to this spell is to bait her lasers on 1 side then graze though them. Also, this attack will guard break near instantly; if you accidentally started blocking, border escape immediately.
*** Yukari Yakumo is also a brutal example (again). Her very first spellcard may not look like much but the projectiles move in a specific pattern that makes it impossible to counterattack. If you're hit once, the next projectile will get you the precise moment you recover, leaving no time to block. If you attack after a successful dodge, you will have no time to block, and once you're hit before your attack connects, it's negated.
* Act Cadenza Strife, a fanmade TalesSeries fighting game, has several boss characters such as [[VideoGame/TalesOfPhantasia Dhaos]], [[VideoGame/TalesOfTheAbyss Synch and Nebilim]], [[VideoGame/TalesOfDestiny Hugo and Barbatos]], and [[VideoGame/TalesOfEternia Shizel]]. All of them have at least one ridiculous gimmick that makes beating them a pain (for example, at low HP Barbatos will use a completely unstoppable move that instantly kills you no matter what), but in general it's not too hard unless you're doing a boss rush. However, that's because those guys are all playable (though the CPU versions have benefits the playable versions do not, such as the aforementioned instant kill move). However, the game also has several unplayable completely ridiculous secret bosses that fulfill this trope.
** First off is [[VideoGame/TalesOfSymphonia Yggdrassil]]. His main attack, Yggdrassil Laser, hits everything in front of him for a ridiculous amount of damage, makes him invincible during the entire animation (including when he starts it), and is often spammed. He also has two uninterruptable and unblockable moves that he can bust out if you get too close. His other attacks are almost all spells, which normally require a casting time of some sort. Yggdrassil instant casts them. Did I mention that his version of Photon counts as a grab, so it can't be blocked? And that it can hit you no matter where you are on the field? Even worse, his LimitBreak can be used for a piddling amount of TP, does ''massive'' damage (about a third of the average lifebar), and the only way to avoid it depends entirely on your luck? And as a final Screw You, at low HP Yggdrassil uses a completely unstoppable attack that hits the entire screen for a decent amount of damage, which will probably kill you.
** Next is [[VideoGame/TalesOfEternia Nereid]]. She(?) has a ''ridiculous'' amount of immunity frames, namely every time she casts a spell. Oh, and almost her entire movelist is spells. Spells that she will spam like crazy, usually causing the player to literally have to wait until her AI makes her use a spell that doesn't leave you completely helpless for ten seconds. Aside from that, she is fond of casting a spell that causes rocks to shoot out of the ground in front of and behind her. These rocks can not be blocked, and during the entire animation Nereid is completely invincible. And that's not even counting her LimitBreak, which does a large chunk of damage and has a tendency to break your guard with the initial (weak) hits, allowing the final (strong) hit to rip into your HP. Finally, she also has a low HP desperation attack that hits the entire screen. Unlike Yggdrassil, though, Reid Hershel, the main character of Tales of Eternia, can counter her desperation move with an attack that instantly kills her as a reference to VideoGame/TalesOfEternia.
** And last, but not least, is the living incarnation of bullshit: [[VideoGame/TalesOfVesperia Alexei]]. This asshole spams spells that hit the entire field, such as the infamous Tidal Wave. But unlike Yggdrassil and Nereid, he's actually open for attack while casting. Or he would be, but because he's an asshole his spell guard (basically, whenever you cast a spell in {{ACS}}, your character will not flinch for a certain number of hits. This allows a caster to actually cast a spell, but also means that melee attackers can interrupt the spell if they reach the caster fast enough) is miles above other characters, with the end result being that even if you attack him for the entire period of his spell casting you can't stop the spell. But when he's not casting, Alexei is usually doing one of three things. Either he's attacking you with his ridiculously long range melee moves, using his LimitBreak, which is just as absurd as it was in VideoGame/TalesOfVesperia, or going into Overlimit 2 so he can kill you faster.
* ''[[VisualNovel/UminekoNoNakuKoroNi Ougon Musoukyoku]]'' CROSS has one of these after beating Arcade on Hard difficulty without losing a single round. In it, you get a [[BonusBoss Final Battle]] "to end the game", where you have to fight against two Black Battlers on the same team.\\
\\
As if the difficulty level isn't enough, he also gains life from damage dealt (which is usually a 100% heal), recovers life over time, takes little damage, does [[SuperStrength gigantic damage]], crushes defense within a few hits, has infinite Special Meter and auto guard (can block while attacking or even while taking damage).\\
\\
And while you need to change your character using a usually risky and highly-punishable move to activate one of your two special abilities for a short period of time, Black Battler has eight of those special abilities ALWAYS active.
* In the KatawaShoujo fan game, ''Katawavania'', after defeating Lillycula, you go up against her [[StrongerSibling older sister]] Akira. Akira can frequently FlashStep around the arena, often behind you, with little to no warning, has several attacks that are difficult to avoid (such as homing missiles and a beam rifle that can only be dodged by sliding at the precise moment it fires), and has virtually no telegraphing or pattern. The second ending indicates that the creator was not expecting many people to defeat this "unfair" boss.
[[/folder]]

* The ''Franchise/{{Disgaea}}'' series usually averts this, as with the AbsurdlyHighLevelCap most bosses are just the same as highly leveled and well equipped normal enemies; they're tough, but the follow the same "rules" as everyone else. Even some bosses where you must lose to advance the story can technically be beaten if you don't mind a NonStandardGameOver. But ''VideoGame/{{Disgaea 4}}'' gives us the DLC battle with Baal; he has the power to get a free attack on your characters from any distance ''as soon as you remove them from the base panel''. Since he's incredibly strong, this means he can literally kill your entirely party before he even gets a turn. They just die as soon as you try to use them.

** Dark Reiko Hikari by Kamek, a crazy, blisteringly fast teenage girl who also hits you with a bus, and has TWO OneHitKill moves. Voiced by [[VideoGame/{{Disgaea}} Flonne]].

** ''[[VideoGame/CapcomVsSNK2MarkOfTheMillennium Capcom vs. SNK 2]]'' has a subversion in both Shin Akuma and God/Ultimate Rugal, both of them the result of one absorbing the other's powers. Like any other SNK Boss, they're extremely difficult to beat and have overpowered super moves, but they actually follow the same rules that the player is bound by - and they're playable and balanced for human vs. human combat because they [[GlassCannon take significantly more damage when hit]]. Their difficulty comes primarily from the fact that the AI will use [[PerfectPlayAI every dirty trick in the book]] regardless of what difficulty setting is chosen.

** In ''2003'', if you manage to fulfill the condition to the true ending, you'll get to fight Chizuru and Maki Kagura as the penultimate boss. While Chizuru uses DopplegangerAttack, Maki '''''[[SpamAttack spams]]''''' it. You'll start the fight against Chizuru, but if she ever switches to Maki, good luck. That said, she has strongest command grab in KOF Boss history, She grabs you through air, knocks you down. Call Chizuru, and hit you with move that seals all your special move. Which also cuts out 35% of your health. Of course, this is not even a super. It's a normal special. She is still considered harder then Mukai because of the Ai and ridiculous invincibility frame. That is saying something.\\

* Chaos from ''DissidiaFinalFantasy'' is a great example of this trope. He attacks faster then any other character in the game by a wide margin, his attacks massively lower your Brave and increase his own, he chains his Brave attacks into his HP attacks, and while most of his Brave attacks are "melee", they send out shockwaves that exceed the size of the area where you fight him. When he uses Divine Punishment and Scarlet Rain, once he starts the attack, he becomes invincible. His Demonsdance attack chains together a massive string of bonecrushing hits, with several HP attacks ''in the combo!'' He also gets the Shinryu summon, which, unlike the player's summons, can be called as often as Chaos wants and his effect varies, because Shinryu mimics the other summons in the game! And he also has three forms, fully recovering HP each time while you're left at the amount you had. There's a catch, though: there's a flaw with his AI that makes him unable to avoid the final hit of [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII Sephiroth's]] octoslash HP attack, he'll dodge every slash except the one that actually does the HP damage, so if you feel like going slow and steady against him, you can turn even his [[HarderThanHard Inward Chaos form]] into a joke.

** Blizzard had something of a fondness for super strong units in Warcraft III. First case is in the final level of Orc campaign where you face off against Chaos Orcs - essentially your own units with far more impressive stats, and a unique damage type that does full damage to ''everything''. The final level of the Night Elf campaign pits you against an Undead enemy that cannot be conquered and fields units that players normally cannot control, in escalating numbers. Among them are [[{{Golem}} Infernals]], which are immune to magic and deal damage to all nearby units every second, and Doom Guards, which while weaker then Infernals are still stronger then any ground units you can field. The computer will also send hero units with some unique abilities at you, most notably [[BigBad Archimonde]], who ''alone'' is capable of tearing you apart. Thankfully, he only shows up in the last couple of minutes and your task is to merely ''delay'' him. Incredible stats, unstoppable skills, and Divine armor (only vulnerable to an attack type normally found in high level creeps). In the unlikely event you can kill him once, he has an item that revives him with full health and mana.
*** This was kind of the trend after Warcraft 3: Reign of Chaos, where the campaigns would always end in some overly powerful boss that was a modified unit. Not surprisingly, this eventually gave way to WoW, whose MMORPG style basically makes this mandatory for it's Raid Bosses.
** The original campaign in ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}: DawnOfWar'' had you fight a Deamon Prince at the end, who was way stronger then even the game's unique super units. Even when he finally becomes a usable unit in later games, his damage got nerfed from the unholy damage [[spoiler: Sindri]] will wage.

*** Dark Crusade and it's sequel Soulstorm both had this whenever you attacked a stronghold. While you had caps on many units limiting their deployment, no such exist for the enemy. In the assault on Victory Bay, expect to face no less than 4 Leman Russes and at least 2 Baneblades, the former of which can and will be rebuilt until the enemy is dead (normally, you're only allowed 2 russes and 1 baneblade). Stronghold missions also often give Honor Guard Units to the AI in ways you can never dream of, such as entire squads of Daemonkin Obliterator, or Honor Guard Predators.

* Lord Bloodcrown, the FinalBoss of ''VideoGame/ClashOfHeroes''. He has double the hit points of any other boss in the game, attacks solely in devastating charged attacks (the charge spheres of which will intercept any but the most powerful attack, save for a small window between them) and he's stationary, meaning about a quarter of your playing field is useless). Not to mention you're forced to fight him with Nadia, who is likely to not even at the Level Cap when you face him and who's special attack [[UnpredictableResults is random]], turning him more of a LuckBasedMission than a BossFight.

* Nightmare Cat, from ''Azumanga Fighter'' (a doujin FightingGame based on ''Manga/AzumangaDaioh''), is a permanently Burst Moded version of Kamineko. Now bear in mind that Burst Mode normally has to be triggered manually by filling all 5 bars of the special gauge, AND being at low health, but that gains access to that specific character's ultimate move, and having infinite uses of the super moves. Kamineko is one of the more annoying (but balanced) characters due to its height (it's a cat, as opposed to the rest of high school aged cast), however Nightmare Cat fires off super moves rapid fire, and uses its short height to it's advantage, ensuring you can barely land a hit. Fortunately, [[HopelessBossFight win or lose you progress to the next battle anyway]].

* In the KatawaShoujo fan game, ''Katawavania'', after defeating Lillycula, you go up against her [[StrongerSibling older sister]] Akira. Akira can frequently FlashStep around the arena, often behind you, with little to no warning, has several attacks that are difficult to avoid (such as homing missiles and a beam rifle that can only be dodged by sliding at the precise moment it fires), and has virtually no telegraphing or pattern. The second ending indicates that the creator was not expecting many people to defeat this "unfair" boss.

** His incarnation in ''VideoGame/DisgaeaDimension2'' is even worse. He stats are so insane it requires the abuse of mechanics to max out the game's stationary attack bonus to do any real damage to him, he's never resets, so as they fight goes on his attacks do more and more damage, along with now possess an Evility throughout the fight that grants him immunity to any skills used on him after the first time, plus his Evility from ''Disgaea 4'', and after taking damage, he'll switch to other evilities, the last one which destroys your base panel. Thankfully, his immunity to skills resets everytime he changes evilities.

* ''VideoGame/MagicalGirlLyricalNanohaAsPortable: The Gears of Destiny'' has [[Moe Unbreakable]] [[BadassAdorable Dark]] in her FinalBoss form. Her attacks has ridiculous priority and does serious damage, her melee attacks has more reach than most of your characters, her ranged attacks cover a wide area, both her melee and ranged counters hit fast and hard, and unlike the player, her ManaMeter isn't drained by dashing or casting spells. The first round is particularly brutal as her game-best defense is augmented by a Super Armor that grants her a ManaShield and makes her ImmuneToFlinching while it's up, giving the player a sudden and overwhelming urge to introduce their PSP to the floor the hard way. The second round is a bit easier since it starts off with U-D without the Super Armor, but once you get rid of her life bar, [[TurnsRed she replenishes her health to full and gets her Super Armor back with two mana bars to blast through this time]], and she's effectively invulnerable for several seconds due to being in [[SuperMode Full Drive mode]]. However, the game shows some mercy at this point, as she has [[GlassCannon paper-thin defenses]] on this part of the round so the player could take her down before the timer runs out.

* A recent update for the free-to-play ''Tekken Revolution'' added a special version of True Ogre that can be fought in Arcade Mode, known as Gold Ogre. This version of True Ogre has had its AI buffed and its moveset modified to make it more boss-like. The computer will read your inputs and counter with the exact move necessary to counter it, which is usually its extremely damaging Invincible Move, now made faster than the regular version of Ogre and also safer when blocked. It can also teleport during a juggle like Azazel and appear on the other side of the screen to ram into you or breathe fire at you.

* In ''Aquapazza'', the final boss is Ma-ryan and a main character of her choice depending on who your main character is. In addition to her normal partner attacks, she has [[SecretAIMoves Super Move variants of those attacks]] that she can unleash at any time. Her partner is an emotionless shadow clone of one of the main characters and doesn't experience any fluctuations in strength during the match like your character does. Finally, if she winds up on the losing end of a beatdown that would otherwise decide the match, she can ''rewind time'' to recharge her main fighter's health to 50% to delay/deny your victory.

* ''[[VideoGame/AsuraSeries Asura Blade]]'' has the sub-boss, Curfue. The best way to describe him is Cable on massive steroids and crack. He's got a laser rifle, grenades, a combat knife and at least two sidearms, and he uses them all to horrifically great effect. On you. A typical battle with Curfue is not unlike playing DoDonPachi - there's so many lasers, bullets and apocalyptic explosions rocking the screen and turning you to ash, you have trouble figuring out what's going on. As if the chaos wasn't enough, Curfue's most damaging move must be blocked low or it'll wipe you out, and he's got a massively damaging close range grab that can take off nearly half your health. And he can use his super attack in midair, too, which is bad since it has no startup and comes out of nowhere.