Autobots, Rock Out!

Autobots wage their battle to rock out the evil forces of the Decepticons!

Danny: Anything we can do?
Phineas: Yeah! Musical accompaniment!

— Phineas and Ferb The Movie: Across the 2nd Dimension (before the song "Robot Riot")

This is it. Whether it be a culmination of a dozen hours of gameplay, or the first two acts of the film, or a season's worth of hour-long episodes, after all this time and effort, it's time for the Final Battle.

Cue the electric guitar.

For some reason, nothing says "Let's kick some ass!" quite like The Power of Rock (except maybe Ominous Latin Chanting, or both). Maybe it's the heavy bass, or the wailing guitar, or the pounding drums, but rock music just seems to get the blood pumping, so it's typically used to underscore the big action scenes.

This trope applies to rock of any kind being played when the heroes do their thing. Sometimes it's a Theme Music Power-Up. May overlap with The Power of Rock, where rocking out is the heroes doing their thing. Occasionally accompanied by Ominous Latin Chanting, which means someone's really about to get wrecked. For even more epicness, add some Orchestral Bombing. Has every reason to be Awesome Music, so it had better be up to it. Compare Big Damn Heroes. Compare and contrast Rotten Rock & Roll, where it's the villains that get this honor. If a character has a Signature Instrument, expect them to whip it out here.

The trope title is a pun based on the Transformers catchphrase, "Autobots, (transform and) roll out!" This became a meme after an Internet short in which Optimus commanded the Autobots to "Transform and Rock Out!"

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• FLCL:
  • It's all done by a Japanese alternative rock group called "The Pillows". The battle music is a song called "Advice", until Canti has pretty much nailed down a win, then it's "Little Busters".
  • Canti only applies in the 2nd and 3rd episode. In the 4th Crazy Sunshine plays, 5th is Blue Drives Monster and the last one is I Think I Can.
• Guilty Crown has done this three times as of episode twelve, and they're only halfway through season one at that point. Considering the people that were hired to write the music, ^note The popular J-pop band, Supercell there is going to be a lot more of this in the coming series.
• Occurs quite a few times in Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann.
  • Bonus points to Viral's heavy metal Leitmotif, "Nikopol", and "Libera Me From Hell", which takes Theme Music Power-Up to new levels of badass.
  • Another great example is the opening song, "Sorairo Days," played during both the main series' and second movie's final battle between the two galactic mechs.
• About Once an Episode in Saiyuki.
• Used in the finale of Cowboy Bebop:The Movie, as "Pushing the Sky" plays during the final fight between Spike and Vincent, shown here.
• Shakugan no Shana plays the second season's first OP (a rock song) during the "victory moment" ending the battle in episode 21 of the anime.
• Every Macross is about this.
  • Macross 7 is 50+ solid episodes of this trope. Notable in that it had no other soundtrack but Fire Bomber's rock music, with an occasional other bit song thrown in.
  • Macross Frontier takes it to new heights, especially in the final episode, with a medley of the songs from the series being sung (in universe) during the climactic battle.
• Bubblegum Crisis almost always has rock music during fight scenes.
• Soul Eater does this quite a few times.
• The '90s DiC dub of Sailor Moon has "Carry On" for the season one finale, and "She's Got the Power" for the first battle with Rubeus.
  • "She's Got the Power" is by Stan Bush, best known for "The Touch" (noted above).
  • The original series also has "Moon Revenge" in the R movie, which is so awesome that you can't understand unless you actually watch the scene. Also, "La Soldier" during the battle against Doom Phantom, which was replaced by "Power Of Love" in the dub, both of which are kick ass, respectively.
  • "Ai No Senshi" was another song for an epic battle, the Sailors vs all of the Dark Moon sisters and Rubeus.
  • In the original series, Moonlight Densetsu played in the first season finale, and Sailor Star Song played in the last season finale, both accompanied by awesomely epic final battles.
• Bleach breathes this trope. Inverted when the Big Bad, Aizen, blocks Ichigo's bankai and KILLS the theme music.
  • He's such a freaking troll!
• Tokyo Mew Mew: Mew Zakuro's transformation theme is probably the most badass music you'll find in a Magical Girl show.
• Mobile Suit Gundam 00 breaks out "Daybreak's Bell" or "Unlimited Sky" whenever something epic is about to happen, not to mention how much of the show's Crowning Music Of Awesome features the electric guitar.
  • Gundam 00: A Wakening of the Trailblazer: The movie took this concept to new levels of awesome by combining several themes from the main series in one, adding awesome chanting, blaring trumpets, and orchestral arrangements. Called "Final Mission ~ Quantum Burst," it pretty much defines 8 minutes of pure awesome alien ass-whoopin' for the movie.
• The first season of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex would often have the rock theme "Run Rabbit Junk" playing whenever the main team was storming a building or doing something else badass but not part of the serious ongoing plot. The song disappeared for the second season, but returned for the climax of Solid State Society to signal that Section 9 was truly back in business.
• "Gravitation", the title theme of Heroic Age, combines this with elements of Ominous Latin Chanting to great effect. Sadly, it's only ever used for the title theme. No Theme Music Power Ups for Age and company.
• GaoGaiGar: Arguably, this is half the purpose of Mic Sounders the 13th's existence. The other half is to provide literal theme music powerups.
• The climactic battle in Slayers Evolution-R features the opening theme from the anime's second season (Next).
• The Pokémon: The Series anime's arrangement of Pokémon Red and Blue's trainer battle theme, "Burning Battlefield" features fast paced drums and wailing electric guitars.
  • Then for when things get really epic there's "Kanto Gym Intense Action."
  • And "Fight! Team Aqua/Magma."
  • The anime's arrangement of the Pokémon Gold and Silver "Wild Pokemon Battle Theme" as well.
• My Hero Academia has the Track: "You Say Run!" ...the fact that in youtube exists a category called "you say run goes with everything" is a clear hint that is perfect for battle sequences, since the melody itself irradiates raw heroism.
• Noir is all over this. Whenever Salva Nos kicks in, expect the drums to bring the awesome soon.
• The third Rebuild of Evangelion movie has "It Will Mean Victory," a face-meltingly metal/orchestral theme for Shinji, Kaworu, and Rei fighting Asuka and Mari.
• Fairy Tail uses Celticy folk-rock sounding music for its fights. Plus, there's plenty of plain ol' rock parts. And metal parts, such as the metal version of the Celticy folk main theme.
• Dragon Ball:
  • Dragon Ball Z Kai decides it wants to get in on the action, creating several new hard rocking themes for certain people, including a theme for the Ginyu Force, Freeza, Vegeta, The Cell Games, a brand new theme for Trunks, and a completely unrelated awesome song just for a car traveling scene with Goku, Chichi, Gohan, and Krillin.
    • Bruce Faulconer's music for the American FUNimation dub of Dragon Ball Z is filled with this.
  • Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods features this at one point during Goku and Beerus' battle, during which hard rock theme "Hero" begins playing.
  • Dragon Ball Super, in the Universe Survival arc, completely took everyone by surprise with the insert song, "Ultimate Battle" by ZENTA, playing when Goku fights Jiren after transforming into a completely new form translated as Ultra Instinct Omen.
• The original Japanese version of Sonic X used "Live & Learn" from Sonic Adventure 2 in their adaptation of that game's storyline; specifically when Super Sonic & Super Shadow fight the Final Hazard, which is the same place the song is played during the game. The 4Kids dub replaced it with a generic piece of music instead.
• The final episode of Digimon Fusion features the X7 version of "We Are Xros Heart" playing during the Final Xros and epic, though short, final confrontation with DarknessBagramon.
  • Digimon Adventure's final battle against Apocalymon featured "Brave Heart", opening the entire episode with its famous Epic Riff.
    * The Initial D Legend anime film series replaces Eurobeat music for the heavy metal-oriented rock music during car races. This also carried into Initial D Arcade Stage Zero game as well.
• In the Mazinkaiser OVA series, whenever the titular Super Robot would go to town, the song "Mazinkaiser's Theme" would play. When the last episode's final fight kicked in, the full version started to play.
• In the One Piece anime, when Luffy, Zoro and Sanji start fighting the Pacifistas after the Time Skip, the music switches to the current opening, We Go.
• Revolutionary Girl Utena features the duel themes, which combine an epic rock soundtrack with Word Salad Lyrics to provide the perfect accompaniment to the surreal duels themselves.
• Outlaw Star gives us "Crash", the heaviest version of the show's Leitmotif. Perhaps the best usage is in the final battle of the final episode, when Gene pulls a minor All Your Powers Combined moment to deliver a Curb-Stomp Battle against his godly adversary.
• In the Black★Rock Shooter OVA, battles between the eponymous character and Dead Master are usually accompanied by killer guitar riffs. Sadly, the 2012 anime doesn't use this trope for its fight scenes.
• Naruto: Every time Rising Fight Spirit plays in the background.
• Saint Seiya:
  • The battle between the four bronze saints versus Ikki, features "Burn Cosmos" a neoclassical/progressive Rock piece, the bronze four got their ass kicked of course.
  • In the "Battle of the Gods" movie when Dolbar is finally defeated, we are treated with another song: "God's Dusk: Warner Rock".
  • In the "Legend of Crimson Youth" movie, just after Hyoga beats his enemy and we see the bronze saints progressing, the music at the background is "Unbending Will" which features a prominent shredding guitar solo.
• The OST for Darker than Black draws from many different influences. The track used as protagonist Hei's fight theme features electric guitar, drum set and chimes.
• The OVA Cybernetics Guardian has an almost completely metal soundtrack but this trope truly comes into full force in the climatic battle where "Can't get it enough" by Trash Gang starts blaring in the background as John get's his Heroic Second Wind.
• In Puella Magi Madoka Magica, "Magia" plays during the opening scene, with Homura fighting Walpurgisnacht. Once the show gets Darker and Edgier, "Magia" becomes the ending theme.
  • Several other fighting themes count too, such as "Nunquam Vicar" and "Venari Strigas." "Absolute Configuration," from the movie, both has this and Ominous Latin Chanting.
• In the middle of the 3rd season of Jojos Bizarre Adventure, the opening, being the funky "Crazy Noisy Bizarre Town" is replaced with the extremely intense "Chase" after the main villain Yoshikage Kira is revealed, showing that the tone has become much darker and that our heroes are about to get serious.

Fan Works

• In the fanfic Empathy, Tip makes this her primary job on the team (along with being air support and the getaway driver). She seems particularly fond of the music of Rihanna and Fall Out Boy.
• Invoked by resident vigilante badass Garrus Vakarian in the Mass Effect fanfic Interregnum; during combat sequences, he uses his visor to pipe in music, including "Die For The Cause": "the only imperial anthem to feature an electric guitar solo". The anthem part is actually canon, although there's no word yet on the guitar solo.
• Red Lightning gives Conner, who is literally made of this trope. In fact, his Superpower means he can weaponise this.
• Rise of the Minisukas: Eva-01 is about engage Samshel when an army of Minisukas -who apparently couldn't decide between a post-apocalyptic or fantasy aesthetic- join the battle. Aoba decides this scene needs a guitar solo, but Ritsuko orders him to put the guitar away, arguing they don't deserve a soundtrack. Nonetheless, the Magi computer disagrees.
  A dozen camera feeds were brought up, showing a curious sight. A fleet of RC cars painted red and kitbashed to look like post-apocalyptic raider vehicles manned by Minisukas. This was accompanied by a large flock of mismatched birds of different breeds ridden by even more Minisukas. Apparently, the cavalry had arrived, and they couldn't decide between a post-apocalyptic or fantasy aesthetic. The command center was engulfed by a stunned silence, once again due to the arrival of the tiny reinforcements. Until Ritsuko broke the silence.
  "Aoba put the guitar away!"
  "Come on! This needs some music!"
  "We are not dignifying those little gremlins with a soundtrack!" Suddenly the MAGI announcement system was brought online.
  "Initiating playlist: Songs to Kill Angels to."
  "Mother why." Ritsuko put her face into her hands as she was drowned out by some rock song.
• Before the final battle with the golem in The Dusk Guard Saga, Nova asks Vinyl Scratch to put on 'the beat to beat down to'.
• The final battle against Golus in The Rise of Golus is set to the tune of this.
• The trope namer (see below) is given a Shout-Out in Meg's Family Returns in the battle of several Alternate Universe versions of Meg against "Pushed Too Far" Meg, where "The Touch" begins to play. The characters (or at least Peter) are aware of it.
• The climax of the System Shock crossover, Goggles and the Tears, starts with a Tear opening to MUSE's "Knights of Cydonia" on Zachary Comstock's airship, which Gordon Freeman hooks into the P.A., providing a backing track while the main characters fight SHODAN, with aid from the Vox Populi.
• In My Little Animaniacs, Rita sings "The Eye of the Tiger" during an escape sequence from a Corrupt Corporate Executive's lair.
• The New Adventures of Invader Zim: In part two of the Season 1 finale, Norlock chooses to broadcast "Ride of the Valkyries" in order to announce his and Zim's arrival on the scene of an aerial battle.
• Child of the Storm has Doctor Strange do this occasionally, exploiting his vast seer powers to time it perfectly. He does this for two reasons. First, this version used to be Taliesin, perhaps the greatest bard ever to live, and has a deep understanding of the literal and metaphorical power of music in magic and in general. Second, he's a melodramatic troll.
  • When Harry's fighting an Elder Wyrm, Strange has Tony Stark hack the Valiant to make its loudspeakers crank out "Thunderstruck" at top volume.
  • In the climax of Unfinished Business, he exaggerates it and turns New Orleans into a giant amp, playing "We Will Rock You", loud enough that it's easily audible over the roar of a Quinjet's engines twenty miles away. No one is surprised, either by what happened, or by who's responsible.
    • At the end of the chapter, when everything's faded and the world's gone silent, he later shifts to another song, starting with the line "C Minor, put it in C Minor..."
• Here Comes The New Boss: When it's clear that the Empire 88 isn't going to walk away from an Irish bar without a fight, one of the patrons flips a coin to a boy nearby and asks him to start the jukebox.
  The lyrics started, and so did Liam with a right hook that sent the spokesman toppling over.
  I'm a sailor peg/and I lost my leg/climbing up the topsails/I lost my leg!
• In What Tomorrow Brings, Marco blasts "Come Out and Play" by The Offspring through the Pool Ship during the mission to rescue Jake and Cassie.

Films — Animation

• BoBoiBoy: The Movie: The official soundtrack "Masih Di Sini" made by Malaysian rock band Bunkface plays as the heroes are being chased by Kurita on their way to the floating island.
• Several scenes, both comedic and epic, in Megamind are accompanied by a variety of pulsing rock songs.
  • Megamind himself actively attempts to invoke this trope. The background music that plays when he's around? All part of his PRESENTATION!
• This is the entire build-up for My Little Pony: Equestria Girls – Rainbow Rocks' final battle, thanks largely to the movie's plot revolving around music.
• Phineas and Ferb The Movie: Across the 2nd Dimension:
  • The citizens of Danville defend their town to this song.
  • The end credits... featuring Slash!
• Scooby-Doo! and KISS: Rock and Roll Mystery: A movie featuring KISS naturally showcases this trope from the group.
  Starchild: Does your eye see the future?
  Demon: Then, let's rip this open!
  (KISS starts performing "I Was Made For Lovin' You")
• Shrek:
  • ''Shrek 2: “Holding Out for a Hero" to Shrek and gang storming the King's castle.
  • Shrek the Third: Was the best use of "Immigrant Song" until Thor: Ragnarok. Snow White uses it to defeat two evil trees standing guard. (And it's followed by a cover of Heart's "Barracuda".)
• In Teen Titans Go! To the Movies, the team defeats Slade's Humongous Mecha while rapping.
• Trope Namer: The music in The Transformers: The Movie, particularly the Stan Bush song "The Touch", which is used twice in the film - for Optimus Prime's final fight with Megatron, and for the climax of the film as well when the power of the Matrix is unleashed against Unicron. The same movie inverts the trope with a villainous version, featuring Megatron's troops slaughtering an Autobot shuttle crew to the tune of "Instruments of Destruction".
• "12 Years Later" and its Triumphant Reprise, "Jim Saves the Crew" from Treasure Planet.

Films — Live-Action

• Star Trek Beyond: As the climactic battle begins, the Enterprise survivors, having commandeered the derelict USS Franklin, are faced with the overwhelming wave of the Swarm that effortlessly shredded the Enterprise at the beginning of the film. The soundtrack swells with a literal wave of alien drones to devour the ship, until the glow of her warp nacelles are virtually the last light left in the scene.
  Kirk: Let's make some noise.
• Battleship: As the Battleship USS Missouri gets reactivated by the protagonists to fight the aliens, the song "Thunderstruck" by AC/DC plays.
• Top Gun uses "Danger Zone" by Kenny Loggins to start many of its action sequences ("Mighty Wings" by Cheap Trick is also used at least once). Also, the main theme of the film has a guitar riff as a musical motif.
• The final battle in Jet Li's The One.
• A few portions of the 300 soundtrack featured rockin' electric guitars.
• The whole freaking soundtrack to A Knight's Tale.
  • One notable example creates a hilarious anachronism when the the audience in-universe is clapping and singing along with "We Will Rock You". Complete with the final guitar part apparently being blasted out of a trumpet.
• Most of the soundtrack to In Bruges is tinkly piano music, of the sort that is played while the camera focuses on the ripples made by a swan's passage through a canal. However, towards the end of the movie, in the first genuine action sequence, a snarling electric guitar shows up.
• Dario Argento's Inferno (1980) gets the Rock and Roll AND Ominous Latin Chanting version (courtesy of Keith Emerson, he of Lake and Palmer fame).
• Godzilla: Final Wars
  • An early scene in Godzilla vs. Biollante has a Middle Eastern spy gunning down redshirts while the soundtrack plays a rocked-out version of the main theme.
  • Behold, the Monster Zero March.
• While most of the pieces in the soundtracks to the Pirates of the Caribbean films are epic orchestral pieces by Hans Zimmer, a few numbers feature distorted electric guitar lines blaring over the strings and winds.
  • Played with in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, where it was revealed by Zimmer in an interview that what many people thought to be electric guitar was actually the orchestra played though a guitar amplifier.
• Watchmen. All Along The Watchtower, baby.
• Literally the entire score of Iron Man.
  • It also doesn't hurt that most of it was performed by Tom Morello.
  • It really doesn't hurt that the official soundtrack for the sequel was an AC/DC compilation, as three of the band's songs play in both movies.
  • Special props go out again to the sequel, wherein a drunk-as-fuck Tony asks his party's DJ to bless him with a proper soundtrack. Cue Queen's "Another One Bites The Dust", and later, Daft Punk's "Robot Rock".
    "Goldstein! Gimme a phat beat to beat my buddy's ass to."
  • And then he invokes it on an even grander scale in The Avengers, as he hacks a quinjet's PA system to blast "Shoot to Thrill" as he arrives on the scene.
  • Speaking of the Marvel Universe, Thor: Ragnarok twice has Thor wreaking havok as "Immigrant Song" plays (it's about the Vikings who worshipped him, after all).
  • Thor: Love and Thunder repeats the above with two battles scored with Guns N' Roses, "Welcome to the Jungle" and the ending of "November Rain".
• Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers has a mean electric guitar version of Michael's regular Leitmotif play at several points.
• "Shipping Up to Boston" by the Dropkick Murphys in The Departed.
• Done entirely with AC/DC in Maximum Overdrive.
• This trope got invoked in-universe in several 80s films (Iron Eagle, the "Bishop of Battle" sequence from Nightmares), as kids wanting to concentrate on things like games or flying would put on Walkman headphones, crank up the volume, and then kick some ass while blasting their ears with hard rock.
• Frequently invoked in Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, where the big fights happen during rock gigs (and in one memorable case, the fight actually is the rock gig).
  Kim Pine: WE ARE SEX BOB-OMB, AND WE'RE HERE TO WATCH SCOTT PILGRIM KICK YOUR TEETH IN! ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR!
• The Hangover does this with a blackjack tournament, set to the tune of Wolfmother's "Joker and the Thief". And it's awesome.
• The Rocky series seems to be rather fond of this trope, and each film in the series arguably tops its predecessors. Though the best-known example from this series is undoubtedly Survivor's "Eye of the Tiger" from Rocky III (which does qualify for this trope, despite not being reserved for the Final Battle), however, the real standout examples are Bill Conti's "Going the Distance" from the original and Vince Dicola's "War" from Rocky IV (not to be confused with the Edwin Starr song). Survivor's "Burning Heart" (also from Rocky IV) deserves an honorable mention, but is just mood music in comparison (and "War", not "Burning Heart", is the song that plays during the Final Battle anyways).
• Blackhawk Down featured a soundtrack heavy in guitar riffs, serving as a Trope Codifier in regards to American post-Cold War military stories.
• Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix features a guitar solo in the full version of "Fireworks", the track that plays during Fred and George's escape from Hogwarts, though it's not heard in the film itself.
• Kingsman: The Secret Service:
  • Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Freebird" (around two-three minutes of the guitar solos starting after the middle part) during the church massacre.
  • KC and the Sunshine Band's "Give It Up" while Valentine's plan is executed could be a parody of this trope.
  • During the intro, Dire Straits' "Money for Nothing" scores a bombing followed by a land raid.
  • In the sequel, the climactic battle is scored with "Word Up!". The opening fight scene between Eggsy and Charlie is set to "Let's Go Crazy".
• The Doof Warrior in Mad Max: Fury Road uses a completely over the top in-universe example, using his flame-spitting double neck guitar to psyche up the War Boys as they race across the wasteland. In interviews he's been likened to "a drummer boy, but replaced with Spinal Tap on acid." And for bonus points, the actual prop was fully functional.
• Star Wars: Attack of the Clones has an electric guitar featured in the OST version of "Zam the Assassin and the Chase Through Coruscant" that was meant to be played as Anakin and Obi-Wan get shocked in the power couplings, but it went unused.
• In Deadpool (2016), "X Gon' Give It to Ya" plays as Deadpool, Colossus, and Negasonic Teenage Warhead prepare to confront Ajax and Angel Dust. When Negasonic interrupts and cuts the music off, Deadpool tells the sound guys to cue it back up.
  • The sequel spoofs it as Deadpool asks for Dolly Parton or Enya to play in the action scenes. A straighter case, with AC/DC as X-Force is parachuting into action, ends up as a subversion given unfavorable weather leads to the deaths of everyone but Deadpool and Domino.
• At an earlier scene in Shoot 'Em Up, Clive Owen, cast as the protagonist, goes shooting through Music/Motorhead's Ace of Spades.
• In It (2017), how does one back up the big screen adaptation of the iconic Apocalyptic Rock War? With mother-effin' Anthrax, baby.
• In Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse, the trio show up with their Macguyvered zombie-killing weaponry just in time to save their party-going classmates ... and to do it as the freakin' Scorpions kick in on the soundtrack.
• Ready Player One (2018): As the vast army of OASIS players Wade has assembled starts charging into to engage the Sixers for the Final Battle, Wade pulls out a boombox and starts blasting "We're Not Gonna Take It".
• Flash Gordon (1980) has a whole soundtrack by Queen.
• Captain Marvel (2019) feature Carol beating up an entire squad with "Just a Girl" in the background (which is both ironic, as she's clearly not just a girl, and adequate to the film's 1995 setting).
• In Hellboy (2019), pretty much every action scene, and even some of the "quieter" ones, are underscored with epic rock and metal riffs, including songs by Muse and Motley Crue.
• Averted in Underwater when Paul cranks up the stereo and shouts, "Let's do this!" when they have to put on their diving suits to carry out their insane survival plan. Instead of a Lock-and-Load Montage, everyone else just stares at Paul until he looks embarrassed and turns the music down.

Literature

• The Battle of Hope, the military turning point in World War Z, begins with the U.S. Army blasting Iron Maiden in an attempt to draw hordes of zombies to the slaughter. The soldier being interviewed notes that it really didn't matter to the zombies what music they were playing, but the heavy metal soundtrack got the soldiers hyped for the battle.
• In the Legacy of the Aldenata by John Ringo:
  • The hero Michael O'Neal, Jr leads his team of Powered Armor troops by broadcasting to them inspirational music. In his book, he even lists the songs that O'Neal has on his list. Most, but not all, are rock songs. There's even a justification thrown out — powered armor being what it is, the troops take long, loping strides while traveling overland and normal marching cadences don't work well. Led Zeppelin, Blue Öyster Cult, and Heart, on the other hand...
  • O'Neal also uses "Immigrant Song" as a psywar tool on multiple occasions.
  • Subverted late in the first series as O'Neil is preparing for what he thinks will be his unit's Last Stand, he selects what he feels is appropriate music and queues the playlist with great gravitas and then.... deep in the bowels of the transport hauling his unit to the front lines one of the heavy-weapons troopers hears the opening bars and bitterly complains to the new guy, "It's his WE'RE GONNA DIE playlist" after hearing "Veteran of the Psychic Wars" start playing.
• Fate/Zero, the prequel novel (and now anime) to Fate/stay night gives us "The Berserker" as the theme for the Berserker of the 4th War, aka The Black Knight, aka Lancelot. ARTHURRRRRRRR!!!!!!
• The notorious kids of Sweet Valley High hijack the school's PA, setting it to full-blast rock 'n' roll off local radio. This cuts through a tense assembly atmosphere. Turned up to 11, literally.
• The Dresden Files: In Cold Days, Molly pulls an impressive Big Damn Heroes by sailing the invisible Water Beetle to Harry's rescue, then throwing off the veil while blasting Queen's 'We Will Rock You' across the lake.

Live-Action TV

• Buffy the Vampire Slayer: When Buffy comes back to life to go kick the Master's ass, her theme starts playing.
• Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, whose main theme had an electric guitar riff so awesome and memorable as to be engraved on to the souls of those who grew up in the 90's.
  • Hell, Masaaki Endoh, king of hot-blooded theme song performances, did a cover of the song for his "ENSON" album where he does hot-blooded covers of anime themes. It's the only English song to feature on the album.
• In Battlestar Galactica: The Plan, the Cylons get an awesome inversion, as the rock song "Apocalypse" scores their attack on the Twelve Colonies.
• Self-invoked by one of the Misfits of Science, when electricity-powered Johnny B. starts singing his favorite Chuck Berry song before blasting hell out of some troops. Justified, as he's a former rock musician who needed to psyche himself up.
• SAS: Rogue Heroes. The anachronistic Ace Of Spades plays when the SAS go into action, even though it's the 1940's, to convey the spirit of the Military Mavericks.
• Spartacus: Blood and Sand: Many of the gladiator fights are to sound of the electric guitar.
• Best Motoring likes inserting electric guitar as background music before a circuit battle.
• iZombie: In its first season finale, Major Lilywhite has his own feel good moment as he massacres his much hated zombie enemies in their own headquarters with a shotgun by the sound of After The Fire's version of Der Kommissar.
• Chuck has one episode see Sarah and Casey get in a shootout set to Twisted Sister's "We're Not Gonna Take It."
• 12 Monkeys: Played for laughs in the series finale. As Cole and Ramse are preparing to storm Titan by car for the Final Battle, they decide they need some music playing to set the mood, and end up settling on, of all things, "(I've Had) The Time of My Life". Which leads to a hilarious scene of the Witness psyching up some Mooks for the showdown, only to trail off in confusion as the music reaches them, right before the car comes roaring out of a tunnel, triggering a gunfight.
• In the South Korean apocalyptic horror mini-series Sweet Home (2020), "Warriors" by Imagine Dragons plays whenever the survivors are doing something particularly dangerous or awesome.

Music

• Steam Powered Giraffe has 'The Space Giant' from their so-called 'space opera' The Vice Quadrant, in which the band's characters travel into space to defeat the aforementioned giant, who is consuming a planet known as the Green Apple. The following narration occurs before this trope is played out:
  [But first] the Space Giant needed proof that this truly was Steam Powered Giraffe, so it proposed a duel, and revealed a guitar made out of the cosmos. The ensuing duel would come to be known as the most awesome duel in all the universe.
• The KLF remixed What Time Is Love several times, each time adding more grandiose elements. The original 1988 track is a simple acid house riff; the 1989 remix adds rapping and pop hooks, and the 1991 "America: What Time Is Love" version further adds rock guitars, choirs, full orchestra, and an opening monologue describing the discovery of America, with the music video depicting a rave taking place on a Viking ship.
• Thin Lizzy's "Emerald" is about a battle between raiders from the glen, and the lowlands folk they're attacking. After the first half of the song descripes the setup in words, the second half is a duet between two lead guitarists, played out as if they were battling each other, trying to drown out one another's riffs in turns until one triumphs.

Pinballs

• Black Knight 2000 has one of the most famous examples in Pinball. Listen for yourself.
• Elvira and the Party Monsters begins with some bouncy but unspectacular music, but multiball starts a full-blown rock show (with synchronized playfield lights) that goes even further when the player scores the Jackpot.
  • Alternately, spell ELVIRA and make the three million shot for "Elvira's Theme", a twenty second extravaganza.
• Featured throughout Last Gladiators, which boasts over 80 rock music tracks, including original compositions by Doug Aldrich of Whitesnake.
  • The Creator-Driven Successor, Necronomicon, has numerous goth metal tracks, and an introduction and epilogue by John Petrucci of Dream Theater.
• Godzilla (Stern):
  • Downplayed. Godzilla Multiball (themed around the game's protagonist) is accompanied by a hard rock song – specifically, "Godzilla" from the Blue Öyster Cult album Spectres. However, the story casts Godzilla as an Anti-Hero, and the footage used for the mode is entirely dedicated to him destroying cities during his less sympathetic moments in the original films. Regardless, it's framed as a triumphant and epic moment for the player.
  • Played straight during many of the monster battles, which are scored to instrumental hard rock.

Pro Wrestling

• This is the reason why about 90% of the entrance music used in WWE, TNA, and Ring of Honor are hard rock or heavy metal.
• For an object lesson, compare this to this. Rey Mysterio, for one, certainly benefits from rocking out.

Puppet Shows

• Used awesomely, hilariously and very Americanly in Team America: World Police, as the heroes jet off to fight terrorists while the over-the-top anthem "'Merica, Fuck Yeah!" blares in the background.

Roleplay

• In Fools Gold, AC/DC's "Highway to Hell" and Breaking Benjamin's Blow Me Away are used to awesome effect during the final chase.

Theatre

• Heathers: a fierce guitar instrumental plays during the final confrontation between Veronica and JD as she attempts to wrestle him away from the bomb, eventually leading to her shooting him.
• Be More Chill: Electric guitar refrains of previous songs play as Jeremy and Michael fight for the bottle of Mountain Dew Red.

Video Games

• Any game with custom music support (whether through third-party mods or by plopping sound files into the game's music folder) automatically has potential for this.
• Alan Wake has an amazing sequence which takes place on an old stage on the farm of two aged heavy metal rockers, formerly known as the Old Gods of Asgard. All the lights and fireworks go crazy and rock n' roll blares loudly from the speakers as you fight of hordes of enemies to the tune of The Old Gods of Asgard's "Children of the Elder God," which is surprisingly rock-tastic.
  • Remedy Entertainment's distant Creator-Driven Successor Control pulls off a similar tactic during a late game sequence in the Ashtray Maze. As Jesse barrels through it while blasting apart mooks in her path, she's listening to another Old Gods of Asgard track, "Take Control." Even Jesse thinks it's awesome.
• Aladdin (Virgin Games): Most of the music comes from the movie of which this game is based, but out of the tracks original to this game, "Arab Rock" an intensity to it that does make it sound like a rock song. The DOS version even has electric guitar instruments. This tune plays for the Abu bonus levels, The Escape, and the final level, Jafar's Palace.
• Back 4 Blood has the cleaners turn on the jukebox in the level Bar Room Blitz in Act 1 in order to distract zombies long enough to evacuate refugees.
• Bravely Default has several pretty rockin' themes, but special attention has to go to the themes for the final bosses: "Wicked Battle," "Wicked Flight," and especially "Serpent Eating the Ground," the theme for the True Final Boss, which combines this trope with Ominous Latin Chanting to awesome effect.
• Brütal Legend. Hell, it's pretty much the entire premise of the game, given that it takes place in a world created by "Metal Gods" where spells are cast by playing sweet guitar solos.
  • One such spell summons a burning zeppelin that crashes into the ground and explodes!
  • Another is the Face Melter.
  • Though the final boss is easily the most hardcore track in the game, Judas Priest's "Painkiller".
• Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 implements rock and metal music themes for each faction which are activated whenever you enter in a battle situation, the result is really cool!
  • And it gets better when a Superweapon is fired (upon you)!
  • Universe at War. Frank Klepacki (artist for nearly all C&C soundtracks) is always happy to supply those willing to buy RTS games these days with extremely kickass industrial metal battle themes.
• The Sonic the Hedgehog games, from Sonic Adventure to Shadow the Hedgehog fall under this, as the final battles of these games feature Super Sonic and/or Super Shadow fighting the final boss as the game as (usually) the main theme of the game plays in the background. ^note  "Open Your Heart" for Sonic Adventure, "Live And Learn" for Sonic Adventure 2, "What I'm Made Of" for Sonic Heroes and "I Am... All Of Me" for Shadow the Hedgehog.. This changed with the fifteenth anniversary game, as since then the final boss battle takes place to an orchestral version of the game's theme song. Until the twentieth milestone, in which they used an original song, since Generations didn't have its own theme song.
  • Sonic Frontiers deserves special mention, as this happens whenever Sonic transforms into Super Sonic against the Titans, and each Titan has their own personal theme for when this happens. ^note "Undefeatable" for Giganto, "Breaking Through It All" for Wyvern, "Find Your Flame" for Knight and the game's main theme, "I'm Here", for Supreme.
• The battle themes in the recent Prince of Persia games aren't straight rock, but you can definitely hear the influence. Especially in Warrior Within (where Godsmack contributed two songs to the soundtrack).
• Super Smash Bros.:
  • Super Smash Bros. Brawl's Final Destination stage music is a hard rock remix of the main theme. Ominous Latin Chanting intact! As heard here, it is epic.
  • The Final Boss, Tabuu, has a rather proggy battle theme, as heard here.
  • There are also themes from many other series' universes (including Smash Bros. itself) exhibiting this trope, such as "Gourmet Race", "Victory Road", and "Mute City". Many of these are rock remixes of themes which were originally in other styles, and which in many cases originally played in entirely different contexts; some, however, were this in the games they originate from as well. Even several of the Sonic the Hedgehog examples made it into the series when Sonic was added to the roster in Brawl, such as Open Your Heart and Live and Learn; these return alongside the character in subsequent games, though the exact assortment varies.
  • In Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U, on top of a theme for the games' iteration of Final Destination, an original theme was composed specifically for the fight against Master Hand and Crazy Hand.
• Final Fantasy:
  • Final Fantasy IV, VI, VII, and even Mystic Quest, have rock music for boss battles.
  • And Advent Children uses a rock version of the famous "One-Winged Angel", with revised Latin lyrics.
  • At the climax of Dirge of Cerberus when Vincent transforms into Chaos and flies into Omega, GACKT's "Longing" starts playing.
  • Final Fantasy V has "Battle at the Big Bridge", a fast-paced rock song initially used for The War Sequence on the Big Bridge, but better known as Gilgamesh's battle theme.
  • The theme "Otherworld" in Final Fantasy X, is first used during Sin's arrival. It then becomes Jecht's battle theme. It's not so much rock as a homage to everything Rammstein (even though they didn't actually perform it.)
  • Dissidia Final Fantasy:
    • Tidus, when he gets up after apparently being one-shotted by Jecht, who's saying things like "Well, maybe next time you can give it a shot," is cued by the re-start of "Otherworld." Talk about passing the badass torch...
    • Another scene has Bartz vs. ExDeath with Clash on the Big Bridge.
  • Final Fantasy III's final battle theme, which already rocks hard, was re-used as the final race theme for Chocobo Racing. Ooooh yeah.
  • Final Fantasy VIII has The Extreme as its final battle music. It starts slow. Very slow. And then it gets awesome.
  • Final Fantasy VI's final battle theme "Dancing Mad" manages to pull this off in epic fashion, with the first three movements of the piece consisting of operatic organ instrumentals with the last being a chaotic rock song that fits the final showdown with Kefka himself perfectly.
  • Final Fantasy XIV has many instances with its boss themes, with one of the most notable examples being with Shiva: the first phase of her battle has the expected Orchestral Bombing, but once the fight shifts into its second phase, the punk rock guitars of "Oblivion" kick in.
    • During the Nier crossover content, specifically at the end of the first raid, the Copied Factory, the rather wistful (if defiant) "Weight of the World", the credits song from Nier Automata, is turned into an absolutely epic battle theme, with the inclusion of Final Fantasy's "Prelude" theme over driving rock and a chanting choir. 2B may still be "only one girl", but she now has twenty-four Warriors of Light by her side.
    • Perhaps the best and most notable instance in the game happens during the fight with the Final Boss of Endwalker. Two third of the battle uses an epic orchestral remix of all the previous final bosses, but at the last third, the Big Bad casts their Signature Attack, which the party of the protagonist barely survives with the help of a defensive Limit Break. So the Big Bad immediately uses their Signature Attack again. This too, the party survives, this time with the help of The Power of Friendship. Cue the siren-like electric guitar which leads into a remix of the main theme of Endwalker and the Leitmotif of the Player Character. Ass-kicking ensues simultaneously to a Villainous Breakdown.
  • Dissidia 012 Duodecim gives us "Cantata Mortis & God in Fire" as a battle theme for Feral Chaos. Back-to-back with an orchestral ambient and epic Latin chanting (Cantata Mortis), and blazing guitars, head-banging, and blood-pumping rock song (God in Fire), this song is PERFECT to slay or to brawl as an upgraded (unless you challenge him at the start, if you master the game) or handicapped, but cooler version of the game's villain. "God in Fire" actually tells a backstory about Chaos' (and Garland's) life, despair and longing for destruction, thus becoming Feral Chaos turns himself into a merciless berserker.
  • Chaos's theme in the original Dissidia also is a deliciously hopeful rocking out, even when you hit his third form, struggling for victory.
  • Pretty much all of the battle themes in Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII consist solely of hard rock and metal. The most notable song is probably the final boss theme, which begins with a pounding drum beat reminiscent of marching soldiers as the two combatants face off before the guitars kick in and the swords start flying. And it is awesome.
• The World Ends with You is filled to the brim with this trope, with tracks like "The One Star," "Transformation," "Someday," "Emptiness And" and Hybrid adding in a healthy dose of heartpumping, adrenaline-inducing tunes to the game’s already stellar soundtrack.
  • This gets Exaggerated in the mobile port, in which the penultimate boss theme trades in the catchy Japanese version of "Twister" for the insanely epic metal remix version. And then there's "Tatakai", Beat's theme, which plays whenever you fight him after his Face–Heel Turn.
• Xenoblade Chronicles X: Going up against any of the Tyrants is a tall order. So they're highlighted by the accompaniment of "Uncontrollable", instead of the game's usual battle theme. It becomes a near literal example once you're outfitted with a full party of SKELLS to take them on with.
• In Earthbound 1994, the final boss' first form's music sounds like an innocent throwback to NES music, then halfway through, BAM! Metal.
  • There's also the music of the battle against the Natural Killer Cyborg in Mother 3, which is evocative of "Beat It". The regular battle themes Fate and Serious also count, though they're slower and more melodic.
• Wario Land 4: The Toxic Landfill's theme music, and also the "end" section of Crescent Moon Village's.
• The otherwise completely-forgettable RTS Star Wars: Force Commander had a couple of metal-inspired arrangements of John Williams' "Imperial March" (the 'Rage' mix and the 'Leviathan' mix).
• Elite Beat Agents' grand finale has two: a relatively straight cover of "Without a Fight" by Hoobastank, and a Hard Rock remix of "Jumpin' Jack Flash".
  • The game's Japanese predecessor, Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan, also applies with Larc En Ciel's "Ready, Steady, Go!," best known to western audiences as the second opening theme of Fullmetal Alchemist (2003).
• Not quite the same, but when the Americans win in Call of Duty 4, their victory music is a little RAWK.
  • In-story, the soundtrack takes on a metal rock tone whenever it focuses on the US Marines.
• Nearly every boss in Baten Kaitos has an electric guitar theme. Motoi Sakuraba loves the electric guitar.
• Command & Conquer: "Hell March". Also counts as Crowning Music of Awesome.
  • And it just gets cooler with each new iteration
  • Kane's Wrath featured a remix of "Act on Instinct", the opening theme to the original Command & Conquer, during its opening level.
• Geez, the final boss battle in Guitar Hero III. Sure, there are other boss battles (including the ones present in Aerosmith and World Tour), but none of them can top this one. You may never listen to "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" the same way again because of this.
  • For bonus points, after you defeat Lou, you get to play the final stretch of the song alone, undisturbed and, why not to say it, gloriously.
• In Soul Nomad & the World Eaters, the main character's "soulmate" Gig gets one in the form of his Theme Music Powerup, "Rock'n Rocks," which does triple-duty as the game's Awesome Music. When this song plays, shit is about to go down hard.
• The original Disgaea: Hour of Darkness deserves a mention: Little Miss Badass Etna has just unveiled that she's been playing both the main character and the current villain who is holding her memories of the King hostage for chumps since before the start of the game, declares that she's through toadying around for him, and decides to beat the baddie so utterly senseless that he begs her to let him be her slave. Cue metal-infused punk rock backed up by a pipe organ, courtesy of the song "Invasion From Within" by Tsunami Bomb. This song only plays in the PS2 version with the English audio, though. When set to the Japanese audio, Etna's leitmotif "You Go Girl" (or "Do Your Best, Girl") plays instead. The subsequent Updated Rereleases on the PSP and the DS use "You Go Girl" in both languages.
• Fire Emblem:
  • In Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones, the musical track "Powerful Foe", which is used for major boss fights, opens with an electric guitar rift followed by Ominous Latin Chanting.
  • Many of the boss battle themes of Shadow Dragon and New Mystery of the Emblem are very much rock-themed; the best example may be "Clash of Two Virtues", the theme for the fights against Michalis and Camus, themselves climatic foes responsible for much of the ill fortune befalling the world. Similarly, "Dark Emperor Hardin" and "Medeus, Shadow Dragon", the themes for... well, Emperor Hardin and Medeus, and "Tearing Shadows", the theme for Gharnef's assassins.
• Advance Wars:
  • CO Powers tend to open up with awesome songs, usually including some sort of electric guitar solo. Combined with the ridiculous power of Tag Powers of the later games, you begin to feel the awesome flowing in your veins.
  • Sturm, Big Bad of the first two games, has a theme that sounds like the Imperial March if it incorporated an electric guitar solo. He is only fought on the last two missions in both games, adding to their climactic feel.
• While not actually at the climax, Warcraft 3: The Frozen Throne does have Arthas and a number of other heroes rock out at a concert during the credits of the game, singing "Power of the Horde".
• FreeSpace 2 has mostly rather ominous and moody music, but in certain levels the dynamic background music steps it up by several levels.
• Halo has plenty of this along with the Ominous Latin Chanting:
  • Halo: Combat Evolved had the literal "Rock Anthem for Saving the World" that would play during more intense parts of the game.
  • In Halo 2, an instrumental version of "Blow Me Away" plays when the Master Chief enters the Mausoleum of the Arbiter, where the Enemy Civil War is at its most epic. Cue the urge to kick ass and Chew Bubblegum. While Cortana tells you it'd be better to sit this one out and wait for the enemies to kill each other, it's just impossible to do so with this music.
  • And not to mention that both 2 and 3 had Steve Vai shredding over the more intense themes.
  • The "Mjolnir Mix" of the main theme.
  • Halo 3: ODST pretty much blew away everything that came before with a little thing called "Air Traffic Control": imagine that playing while fighting against hordes of Covenant air support on the edge of a skyscraper hundreds of feet in the air.
  • Halo: Reach has a short but intense guitar riff that plays at various points at the game, most notably during your first battle against Zealots, and also when Noble Team is storming the Sabre launch facility at the beginning of "Long Night of Solace".
• Half-Life 2:
  • Episode Two has the final boss battle. You've just beaten back multiple Strider waves and are rewarded with a moment of eerie calm to catch your breath. Then the final push comes in from all directions, and the soundtrack kicks in.
  • Even more so this particularly awesome example for when the Vortigaunts show up in the antlion defence section in Episode Two.
  • The Episode One fight in the Abandoned Hospital, with "What Kind of Hospital Is This?" playing over the action.
• A Hat in Time typically sticks to standard cartoony platformer tunes... until you reach the final bosses of the levels, all of which are kickass heavy metal remixes of the level themes.
• Killing Floor lives on rock tracks during a wave of a zed attack (if it's not playing some of the techno tracks). Particular note goes to Abandon All, the theme for the Patriarch
• Kirby:
  • Galacta Knight is almost always accompanied by his hard-driving metal Leitmotif, regardless of which game you see him in. Exaggerated in Super Kirby Clash as Aeon Hero (Light) and Aeon Hero (Dark).
  • The first phase of the battle against Queen Sectonia in Kirby: Triple Deluxe opens with nothing but an Ominous Pipe Organ, but mixes in guitar riffs later in the song. In Kirby: Planet Robobot, the battle with her clone drops the organ altogether.
  • In Kirby Star Allies, the "Heroes in Another Dimension" has powerful versions of existing bosses. While they retain their original boss themes, once they Turn Red, the music changes to a rock remix/arrangement of the normal boss theme for Parallel Woods and Parallel Kracko, while Parallel Meta Knight and Parallel Dedede get a slightly different theme.
  • In Kirby and the Forgotten Land, King Dedede comes packed with a remix of "Macho of Dedede" from Kirby Star Allies with lots of heavy metal thrown in. It plays for both fights against him (though the music changes to Masked and Wild: D.D.D. during the second phase of the second fight against him, but it nevertheless still sounds rather rockin').
• Kid Icarus: Uprising features orchestral music for most of its soundtrack, but two tracks stand out for their use of rock instruments. The main boss theme combines an electric guitar with an orchestra, while the air battle segment of Chapter 14, "Lightning Battle", foregoes all pretenses and goes full power metal while serving as the backdrop of an electrifying Mêlée à Trois.
• Etrian Odyssey:
  • Etrian Odyssey IV: Legends of the Titan: The Battle Theme Music for minibosses, "The End of Raging Winds", eschews the chiptune-flavored music for boss battles the series was used to (including the original version of that same track in the third game) in favor of a mix between rock and electronica. It helps that the soundfont is more varied and advanced than that for the games released for original Nintendo DS.
  • Etrian Odyssey V: Beyond the Myth: The music that is played during enemy encounters in the fourth and fifth dungeons is reliant on electric guitars, contrasting the tamer music from previous dungeons; this indicates that the dangers that lie ahead are greater, but also that the explorers are honing their strengths to overcome them. The Bonus Dungeon uses yet another theme, which goes straight into hard rock.
  • Etrian Odyssey Nexus: The theme "Hoist The Sword With Pride In The Heart", originally the main boss theme in the third game, is remixed into a rock-inspired version for the bosses of that game that reappear here. Same goes with "Calling That Detestable Name" from the same installment, which was played for its True Final Boss and is now played for the battle against that of this installment.
• Lost Odyssey's final battle actually uses this and Ominous Latin Chanting together for its final battle.
• Blue Dragon tried to invoke this trope with its boss battles. The same song was used in Barkley Shut Upand Jam Gaiden with an awesome effect.
• Guilty Gear is this trope exemplified, to the point that every match begins with the announcer saying "Let's Rock!". The most notable songs of this type are "Awe of She" (Dizzy's theme), "Meet Again" (Justice's theme), "The Midnight Carnival"(I-No's theme when fought as a boss), "Get Down to Business" (Holy Order Sol's theme), "Still in the Dark" (theme when Millia and Eddie fight) and "Keep the Flag Flying" (when fighting Order-Sol as Ky). And there's also "Worthless as the Sun Above Clouds" from Overture, which is the theme song of Raven; and "Ride the Fire" from Xrd, the theme of Sol's Dragon Install (LET IT OUUUUUUUUUUT!!!).
• BlazBlue:
  • "Awakening the Chaos", the theme of Nu -13-. It starts out as Ominous Latin Chanting, but after a minute and 20 seconds it goes into pure heavy metal with the chanting intact. After a second loop of the main riff it suddenly goes into a orchestra solo, then back to metal for the remainder of the song. Then we have "Black Onslaught", the theme of Ragna's boss form. It's pure death metal, complete with Narmy Gratuitous English lyrics courtesy of the same vocalist from Guilty Gear's "Worthless as the Sun Above Clouds". It's amazing this didn't come from Dethklok:
    • Bang's Crowning Music Of Awesome "Beat a Nail With a Hammer". My goodness.
    • "Beat a Nail With a Hammer" was done by Hironobu Kageyama, the guy who made the harder rock pieces for classic DBZ and the games, so this was to be expected.
• Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure:
  • This platformer/puzzle game hybrid allows the player to activate "Tea Time" (because he's British) when the Super Meter fills, transforming the titular Henry into a giant robot. It's awesome! The soundtrack during the transformation starts as a simple classical song, then proceeds to ROCK OUT COMPLETELY.
  • The final battle also has an awesome metal song, simply called "Heavy Metal". And you had better learn to love "Heavy Metal" because like the rest of the later part of the game, the final boss is as hard as hell. And don't even get me started on Gentleman's mode (aka SO HARD YOU WILL RIP YOUR OWN SPLEEN OUT THROUGH YOUR EYE SOCKETS mode)...
• Boss battles in Serious Sam: The Second Encounter are accompanied by upbeat music with loud guitars.
• Mana Khemia: Alchemists of Al-Revis gives us "The Menace" and "Nefertiti" for the strong regular encounters and one of the climax bosses, respectively.
• The Dynasty Warriors series abuses the hell out of rocking music, particularly in the third and sixth installments. Whether you're trying to put down a peasant rebellion or engaging in the truly epic flaming ships battle, you will be accompanied by a wall of electric guitars and thrashing drums proclaiming your awesomeness. Especially hilarious because the games are set in ancient China.
  • The siege of He Fei Castle, which is the final showdown between the Wu and Wei kingdoms, seems to particularly lend itself to epic rocking guitars, as heard here.
  • The seventh installment introduces the Kingdom of Jin, who bring the Three Kingdoms era to a close with the power of rock.
    • Lu Bu's theme.
    • The final battle theme for his hypothetical story in the Xtreme Legends expansion for 8.
    • Hell, all the final battle themes for the hypothetical stages are badass.
  • This extends to Warriors-style spin-offs that the development team creates. See the covers of "Conquest (Ablaze)" from Fire Emblem Warriors, the Hyrule Field theme from Hyrule Warriors, and the cover of "Last Surprise" from Persona 5 Strikers.
• Yoshi's Island, normally a very childlike game, culminates in an intense, hard-rocking electric guitar theme in its final battle. And it is AWESOME.
  • The World Boss Battle music also features this, and throws a kickass rock organ for good measure.
• Yoshi's Story activates a rock version of the theme of whichever stage you are on whenever you consume an invincibility power-up. The only exception to this is the final boss theme, which keeps playing in its usual orchestral strings even when Yoshi is invincible.
• In Paper Mario, the final boss, Bowser, has a pretty heavy theme, mixing some organs in there, too. In TTYD, the boss Rawk Hawk's song owns almost TWICE as hard. Then, Bowser's new battle theme at the end tops them both.
  • Similarly, Super Mario World's final boss.
  • Also the one in Yoshi's Island.
  • Super Mario Odyssey has Break Free (Lead the Way), a vocal rock song that plays in the final Escape Sequence which sounds more like something from a Sonic game.
• While it's not the final boss of Tales of Vesperia, electric guitars are abundant and awesome during Yuri's climactic duel with Flynn near the end of the game. Merely part of the reason why the fight's so cool.
• Doom:
  • The first game and Doom II both use generic MIDI versions of heavy metal songs for its music. John Romero is quoted as saying that the games' composer Bobby Prince "knew the legal amount of sampling that he could do without getting into trouble." This page on the Doom wiki details the various inspirations for the music; for instance, the famous riff from E1M1 was taken from Metallica's "No Remorse".
  • For the 2016 game and Doom Eternal, Mick Gordon handled the music, and while he was originally told to compose a more synth-heavy soundtrack rather than metal on the grounds that a throwback to the '80s/'90s thrash of the original games would be too corny, he decided otherwise and eventually fused metal influences with synthesizers. The result was two of the most head-banging video game soundtracks in history.
• Iji has some wicked awesome Heavy Metal in a few sectors. Fully in line with the trope, however, is the truly epic final boss theme.
• The King of Fighters: Nothing says "Rugal will kick your ass and then bronze you" quite like this number.
• Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 has several heavy metal sequences. Probably the most impressive during the helicopter ride when you do your Last Stand in the form of Death from Above. Of course, Hans Zimmer is responsible for this, so no surprise there.
• Call of Duty: Black Ops exaggerates this with the rock music kicking in on the second half of almost every level.
• Supreme Commander has Cybran Razors. The guitar takes a while to kick in, at about 1 minute in.
• The final level of the Dark Carnival campaign in Left 4 Dead 2 takes place in a concert stadium, already set up for the fictional band "Midnight Riders". In order to signal a helicopter flying around in the area, the survivors have to start up the sound system and fireworks. The Riders are apparently not averse to the use of playback, because as soon as you hit the button rock music starts playing, attracting a horde of zombies. The Tanks even get their own guitar rifts when they enter the fight!
  "Well I'm a half-ton son of a gun with a suitcase full of pistols and MON-AAYY!"
• The final stage of the Tower of Lost Souls in Soul Calibur IV uses a rock song, interspersed with blaring trumpets sounding out the game's recurring riff. Happens again when you fight the same guy in V. Algol sure likes his rock, doesn't he?
• In The Sponge Bob Movie Game, the final boss music is also electric guitar. Some home console versions like the PS2 version take it a step further by having the third and final stage of the boss fight replace this music with the soundtrack version of "Goofy Goober Rock" from the movie.
• Need for Speed: Many of the games featured rock songs for some of its tracks such as Gore in the second, Little Sweaty Sow from the third and Cone of Silence from Hot Pursuit 2.
• The last boss fight of the first disc of Star Ocean: Till the End of Time features "Divine Spirit Of Language," a driving electric guitar song.
• DoDonPachi Daifukkatsu's soundtrack has a pop/electronica feel to it. The Black Label release, on the other hand? DonPachi Squadron, rock out!
• No More Heroes and its sequels do this quite a bit. Assassins, rock out!
• While the main themes of Punch-Out!! Wii are all heavy on guitar, the final boss, Mr. Sandman, is outright metal.
• The Touhou Project fangames:
  • Mega Mari (a takeoff of Mega Man (Classic) starring Marisa) is no stranger to RAWK throughout, but the final boss fight against Patchouli and her Humongous Mecha kicks off with the title theme.
  • Reimu's series of Last Words from Concealed the Conclusion, which are set to a rock version of her final boss theme.
  • Also Utsuho Reiuji's theme, "Solar Sect of Mystic Wisdom ~ Nuclear Fusion", which is the most definite Final Boss theme in the series, aptly fitting a hell raven with the power to create nuclear suns... who is also just a complete idiot behind all the flashy bluster.
  • Utsuho also gets this treatment in the fangame Fantasy Explorer Nitroid, where she appears as the final (pre-extra stage) boss and has easily the most rock-oriented theme in the game.
  • Happens a fair few times in Gensou Shoujo Taisen, too including the game's remix of the aforementioned Solar Sect of Mystic Wisdom. However, a better example would be Stardust Hero, a remix of Marisa's theme from IN, Love Coloured Master Spark, which plays in Chapter 39, partway through Ei, when Marisa gets her upgrade. It's her battle theme from then on. On a similar note, there's also The Moment Dreams Reach the Stars, which plays whenever Marisa fires off her Master Spark Or Final Spark, once she upgrades. Also of note are Crumbling Silver Knife, Frantic Destroyer, and Drill Through that Cloud. Though considering what attack Iku is parodying during that last one...
  • Another fangame, Touhou LostWord, gave many Leitmotifs the "Metal-esque" spin. One character that comes with it by default is Mystia Lorelei, as a nod to her status as a member of the rock band Choujuu Gigaku.
• Castlevania: Symphony of the Night:
  • The game opens with a subdued choral theme, and the title sequence features ominous, orchestral opening music. Then the game begins with a replay of the last battle between Richter and Dracula in Rondo of Blood. The music employs driving, wailing electric guitars. But only for a short time: Dracula's music is the epic orchestral music, remixed from Rondo.
  • Inverted with the rest of the game. There are two standard boss themes: a face-melting metal style one, and a more orchestrated one. The orchestrated one becomes more common throughout the game, and many of the later bosses have it, giving it a tone of "important boss music" (key characters like Death and Shaft have this theme). Dracula has another different orchestral theme altogether.
• Castlevania: Curse of Darkness incorporates a lot of metal into its soundtrack, but special mention goes to Trevor Belmont's utterly badass boss theme, "Legendary Belmont."
• EVE Online's soundtrack is pretty muted and focuses on ambience, but it does have a few combat tracks like Retribution and Fight Like You Live.
• Monster Hunter:
  • Monster Hunter 3 (Tri): The final boss theme song is a mix of this and Ominous Pipe Organ, fitting the chaotic nature of the multi-elemental Elder Dragon Alatreon.
  • Monster Hunter Portable 3rd: Zinogre's theme is the first monster theme in the entire series to actually use electric guitars. The monster in question is an electrified lupine monster, so the music fits.
  • Monster Hunter Generations: Each of the Elite Four flagships has its own Battle Theme Music, and the one for Astalos is of this kind. It's also very frantic, fitting the monster's Fragile Speedster motif.
• The original Perfect Dark on the Nintendo 64 has different music for each level, but is perhaps unique for having an amped-up version for most, if not all of these themes that kicks on most missions once the action really revs up (i.e. when Joanna's cover is blown, when a bomb is about to go off, and so on).
• Earth 2150 has the UCS battle themes containing large amounts of this trope, unlike the orchestral-themed ED and LC soundtracks.
• Blue Wish Resurrection Plus mostly plays techno tracks but for the True Final Boss we get Fortune.
• RefleX uses the organ most of the time but the battle against Cancer have the rock powered Despair -Cancer-.
• Jet Set Radio was all about this, particularly the screwy final boss music - simply titled Grace and Glory. The western releases were even moreso, with remixes of American metal bands such as Rob Zombie's "Dragula."
• Zone of the Enders is incredible. Just listen. And that isn't even the best track. That whole series is like the biggest most badass sci-fi film you have ever seen (and there is a film - Zone of the Enders IDOLO).
• MechAssault 2 is made of this. Mid-way boss theme? "Getting Away With Murder" by Papa Roach. Final Boss theme? "Right Now" by Korn. Besides those songs, around 90% of the original music is some form of metal.
• MechWarrior tends to normally feature a more orchestral soundtrack or atleast dark sounding ones but MechWarrior 2: Mercenaries and MechWarrior 4: Mercenaries both feature more rocking tracks for their fights ranging from Freedom Fight from the second, to Hunter from the fourth
• Shin Megami Tensei:
  • Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne:
    • The endgame is basically made of this trope, to the point where one path ends with what can best be described as a techno rock battle. at the end of the universe. with the Devil. The other endings save one separates the two - the Final Boss (a combination of the Sun, the Moon, and God that looks like a disco ball) starts out with techno before it becomes pure rock when he goes One-Winged Angel.
    • This is notable with Dante's cameo, as he gets one of the most epic themes in the game.
  • Devil Survivor has this just before the respective ending. Your plan has worked, the remaining doubts have been cleared and the path to Babel is open. Cue epic music (appropriately named "Final Battle").
  • Persona 3 has the the rocking "Master of Tartarus" for the Tartarus Guardian bosses, fast paced drum-heavy "Unavoidable Battle" when the protagonist first summons his Persona which reappears for battles against Strega, and a remix of the Velvet Room theme titled "Battle Hymn of the Soul" for the final boss. In the Portable version, "Master of Tartarus" is replaced with the heavier "Danger Zone" when playing as the female protagonist.
  • Persona 4 has J-rock vocal tune "Reach Out to the Truth" for regular battles, replaced with the equally-rocking "Time to Make History" in the Golden rerelease. Most of the bosses have imposing rock instrumental themes: the metal "I'll Face Myself (-Battle-)" for Shadow Selves and optional bosses, the droning "A New World Fool" for Kunino-sagiri and the Killer, the triumphant "The Almighty" for Ameno-sagiri, and the foreboding "The Fog" for the first phase of true final boss Izanami. Turned on its head with the theme for the second phase of Izanami, "The Genesis", which is an orchestrated theme (albeit with some heavy guitars) in a game that mostly has a rock and pop soundtrack.
  • Persona 4: Arena has numerous rock themes for the soundtrack, such as Kanji's "A Pure-Hearted Beast" and Akihiko's "The Wandering Wolf".
  • Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth has the imposing "F.O.E." when battling F.O.Es and the Velvet Room siblings, and the rap rock "Laser Beam" against story bosses.
  • Persona 5 has techno rock tunes with plenty of electric guitar for most of the climatic Boss Battle themes, with the Final Boss theme in particular heavily featuring an electric guitar shredding through it's refrain.
• Transformers: War for Cybertron has some good soundtracks during the game but it's the end credits everyone looks forward to, leaving us with an amazing song by Stan Bush that has us feeling good and satisfied after all we fought against.
  • Transformers: Fall of Cybertron follows this pattern, along with a short remix and the actual song "The Touch" as its credits.
• Dragon's Dogma
  • The main menu theme for the original version of the game was "Into Free ~Dangan~" by B'z. Thematically, it doesn't really fit in with a high-fantasy RPG, but fans still loved it to pieces, so much so that its exclusion from the Dark Arisen Updated Re-release was met with derision.
  • Both the original game and Dark Arisen have "End of the Struggle", which plays during the climactic moments of several boss fights, particularly when you and your party have the boss on the backfoot. This theme stands out amongst the OST for its use of an electric guitar accompanying the Orchestral Bombing. This goes double for Dark Arisen's "Self Guitar Arrange Version", played during boss fights on Bitterblack Isle.
• The soundtrack of Transformers: Devastation is nothing but metal. Have a listen.
• Yoko Shimomura's soundtrack for Legend of Mana uses rock music for nearly every boss theme, most notably The Darkness Nova.
• Trials of Mana is no slouch when it comes to epic rock music for battle themes in the remake, such as "Nuclear Fusion", "Black Soup", 'Obsession", "Faith Total Machine", "Strange Medicine", and, while more orchestrated than the ones already mentioned but still containing the rock-type guitar riffs nevertheless, "The Sacrifice Part Three".
• Rock music is the basis of a lot of the battle themes in Xenoblade Chronicles 1, but two of them stand out the most: "You Will Know Our Names," which kicks in when waging battle against a unique monster, and "Vision Reacts," which overrides almost all the other battle themes every time the party tells destiny where to shove it.
• Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Not to be outdone by its predecessor, the two Unique Monster soundtracks include "Those Who Stand Against Our Path" and "You Will Recall Our Names", which are even more intense and make heavier use of electric guitar than "You Will Know Our Names". Lampshaded by the Nopon Archsage.
  Nonpon Archsage: Friend sound startled like 10-ton gorilla with fancy name appear from nowhere and start playing electric guitar.
• Puyo Puyo has some very odd themes for boss fights, where they proceed to break the recording studio's drums at least once every three games; Popoi tips the iceberg, but Strange Klug and Dark Arle hammer the hell out of the guitar and drums. Final De Puyo's 15th Anniversary gets the last laugh, though... Then again, this is a puzzle game series...
  • Before all that, we have Final of Puyo Puyo from the first game.
  • From the 20th Anniversary game, Final Pair Deathmatch.
  • From Puyo Puyo Tetris, we have Faceoff in Puyopuyo World! Magical Confrontation! and Dimension Stage - Decisive Battle!
• Tribes: Ascend has an entire soundtrack of synth music, most of it slow, heavy tracks played quietly in the background... until you pick up the flag. Then you're blasted with the kind of loud, pounding, intense backing that careening across the terrain at 200kph with half the enemy team shooting at you should have.
• Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War certainly deserves some mention. While most of the tracks follow the same tone and feel as the previous titles, the final mission, when you fight Pixey, listening to Zero While flying head on at him, dodging his laser, and his burst missiles is just epic.
• Sierra/Dynamix combat simulator Silent Thunder: A-10 Tank Killer II utilized a rock soundtrack for many of its missions. The game itself is generally forgettable, but plunging out of the sky on a tank column, GAU-8 Avenger roaring and hard rock blasting still manages to scream "awesome."
• The soundtracks to Contra: Shattered Soldier and Neo Contra feature heavy metal and electronica music.
• Donkey Kong:
  • Stage 9-8 of Donkey Kong '94 has the closest thing to a guitar solo you could get from the original Game Boy. Fitting, since it's the Final Boss until DK grows gigantic.
  • Donkey Kong Country features rocking electric guitars in the standard boss theme, "Bad Boss Boogie", and the final boss theme, "Gangplank Galleon".
  • Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest uses an electric guitar for a portion of its final boss's battle theme, "Crocodile Cacophony".
  • Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze has heavy metal music for the first, fifth, and final bosses.
• The MMO City of Heroes has several city zones with rockin' intro themes, though these fade after a few seconds. If you make it onto the downed Rikti Mothership during a raid in the Rikti War Zone, however, you are treated to inspiring ROCK for the few minutes the ship is vulnerable to attack.
• La Tale contains a surprise version of this in the very first instance dungeon. To be specific, the background music spends the first ten seconds or so sounding like generic "cave" music, and then becomes awesome.
• The World of Warcraft expansion Wrath of the Lich King features a 5-man boss that is essentially one big Shout-Out to James Brown. His boss quotes and attacks in-game are all references to Brown's music, his title is <Godfather of Souls>, and when you start the boss encounter, you get treated to this.
• In Fate/Grand Order, the Grand Battle of the "GUDAGUDA Yamataikoku" event is underscored by a rock arrangement of the event's theme song, "Meikyo Shisui", celebrating both Nobukatsu rising to the occasion and Himiko receiving the powers of her still-living self to become Super Himiko to battle Kukochihiko.
• Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance has this trope occur every time you fight a boss, with each one having a specific theme song. In a unique twist, the songs start as simple instrumentals, only for the lyrics to kick in as you begin getting the upper hand in the fight. A few in example; "The Stains of Time", "Red Sun" and "I'm My Own Master Now."
  • And, of course, there's the song that has become synonomous with the game, "Rules of Nature."
• Most of the soundtrack in The Halloween Hack, but especially Megalovania," which has become Radiation's Signature Song, being reused for Homestuck, then in Undertale.
• Saints Row IV does this many times. In fact, the final section of the final mission "Punch the Shark" is set to Stan Bush's The Touch from the Transformers Movie.
  • Saints Row: The Third has an uptempo remix of Bonnie Tyler's "I Need a Hero" (with most of the lyrics stripped out). It starts as soon as you learn the mission parameters and loops until you make it through the endless bad guys (all converging on you) to your choice. Unlike most of the music in that game, it doesn't matter if you're on foot or not.
• Mischief Makers for the N64 has a relatively happy and goofy soundtrack...until you get to the bosses which play a metal style track with someone shouting "LOOK AT ME!"
  • Then the final boss, which not only looks like something straight out of Power Rangers/Super Sentai, but also has a suitably epic rock/techno track to go with it.
• Far Cry 3 has a soundtrack that mostly rotates through generic (but still excellent) context-sensitive orchestral compositions. During the Kick The Hornet's Nest mission however, when you take a flamethrower to the criminal warlord's drug plantation while mowing down more enemies than you've yet fought in any single encounter, you suddenly get hit with this.
• At the end of Far Cry 4, an East Asian rock / love ballad plays during the final drive up the mountain to confront Pagan Min.
• Likewise, Far Cry Primal has an electronic song (with English lyrics) play during the final boss fight against Batari, in a game which otherwise doesn't have a single word of spoken English.
• Hellsinker's Apostles of the Seed, the Segment 6 bosses, have the only track in the game with guitar riffs.
• Most of Metal Slug 5s soundtrack, which is heavy metal.
• Mega Man Zero 4's final boss theme, titled Falling Down.
• In Inca, the Star Wars-esque trench battle is set to a frantic panpipe theme with a wailing electric guitar overtop, known as "Katchampa".
• When you hear electric guitars in Asura's Wrath, it's a sign that Yasha is about to do something seriously awesome.
• Undertale:
  • In the No Mercy Route, you face off against the hardest boss in the game, Sans. The track that plays, "Megalovania" (as mentioned above, originally from The Halloween Hack) is amazing. A good thing, considering you will probably be hearing it a lot...
  • The final battle of a pacifist run uses no less than four different themes, three of which (the upbeat and heroic "Hopes and Dreams" and "Save the World" and the more sinister "Burn in Despair!") are heavy on the electric guitar.
• In Crypt Of The Necrodancer, Igneous Rock, March of the Profane and A Hot Mess (the hot half of Zone 3), as well as the boss themes Metalmancy and Absolutetion (the battle themes of Death Metal and the Golden Lute respectively), take on heavy metal in their composition and all benefit the crazy guitar solos of FamilyJules. This apparently wasn't heavy enough for him as he made Aria Awakened where he transforms the whole soundtrack into a one and a half hour metal symphony.
• Being a combat-focused spinoff, Hyrule Warriors takes the normally grandiose and epic themes from The Legend of Zelda and cranks it up with rock guitar and speedy drumming.
• The Walking Dead (Telltale) in Season 1 Episode 5 has a determined, yet maudlin,electric guitar track to accompany Lee as he carves his way through a horde of walkers to get to Clementine, before reaching the antagonist for a final confrontation. Appropriately, it's named "Armed With Death".
• Pokémon:
  • Thanks to the improved sound capabilities of the Nintendo 3DS, many of the "important battle" themes in Pokémon X and Y have rocking guitars lying underneath fast-paced techno beats with special mention going to Lysandre's.
  • After flirting with this in X and Y, as mentioned above, Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire goes all out and gives Wally a climactic, rocking battle theme when fought in Victory Road, which is a remix of the more upbeat theme that played earlier in the game. It reflects Wally's character growth from a sickly, timid boy to a confident strategist.
  • In the gym leader battles of Pokémon Black and White and their sequels, the music is kicked up a notch when the gym leader has only one Pokémon left.
  • Pokémon Sword and Shield takes this up several notches with "Eternatus Part 3," when the legendary duo of Zacian and Zamazenta arrive to fight alongside you against Eternatus.
  • In Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, fights against the leaders of local antagonist gang Team Star are accompanied by a fast-paced, amped-up rock piece featuring plenty of electric guitar. This song is the only battle tune in the game that it's all but on-the-nose stated plays diegetically, composed as the Team's battle theme by one of the leaders themselves, and so this overlaps with Rotten Rock & Roll.
• Unsurprisingly since the game is about a Punk Rock band, Charlie Murder has a lot of rock/metal-laden boss battle music ranging from "When All the Freaks Come Out," "Wasted" to "Lord of Chaos."
• Hades: All of the area boss themes are metal remixes of the area themes. The final boss theme, "God of the Dead", is a mix of the main theme with electric guitar undertones, and the music is tense but slow-paced. Then the boss Turns Red on his second phase, and the music suddenly goes faster and full heavy metal. And when you fight him on his third phase with Extreme Measures 4, it changes to "The Unseen One", which goes hard with the guitar.
  "The Unseen One": Banned for containing too many music notes per second.
• The final battle of Shadow Warrior 2, against the demon goddess Ameonna, is played out to "Warrior", a song that Stan Bush did for this very game.
• The soundtrack to Razing Storm counts. But in the Final Battle with Paulo Guerra, the Five Finger Death Punch song "Ashes" plays.
• The music in Tak and the Great Juju Challenge is mostly very calm and peaceful ambient music. But during boss battles, the music employs heavy use of electric guitars. Same goes for the Proving Grounds soundtrack. The music played during the final match in the Proving Grounds takes it up a notch with a hard rock remix of the BGM from Ghastfall.
• The miniboss encounter with the first Fat Molded enemy in Resident Evil 7: Biohazard is accompanied by Lucas Baker diegetically blasting an instrumental metal track with a wailing lead guitar over the loudspeakers in the barn.
• I=MGCM: There are some awesome rock songs played during battles, especially in normal battles, boss battles, the Demon's Tower dungeon (especially in both the normal battle and boss battle against Griffon) etc. Several of these rock songs performed by some "Alt Idol" genre groups like GANG PARADE, GO TO THE BEDS, PARADISES, and Wack.
• World of Tanks: Some of the soundtracks are about average for a tank game, but nothing gets you more pumped for a clash of steel then this track. Although you're usually singing a different tune when trying to get away from the Maus.
• The Ys series in general has a rather disproportionate number of rock tracks for a medieval fantasy game. How do you make the already-awesome dungeon boss fights in Ys Origin more awesome? Have Scars of the Divine Wing as the music for those fights. Most fans pin the moment the series committed itself to this trope to the boss theme from Ys VI: The Ark of Napishtim, Mighty Obstacle.
• Death's Door: The final part of the battle with the Last Lord of Doors becomes this, with an electric guitar instrumentation of the game's main theme, to boot.
• Ever since Super Robot Wars Alpha Gaiden, the final boss of most console-based Super Robot Wars entry, particularly when they hit their final hitpoints and are going full Villainous Breakdown on our heroes, will kick up an instrumental version of that game's theme
• Terraria:
  • Plantera's theme is a hard rocking theme for the appropriately difficult Man-Eating Plant in the jungle.
  • There's also the remixed version of the Lunar Towers theme, Fighting the Night which features ominous chanting and ferocious guitars by none other than Frank Klepacki.
• The Game Mod Terraria Calamity has Infernal Catharsis, a fierce metal piece that's the theme for the first phase of Jungle Dragon Yharon. The second phase's theme is Roar of the Jungle Dragon, a fast-paced rock track evocative of the boss themes of Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance.
• With a game like McDonald's Treasure Land Adventure, where you play as Ronald McDonald going on a wacky treasure-hunting misadventure, you'd expect a Final Boss theme tune as whimsical and goofy as Ronald himself, and that's where you would be wrong. The game goes with an intense, heart-pounding theme that sounds like it was left over from a Mega Man or Contra game rather than being made for one based on McDonald's.
• In Darkest Dungeon II, the fourth Shrine of Reflection for the Jester remixes his music duel from the second chapter and adds electric guitars on top, shredding both his lute and the abusive court that tortured him.
• In Brutal Orchestra, half of the combat themes from The Garden, the final area, qualify for this trope. Take a listen to God of Gametes, Sensory Stimulation, and especially the second theme for Osman Sinnoks, one of the two final bosses, when he splits into a Duel Boss. The Egg of Incubus update brings Incubus Rising, the theme for the Unfinished Heir miniboss.

Visual Novels

• Fate/stay night:
  • The most common fight music is "Colliding Souls," which arguably counts... then you get to the Heaven's Feel route, specifically Bad End 40 (Sparks]Liner High), and "Mighty Wind" takes its place to accompany Shirou fighting Saber Alter to a standstill at the cost of his own mind by using his Dangerous Forbidden Technique.
  • And whenever you hear the song "Emiya" play you know shit just got real.
• Klavier Gavin much? In Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney, the prosecutor/rock star Klavier Gavin's theme music "Guilty Love," a looped metal track, picks up every time he's at an advantage - and it's awesome.

Web Animation

• Red vs. Blue had a few when Jeff Williams was the main composer.
  • Tex's return warrants a guitar-heavy track as she effortlessly beats up three of the Reds and Blues.
  • The two final episodes of the RE-series have an instrumental version of this track when Tex and the Reds and Blues fight their final battle against The Meta.
  • "Mental Meta Metal", in Episode 9 of Season 10 which starts playing right before Maine not only rips apart a Warthog...but then kicks it at the insurrectionists.
• Most major fight scenes in RWBY are accompanied by vocal rock songs (written by the same Jeff Williams from above):
  • The fight against the Giant Nevermore in "Players and Pieces" has "Red Like Roses part 2"
  • The Food Fight in "Best Day Ever" gets an instrumental metal track with a choir of "ooh"s to highlight the Mundane Made Awesome nature of the scene.
  • In "Painting the Town", "Die" starts to play when Yang's Critical Status Buff activates.
  • "Caffeine" starts to play in the episode "Breach" during team CFVY's fight scene.
• When not talking over complete silence or blaring the theme tune, the standard background music for Inferno Cop is this, usually accompanied by Stuff Blowing Up and ridiculous fight scenes where nobody moves.
• Robin Donnel cleverly used an instrumental version of "The Ballad of Clay Carmine" from Gears of War 3 during the final episode of Shephard's Mind when Adrian Shephard has to fight the Gene Worm, played all the way up to the end.

Webcomics

• Tom Siddell recognizes this. At the end of Gunnerkrigg Court's particularly girly 13th chapter, he left a note jokingly promising that the next chapter would feature "monster trucks and rocking electric guitars". Unfortunately, a few too many fans took the note at face value^note or they thought they were the first to pretend to take the note at face value, which was no less annoying and began asking "Where are the electric guitars?" halfway through Chapter 14, so Tom just deleted the note.
• The trolls' Final Boss fight against the Black King in Homestuck isn't animated and is in the form of a quickly-glossed-over flashback, so it doesn't have music. But then the AlterniaBound album answered the question of what that final boss theme would sound like: Rex Duodecim Angelus, a hugely awesome theme that ties all of the trolls' musical motifs into fitting music. Nightmare organs, harpsichord, chainsaw noises, honks, and culminating in a heavily distorted guitar Western-style showdown theme for Vriska.
  • "Cascade," the theme for the End of Act 5 and the climax of the story up to that point, consisted primarily of rock music.

Web Videos

• Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, "Brand New Day": When it's time for Doctor Horrible to get his evil on, the electric guitar cuts in.
• Army Aviation to the tune of AC/DC. Thunderstruck.
• The Angry Video Game Nerd "Where Did Their Hair Go?"
• In the final episode to Shephard's Mind, while Adrian Shephard steels himself to fight the Gene Worm, an instrumental variant of "The Ballad of Clay Carmine" plays. It also briefly cuts off when Adrian abruptly gets a leg cramp.
• In Maximilian Christiansen's Boss Rage focusing on the Street Fighter DLC for Asura's Wrath, he gets beaten down repeatedly by Oni. Afterwards, cue an inspiring speech followed by "Dare" by Stan Bush.
• When Lily Peet reviews an episode of a show, and a character does a particularly badass thing, Lily will often play "Rules of Nature", from Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, over the excerpt of that moment.

Western Animation

• Blue Eye Samurai: A Japanese-language cover of "For Whom The Bell Tolls" (originally by Metallica) kicks in when Mizu is fighting Heiji Shindo's gigantic henchman in episode 6.
• Transformers:
  • "The Touch" is reused in "The Return of Optimus Prime, Part 2" when he uses the Matrix to stop the Hate Plague.
  • The trope is used literally in the climactic battle of Transformers: Animated Episode "Human Error, Part 2".
    Soundwave: Your axe is useless, Autobot.
    Optimus Prime:^note referring to guitar Decepticon Laserbeak But yours isn't!

  Prime then proceeds to kill Soundwave with his own guitar.

  • Transformers Beast Wars runs on this trope, to absurd degrees in early episodes. Growling electric guitar riffs and high-pitched shredding accompany everything from tense shootouts and transformation sequences to conversation and a change in the weather. The music finds its footing at about the same time as the rest of the show. The most blatant example would have to be "The Agenda, Part 2". When Ravage (yes, the same Ravage from the G1 cartoon) attacks the Maximals he transforms himself into his alt-mode (an audio cassette), inserts himself into his own ship's console, and suddenly a tremendous guitar riff cuts through the soundtrack. One can only conclude that Ravage's alt-mode is recorded with this music. The production crew had apparently wanted to put the original G1 cartoon's theme in there as Ravage's song, but weird copyright restrictions kept them from using it.
• SpongeBob SquarePants: The episode "Band Geeks" ends with The Power of Rock with the usual Butt-Monkey Squidward getting a rare moment of pure joy.
• Megas XLR ended with Coop and the Glorft battling his Evil Twin and his Humongous Mecha army for the fate of New Jersey... all set to an extended instrumental version of the show's main theme. The entire soundtrack can be used for ass-kicking.
• An episode of ReBoot ended with this trope literally on display: Bob and Megabyte have an electric guitar duel on stage at Enzo's birthday party.
  Megabyte: I've always wanted to do that.
• Justice League did this frequently after it was Retooled into the Heroes Unlimited format Justice League Unlimited, especially in the third season (Unlimited's first).
  • Before Unlimited, awesome riffs always accompanied the Badass Biker Lobo's appearances.
  • And also Batman Beyond. In fact, the creators joked in a commentary that using rock in Justice League Unlimited was to provide a stepping stone for the future of Batman Beyond, in a bit of retroactive Sure, Let's Go with That.
• Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers had a whole soundtrack circling this trope! The opening theme, the closing theme, and just about every bit inbetween was underscored with some over-the-top Eighties power ballad. To the fanbase, the soundtrack is an intrinsic part of the series' charm. Here's a sample, with clips from a particularly crack-tastic episode
• SWAT Kats adores this trope. While just about all the music is epic rock, nearly every episode kicks it up a notch for the final showdown.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic has Rainbow Dash and Gilda's leitmotifs.
• Biker Mice from Mars has epic hard rock and heavy metal music played during action scenes in every episode. There was even a soundtrack for the series featuring Jeff Scott Soto singing the theme song.
• Gravity Falls features an electric rock remix of the title theme for its climactic battle between the inhabitants of Gravity Falls, piloting Humongous Mecha built out of the Mystery Shack, versus Bill Cipher's various Henchmaniacs during Weirdmageddon.
• Miraculous Ladybug: The second season finale has an in-universe, villainous example. Hawk Moth has gathered a small army of supervillains, and Marinette and her company have gathered for the first time to stop him. What's the first order Hawk Moth gives? Telling Guitar Villain and Frightningale to play music.

Real Life

• During the first Gulf War, American pilots would frequently blast "Rock the Casbah" by The Clash. According to the documentary "Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten", the Clash's lead singer burst into tears when he found out the song was so often requested on Armed Forces Radio—he was a socialist and the song was never meant to be pro-war.
• During the Battle of Fallujah, the U.S Military used music as a means of demoralizing the insurgents and getting their troops pumped up for combat. It mostly consisted of metal and hardcore gangster rap. The insurgents, in turn began blasting prayers, chants and Arabic music. The music was blasted so frequently that the Marines fighting in the city started calling it "Lollafallujah".

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