Curb Stomp Battle / Video Games

Curb-Stomp Battle in Video Games.

See also: Flawless Victory and Boss-Arena Idiocy.

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A

• Ace Combat 04: Shattered Skies has quite a few battles like this early on in lore, such as the destruction of the "Invincible" Aegir Fleet in harbor. It seems that ISAF was rather good at choosing its counterattacks against Erusea, both for tactical and strategic reasons — namely, keeping morale up while still influencing the overall outcome of the war.
• In AdventureQuest Worlds, your hero and Zhoom spend half of the Sandsea saga finding a Djinn that can help them defeat Tibicenas, the Chaos Lord of that particular storyline. But when the heroes face Tibicenas in the Djinn Realm and the Djinn in question, Saahir, steps forward to throw down with him? Saahir doesn't even last five seconds.
• Age of Empires, oh man. If done it right, you can create a massive curbstomp battle. Watch an army of archers destroying a oncoming attack of swordsmen just because they're behind a wall. Some units in the series can do massive damage without effort at all, like the Persian War Elephants from the second game (except against anti-cavalry units).
• Most of the battle scenarios generated in AI Dungeon 2 tend to be this. Since the game lacks a proper stats system, either player ends up completely annihilating the enemy in one command or they don't even get a chance to type in a second command.
• Alien: Isolation:
  • Any encounter between the Xenomorph and human survivors ends with the implacable monster laughing off their firepower and ripping through them like paper. Deliberately luring the thing to them is a cruel, but legitimate tactic. Of course, if you're stupid or desperate enough to try and fight the thing yourself, you'll get your own taste of this trope.
  • Working Joes vs. human survivors tend to end very badly for the humans as well.
  • In Chapter 12, a Working Joe tries to accost Samuels. Unfortunately for it, Samuels is a much more advanced Weyland-Yutani synthetic. The ensuing trashing is a rather better advertisement for Weyland-Yutani androids than any marketing initiative. It's implied that the various Working Joes you find strewn around that have been dismembered are his doing.
• ANNO: Mutationem:
  • In Ann's first confrontation against Absalom, his power overwhelms her after a high-speed Criss-Cross Attack. Then, when Ann awakens her Super Mode, she instantly defeats Absalom in quick-succession, forcing him into a tactical retreat.
  • At the Ship Level, when Ann has another encounter with Silly Swine, she immediately delivers a beatdown that cumulates with him being tossed out the window.
• The first round of the Tournament mode in Arc Style: Baseball!! 3D is so easy that you will most likely beat them 20-0 or so in your first playthrough. It also happens if you play as the Arc Stars against the CPU, unless it chooses the Arc Stars as well.
• When you're new to ARK: Survival Evolved, it's not unusual to have your first death fairly quickly until you realized just how deadly the world is for those who go off wandering unprepared. If you manage to avoid the spitting dinosaurs and the piranha, your first death is likely when - out of nowhere from 50 feet away - a velociraptor leaps on top of you and proceeds to disembowel you as you watch, helpless. Welcome to the Ark, newb!
• One of the trailers for Assassin's Creed III shows a battle during The American Revolution, which seems to be a Curb-Stomp Battle for the redcoats (led by a Templar). Then Connor shows up, "borrows" a horse, gets it shot out from under him, hides behind some rocks as another volley of musket balls head his way, runs out while the troops are reloading, jumps into the ranks, and the slaughter starts. Even the elite Highlanders can't stop him. The fleeing Americans see the commotion and charge back into the fray, helping Connor with some well-placed cannon fire. Connor kills the Templar general, hitting him with an arrow and then finishing him off with a tomahawk, and disappears. The British are in utter disarray and are quickly routed.

B

• In Baldur's Gate II, battles involving Jon Irenicus can be summed up by whether or not the main character is fighting against him during the battle. If not, well...
• One of the coolest parts of Bangai-O is that most of the boss battles can be turned into this (for the best results, go ahead and fight Sabu). On the flipside, the harder bosses can do the same for players that aren't used to fighting them.
• In Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean, your party comes up against the Empire stooge Fadroh. Who curbstomps whom depends upon whether or not Fadroh buffs himself up with the Orb of Magical Offense, which makes him obscenely powerful.
• Beat Hazard gives you an achievement for destroying a boss ship before it can even fire its guns.
• Binary Domain: The final stretch of the game up to the Amada AI and the Final Battle. At this point, Dan is a textbook example of Lightning Bruiser, is carrying a weapon that has been upgraded to the point that it is less of an assault rifle and more of a hyper-accurate light machine gun, has three other badasses with him that are similarly equipped, and (although it has no effect on gameplay) is in the midst of an Unstoppable Rage. Dozens of robots stand between you and your goal. The poor bastards don't stand a chance. It's entirely possible to get through the entire section without being taken down and staying far enough ahead of your AI teammates that you essentially annihilate the entire force singlehandedly.
• BioShock:
  • Early encounters with Big Daddies end in one of two ways: running for your life, or getting thrown across the room into the wall and drilled to death. Taking one on early in the game is essentially impossible. But the game will definitely let you try... with hilarious results.
  • Andrew Ryan initiates sort of a forced, suicidal Curb-Stomp Battle with a golf club of all things by uttering that fun little hypnotic phrase...
• BlazBlue:
  • This seems to happen a lot to poor ol' Ragna against Hazama/Terumi. Every single time he goes against him in the story, he almost always ends up sliced up and on the ground. Even multiple characters warn Ragna not to face Terumi, as he can win effortlessly against him according to the story.^note For context, Terumi feeds on hatred, and Ragna's intense hatred for him will just make Terumi stronger. Also, when Ragna activates his Azure Grimoire/is in Unlimited mode (which is pretty much BlazBlue's idea of God mode), Terumi also has his own Blazblue as he creates it, and he can shut down Ragna's own, depriving him from his power source. Even if you play the Arcade mode as Ragna and beat Hazama at the end, perfect him, AND Astral Finish him, the following cutscene just has him thanking you for the "warm up". The worst part? Hazama himself has an Unlimited mode, made even stronger with his Nox Nyctores, Ouroboros. Unusually for this trope, this is actually justified to an extent as Hazama is the Bleu Grimoire, which disables the Azure Grimoire's effects.
  • The Score Attack mode can be seen as kind of a mode where the AI gets revenge on you for beating up their Very Easy, Easy, and Normal difficulty selves. In Score Attack, all the characters you fight have a difficulty setting higher than what Very Hard mode is. The AI has insane reflexes, can pull off combos no human can do, and will literally read your button inputs and do a move of their own to counter you. Put simply: If you're still playing on Normal/Hard difficulty, you will be curbstomped by the AI. Not to mention that the last four characters you have to face are Unlimited versions of Hakumen, Hazama, Ragna, and Rachel. Or in case of Extend, all of your opponents are Unlimited characters.
    
    Although you may be happy to hear that this gets turned on Hazama in the Wheel of Fortune Drama CD. An extremely pissed Haku-men at 15% of this power appears and takes him on. Even with the help of Ignis, Hazama is still left crying out for help by the end of it.
  • If you're playing story mode and your character encounters Relius Clover by themselves, chances are you're not coming out of it okay unless your character's one of the Six Heroes, Valkenhayn in particular.
  • In Chronophantasma, newcomer Kagura makes a complete joke out of Ragna, though Ragna was handicapped at the time.
    Ragna: Guah!
    Kagura: C'mon, Ragna the Bloodedge. Just tell me the truth, you gave yourself the Grim Reaper nickname, right?
    Ragna: Don't underestimate me, prick.
    Kagura: I've clearly overestimated you. This is going to ruin my day.
  • Speaking of Kagura, when Arakune tries to eat Noel, Ragna topples the door to Noel's room despite Celica's presence, Makoto and Celica pull Noel from its grasp, and Kagura draws it out into the hall, absolutely and uncharacteristically livid, whereupon he utterly owns the Blob Monster, forcing a hasty retreat to save its own life. To show just how screwed Arakune is, not only does Kagura paste it on his own, but even if he had trouble, Ragna and Makoto would be more than willing to join in on the fun if it came down to it. Coupled with Celica scrambling the seithr that composes its "body", the fight could only end one way.
  • Azrael makes every fight he gets into one of these, and that's when he's holding back. Pretty much every fight in Arcade or Story Mode involving him, even if you're playing against him, ends with him casually cracking his neck while the opponent is desperately trying to find a way to escape, such as Bullet. Even the likes of Hakumen, Kagura, and Ragna consider him a monster. In fact, the only times he's ever been "beaten" were due to outside interference, usually by the hand of Kokonoe.
  • By the end of Chrono Phantasma, Ragna Took a Level in Badass by inflicting this to Nu, without his Azure Grimoire, and this trend continues in Central Fiction. He utterly wrecks most of the game's cast singlehandedly, even an amped-up Nu-13 and Hakumen though these are in part due to the Embryo weakening the Entitled. He also gets on the receiving end of this trope by the hands of Nine and Susano'o in both of their first fight however.
• The Temple of the Monkey God in the Bloons Tower Defense series can dish these out in a heart beat, especially when maxed sacrifices are given to it. In fact, it's well known for its power and awesomeness.
• In Bravely Default's late game, you can obtain an ability that gives you an instant win on any random encounter if your party is 20 levels above the enemy party. You don't have to do anything, just wait for the Fight Woosh, and before anyone gets a turn, the enemies die and you get full rewards for the battle.
• In the game Breakdown, when Derrick Cole first encounters Solus in a pitched battle, Solus is vastly more powerful than him, and Failure Is the Only Option. However, it's pretty much All Just a Dream, and when he meets Solus again, it's a more or less even battle.
• Several times in the Breath of Fire series, the more memorable being:
  • Pretty much any battle where you summon Agni in Breath of Fire will always becomes this, like for example the one against Tyr. As Agni, the player's attack does the max allowed damage, while Tyr does pretty much negligible damage. Add that this dragon form merges the whole party into one being, and the whole battle is reduced to hit the attack button repeatedly, healing with items that one time you may get low on health. He isn't called "The Ultimate Power" for nothing.
  • Getting into a fight with any of the Boss in Mook Clothing in any game with a low-leveled party is practically this. Most notable against Berserker and ArchMage in Breath of Fire III; the former will slaughter anything with his basic melee attack, while the latter will not be happy with just curb-stomping you, but will resurrect the party just to keep doing it ad-infinitum.
  • Breath of Fire IV:
    • After a Hopeless Boss Fight, Ryu awakens a new dragon form, goes berserk, and vaporizes the boss in two rounds at the end of the second act.
    • The Bad End final boss, you as the Infini Dragon vs. your former party. The character in question has full-life regeneration each round and a technique that reduces the target's HP to 1.
    • Anything that crosses Fou-lu's path is also asking for a magnificent curb-stomping. He's not the God Emperor for nothing.

C

• Chrono Trigger:
  • The first game:
    • This can easily happen if you go to Lavos too early.
    • You're supposed to lose the first fight with the Golem.
    • The fight with Lavos in the Ocean Palace (which has triple the stats of the normal Lavos to ensure that you lose).
    • Of course, if you are on a New Game Plus and have done a lot of Level Grinding, most of the game is your party dealing everyone else a Curb-Stomp Battle.
    • If you go through the game proper (or through New Game Plus) and reach the very first part of the final battle—Lavos's other shell—you fight impressions of nine of the game's bosses that have the same stats as the originals. It would take a lot of effort to lose to most of those fights.
  • Chrono Cross continues it when you're Fighting Your Friends as Lynx. Similar to the New Game Plus for Chrono Trigger, this can be flipped the other way and result in a glitchy cutscene where you're stabbed by a dead enemy.
• In City of Heroes, it is possible, even easy, to make a character that can do this to huge amounts of enemies, even Archvillains (though that can be more time-consuming to put together). A more apt example occurs in the first mission of Mender Ramiel's story arc. Ramiel hands you a crystal and tells you to observe your future self. The mission is populated by a swath of high-powered echoes of various Hero- and Archvillain class enemies, at full power, any one of them easily a match for a team of players. They never stand a chance (unless you get hit with the bug wherein your Incarnate powers take a minute to activate when you enter the mission. Then it gets reversed back on you). Amusingly enough, if you have a power set that allows you to summon an immobile pet, such as an Acid Mortar, summoning it in this mission will also grant it the awesome powers of a godlike Incarnate, complete with an immunity to its built-in immobilization, and capped run speed.
• Civilization games are likely (but not guaranteed) to become this if you have enough of a technological advantage over your opponent, like their crossbowmen against your giant death robot. Civ V has an achievement ("It's Super Effective") for destroying an enemy in one hit.
• Command & Conquer:
  • In a cutscene in Command & Conquer: Generals a battalion of US Crusader tanks face off against GLA Scorpion tanks, which results in all the GLA tanks getting obliterated while the US tanks suffer 0 casualties. Then another column of GLA tanks comes in, only to be bombarded by Raptors. This is actually based off a real life example where a handful of US Abrams tanks were squaring off against Iraqi tanks in the Gulf War with a similar result.
  • Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3: When the Shogun Executioner turns up at Odessa, the Soviet Garrison has a very, very bad day.
• Creepy Castle:
  • The battle against the possessed Darking doesn't go too well for Moth.
  • The Zylindarr's alien colonization of Dopterra that was attempted thousands of years ago pretty much ended when they fought the planet's protector. One of them describes it as a creature that doesn't die.
• Crusader Kings II: Usually the result if a tribal chief's army fights a similarly sized feudal state's army. Feudals, as well as merchant republics and nomads, are wealthier and produce better-quality troops, and light infantry-heavy tribal armies typically can't beat them without at least a two-to-one numerical advantage or a significant defensive terrain advantage.

D

• Dark Souls, oh so much. It's entirely possible for a new player to strut into the Asylum Demon's arena completely unaware of the fate that awaits him, due to the fact that the only enemies they have fought up to that point were squishy hollows. And that's just the tutorial.
• Take the fortification and weapons techs as soon as they become available in Dawn of Man and put effort into building your walls and every battle with attacking raiders turns into one of these for the player.
• In Descent: FreeSpace, almost every appearance of the enemy command ship Lucifer leads to a Curb-Stomp Battle. The most powerful human-built warships in existence, including the ship the player is based on, the GTD Galatea, get ripped to shreds in about five seconds whenever they try to make a stand against the Lucifer.
• The tutorial boss in Demon's Souls is designed to kill you in one hit. If an experienced player manages to beat him against all odds, a huge dragon (one of the final bosses) will punch the main character to death in a cutscene.
• Deus Ex: Human Revolution:
  • A Good Bad Bug can be exploited, allowing Namir can be defeated with a single well-timed punch.
  • And the level after that. Adam Jensen, about as upgraded as he's going to be, versus dozens of hallucinating and unarmed but augmented people in close quarters. Depending on how you're playing the game, carnage or an incredible (possibly nonlethal) beatdown ensues.
• Devil May Cry:
  • Dante's enemies are all Curb Stomp Battles waiting to happen. At least until he fights Urizen at which point Dante is the one on the receiving end of this trope.
  • If you take the time to get good with the Royal Guard style in Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening, pretty much any battle can become this. Case in point: Watch this one player just annihilate Cerberus, Igni and Rudra, and Beowulf. It's like watching some scrawny nerds try to punch out The Terminator.
• Diablo 3: Just like the Doom Slayer, The Nephalem inflicts this to the forces of Hell.
• Disgaea:
  • In Disgaea: Hour of Darkness, the World, defended only by Laharl and his handful of companions, gets besieged by a fleet of millions of human battleships. The bulk of the battle is Laharl destroying all but the capital ship, alone, in a matter of minutes.
  • In Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories, you have to face the previous installment's Laharl as a boss. The fight is a Hopeless Boss Fight which can be won for a Non-Standard Game Over, and must be lost to progress the story. Should you lose to him as intended (as you likely won't have the quadruple digit levels to handle him on your first playthrough), you'll suddenly take control of Rozalin, who just goes One-Winged Angel and gains power well beyond what you can use during the game proper. You then get the chance to, fairly effortlessly, defeat Laharl. Unless you try to lose, Laharl can't handle your sudden jump in stats and is just demolished. If you want this fight reversed, wait until the worst possible ending, where it's you versus Rozalin aka Overlord Zenon.
  • In Disgaea 5: Alliance of Vengeance, you get to control Killia on one map where he permanently has his Overload active. The first time this happens is against mooks you can liberally mop the floor with. The second time it happens it's a much more heroic example against the stage boss.
• Disney Heroes: Battle Mode: If any of these heroes are on your team and fully upgraded, you'll likely score a number of easy victories. (Unless the enemy has someone who can freeze, stun, charm, or hex them. Or, even worse, reflect the damage back at them!)
  • Zeus does a LOT of damage with his attacks and equipping him with the Hades friendship disc makes him use his most powerful attack at the start of the fight.
  • There's also Shego, who can not only one-shot an opponent with her energy ball attack, but has a team-killing plasma blast attack that she can use when she reaches full energy.
  • Mulan is another potential team-killer, as her artillery barrage attack does a great deal of damage and she tends to gain energy (needed to use it) pretty easily. She also starts every fight by launching a mortar at the furthest enemy.
  • Cheshire Cat can one-shot an enemy with his head toss skill (which he WILL use against any enemies who turn invisible), and does a lot of damage to the enemy team with his head stand move as well.
• If you win against your opponent four rounds in a row in Divekick, a message appears that says "Fraud Detection Warning". Win the next round, and that message then turns into "Fraud Detected".
• The "No Bullet" mode in DoDonpachi DaiOuJou has you delivering this to the enemies. After hours of torment in an absurdly hard game even by Shoot 'Em Up standards, it is satisfying to turn the tables and mop down waves of Mooks with Bullet Hells.
• In Doom, the final weapon, the BFG 9000, deals 3150 average damage (and, due to 601 dice rolls being done, very little deviation from that). The Spider Mastermind, in comparison, has 3000 health. This means the final boss of Doom can be slaughtered in one shot with a weapon you find on the third map of the third episode (keep in mind there are nine maps, the ninth's secret, and it's on every map afterwards save the eighth).
• In Doom (2016), the Slayer's Testaments reveal that the Doomguy did this in Hell for so long that Hell itself became afraid of him. The demons dubbed him "the Doom Slayer", and rather than try to fight him, they eventually had to trap him by bringing down an entire temple on top of him and sealing him in suspended animation inside a sarcophagus with warning signs telling no one to ever open the prison lest he escape and wreak havoc on them again.
• In Dra+Koi, the dragon first absolutely flattens the military, and then gets the crap kicked out of it by the armored knight right at the beginning. This repeats a few times until the end, when the true climactic fight takes place.
• Dragon Age:
  • Certain parts of Dragon Age: Origins pit you against "Grunt" versions of the Darkspawn you have been fighting throughout the game. Unless you haven't been improving your characters' stats at all during the entire game for some reason, everyone in your party will be able to kill them with one hit. Actually, by that point in the game, any enemy that isn't "Elite" or "Boss" rank will probably be utterly trivial to defeat. The reason for this is, the Darkspawn are called "The Darkspawn Horde" for a reason. They have simply massive numbers, and killing a few dozen is a trivial victory when they have tens of thousands. They can outnumber you, to the point where you start getting tired, start running out of poultices/healing spells, and/or the healer can get ganged up on, if there are simply too many darkspawn around you. That's the whole tactic; they have an army. You only have a few heroes and a few guards to fight them with. Most of the guards die, leaving just your heroes against their army, a few of their elites, and a huge freaking dragon.
  • In Dragon Age: Origins, fairly early in the game, you can choose to stand up to the evil mother of one of your companions. The companion may not have mentioned that her mom is an ancient evil who's current favorite combat form is a fairly large RED DRAGON. What follows is usually a very humbling (and rapid) beat-down. You CAN beat her, but it usually will take you several game loads and a lot of luck.
  • This pretty much describes every fight in what The Warden is involved. The Circle Mage mission? all the enemies ends dead. The Carta's one? the sequels mention that the Orzammar's Carta was decimated.
  • By the time you finish Dragon Age: Inquisition, you'll notice that Corypheus never achieved better than a Pyrrhic victory against the Inquisitor.
• Dragon Quest:
  • Dragon Quest V: Pankraz deals this to any monsters that come in your way, including the Big Bad's goons. It's definitely warranted considering how you weak you are as a child. When he's forced to be beaten to death for the sake of your life, it takes a long time for Ladja's minions to get his HP to zero, highlighting just how much stronger he is compared to them.
  • Dragon Quest VI has an interesting example in your favor. If you can defeat the Superboss in twenty turns or less, said superboss will One-Hit Kill the Final Boss for you!
  • In Dragon Quest IX, once your main character collects 7 Fyggs, there is a brief battle with your superior, if you can call "you literally can't even draw your sword, while he beats you to a pulp" a battle. This overlaps with Hopeless Boss Fight. Although in this case, it is clearly justified since Celestrians must obey and cannot attack their superiors.

E

• The Elder Scrolls:
  • In the series' backstory, Tiber Septim delivered one to the Altmer (High Elves). After receiving the Dwemer-crafted Numdium in tribute from the Dunmer as part of Morrowind becoming a Voluntary Vassal to Septim's Empire, Septim used it to great effect when capturing the Altmeri capital of Alinor. The Altmer army was crushed and their capital city was sacked in less than an hour of fighting, bringing the Altmer under the rule of men by conquest for the first time in history. This only exacerbated their hatred of humanity and, when the opportunity arose following the Oblivion Crisis, they struck back hard under the leadership of the Thalmor.
  • Also from the backstory, the Khajiit and Bosmer (Wood Elves) got into a border dispute which quickly escalated into the Five Years War. While the Bosmer won an initial battle (when the Khajiit got poor counsel from their Nord advisors, who utilize a very different style of warfare), the Khajiit absolutely manhandled the Bosmer after that, claiming some of their territory and even raiding deep into Valenwood. It took the Bosmer invoking the Wild Hunt to finally stop the Khajiit attacks.
  • During their 2nd Era invasion of Tamriel, the Kamal (a race of Akaviri "Snow Demons") led by Ada'Soom Dir-Kamal both delivered one of these and were on the receiving end of one. To note:
    • Dealt one out in the siege of Windhelm immediately after arriving in Tamriel, sacking the city before it could even rally its defenses.
    • Were the victim of one in their final battle in Tamriel. His forces held the line against the Nords and Dunmer initially, but were finally broken when the Argonians arrived. They were driven into the sea and died by the thousands, Ada'Soom included.
  • During the 1st Era, the Nordic Empire, led by the Tongues (masters of the Thu'um), was expanding rapidly out of Skyrim. Their armies invaded deep in Morrowind, slaughtering both the Chimer (ancestors of the Dunmer) and Dwemer. The leaders of these long time enemy races, Lord Indoril Nerevar and Dumac Dwarfking, agreed to form an Enemy Mine. Their combined forces met at the base of Red Mountain, where the Chimer/Dwemer alliance annihilated the Nord army, a truly shocking defeat in this history of the Proud Warrior Race Nords. The most powerful of the Tongues, Jurgen Windcaller, survived but fell into Heroic BSoD despair. Despite the advantage conferred by the Thu'um, the Nord army was soundly crushed. Windcaller reflected on the defeat and came to the conclusion that it was a punishment from the gods for misusing the Thu'um. He would use the defeat as inspiration to discover the Way of the Voice and found the Greybeards, a monastic order who espouse nonintervention and pacifism, and only use the Voice to honor the gods. The aftereffects of this battle can still be felt in the plots of both Morrowind and Skyrim.
  • Skyrim:
    • A Good Bad Bug allows an infinite loop to power up the capabilities of alchemy and enchanting, allowing equipment to be pumped up to ridiculous levels. While wearing these super-clothes, a single punch can deal out over one billion HP of damage.
    • Sometimes you'll have a dragon attack the College of Winterhold. The end result is nearly always this, with the dragon on the receiving end.
    • It is possible for the player to rush through the Civil War questline, meaning the Dragonborn can decisively bring the Civil War which has been raging in Skyrim previously to a close (for either side) in a matter of days. Not surprising as they are a Physical God.
• Angering the Sufficiently Advanced Aliens in Endless Sky is a bad idea, since they can one-shot just about anything you send at them. Well, unless you have a Zerg Rush of heavy warships at the ready...
• Epic Battle Fantasy 5: The first encounter with Lance has him unavoidably running over Matt, NoLegs, and Natalie with the Neon Valkyrie, knocking all of them out and kidnapping the latter. It happens in a "battle," but it plays out more like a cutscene.
• In EVE Online, the Amarr Empire was extremely powerful and held a huge amount of territory, and became so arrogant that they attacked the reclusive trans-human Jove. They got utterly and completely crushed.
• In Everquest and other MMORPGs, the nature of the persistent world and the constantly escalating power curve of players and equipment means that formerly top-end raid zones become fodder for the more powerful and experienced players. It gets to the point where you can go One-Man Army on entire armies and old world gods such as Cazic Thule, Innoruuk, Tunare, etc.
• In Evolve these can show up quite a bit.
  • Story-wise, the monsters do this to Ebonstar, ripping through their automated defenses, demolishing their heavy equipment, and reducing their numbers to a few stragglers.
  • Gameplay-wise, a team of hunters that doesn't coordinate or splits up will be easily picked of by the monster, or even the normal wildlife. Conversely, if the monster player is unused to evading the hunters or using the monster character, the hunters will easily catch and kill it.

F

• Fallout:
  • Fallout 2's final battle can happen in a number of ways. The most curb-stompish involves the main character turning all the base's defenses against the boss, then engaging him along with his party. The boss will find himself against several hard-hitting turrets (who might even kill him all by themselves with enough lucky rolls), the party's guns, and the player's own. He usually dies without even causing enough damage to require stimpaks.
  • The final battle of Fallout 3. On one side, we have the Enclave with an advantage in numbers and equipment. On the other side, we have the Brotherhood of Steel, having an advantage in training. Now this will be a lively bat- oh wait, the Brotherhood has a 200-year old, radically anti-communist Humongous Mecha, which also conveniently believes that the Enclave are communists.
  • Fallout: New Vegas:
    • Fallout: New Vegas starts you off in the small town of Goodsprings, and you're informed that your main quest requires you to find a guy in New Vegas...which is only a little way to the North. Hey, easy trip, right? Sure is partner, unless you count our friend the Cazador...a lovely little wasp the size of an eagle that moves extremely fast, is armored much better than you are, and has a deadly venom that will kill you in one shot. Oh...and they attack in swarms. Turns out, the long way to New Vegas is a bit of a better option.
    • If the Courier manages to recruit all of the minor factions to their cause (only possible in the NCR or Wild Card endings) and fortify all NCR positions, the final battle against the Legion becomes this. The default NCR and Legion forces present are roughly evenly matched, with a slight advantage towards the NCR, but recruiting all the major factions also throws in Brotherhood of Steel Paladins, a heliborne squad of Enclave remnants, your own companion(s), a group of Khan raiders, and Boomer air support to buttress the NCR's ranks. The result is a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown upon the Legion when your allies rush in for one Big Damn Heroes moment after another.
      
      As a bonus, you'll also get ending slides and radio broadcasts indicating that the Legion not only attacked the dam, but made a general offensive along with their allies throughout the whole region. Assuming you did the above, the results are... one-sided. The Fiends attack the NCR main base at Camp Mccarran and are quickly defeated; the Omertas are butchered by the Securitrons when they make their coup attempt on the Strip; the Legion raids Novac but are foiled by a three-man local militia of former NCR troops and a little help from the Bright Brotherhood; the Legion attacks Camp Golf and is beaten off with few casualties thanks to the actions of the Misfits and Rangers; and finally, the Legion launches a massive attack on Camp Forlorn Hope, which ended when the NCR soldiers "repelled the Legion in what will surely be the most decisive victory in this entire battle."
    • If you follow House's path, then the upgraded Securitrons proceed to curbstomp the Legion at the Fort. Heavily armoured robots toting rocket launchers, grenade throwers, Gatling lasers, and machine guns versus hundreds of squishy legionaries. You barely even see the curb-stomp, but the burning Fort in the background followed by an unscathed army of Securitrons suddenly appearing at the Legate's camp says enough.
    • Boone's personal quest involves stopping an entire Legion Raiding Party's attempt to attack a small NCR garrison containing civilians. The swiftness with which Boone and the Courier turned the tables is mentioned in the news by Mr. New Vegas.
      Mr. New Vegas: According to one witness, "God sent us two angels, and at least one of them had a .308 caliber flaming sword of justice with a telescopic sight."
    • In Honest Hearts, if you want to let the final boss die with dignity, he'll gear himself up and charge you with his tribe. He's tough, sure, but you have Joshua Graham on your side. You can literally just stay back and watch him massacre the entire tribe on his own.
  • Fallout 4:
    • The Commonwealth Minutemen got the taste of one in the Quincy Massacre, where they were betrayed from within and led into a killzone by the Gunners. Only a single Minuteman survived: Preston Garvey, and he (along with the settlers he's charged with protecting) have been on the run ever since. However, if you help them rebuild, they can end up inflicting one on the Brotherhood of Steel, with the help of some Pre-War heavy artillery. And that's only after they smack down the Institute.
    • Speaking of the Brotherhood of Steel, if you go for their ending, it turns out they've rebuilt Liberty Prime in the 10 years since his destruction in Broken Steel, and against the Institute's Synths, they fare even worse than the Enclave did against the big guy back in 3. At one point on his way to destroy the Institute, Liberty Prime encounters a Super Mutant Behemoth (which would be a tough fight for your character normally) and just picks the abomination up with one hand, snaps its neck with his thumb, and casually tosses it aside like trash. He then blasts open the entrance to the Institute's base. Following that, squads of Brotherhood Knights and Paladins pour in and absolutely demolish the remaining Institute synths and defenses; it's very unlikely for them to sustain so much as a single casualty during the whole affair. Then they blow up the base. It's rather atypical for a Final Battle in that, unlike the other three endings, not much preparation is needed to achieve it, nor do you need to accomplish infiltration and subterfuge. The Brotherhood of Steel just kicks down the door and beats the shit out of them, and it's made clear from the outset that the Institute stands absolutely no chance. Their only trouble was finding the Institute.
    • Additionally, there's the Institute's ending, which involves the Sole Survivor leading a massive army of Synths against Boston Airport, storming the Brotherhood's base, and reprogramming Liberty Prime to destroy the Prydwen. Needless to say, the Brotherhood gets smacked down just as hard as the Enclave did a decade ago. This is entirely down to the player's intervention though - the Institute is otherwise helpless and even in that mission your synth allies die like lemmings.
    • Though characters don't comment on it, the Battle of Bunker Hill can potentially be this for the Railroad, as the Railroad's Heavies tend to be armed with Gauss Rifles and Railway Rifles (which can punch through Powered Armor with no trouble), while their armoured coats tend to have sufficient energy protection to withstand the Brotherhood's laser weaponry.
• Kuzuki vs. Saber in Fate/stay night is a crushing defeat for Saber, who has no idea what is going on while being effortlessly pummeled and having her neck ripped apart before being slammed into a wall at about 120 miles an hour. A little later in the route, Berserker is utterly crushed by Gilgamesh, though it's noted that if he had managed to close the gap between them, he would have won instantly. He almost does manage to do it except Gilgamesh cheats and has Enkidu, chains for snaring divine opponents such as Berserker, Lancer, and even Rider (both Medusa and Iskander).
• Final Fantasy:
  • Final Fantasy II starts with one immediately. Get your teeth kicked in by end-game enemies. It will be a long, long time before you can claim revenge; even then it will be hard fought.
  • Final Fantasy IV has the battle between Cecil and Kain early on in the story.
  • The Boss in Mook Clothing on the triangle-shaped island in Final Fantasy VI can easily be this, if you don't have Gau or don't know to use Mu/Rhodox, which simply turns the tables completely.
  • Final Fantasy VII:
    • Sephiroth is on the receiving end of a CSB at the end of the game. All he can do is attack for 95% of your remaining health (never enough to kill you), and Cloud will terminate him with a single Omnislash.
    • Any time Knights of the Round are summoned. This excerpt from a strategy guide is a very apt description of its power.
      BTB: Sometimes, killing your enemies just isn't enough. You want them more than dead. That's where Knights of the Round comes in. It should take no more than 3 of these guys to end the life of just about anything you come into contact with, but that's not enough. Ultimate End subjects your opposition to all 13 of them. It's kind of like those old Mach-3 commercials, actually. You know, with the three blades that each had separate jobs? You see, the first knight appears on the battlefield and kills everything there. The second knight then kills anything foolish enough not to be killed by the first knight. The third knight kills everything again for good measure. The fourth knight kicks the corpses around a little bit and compiles them into a large mound in the middle of the battlefield. The fifth knight sets fire to the mound and performs a strange, ritualistic naked dance around them. The sixth knight roasts some marshmallows over the fire and laughs heartily at the fifth knight. The seventh knight stares blankly at the burning bodies as he pokes and prods at them with a stick. The eighth and ninth knights begin a game of soccer using the disembodied head of one of the flaming corpses as a ball. The tenth knight douses the fire and repeatedly stomps up and down on the charred remains of your enemies. The eleventh knight scrapes up what is left with a spatula and tosses it into a trash can. The twelfth knight tosses the trash can into a compactor, reducing it to a small cube. The thirteenth knight def*** on the cube.
  • Final Fantasy VIII:
    • If you went to the trouble to get the Infinity +1 Sword, get some Aura magic, and junction Ultima to Squall's HP and Flare to Squall's Attack, Squall can actually one-shot the final boss with his most powerful Limit Break.
    • This happens in-story as the team's attempt to assassinate Edea fails miserably when she stops Irvine's bullet, and one-shots Squall with her Ice Strike.
  • Final Fantasy IX:
    • Kuja destroys a frickin' planet!
    • Any time an eidolon is summoned in FMV.
    • Whenever you face Beatrix.
  • Final Fantasy X:
    • There's the Crusaders (who are the closest thing Spira has to a formal military) fighting Sin in the Operation Mi'ihen cutscene. Hundreds of professionally trained soldiers are hitting Sin with everything they've got. Sin nonchalantly shrugs it off and wipes out 85-90% of their forces with a single attack.
    • In that same sequence, when you fight Sinspawn Gui with Seymour. His entire appearance in the fight is a pure Taste of Power, and you have to actually try to lose in order to not win.
  • In the Final Fantasy Tactics remake War of the Lions, there is a new battle where you play as Delita and are required to protect Ovelia from a Northern Sky ambush. The enemy is a Knight, Archer, and Black Mage, all level 8. You are level 25 and have special sword skills that deal high damage at long range in an instant, and an ally that can cast all status buffs in one spell. Do the math.
  • In Crisis Core, any mission labeled "Very Easy" is expected to have Zack able to crush any opposition in five hits or less.
  • In Theatrhythm Final Fantasy, if you have your party equipped with reactive spells and abilities that are triggered by a boss's appearance in the Battle Music Stage that you are playing, it can lead to a curb stomp battle where bosses can be defeated nigh-instantly and are easier to defeat than many of the mooks, funnily enough. This goes double for Theatrhythm Final Fantasy: Curtain Call, which increased the number of skills that were available and included many new and more effective ones than the ones in the first game.
• The first time you fight Boston Lobster in Food Fantasy, he waits until your team knocks him down to about half health, and then he kills the whole party with one attack.

G

• Common in Galactic Civilizations. Especially if your opponent went for multiple smaller ships, while you're rocking a Nigh-Invulnerable battleship. On a less enjoyable hand, the Dread Lords can crush pretty much any planetary population with ten men, and their constructors have more guns than most battleships.
• God of War: Know why the Greek gods don't exist anymore? The Walking Apocalypse known as Kratos. Once he gets his hands on someone, it never ends well for them.
  • The Gods vs the Titans (and Kratos) in the beginning of 3. The Titans were routed in just an hour after the game, and the Gods would have completely won the Second Titanomachy, if again, not for Kratos.
• Golden Sun:
  • There is one at the start of the first game to introduce its main antagonists, Saturos and Menardi. Even if you hack the game so that you win, they still beat you and bunny hop away.
  • It's also what happens to a lot of people the first time they go up against the Dullahan.
• Any fight against multiple enemies in any Grand Theft Auto game. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City lampshades this by having protagonist Tommy Vercetti nicknamed "The Harwood Butcher" for single-handedly slaughtering eleven men sent to kill him before the game starts.
  • Trevor Phillips delivers a literal curb-stomp to Johnny Klebitz in Grand Theft Auto V. Specifically, he throws Johnny onto the curb, smashes a bottle over his head, then stamps on it repeatedly until his face is crushed and his brain is exposed. Poor Johnny, being a washed-out meth head, can't do anything to defend himself.
• Guild Wars:
  • There is a quest where you, Koss, and one of Koss'z questionable herbalist friends gather ingredients for a "Strength Potion". After drinking it, your entire party is paralyzed and unable to attack. Just then, a tiny imp comes along and decides to start cherry tapping your party to death, making it look like you're the one who's going to get curb-stomped (much to the amusement of the herbalist). When the potion wears off and you can fight again, however... you can pretty much guess what happens to the imp.
  • Entering a low-level mission (such as the Old Ascalon missions) with one or more Level 20's in your party will most likely be a curb-stomp from start to finish.
  • Factions:
    • Shiro shows up in the Vizunah Square mission to confront your party. At this point, you're barely aware of Shiro's presence, and not at all aware of how powerful he is. He proceeds to quickly curb-stomp your party in a cutscene, then steal their souls. It's quickly undone when the Emissaries appear and return your souls with the snap of a finger.
    • A Elementalist/Mesmer with a specific build involving an Arcane Echo'd Echo'd Celestial skill can utterly return the favor. Just make sure you've got the Guardian henchman, and you'll have six Celestial Storms sitting on Shiro. His meditation cannot help him now.
• Guilty Gear: Usually any fight with Sol, as he's so much more powerful than the rest of the cast even when holding back. Turned on him awesomely in Xrd: Revelator 2's After Story when he tries to goad Nice Guy Ky by insulting his wife Dizzy and calling her a monster: the result is a thorough pummelling which leaves Sol lying genuinely defeated on his back in a crater. You know what they say, Demons run...

H

• .hack:
  • Cubia's first appearance in the original .hack// games is this. Kite manages to beat Skeith, who melts into a puddle of goo. Earthquakes start happening, weird, blue tree-like things start sprouting up in two lines heading directly for Kite, the goo begins bubbling furiously, and then there's a gigantic explosion. When the dust settles, Cubia's floating in the sky, completely dwarfing Kite. Kite can only numbly look on as Cubia prepares a huge attack. Cubia then unleashes a literal Mighty Roar that causes inverted colors and sends Kite flying away like a ragdoll. The only reason Kite survives that encounter is because of Helba's interference (again).
  • In .hack//G.U., Haseo's first fight with Tri-Edge. Events in order:
    • Haseo spots Tri-Edge. Using his twin-blades, Haseo unleashes a barrage of attacks while Tri-Edge, with no effort, blocks all of them with one hand.
    • Seeing the attacks having no effect, Haseo jumps back and takes out his broad sword. Charging at Tri-Edge again, he unleashes a heavy blow with broad sword, only to be sent halfway across the room from Tri-Edge, barely tapping him.
    • With Haseo crouched down on the floor, amazed at Tri-Edge's power, Tri-Edge slowly walks towards Haseo, withdrawing his twin-blades. With another attempt at getting revenge, Haseo takes out his scythe, and upon delivering the blow, it is completely shattered by Tri-Edge, who doesn't even lift a finger to do it.
    • Shocked at what just happened, Haseo looks at his hands in horror because his scythe just completely shattered. At the last second, Haseo looks up at Tri-Edge, who's still slowly approaching Haseo. Tri-Edge then grabs Haseo's face and unleashes a blast sending Haseo across the room—again.
    • Haseo can only look on in horror as Tri-Edge charges his attack. Moments later, Tri-Edge unleashes Data Drain, destroying Haseo and reducing him from level 133 to level 1.
• Half-Life 2:
  • The Universal Union, informally known as the Combine, invaded Earth in the game's backstory. The war became known as the Seven Hour War, and, well... we lost.^note Additional media downplays this trope, but adds a new layer of tragedy to it: Humanity lost the war before it began. It wasn't so much that the Combine just steamrolled over the full might of Earth's military forces in decisive battle, but that, ever since the events of the first game, Earth was being devastated by portal storms and the hostile extraterrestrial life that emerged from them. By the time the Universal Union showed up, Earth was dangling on the edge of societal collapse as it was, and the "battle" with what little military forces that could be mustered was short and brutal before what was left of Humanity's governments got together and called it quits, surrendering unconditionally to the Universal Union.
  • Episode 2: Three vortigaunts vs. approximately a hundred antlions. The antlions lose. Badly.
  • Gordon Freeman, theoretical physicist, vs. a dimension-spanning army of slavemasters. Those bastards already had no chance... and then his gravity gun gets supercharged.
• Halo:
  • In general, Covenant ships tended to deliver this to UNSC ships during the Human-Covenant War due to how much better their technology was (mainly, all of their ships have shields and point-defense lasers, while the UNSC ships are universally unshielded Glass Cannons with powerful main guns but negligible active defenses). Things have become more even post-war as the UNSC have closed much of the tech gap.
    
    The curb-stompy nature is actually subverted when you compare losses by tonnage instead of by craft. The mainline Covenant warships tend to be many times the size of their UNSC counterparts. For example, the main Covenant cruiser (CCS-class) is a nearly 1.8 kilometers long and 90 million tons, while the UNSC cruisers (like the Halycon-class, Autumn-class, or Marathon-class) tend to be a little over 1 km and 8-12 million tons. UNSC corvettes (Gladius-class) are 0.24 km and 36,000 tons, while Covenant corvettes (SDV-class) are an absurd 0.956 km and 8 million tons, about as large as UNSC heavy cruisers. The main UNSC ships, frigates, are around 0.5 km and ~1 million tons (e.g. Paris-class, Halberd-class, Stalwart-class), while the Covenant workhorses (like the CPV-class) are literally a hundred times as massive. So even though ship-to-ship losses are typically lopsided by 3:1 more in the Covenant's favor, the disparity in size means that the UNSC is actually trading better than even in nearly every engagement.^note To wit, per the Assembly datapads in Halo Reach, the UNSC Navy peaked at 2,000 vessels. 2,000 frigates/destroyers of around 1 million tons each would be outmassed by a single Covenant CAS-class assault carrier, official mass 2.7 billion tons. Eight CAS-class assault carriers would outmass 2,000 ~10 million ton cruisers. The Covenant just have so many resources to throw at the problem that it doesn't matter.
  • As shown in Halo: The Fall of Reach and Halo: Reach, The Covenant do this to the UNSC fleet defending Reach. After about 60% of the remaining human ships gathered there. While the UNSC does put up a good fight, the ultimate result can be summed up in this quote from Halo: First Strike:
    "Decimate is the wrong word, Colonel. We would have been decimated if we lost one ship out of every ten. Instead, we lost ten of our ships for every one that managed to limp away. It was a total disaster!"
  • In Halo 3, we get this from Miranda Keyes about the battle for Earth:
    Miranda: Truth's ships breached the lunar perimeter. Smashed what was left of the home fleet. Then, they started digging.
  • In-game, these can be very easy to pull off in the original Halo: Combat Evolved. The Covenant's entire weapon set revolves around CQC, with an energy SMG that can strip your shield in seconds on the highest difficulties, a homing pistol that can do the same in one shot, another homing weapon carried by higher tier enemies (and Grunts) that causes you to simply explode when shot enough, and a grenade launcher. That said, engage the Covenant with the Magnum (the first weapon you get) at any range greater than twenty meters (the gun has a scope and can kill with three headshots) and they're completely helpless. The Covenant tend to fend better against Marines armed with the MA5B assault rifle, the worst weapon in the game, although by the time "343 Guilty Spark" rolls around (and in some mods for Halo: Custom Edition), Marines carry shotguns, a weapon capable of killing anything in one hit. It becomes somewhat hilarious to watch Marines mow through section after section of Covenant infantry with nothing but an 8 gauge.
  • Atriox takes a SPARTAN Red Team to town and badly injures one of them without breaking a sweat in Halo Wars 2. These were the same Spartans that cut through an army of Sangheili honor guards in Halo Wars.
  Atroix: Run... little demons.
• In Heavenly Sword after Nariko ascends to godhood a battle ensues in which she eradicates an entire army without being touched. A close examination reveals that she even evaporates people via proximity, without attacking at all.
• In Heavy Rain any of the fights can become this, but one stands out above the rest: Norman VS Mad Jack, round 2. As seen here, you can get all the commands right, and poor Jayden still gets his ass handed to him on a silver platter, only surviving by pure luck. And of course, he can still die.
• Hiveswap:
  • At least the second half of it. After failing to so much as make Azdaja flinch with any of his hits or attempts at using psychic powers, Xefros tanks Azdaja's next attack and utterly trounces Azdaja into the floor after the latter lands a hit that knocks Joey to the ground.
  • The "fight" against Nihkee is a cutscene that ends in her victory. She punches Joey once and she goes down. She still lets them pass as she was throughly amused.

I

• Iji:
  • If an intrepid player maxes out Iji's Tasen Handling and nearly maxes her Cracking skills, she can put together a Nuke before the end of Sector 5 (4 if you're really dedicated). Rather than pour shotgun shells into Asha's face, all she has to do is pull out this bad boy, wait for him to fully materialize onscreen, and pull the trigger once. Unfortunately, when he comes back he can dodge those, too.
    Asha: Wh- how in the- how did you get a NUKE!? HHH! I'LL GET YOU FOR THIS, HUMAN!
  • If you've been a pacifist and kept the truce, Krotera gets one-shotted by his lieutenant.
  • The creator of the game actually showed off a number of tricks, including how to take down Krotera with a Buster Gun (fully-automatic shotgun), which stunlocks him.
• Inazuma Eleven:
  • The Teikoku match in the first game.
  • Gemimi, Epsilon, and Genesis in 2. However, you are the one being stomped, not them. The story sometimes forces you to be stomped even harder with 0-18 or so.
• inFAMOUS 2: After fighting the Beast and Kuo, Cole decides to take a few last shots at the Beast before firing off the RFI. To clarify, he shoots down a 100-foot giant made of lava. Using thunderbolts.

J

• In Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast, Desann, a Dark Jedi, encounters Kyle Katarn, a former Jedi whose Force abilities have eroded over the years. Despite his formidable arsenal and training, Kyle does not stand a chance against the power of the Force.
• This is how the early months of Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds will go, the Martians crushing the humans, with the Martians' scout machine alone taking out three or four armored lorries on its own. This is balanced by the Martians' need to build comm centres, giving mankind time to build up and bring out the big guns.

K

• In the Hearts of Iron Alternate History mod, Kaiserreich: Legacy of the Weltkrieg:
  • If Soviet Russia rises up it usually loses quickly due to a lack of territory, manpower, and resources, as well as ineffective international support.
  • Kurdistan has a similarly almost completely doomed revolt against the Ottoman Empire, but they can have a significantly better chance if the Arabs and Persians attack the Ottomans at the same time, and in fact, this usually results in the Ottomans getting curbstomped by the Axis.
  • The second Weltkrieg has at various periods of the mod's history been this. Earlier versions of the mod tended to favor a reverse WWII where the Commune of France and Union of Britain, with superior doctrines, would easily roll over Germany most of the time, whereas more recent post-DH versions usually see a fairly easy German victory without Russian or player involvement.
  • The Second American Civil War usually ends very badly for the United States, as they're smushed between the Combined Syndicalists of America of the Rust Belt and the reactionary/technocratic American Union State in the south, with potentially the breakaway Pacific States to the west as well. Once the US is out of the way, the CSA tend to crush the AUS handily due to their sheer advantage in numbers and industrial output and backing from Syndicalist France and Britain, just like how the Union defeated the Confederacy in real life.
    • However in more recent versions of the mod, sometimes the Feds are able to act immediately to retake the Pacific States (who can sometimes hold out if they get the Entente in Canada or the Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere to back them up but sometimes they rather stupidly don't join any faction), and the sudden injection of manpower and material allows them to overpower the CSA and AUS even if the two enter an alliance of convenience.
  • It is possible for Lithuania to elect the radical ultranationalist Party of Lithuanian National Interests/Iron Wolves under the Tautos Vadas^note Translated: Great Leader Kazys Škirpa and declare independence from the Reichspakt. Perhaps thankfully, this independence usually doesn't last very long as Škirpa's subsequent actions when he gets into power (deporting all the Germans, opening up gulags and unleashing his Iron Wolves thugs on his opponents) quickly puts the politically-isolated Lithuania right in the entire Reichspakt's firing line.
  • If the Fifth Anglo-Afghan War kicks off between Afghanistan and the Dominion of India, it almost always ends in the latter rapidly conquering and assimilating the former.
• Kindergarten: You better have some kind of trump card before picking a fight with Buggs, because if you don't, he'll literally beat you to death.
• Kingdom Hearts:
  • The first full trailer for Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep (the special ending for KHII Final Mix) basically consisted of Master Xehanort and Vanitas curb-stomping that game's heroic trio, giving a nice taste of the prequel's sad tone and Foregone Conclusion. In the actual game, this scene plays more or less identically - except the heroes get back up for round two.
  • Sephiroth appears as a Superboss in the first two console games. Go at him underlevelled, and he will one-shot you. In fact, even if you defeat Sephiroth, you will likely be pummeled to within an inch of your life in the process. Take note of that, because in the following cutscene in KHII, Sephiroth is casually brushing off his shoulder pauldron, not even tired.
• Kirby:
  • At the beginning of Kirby Mass Attack, Necrodeus uses his magic staff to split Kirby into ten tiny copies, then effortlessly smushes all of them, except one that escapes by literally following his heart.
  • In Kirby: Triple Deluxe, the third time you fight Flowery Woods, you have the Hypernova ability, allowing you to defeat him by simply inhaling him.
  • In Kirby and the Rainbow Curse, normally, while fighting Claycia while she is being controlled by the Dark Crafter, you have to do a hard fight that involves drawing lines to block bombs and lasers. There is a way around this, though; if you're lucky enough to have a Kirby amiibo and use it in the boss stage of Level 7, you can simply use the Kirby amiibo's benefits and defeat her in a matter of seconds if skillfully done.
  • In Kirby Star Allies, simply bringing the Cook ability and at least one ally to any boss and using the Souper Supper attack will cause a lot of damage, bring the boss meter to half, or, if you wait for the second phase to start, potentially instantly end the battle. In the case of Pon and Con/Goldon and Silvox, if both are on the screen when you use the Cook ability at the right possible moment, all it takes after that is one hit to each of the two, as the boss meter will go from full to nearly empty by the time their next phase starts. This trick also works with The Three Mage-Sisters' Sister Circle attack, under similar circumstances.
• Knights of the Old Republic:
  • The first game has some pretty great curb stomp potential for highly leveled characters.
    • It is especially hilarious when you visit the Sith Academy on Korriban and the bratty Sith-in-training spend all of their time threatening to kill you and blabbering on about how great they are. They honestly don't stand a chance against the playable party, which includes a Blood Knight mercenary, a veteran solider, an Ax-Crazy assassin droid, three highly-trained Jedi, and ex-Darth Revan.
    • If you reach the Star Forge and your character is at the highest level and on Easy difficulty, prepare to essentially decimate the legions of Dark Jedi and even the Dark Jedi Masters without a single care in the world.
    • It's entirely possible to simply be curb-stomping most of the enemies you come across from midway through the game. The latter half of Korriban can be absolutely hilariously one-sided if you've invested in Force Lightning to its final level, Force Storm, which does absolutely absurd amounts of damage for relatively low amounts of Force points. Entering the Academy after offing the top instructors, you're confronted by a crowd of Sith. The game pauses so you can give orders to all your squadmates, but pragmatic players will take one look at the room, go "yeah, I don't have time for this," and arc-lightning the entire room to death in a way that would make Palpatine jealous. Even Light-side characters.
  • In Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords, the protagonist at one point has to take on virtually every bounty hunter in the Jekk'Jekk Tar, single-handedly, in an environment full of gas that is poisonous to the Exile but nobody else present. This may well be before you actually get a lightsaber. It ends with a significantly reduced bounty hunter presence in the Refugee Sector and the Exile going on to virtually singlehandedly maul their way through a secret base under the Jekk'Jekk Tar as well, just to make it as clear as possible how dangerous a Jedi can be, with Hanharr even voicing this to Visquis that he set up a trap, but only he is the one truly trapped, even calling the "Jeedai" a "predator".
  Hanharr: The Jeedai is a predator. You have baited a trap, but only you are caught.

L

• The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel:
  • There's a fight bewteen Machias, Jusis, and Rean against Instructor Sara, who's way above their level, and Rean against Victor S. Arseid in later chapters to establish power level. If one of your opponents is an A-Rank Bracer and and the other is one of the greatest swordsman in the country, this should be expected.
  • The Panzer Soldats utterly and completely wreck the First Armored Division (the Imperial Guards no less), destroying even the most advanced of tanks with a single blow each.
  • Crow inflicts one of these on Rean while both are operating their respective Divine Knights, with Crow pointing out that he's had three years to learn how to pilot his machine while Rean has only had a few minutes.
  • If you carry over your levels and equipment on New Game Plus, you can easily devastate Sara, even in Nightmare mode, by flashing her with Rean, Machias, and Jusis's S-Breaks before she can even get a turn. So the game cheats by making it so that you can only reduce her HP to 1, and then she flashes your party with own S-Break for 49,999 damage each to annihilate them. If any of them had any sort of guard status up to protect against it, she'll just do it again.
  • Similarly, you can have Rean hold his own against Victor for a while if you keep healing, but eventually he will hit him for 49,999 damage and it's over.
  • At the end of the first Act of Cold Steel II, all of the most major players of allied forces of the Noble Alliance descend upon Ymir. Obviously things do not go well for our intrepid heroes. It ends with Rean agreeing to come the Noble Alliance's flagship airship for a meeting with the Noble Alliance's leader, Duke Cayenne.
  • Rean Schwarzer delivers this towards the Final Boss of Cold Steel III after obtaining the Infinity +1 Sword forged from the soul of his dead friend, mixed with him losing control of his Superpowered Evil Side, and it is fully playable. This is treated as Nightmare Fuel incarnate in-universe and a Nice Job Breaking It, Hero moment, as they're not supposed to kill the final boss, but instead merely put it to sleep. Rean destroying the boss inadvertently unleashes all of the evil in Erebonia.
• The Legend of Zelda:
  • The final boss battle in The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask can be this, if you have the Fierce Deity mask. In fact, every boss battle in the game is this when the player uses the Fierce Deity mask. That is the reason why the Fierce Deity mask can only be used during boss battles (except via an unsurprisingly frequently exploited Good Bad Bug).
  • In The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, there is widespread evidence that Calamity Ganon inflicted this upon the kingdom a century ago. Every fort, garrison, and training camp Link stumbles across are in ruin or re-purposed by monsters into homes. Several battlefields containing shattered Guardian hulks are littered with rusting swords and shields concentrated in small clusters, giving the sense of a Bolivian Army Ending. If one reviews the world map and plots the location of the military camps, it becomes apparent Hyrule expected Ganon to attack from outside the kingdom and make his way to the palace. They never expected him to emerge from Hyrule Castle itself.
• The most enjoyable aspect of the Like a Dragon (formerly Yakuza) series is that you can pretty much turn any random battle with mooks into one.
  • For a plot-specific example, Ichiban vs. Kiryu in Yakuza: Like a Dragon; Kiryu takes Ichiban to the cleaners no matter the player inputs, and the beatdown is so bad that Ichiban hallucinates Kiryu is an actual dragon he has to slay (and it's implied Kiryu just decked Ichiban with a single punch and called it a day).
• Love of Magic: The rescue of Emily. She's being held at a castle in the real world, guarded by non-magical mercenaries. They never stood anything resembling a chance; the biggest danger is that she doesn't believe it's a real rescue at first, and has been preparing magical constructs to attack whoever tries to claim her.
• In Lunar: The Silver Star, it looks like Alex and company have won. Ghaleon is dead and they are about to save Luna. Then it turns out that Luna has had her memories as Althena reawakened and she's turned evil, and the "Ghaleon" that was defeated was really an illusion. The real Ghaleon appears and proceeds to beat the living crap out of everybody.

M

• A lot of fights from Magium qualify.
  • In Book 1 Chapter 1, the fight between Cutthroat Dave and Daren is the first example, due to Daren being magically underprepared against weapon-users.
  • With the right choices and stats, you can curbstomp your opponents in some events. For example, in Chapter 3, you can max out the strength stat to gain the possibility to use improvised weapons (including a tree!). You will decimate an army with nothing but overwhelming strength.
  • With very few exceptions, any fight involving the stillwater Eiden will end this way. In his introduction, Book 1 Chapter 4, Daren gets easily beaten twice in a row.
• In Marathon, Durandal's single corvette is attacked by an alien "Battle Group" for the purposes of destruction and reverse-engineering. Little did they know that Durandal had so improved the aliens' technology that he could fire their weapons at approximately twice their standard range. He still loses, but not before inflicting a massive amount of damage on the Battle Group. He even mentions that the aliens' High Command has already changed its curriculum; all generals will now be taught The Humbling of Battle Group Seven at Lh'owon.
• Mass Effect has a few.
  • Mass Effect:
    • On lower difficulties, it is possible to create a highly amusing one on Noveria, by killing Kaira Stirling and Alestia Iallis within seconds of their respective villainous monologues:
      Kaira Stirling: I don't need a gun to tear you to pieces. [BLAM]
      Alestia Iallis: I was ordered to eliminate you, should the opportunity arise, and here you are, trapped in this lab. Weapons free! [BLAM]
    • Like most RPG and third person shooter video games, pretty much every mission will end with over a hundred enemies dead and no casualties for the heroes. There are a few exceptions, though, where the team either gets help from other NPC allies (who die) or can get potentially Killed Off for Real.
    • A particularly amusing one is the optional Garrus Vakarian's loyalty mission in which you track down Dr. Saleon. Once you find him, if you convince Garrus not to kill him (or just don't bring Garrus along), Dr. Saleon will try to kill you anyway. He dies in one hit, making him one of the weakest, if not the weakest enemy in the game.
  • Mass Effect 2:
    • The Normandy, despite representing the cutting edge of Alliance tech and having gotten the killing blow on Sovereign, gets utterly eaten by the Collector cruiser. Upgrading the Normandy SR2's weaponry lets Joker take an eye for an eye.
    • Something could also be said for the fact that one of those upgrades is a weapon system specifically reverse engineered from Sovereign's 1HKO cannon from the first game that, unsurprisingly, lets you one shot the collector cruiser.
    • If you make the right decisions, the entire "suicide mission" can become this. Shepard will have wiped out every one of the Collectors and lost no people in the process.
    • In the final Mass Effect 2 story mission, "The Arrival" DLC, Shepard annihilates an entire base of indoctrinated Project infantry, elite soldiers, and heavy mechs (think walking tanks) by him/herself. S/he does this after being heavily sedated for two days.
      Guard: Shepard is tearing us apart!
    • An amusing one where Niftu Cal, a.k.a. the Biotic God, a Volus who is high as a kite, goes to fight Captain Wasea, leader of a group of Eclipse mercenaries (all of whom murder to join) and former Asari commando, who are widely regarded as being some of the greatest fighters in the galaxy. He throws a little biotic ball at her that just bounces off the end of her nose, mildly annoying her at best. She proceeds to use her biotics to one-shot him across the half the room.
    • Speaking of Asari commandos, there's the War Assets entry for the Serrice Guard, which tells of how a Blood Pack mercenary gang which crash-landed on a planet took over a hundred casualties from traps, ambushes and night assaults over the course of nine days. When the Blood Pack finally gave up and surrendered, they did so to the Asari commandos who were hunting them. All five of them.
  • Mass Effect 3:
    • One beautiful moment partway through has the heroes, in desperation to distract a Reaper on Tuchanka, summon the largest Thresher Maw in existence, the legendary Kalros, to attack the Reaper. Kalros proceeds to kill the Reaper in less than five minutes, much to the surprise of everyone involved. When Wrex mentions that he didn't know of anyone who tried to kill Kalros and survived, he wasn't kidding.
    • Shepard, EDI, and another squadmate (code named "Incursion Team") vs. the Cerberus Base and everyone on it. Including Kai Leng again at the end.
    • Much of the war counts. While small victories are made here and there, everything is just a holding action until the Crucible is completed. The only two species that really put up a hard fight against the Reapers are the Turians and Krogan, and even they suffer massive casualties and eventually are forced to pull back and leave their homeworlds behind. Species like the Batarians, the Asari, the Hanar and Humanity all lose their homeworlds to the Reapers in a matter of hours.
    • The final battle is a mostly hopeless slugging match between the Reapers and the combined fleets of the galaxy... until Shepard reaches the Crucible. If s/he chooses the "Destroy" sequence, every single Reaper instantly drops dead.
    • In the Citadel DLC, your allies... do not think highly of CAT6 troops, put it that way. Much of the chatter you hear from said troops consists of them realising another way in which they're outmatched.
      Tali: This is almost unfair! Should we give them a chance?

      Even their boss (with good reason) thinks they're outmatched.

      Merc: Hey. What'd s/he mean by "Slow him/her down?" We're allowed to kill Shepard if we have to, right?
      Merc Lieutenant: S/he said "slow him/her down" because s/he thinks we're cannon fodder.
      Merc: Oh. Well... shit.

• Mega Man:
  • Mega Man (Classic):
    • The Boss Rush rematch against Metal Man in Mega Man 2. Hit him once (in Normal mode) with his own weapon that you got from beating him earlier. Laugh.
    • In Mega Man 3, the Holograph Mega Men - and the second form of the final boss - can be one hit killed with the Top Spin. Given the fact that the real Holograph Mega Man always starts on the top platform, the fight can be completed in around 3 seconds.
    • Not really a battle, but 10's challenge, "Shooter". It's Mega Man versus a harmless 1hp target in an entirely safe room. All you need to do is shoot once.
  • Obtaining the Hadouken or Shoryuken bonus attacks in Mega Man X and X2 provides 1-hit kills to almost every boss fight in the game. Also easily doable with the Ultimate Armor in following games.
  • Mega Man Battle Network 4: Red Sun and Blue Moon: During the game, after the fight bout with ShadeMan, you gain access to Dark Chips, specialized chips that only appear when you enter Anxious mode. These chips are basically MegaMan's darkness brought to the surface, and appropriately they steal 1 HP permanently from your max every use... but in exchange you get 2 chips per turn with absurd power that are barely contested except by some Program Advances and the Giga Chips, and even then reliably better. What these allow MegaMan to do is essentially become an unstoppable powerhouse, and when you have access to them, none of your opponents can usually survive more than two or three turns before you're destroyed them with just a handful of chips. A 1000 HP heal, a 20-hit minigun, a massive power cannon, a firebomb that can hit every enemy, a chip that just turns your opponent's field to poison, you have it all.
• Metal Gear:
  • Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater has a badass Naked Snake every time you control him, knocking out guards with his CQC skills, only to be completely curbstomped by the Boss every time he has to do hand-to-hand with her. The very first battle ends with Boss breaking his attempt to grab her, breaking his arm, and hurling the poor sod off the bridge they're fighting on. Snake gets a bit better with each subsequent fight, with the last one having him even managing to get her on one knee before she knocks him flat on his ass. Slight aversion, as the player hardly expects there to be a great big confrontation with her. That is saved for the last boss fight, where he finally manages to defeat his mentor... not that he really wanted to.
  • Subverted in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, when Meryl's entire Task Force surrounds Ocelot's single patrol boat to arrest him. Outgunned by 1 to 100, with several patrol boats and helicopters circling him, Ocelot doesn't think of surrendering, so Meryl orders to open fire. But because Ocelot already got control of the Doomsday device, absolutely nothing happens and the attackers' entire equipment array shuts down. Cut off from their emotion control system, the soldiers break down with shell shock and then Ocelot turns everything into a Curb-Stomp Battle in his own favor.
  • Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance's Final Boss starts off with Raiden on the receiving end of a good stomping at the hands of Armstrong. His nanomachimes (son!) give him ludicrous Super-Strength and Super-Toughness, so the most you can do is a tiny amount of Scratch Damage with each hit. And since Armstrong is also Immune to Flinching, the few attacks you do get in will leave you wide open to for a brutal counter-attack, with him throwing and kicking you around like a football. As the fight progresses, he shatters Raiden's sword with his bare hands and at one point pins him to the ground before beating the hell out of him. All the while, he gives a Motive Rant about being The Social Darwinist. There's a reason why one of the most iconic moments from the fight is Raiden unleashing Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs on Armstrong, only for him to No-Sell the barrage of blows. It's only when Blade Wolf brings you Sam's sword that things start to turn around, and even then it's a tough fight.
• Metroid:
  • Super Metroid:
    • The Super Metroid makes short work of Samus in Tourian, almost instantly reducing her to 1HP before it realizes who she is and backs off.
    • The final battle sees Samus failing miserably against an overpowered Mother Brain, who has gone One-Winged Angel, until the now-grown Metroid hatchling that got kidnapped by Ridley at the very start of the game saves her life in a Heroic Sacrifice that grants Samus the Hyper Beam, with which she proceeds to go completely Mama Bear on Mother Brain.
  • A similar thing happens in Metroid Fusion, where Samus is curbstomped by an Omega Metroid due to her lack of an Ice Beam, but the SA-X "sacrifices" itself to save her and she regains the Ice Beam as a result.
  • Toward the end of Metroid: Zero Mission, Samus is stripped of her Powered Armor and has to flee from Space Pirates that can knock off a full tank with every hit. Then she gets a new suit and it's the Pirates who get the curbstomping.
• Minecraft:
  • Creepers exploding on unsuspecting players.
  • Even players with diamond weapons, tools, and armor equipped can be quickly beaten to death by dense swarms of hostile mobs.
  • Battling the Ender Dragon without any weapons, tools, armor, or potions equipped is always a losing proposition because that allows her to rapidly overwhelm players with purple fireballs, and on top of that, a total lack of supplies also leaves players without a way to break her regeneration towers.
  • The Wither versus any opposing mob always results in said opposing mob dying from the Wither Effect.
• Modern Warfare:
  • The US Marines' invasion of Qurac in Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare was this. They utterly steamrolled Khaled Al-Asad's Army and were able to reach the capital city within days, and take the city in hours. Unfortunately for them, Al-Asad had a Plan B.
  • Taken even further in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. As their final act of revenge, Soap and Price tear through hundreds of Gen. Shepherd's Shadow Company troops and eventually kill Shepherd himself. As a testament of just how the two killed everyone so fast...
    Oxide:: Disciple Nine, your entire rear guard just flatlined!
    Disciple Nine: That's impossible, we just—
    Gen. Shepherd: It's Price.
  • The last level in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. Dozens of guards in suits with pistols against two men in juggernaut suits with belt-fed machine guns. When you reach the end of the level, you finally get to kill Makarov. The problem is, Price is an unquestionable badass while there's nothing suggesting Makarov is a skilled hand-to-hand fighter. Once Price manages to actually get his hands on him, he goes down much more pathetically than, say, Shepherd did in MW2. Makarov's death is more of a brutal execution than a straight-up fight.
• Monster Hunter:
  • RIP Great Jaggi. The Volvidon doesn't last very long either.
  • In Monster Hunter: World, some Turf Wars qualify. Diablos vs. Barroth ends with a clash of heads which results in Diablos easily bulling Barroth aside. Paolumu vs. Odogaron ends horribly for Paolumu as the Odogaron savagely body slams the bat monster into the grounds. The king of this trope however is The Dreaded Deviljho: Diablos? Deviljho catches it mid-charge and suplexes it. Odogaron? Doesn't even get a Turf War, Deviljho just picks him up and swings him around like a ragdoll.
• Sindel versus Nightwolf, Cyber Sub-Zero, Smoke, Kitana, Jax, Jade, Johnny Cage, Sonya Blade, Stryker, and Kabal in Mortal Kombat 9's Story Mode. She defeats all of them in rapid succession, and is only stopped when Nightwolf pulls a Heroic Sacrifice; only Johnny and Sonya survive.
• Mother:
  • EarthBound (1994):
    • Some of the harder boss fights become pretty one sided if you use a multi-bottle rocket.
    • If you're a lot stronger than an enemy, you just skip the battle phase and instantly win.
  • The first battle of Mother 3 pits a Mole Cricket against your two low-level characters. It's easy, albeit not quite Curb Stomp easy. Later in the game, you find the Mole Cricket again, who challenges your higher-leveled team of four. The Mole Cricket has a higher Speed stat the second time, but all that means is that he gets to hit you once for Scratch Damage; all his other stats are the same, so he's unlikely to get even a second hit.
    • Mother 3 also has Lucas' duel against Claus, in which Claus absolutely pulverizes Lucas with his attacks without even trying...until Hinawa intervenes by spiritually communicating with Claus, at least.

N

• Occasionally, the NFL Blitz announcer will announce the current score difference (e.g. "San Francisco leads by 7!" or "New England down by 3!") However, if either team has a high enough lead, he won't bother and just declare "It's a massacre!" or "It's a blowout!"
• If you play Nox as a Fire Knight (warrior), one chapter features an undead invasion of the warriors' stronghold. When Hecuba walks into throne room, the Fire Knight's Leader Horrendus challenges her to single combat. Long story short, after accepting his invitation to "dance", she oneshots not only him but his elite guards as well.

O

• The three final battles in OFF may turn out like this. If you collected all Grand items, you are leveled up enough to take down the Queen without much effort (poison everyone and spam your most powerful moves). Hugo is even easier, since he doesn't even fight back, seeing as how you're wailing on a small, defenseless child. If you chose the Special Ending, just Palsy your opponent and hit with your most powerful move. This is exaggerated to the point where the Bad Batter may not even get the chance to damage you. The fact that the final fight in particular is so anticlimactic in terms of difficulty is probably the point: as The Judge says, you helped The Batter get to this point with your blind willingness to do whatever he wanted to "purify" the world—you don't deserve to have fun now.

P

• Persona 3 has two instances in the story:
  • Thanatos positively mauls the Magician Arcana during the opening stages of the game.
  • When Ikutski shows his true colors he has Aigis do this to the SEES group, managing to knock them all out... somehow. The details aren't shown because of how absurd it seems.
• Planescape: Torment:
  • The game doesn't have many of these (in part because the Nameless One cannot die, or rather, cannot stay dead), but one moment stands out. Ravel is attacked by the Transcendent Incarnation after you defeat her. Both are extremely old and powerful entities. She dies without dealing a single point of damage to it.
  • Vhailor is a "Mercykiller" who died before the events of the game, and is literally held together by his burning desire to administer justice, which is so great that his strength actually increases along with the level of injustice he fights. The Transcendent Incarnation, the final boss of the game, is a part of yourself who did something so utterly evil and irredeemable that its very existence is keeping you from dying and reaching your final punishment. Explain this to Vhailor before the fight and he gains a ludicrous boost to practically every stat and is capable of utterly trampling the Transcendent Incarnation single-handedly.
• Plants vs. Zombies: Heroes's multiplayer mode is broken to the point where its matchmaking can match you against people ranks above or below you. On top of this, it is not based on the collection of other players, but rather the rank, so if you barely made it to league with a budget deck, be prepared to have a bad time against people with a much larger collection than you.
• Pokémon:
  • In the competitive game, this is called a 6-0.
  • It's mentioned in Pokémon Red and Blue that there were once two Gyms in Saffron City: a Fighting-type Gym, and a Psychic-type Gym. This ended when they had a faceoff, and the Psychic-type Gym utterly wiped them out due to winning Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors. It's especially evident in the Generation 1 games, where Psychic was notoriously overpowered and Sabrina, the Psychic Gym-type leader, is statistically one of the hardest bosses in the game.
  • Discussed in Pokémon Stadium: Pulling a one-hit K.O. on your opponent will get the announcer to remark on it. Especially so if it's the first attack of the round:
    Announcer: TAKEN DOWN ON THE WORD "GO"!
  • Pokémon Gold and Silver and their remakes:
    • Lance makes one of his Dragonite Hyper Beam a man at point blank range, and apparently full force. Ouch. He survives, though. And yet Lance can't Hyper Beam a few doors for you.
  • Pokémon Colosseum has this in one part of the game. Rui's grandfather, Myth Trainer Eagun, tries to stop a Cipher Elite Peon, resulting in a CPU vs. CPU battle. Rui's grandfather sends out his high-leveled Pikachu, while the Cipher Peon sends out a shadow Hitmontop. For all Eagun's expertise, he decides to have Pikachu use the weak Quick Attack repeatedly, ensuring that Hitmontop will defeat him. And then he talks about how fearsome shadow Pokémon are.
  • In Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness, when you first visit Gateon Port, Thug Zook threatens Michael and his sister with a shadow Zangoose. Mr. Verich's bodyguard then sends out an Alakazam in another CPU vs. CPU battle and wipes the floor with it.
  • In the second installment of the Pokémon Ranger series, this happens every time the Player Character goes up against Wheeler, the Yes-Man of the Big Bad. That is, because Wheeler insists on using nothing but Bidoofs against the player, he is curb-stomped by the player time and again, as even the in-game Pokemon Registry says that Bidoof sometimes "pretends to attack".
  • In the first Special Episode of Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky, "Bidoof's Wish", after Bidoof gets cornered by Team Rogue, the entirety of Wigglytuff's Guild show up to help him, leading to an unlosable boss battle (Unless you press the give up option, otherwise they just go down too fast to the Guild members) where Team Rogue gets steamrolled by the entire guild.
  • Pokémon Black and White have N versus Alder. N utterly wastes Alder with his legendary Pokemon, in one of the biggest Oh, Crap! moments in the series.
• In [PROTOTYPE], you can have literal curb stomp battles with human enemies. There is a move aptly called Curb Stomp, which is pretty much guaranteed to kill the poor bastard beneath your heel. One of the consume animations does it automatically.
• Przygody Reksia: In Reksio i Csarodzieje, fights against the Birds of Chaos can be one-sided both on your side or their side. Among the spells you earn in the game, the Sleeping Spell is the most likely to help you win without getting hit even once since the opponent would be asleep while you're casting it. But if you decide to waddle outside the castle without learning spells first and happen to encounter one of these birds, they will wipe the floor with you.
• Glass Joe from Punch-Out!! can be knocked out in one properly-timed hit to the gut, or several to the jaw, all while he fails to retaliate properly. It is quite amusing.

Q

R

• Raid: Shadow Legends: The boss fight with the dragon in the game's intro is quickly cut short after the dragon eats Elhain and wipes the floor with the other three champions.
• Red Dead Redemption:
  • The Puma concolor (the cougar), which will be killing you in one hit in multiplayer mode, and just giving you one extra chance of getting away in single player. Needless to say, the cougar has gotten a reputation of being a Memetic Badass on the game's GameFAQs board.
  • In the single-player mode, the Battle of Fort Mercer. The game requires you to get through without a single one of your allies going down while you kill over a hundred outlaws, most of them with a Gatling gun.
• RefleX:
  • ZODIAC Virgo delivers a pretty nasty one to the Phoenix, killing the pilot. Unfortunately for Virgo, that's when it's revealed that the Phoenix was an ZODIAC as well, ZODIAC Ophiuchus. Virgo doesn't stand a chance in the following curb stomping.
  • Then ZODIAC Ophiuchus does the same to the other ten ZODIACs as they arrive... though most of Earth becomes collateral damage in the process.
• If you've got two or more Ages on your opponent in Rise of Nations, said opponent is not going to enjoy the experience. Tanks and bombers rather neatly trump musketeers, it has to be said.
• In the Romancing SaGa Ultimania it is said that Freilei actually cleaved one of the Evil Minions of the Big Bad with the very same Cosmic Keystone that minion was looking for.
• The final boss battle in Rune Factory 2 turns into this if you cast Dragon Break as soon as possible, freezing the dragon in place while you whale on him, then repeat the process the moment he Turns Red.
• RuneScape:
  • Lucien, during the "While Guthix Sleeps" quest. When you last saw him, he was a hooded stranger asking you to steal an artifact for him, and you had the option of doing so or, after meeting the guardians of said artifact, killing him, and he is extremely weak (level 14; in contrast, most players on that quest would be at least 60+). You learn in "While Guthix Sleeps" that he has apparently become a lot more powerful, and so assemble a group eight of the world's greatest fighters, a few of which you have gotten to know in previous quests. When Lucien spots you sneaking around in disguise, he attacks you, and the eight teleport in to fight him and save you. Only two survive, and barely escape alive. Not to mention those two only survived because they didn't directly attack Lucien. They just stood behind and fought some of his troops.
  • Lucien of all people comes on the receiving end in "Ritual of the Mahjarrat" when the Dragonkin enter the scene.
  • All player characters have the potential to do this. They basically have unlimited potential and can end up over a hundred times stronger than the average citizen.
  • Dragon claws can do this to players and NPCs alike, hitting 4 times, quickly, and quite hard.

S

• In Saint Seiya Ougon Densetsu, the Big Bad suffers this once you do the Puzzle Boss right. The main protagonist, Seiya, gains a large amount of energy and the ability to refill his life every turn before attacking, which pretty much nulls the boss's own attack, as strong as it is. The battle is pretty much impossible to lose, outside of having some really lousy luck.
• Saints Row:
  • In Saints Row 2, Johnny Gat has one with Shogo during Aisha's funeral. He beats Shogo down multiple times, telling him to get up after each one then beating him down again, even smashing him through a tombstone before finally burying him alive in Aisha's coffin.
  • In Saints Row: The Third, both of the Boss's fights against Killbane. The first time, Killbane manages to get a few swings in and fights back decently, but the Boss still thoroughly trounces him. The second time, Killbane doesn't even get a swing in, and the Boss just beats the hell out of him against the wreckage of his plane before finally breaking his neck.
  • In Saints Row IV, the Boss gets his arse handed to him by Zinyak the first time around. Amusingly enough, in the DLC Enter the Dominatrix (which is based on the incomplete DLC for Saints Row the Third that eventually became Saints Row IV), Zinyak is a Zero-Effort Boss whose huge life-bar is depleted in one hit from the Boss, who then finishes him off with a Quick Time Event. Zinyak even complains about it in the in-character commentary for the scene.
• In Skies of Arcadia, it is possible to fight Galcian in one of the first chapters of the game. Aika says that she doesn't think you can take him. She means it.
• Sleeping Dogs (2012) has two.
  • The first is when you go find Benny in club Bam Bam and chase him through the club, dispatching dozens of his mooks.
  • The second is when Wei has been tortured to within an inch of his life, including but not limited to having his torso cut with a scalpel, one of his knees attacked with a drill, and one or more of his toes broken. He promptly escapes, brutally kills every enemy in the safe-house before chasing down the Big Bad and throwing him into a woodchipper.
• Sonic the Hedgehog:
  • Perfect Chaos vs. the Egg Carrier in Sonic Adventure. Chaos goes zap. Egg Carrier goes boom.
  • Sonic Forces:
    • The trailer introducing new villain Infinite has him giving Sonic a brutal beating.
    • Infinite being on the receiving end of this trope is what caused him to become evil. He was once just a Badass Normal mercenary captain tasked with guarding one of Eggman's bases. When his squad was annihilated by Shadow, he tried to challenge him alone to avenge his teammates... and got thrashed in seconds. Adding insult to injury, Shadow called him worthless and spared him because he was Not Worth Killing. The humiliation drove him insane and he practically sold his soul to use the Phantom Ruby so nobody would ever make him feel that weak again.
  • In Sonic Frontiers, Sonic tries to run past GIGANTO early on, only for one stomp to launch him into the air; despite his agility and aerial abilities, it's no use as his homing attacks harmlessly bounce off and GIGANTO yeets him into a cliffside before going on its way. Sonic decides the instant he comes to that he's not doing that again without the Chaos Emeralds. Which sucks for him as one of the Emeralds is in a Chaos Engine atop GIGANTO. When Sonic finds WYVERN and KNIGHT, he doesn't even try to fight back and instead maneuvers until he can get to safety.
• About five seconds into Soul Nomad & the World Eaters, your ditz companion suggests that you attack one of the titanic, godlike titular World Eaters immediately, completely bypassing the Sorting Algorithm of Evil. It kills your entire party in one hit the instant you step into its "Instant Death" Radius. The player also has the option to unleash their Superpowered Evil Side for a curb stomp battle in the other direction, but this leads to a non-standard game over.
• Soul Series: Mi-na gets this twice canonically.
  • The first time is in Soul Calibur when she faces Ivy, who wields an alchemical Whip Sword Mi-na has never seen before. Between her inexperience and the exotic weapon getting under the proud and impulsive girl's skin, Mi-na is defeated.
  • The second time, sometime before III, she met Kong Xiuquang and fought him: Mi-na's temper got the better of her again when he dismissed her an "amateur" and she challenged him to a duel. Bad idea. Not one to quit, Mi-na continued to challenge him again and again for weeks, and losing badly every time. Eventually she finally acquiesced and admitted she was outmatched, and Kong, who grew to admire her determination and fighting spirit, accepted her request to train under him.
• The Spider-Man 2 adaptation has this for taking down Mysterio. He clearly charges up three stages of health bar and you go through all of them with one punch to his fishbowl head. Now that is a glass jaw. Of course, since Mysterio is an unenhanced human being whose super powers are limited to being good with special effects, that he can be owned by someone able to use a car as an impromptu throwing weapon isn't much of a surprise.
• Star Control II:
  • The Chenjesu and the Mmrnmhrm state when you talk with them that this was the fate of their fleets at the tentacles of the Ur-Quan piloting the Sa-Matra.
  • Once you've bought all the weapon technologies to the Melnorme and have acquired enough resources to fit your flagship with them, this tends to be the end result of your fights even against the Ur-Quan as long as you aren't careless. Of course, it's not enough to end the game, though.
• Star Trek Online:
  • The Tau Dewa Borg Incursion. You're called in to stop another one of the Borg's hops into the Beta Quadrant, especially since this one is near New Romulus. However, when you get there, you find that the Tholians have beaten you to it and wiped them out. Thus it goes from Borg-stopping to bug squashing.
  • The Undine make their glorious comeback meta-wise in "A Step Between Stars" by nuking a Voth Dreadnought. While opening the door to the Jenolan Dyson Sphere. That is, they blew open the door, and the shot overpenetrated and took the dreadnought out, too.
  • Early in the Delta Rising expansion, you come across the wreckage of Borg ships that have been pummeled with weaponry no one knows about. You later learn that this is done by the Vaadwaur, who come back into action thanks to the Iconians.
• Captain Beard Jr. in Strider (Arcade), the "final boss" of the third stage, who goes down without even a chance to fight back.
• In the FPS/RPG Strife, most boss fights after The Programmer fall under this trope. Until Spectres erupt from their bodies.
• The Shin Getter Event in Super Robot Wars Alpha 1, where Shin Getter appears and Stoner Sunshines Bardiel out of existence, letting Touji live in the process.
• In Super Scribblenauts, pitting Death against virtually anyone causes their death with a single touch. This includes God. Also, creating a Black Hole will destroy everything within seconds.
• Chapter 13 of Symphony of War has the player taking over the Imperial forces as they steamroll a paltry rebel army. The odds are so massive in your favor that it's literally impossible to lose

T

• Tales Series:
  • Tales of Symphonia:
    • The fight against Kratos will make your team eat dirt if you are unprepared. Up against Judgement and Level 3 attacks, speed casting, with an injured team from the previous boss battle? The life bottle count will probably rapidly fall, and you haven't even gotten to the Hopeless Boss Fight yet. Funny that if you lose, you won't Game Over, but you're still pitted against the next boss.
    • The Hopeless Boss Fight mentioned above, Yggdrasill, will also likely pull one on you in the Tower of Salvation. Frequently with one move.
    • Regal's "Way of the Jungle" title is earned by being on the giving end of this, having him kill enemies that are way below his level, with the description "The truly strong go all out, even against the weak."
  • In a Tales of Xillia 2 sidequest, a Elenpios citizen who's not particularly fond of people from Riese Maxia rounds up a mob of like-minded individuals to try and run the party out of town. This works about as well as you might expect when considering that the people in question are completely ordinary and lacking any actual combat experience whatsoever. All of them save for their leader are lucky to withstand so much as a single hit, while the latter only gets the luxury of lasting a few seconds longer.
• Tenchu:
  • Echigoya, an untrained merchant with a slow-loading one-bullet gun and 80 points of life (lowest for a boss).
  • Tenchu: Fatal Shadows has Tatsukichi, a geisha with almost no HP who moves very slowly and after a five-second-long start-up animation.
• The Vision Of The Ant: The first battle against Natas.
• Quite possible to pull off in the Total War series. Gathering an elite army and using proper tactics can result in armies losing fewer than ten soldiers while slaughtering thousands.
  • Medieval II: Total War has the Mongols. Oh God, the Mongols. You could be having a pleasant day wiping the floor with every nation on the hardest difficulty when a Mongol army containing thousands to tens of thousands shows up, each lead by a general with 8 to 10 stars (10 being the highest in the game), with a rare 7. They move in such a way that they can always provide back-up for other battalions of their units despite the fact that they can't field more than one battalion (if a platoon dies or flees the map, a platoon from the nearby battalion can march in and take its place) and that they don't need back-up. You will have thousands of horse-mounted archers who will spread out on the battle field and close like a noose and they will "circle and shoot". If you get too close, they flee while still firing. Following them can get you easily surrounded. Those heavy-armored knights you trained with 5+ experience and that general you have who's never lost? Useless. The only thing you can do is wait it out. The Mongols will siege cities, but they won't take them. The sieges will ruin your economy and their presence will change the whole political climate. Eventually, not quite like in real life, the Mongols take one city and settle down to become farmers. Oh, and God help you if your campaign leads right to the city they decided to take. Russia, the western shores of the Mediterranean, Saudi Arabi, and Northern Africa are so hard to navigate and have so few cities that you will have to kill those tens of thousands of soldiers to move on. Or you could just give up.
    
    Pretty much the only way to even come close to leveling the playing field (you'll still have to match their ridiculous numbers, but it's a start) is to throw dozens of assassins at their generals and hope that after the first ten or twelve get killed on mission, one will get lucky and eliminate a general. And there's typically five or ten armies that show up when the Mongols first arrive. Even if you manage to eliminate most of their generals, you'll still wind up throwing tens of thousands of men into a meat grinder against them. If you're fighting on two fronts, you might just want to put both of those on hold and throw everything you have against the Mongols.
    
    However, if you have a faction with great heavy infantry like Denmark or Scotland, you can turn the curbstomp on them by adhering strictly to the strategy of building castles and staffing them with archers that can lay stakes or pikemen covering the gate.
  • Taken to the extreme in the Empire: Total War and Napoleon: Total War games, where artillery can make short work of an enemy army in a few minutes, especially if they happen to get close enough for the artillery to be turned into giant shotguns. Also, a massed cavalry charge may seem like a good idea, except when they're charging line infantry who can quickly form a square, which is the equivalent of them running into a pike wall (which can also happen). The same thing can be done in for Total War: Shogun 2. While artillery in this game has limited ammo (unlike Empire and Napoleon), it also has a far greater range and fires exploding ammo by default. You can massacre an entire army before it even gets close to threaten you, especially if you have naval support. Oh, and if you also happen to have Gatling guns supporting your artillery...
  • In the Total War: Shogun 2 DLC The Fall of the Samurai, any naval battle involving an ironclad going up against wooden ships is usually fairly short and one-sided, since it doesn't take much to set a wooden ship on fire with exploding ammo, while that same ammo does little against an armored hull.

U

• Umineko: When They Cry:
  • In EP5, Bernkastel introduces Canon Sue and new furniture to kill Beatrice, further her own plans, and royally screw with the status quo. Eventually, Battler and Beato's furniture decide that they are having none of this. Epic smackdown ensues.
  • Featherine delivers this straight to Lambdadelta in EP8.
• Undertale:
  • Just about any enemy on a No Mercy run will go down in one hit. Almost every monster is (intentionally) balanced to be challenging only to a LV 1 player, so if you've been running around on a slaughterfest, you'll spend most of the playthrough mowing down every random encounter you find. Only two exceptions to the rule exist, both characters trying to stop your killing spree (Mettaton NEO is an exception), and although they're still beatable, they avert this trope so hard they actually invert it.
  • In the backstory of the game, the war between the humans and monsters was apparently this. As in, not a single human perished. Human Souls are far, far more powerful than monster ones.
  • You are virtually guaranteed to be on the receiving end of one of these if you end up fighting Sans. He opens the fight with a nearly impossible-to-avoid-attack, and proceeds to throw everything in the book at you, including breaking the in-game rules by using attacks that ignore Mercy Invincibility, dodging your attacks instead of just taking them like any other monster, and even using attacks that hit you while you're in the battle screen's menus. And to top it off, he eventually just doesn't do anything on his turn, which prevents your next turn from ever starting.

V

• In Victoria 2, having an Infamy rating above 25 without an army large enough to take on several great powers at once causes the AI to gang up and initiate one of these on the player.

W

• Warframe:
  • If the Tenno get involved in a situation, it often ends up in an absolute slaughter for whoever stands in their way (especially in lower-level missions). A Warframe can dash through a level at high speeds while easily eliminating every enemy in their way, ending up with a body count of over a hundred from a single mission, while their powerful armor and shields mean that they're unlikely to take much damage themselves.
  • In "The New War", you have to fight three Archons, horrifying amalgamations of Warframe and Sentient. These fights are particularly challenging, as you do not have access to your normal Warframes and weaponry, instead being limited to playing as the Drifter, who has a small array of gadgets at their disposal. Plot happens and interrupts you before you can fight the third Archon, however, and by the time you do find them again, much later in the quest, you once again have access to your full arsenal, making the fight much, MUCH easier: once you destroy the Orphix generators protecting the Archon, they will go down in a few swings of your Paracesis.
  • Nezha's Leverian entry describes an event known as the "Massacre of Reshantur", in which a group of Child Soldiers armed with wooden spears tried to defend their homeland from an army of Corpus soldiers wearing Power Armor and armed with Energy Weapons. But the reason why it's called a "massacre" is then revealed to have been because Nezha himself descended from the heavens, siding with the Reshantur children, before single-handedly wiping out the entire Corpus force. The Corpus didn't manage to kill even a single child that day. There was a Curb-Stomp Battle, alright... and the Corpus were the losers.
• In Warlight, an indie Risk-like online game, late game is often a Curb-Stomp Battle, as one player will finally have sufficient income to steamroll through the entire map.
• The Witcher:
  • In The Witcher, if you choose to get drunk at Shani's place and have your way with her, there's this really annoying old nanny who shrieks at you for... well, getting drunk and having your way with Shani. One of the possible responses is "Die, hag." She lets out a scream, her neck stretches back like she's just had an aneurysm, and she does just that. It's just as funny as it sounds.
  • In the trailer for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, Geralt slaughters an entire squad of Witch Hunters in the span of less than a minute. They don't even land one freaking hit on him.
  • It's implied that Nilfgaard's invasion of the Northern Kingdoms was a walkover. Temeria, Aedirn, Lyria and Rivia all fell to the Nilfgaardians within a single month, with only Redania (which absorbed the neighbouring kingdom of Kaedwen) offering resistance.
• World of Warcraft has a few of these battles.
  • Darion Mograine charges the Lich King after LK takes his father's soul. LK barely waves a hand to send him to his knees. On the opposite side, Darion tosses his sword to Big Good Tirion Fordring, who accordingly curb stomps the LK so hard he runs away.
  • The final battle against the Lich King in Icecrown Citadel has two separate curb stomp battles from two parties.
    • The first one is done by the LK himself. After reaching 10% health, the Lich King one-shots the entire raid group. He goes on to declare that he could have killed them at any time with no effort, but by letting Tirion (currently frozen in ice) and his champions defeat his greatest creations and reach him, he tricked Tirion into delivering the greatest group of heroes the world has ever known right into his hands, to raise as his personal group of undead super-soldiers.
    • The second curb stomp occurs when Tirion calls upon the powers of the Ashbringer, breaking free of his icy prison and shattering Frostmourne. Every single soul the Lich King has ever taken is released from the sword, lifting him up and, essentially, immobilizing him. The Lich King is forced to watch helplessly as Tirion and his champions (resurrected by the spirit of Arthas's father), as well as the countless souls, beat on him relentlessly. It's as he says himself "Now I stand, the lion before the lambs... and they do not fear. They cannot fear..."
  • Apothecary Putress versus everyone at Wrathgate. No one survives his plague attack. Only dragons of life are able to clean it up.
  • Thrall with the Dragonsoul vs. Deathwing. Massive world-breaking dragon vs. a tiny (comparatively) orc shaman who is seemingly powerless? The curb stomp is in Thrall's favor. All is going well for Deathwing until he notices Thrall holding one of the most powerful weapons ever made. After having his armored plates ripped off, Deathwing gets blasted with the Dragon Soul and plummets into the Maelstrom. The full damage is seen when Deathwing pulls himself back out of the water, now more an abomination of fire and scales than anything resembling a dragon. Thrall demonstrates the weapon's power again, blasting the weakened Earthwarder until he literally disintegrates. The best part is that Deathwing had a hand in creating the Dragonsoul, so he knew all too well just how powerful it was.
  • Thrall gets another one in Warlords of Draenor. His final battle with Garrosh, former Warchief of the Horde, Warlord of the Warsong Clan, and one of the strongest mortal warriors in recent history. The fight is generally even, until Garrosh takes a risk that pays off, allowing him to get a few solid hits in, and ends with him tossing Thrall onto the ground. Realizing that Garrosh isn't going to back down, he decides enough is enough. Calling upon his shamanistic powers, he tosses Garrosh around like a piece of paper, eventually crushing him in a giant stone fist and calling down a bolt of lightning that ends Garrosh's life.
  • Like with the Everquest example listed above, a max-level player can go back and solo clear a dungeon that at the appropriate level would have required anywhere from 5 to 40 players to clear.
  • Sylvanas and Saurfang's mak'gora looks like it's going to be one of these, in Sylvanas' favor, until she says exactly the wrong thing and he rallies. He still dies, but he achieves the moral victory and she's forced to abandon the Horde.

X

• X3: Reunion:
  • The final mission has a huge Terran fleet jump into an equally huge Kha'ak fleet, in an epic battle involving thousands of ships. The result? The Terrans lose a few ships, while the Kha'ak take such heavy losses that they are effectively wiped out as a species. Terran ships are apocalyptically powerful, and even after being nerfed in subsequent games, they still tend to win battles pretty handily unless badly outnumbered.
  • The Kha'ak themselves inflict one on the Argon Federation at the Battle of President's End. In a battle scarily reminiscent of Pearl Harbour, several Argon stations and ships are annihilated in a Kha'ak surprise attack, at little cost to the attackers.
• XCOM Enemy Within: Potentially, the first open battle with EXALT. Your XCOM squad will possibly have laser weapons and armour made from alien alloys. Your EXALT adversaries will have equivalent to flak vests and conventional bullet-firing weapons. But then again, there are only four to six XCOM operatives present, compared to around ten to twelve EXALT operatives. XCOM has technology and training on their side, while EXALT has numbers and sheer ruthlessness. This could be an interesting battle, and it could go either-... Oh, wait, nevermind, XCOM has brought a MEC Trooper. Those cool guns that EXALT have brought may as well be paintball guns.
  • Doubly true when you consider the later battles against EXALT as well. EXALT technology maxes out at what could be considered on par with mid-game XCOM technology, so should you reach the late-game weapons and armour EXALT will be left in the dust (if you haven't already eliminated them by that point).
• In the Alternate Timeline of XCOM 2, the Alien Invasion ended up becoming this. In this version of events there was no Sorting Algorithm of Evil and the aliens brought their A-game immediately, destroying France in a terror attack two months in before XCOM even developed lasers and prompting Earth to surrender. In spite of this, XCOM was fully prepared to fight a Last Stand but in the interquel novel Resurrection, Bradford reveals that The Omniscient Council of Vagueness formerly backing them knew this and sold them out, fearing an I Surrender, Suckers would lead to the aliens simply deciding to Kill All Humans.
• Quite a few examples story-wise in the Xenoblade Chronicles series:
  • From the first game:
    • Double subverted at the start during the attack on Colony 9. At first the Mechon destroy everything as nothing the Defence Force has can break their outer shell, until Dunban turns up with the Monado and saves Shulk and Reyn. Then Metal Face turns up, and guess what? He's impervious to the Monado.
    • The battle between the Mechon and Colony 6 is heavily implied to be this.
    • Yaldabaoth/Gold Face does this to the party in Galahad Fortress and Agniritha, before being on the receiving end of one against Zanza.
    • The Zanza fight after you get Monado III.
  • Xenoblade Chronicles 2 also boasts a fair few.
    • Jin is pretty strong throughout the whole game, but once he reveals his ability to control particles and move at near lightspeed, the party gets defeated in about 3 seconds.
    • Once Rex unlocks Pyra's/Mythra's third form, Pneuma, he has a rematch with Jin. This time, Jin gets introduced to a cliff. Face first. Multiple times.
    • Basically any fight that involves Malos, until the final boss.
    • The first couple of times that Mythra appears, she one-shots the whole enemy party in about 5 seconds flat.
    • KOS-MOS in any battle she appears in (she's also one of the strongest blades gameplay-wise).
• Xenogears:
  • Id. Seven years before the beginning of the game proper, Solaris sent him to crush the Nation of Elru: Id did not defeat Elru by himself: he wiped out the whole country. Later, he turns his fury against his former employers, and obliterates the heavily guarded capital of the world's most advanced nation in minutes.
  • The fight against Grahf on the Goliath. He's one of the hardest bosses in the game, which is saying something considering that he's on foot battling your party, who are in their gears.
  • Then there's the final boss, where Fei faces what Miang became after she was absorbed by Deus. Two things to keep in mind: first: Fei is the alter ego of both Id and Grahf, and second Id and Grahf both had numerous psychological issues that actually crippled them. The man who faces what's left of the game's main villain at the end has all the aforementioned characters' strengths and the inner peace they sorely lacked: the final battle is pretty much bereft of any challenge or suspense, being basically the video-game equivalent of God-Man versus the Purple Beetle.

Y

Z

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