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In a Fighting Game, a Nintendo Hard boss. The AI makes a sudden jump in aggression and skill. Your attacks don't do as much damage as they do to other characters. The boss's attacks are much stronger than yours, and some of them aren't blockable or avoidable. Sometimes they have little tricks that make conventional strategies useless.
Oh, and did we mention that if said boss is available to the player, they'll have none of these advantages, including some of the cheaper moves? This is largely because The Computer Is A Cheating Bastard, but also serves to keep Game Breaker characters out of competing players' hands.
Tends to be much easier to swallow if the boss is visibly much more powerful or crazier looking than the regular characters. After all, if you have to fight a fiery demon from the tenth level of the Abyss, it makes sense that'd he'd be a lot stronger than even the strongest of mortals.
Takes its name from the company SNK, which seems to love making bosses like this.
Subtrope of That One Boss. Many of these are MK Walkers. See also Boss Dissonance.
Examples:
Commercial Fighting Games
- The SNK boss by which all others are defined is Rugal Bernstein from King Of Fighters 94, the first and arguably the hardest. Of course, the series upped the ante considerably in '95 with Omega Rugal, then had two bosses in a row with Chizuru and Goenitz (who is difficult to hit, let alone beat) in '96 (there's also a Boss Team, natch). The pinnacle of difficulty was probably '97, which had Orochi Iori (or Leona), the Orochi Team, and then Orochi himself (who has a screen-filler attack): all in a row, naturally. And let's not get started on KOF 2001's lovable Igniz...
- People tend to forget that, if the computer felt like it, 96's Goenitz could be completely unbeatable by any means. All he had to do was spam his tornado attack which comes out directly in front of your character, can't be rolled through and blocks all projectiles. If the AI goes into a loop he does it repeatedly (its downtime isn't NEARLY enough to give you an opening to attack) then nothing you can do whatsoever will have any effect. The same thing potentially happened with Original Zero in 2001, who has a screen filling super which inflicts about 60-75% damage in one hit if unblocked, a guard crushing striker and an unlimited super meter.
- SNK bosses crept their way into the Maximum Impact games, as well. Duke had an unlimited Super Meter and a nigh-unblockable super move that instantly breaks your guard meter if you're lucky enough to block it, and Jivatma had an insane reach and a super move that damages you for 1/2 of your life bar (and he loves to use it just as you come down from a jump, so that you can't block). Oddly enough, Jivatma is actually easier to beat than Duke, because his super bar isn't at maximum all the time. (It just regenerates.) As playable characters, both lose their special tricks with their super meters, but retain those aforementioned Super Moves (though they both require full bars to use).
- And before any of those came Geese Howard of Fatal Fury. Armed with a projectile that could cut off a third of your health, incredible priority, and a counter-throw he could use against any attack he chose, he set the boundaries to be later broken by Rugal.
- This is not always a logical progression, Geese did become arguably easier to beat in later incarnations in Real Bout and Fatal Fury, though this troper remembers playing Fatal Fury 3 and beating the final bosses, the Jin Brothers on the first try, but before having to fight them, had to get past Geese who took twenty attempts to beat him.
- In Art Of Fighting Mr. Big and Mr. Karate were hard enough. Geese Howard in AOF:2 made things worse.
- Guilty Gear has Justice, and Guilty Gear X has Dizzy, both of whom have an attack called Gamma Ray which racks up an excessive number of hits (though it is available to players); Dizzy's strength and defense are artificially increased in computer-controlled mode.
- Guilty Gear XX has I-No, whose non-playable version has a devastating move called Megalomania; it also contains a non-playable version of Dizzy with a move stronger than her famous Gamma Ray, called Hikari no Tsubasa (Wings of Light). Later iterations of the game added Holy Order Sol, whose boss form was not only obscenely fast and strong, but had a new special move that further increased his strength and speed, regenerated his health and gave him an infinite super meter. Guilty Gear XX also contains "Gold Mode" and "Black Mode" for individual characters, but which are unavailable in most cases even after unlocking them, and are a great way to artificially increase the difficulty in the "Story Mode."
- Accent Core makes it even worse - it has both Boss I-No and Boss Order Sol, fought in sequence. Instant Kills are unusable during the fight with I-No, and you can't continue against Sol - lose one set and it's game over.
- We mustn't forget the final Mission, featuring a half-health Ky versus a Gold, Infinite Tension, EX Sol with regeneration. Yeah, that's a fun one.
- Arc System Works, the people who made the Guilty Gear games also demonstrate their penchant for adding ridiculously cheap bosses into other fighters as well in Dragon Ball Z: Supersonic Warriors 2, where you can fight superpowered versions of Cell, Broly and Goku in the Maniac difficulty Maximum mode: they all move twice as fast as anyone else, take half damage from all attacks, do double the damage of their normal counterparts, have infinite ki and possess special attacks that would make their anime counterparts stare at them slackjawed with drool dribbling out: Cell can summon tons of ki orbs around him that turn into ridiculously fast lasers that home in and has a superpowered Kamehameha, Broly uses the huge ki sphere attack 5 times in a row which each one doing as much damage as a single one would normally do, and in addition to possessing the expected oversized Kamehameha Cell has, Goku can also fire a seemingly endless stream of ki blasts...that are the size of most special attacks and are homing. He can also use an unblockable grab move across the entire length of the screen. You can only thank the programmers for being merciful enough to not let the AI realize they don't have to charge their ki and only having to fight them one at a time.
- Street Fighter Alpha 3: M. Bison, whose Psycho Crusher attack is quite different between normal and boss versions.
- Tekken 5: Jinpachi Mishima (unavailable to players), who can interrupt any attack you throw at him and possesses a fireball that takes away half your health with a single hit (which he can also fire rapidly in case you try to sidestep it). It's sheer luck if you win.
- Not entirely true. Some, if not all characters can win fairly easily if the player knows what they are doing. For instance, Devil Jin's wings enable him to avoid the fireball by jumping into the air, and he can attack from a reasonably safe distance with his Eye Beams, thus avoiding interruption as well. Additionally, a number of characters (Bryan, Lei and Xiaoyu to name a few) have quickly executable moves that bring them low enough to avoid the fireball. Also, in this troper's experience Jinpachi rarely defends against a running charge, especially if you turn it into a slide at the end.
- It's really just luck on the first try. But, Jinpachi can still be a pain, and lives by the asspull victory. Azazel, the literal Dragon of Tekken 6, however, is definitely much worse. He's got Devil's Eye Beams, Jinpachi's stun, plus even more ridiculous moves such as raising boulders out of the ground, throwing barrages of ice projectiles, and the ability to regenerate. Not to mention he doesn't even stagger on normal basis, and when it happens, he takes no damage. May be the Grand Champion of SNK Bosses.
- Akuma/Gouki from Super Street Fighter II Turbo was this type of boss in his first appearance; he could teleport, was fast, did massive amounts of damage and could shoot two fireballs in mid-air. Furthermore, the secret playable version of Akuma/Gouki was less powerful than the boss version, though still so broken that he's always been banned from Tournament Play.
- As a note, Akuma/Gouki has improved greatly since then, and is now considered by some to be emblematic of what a good fighting game boss should be: very powerful and fights intelligently, but plays by the same "rules" as the player.
- Kasumi Alpha in Dead Or Alive 4 is unplayable and has a unique move set including combos that can take down 2/3 of your health in one shot; even on "Easy" difficulty she takes serious players multiple attempts. She also has the annoying tendency to teleport out of your combos and launch into one of her own.
- The third fight in Rival Schools' story mode is generally against a greatly beefed-up version of one of the characters (the specific character depends on the team you've selected), and is almost impossible to win at that point. If you somehow do win, you skip directly to the final boss. Similarly, Project Justice has a scene in which Batsu can fight Kurow, with Kurow being similarly upgraded to the point of near impossibility. These also qualify as form of the Hopeless Boss Fight, as you're not supposed to win these fights, unlike most SNK Bosses.
- Mortal Kombat is notorious for its SNK-like sub-bosses, starting with Mortal Kombat II's Kintaro and ending with Deadly Alliance's Moloch. Not only are they super-powerful, but they're unthrowable, unjuggleable (for the most part) and - with later games - immune to projectile attacks. In fact, MK 3's Motaro had the annoying ability to reflect the projectile back at the player. When they reappear in Armageddon, they kept most of these aspects, and playing as them is heavily frowned upon.
- Soul Calibur II makes use of this trope with Inferno, a final boss who uses random move sets of other characters. This final fight carries the deceptive appearance of a single-KO battle, but Inferno's life bar is in fact 3 times normal size. He also receives a damage bonus, a special throw that knocks off more than half of your life gauge, and changes move sets when he hits 2/3rds and 1/3rd of his total life (and if you deal extra damage, it always truncates it, so Inferno starts each "round" with that amount of life). Additionally, flames blanket the stage and cover Inferno's body, making it harder and harder to discern his movements. Definitely a joystick-snapper.
- Soul Calibur III utilizes this to a degree even with non-boss characters, although there are certain moves that can be used to circumvent the seemingly precogniscent AI. But the secret boss, Night Terror, is absolutely batshit insane in this regard, with Eye Beams and a stance which renders him immune to damage; unless you're using one of the aforementioned AI-killing attacks (or a few more that take advantage of Night Terror's absurd size) it appears that you can only beat him if the CPU decides that you can. Oh, yeah...you can't beat him by "ring out", either, because he'll just fly back in. Thanks God he isn't playable, at least if you're not using a cheating device.
- Of course, Astaroth has a single move that does a hell of alot of damage and which Night Terror never blocks. He's the only character I can conistently beat him with.
- Xianghua was a more famous exploit that GameFAQs calls "Great Wall of Cheese". It simple involves spamming her Great Wall attack (it's one of the shoulder buttons), and it's something the CPU never blocks (outside of Dancing Statues: Hard, where Sophitia and Cassandra read your buttons and attack at an impossible speed.)
- Soul Calibur IV actually subverts this, believe it or not, with its final boss, Algol. While he's fast and strong, he never feels impossible, and his projectiles are not only blockable but they can be parried to reflect them back against him. The Apprentice, on the other hand...
- Bushido Blade 2 has, if the player plays the story mode as a Shainto clan character, a penultimate boss that instantly teleports away, without a scratch, if 'hit'. The only way to kill him is to keep making him teleport, as each time he does, he reappears closer and closer to the player, and you have about a second-long window to gut him before he stands up and readies himself. Of course, if you die (which is easy, since your character is a potential One Hit Point Wonder) the process starts over. Almost as if to make up for this pain-in-the-ass opponent, the Shainto's final enemy is an unarmed girl who doesn't even fight back.
- To this editor, the Narukagami boss was far worse. If you do the trick on the Shainto boss, one actual hit can kill him, but the Narukagami boss is FULLY ARMORED and will deflect any attacks that came from the front. To this editor, making the boss teleport all over is MUCH easier than trying to get a lucky shot from his unarmored back...
- And don't forget that all characters, Shainto or not, eventually have to go up against someone armed with a gun, while the player has only a melee weapon. The guy with a gun was in the original Bushido Blade as well, and had this irritating tendency to backflip away if the player got close. The trick was simply to run around until he'd fired six times. Guns need reloading, swords don't, and his defense is pathetic.
- Matrimelee, a game in the Power Instinct series, includes a very difficult end boss: Princess Sissy. A seemingly harmless young girl, she can conjure many different things from her magical box. One of her most annoying tactics is constantly bringing out a huge muscular being that swings his fists around, filling most of the screen. She regularly does this when the opponent is anywhere near her. This guarantees that you will be unable to get close to her unless you keep trying incessantly, are a pro and/or exploit her rather simple AI.
- Gill from Street Fighter III is incredibly hard to beat in one sitting. Projectile attacks that are much stronger than any of the main characters, a pair of special attacks that ate up screen real estate (and most characters' life bars, even when blocking), and the ability to fully revive himself after being knocked down make him a particularly controller throw-worthy boss. On top of that, while you only have access to one of your Super Arts at a time, Gill can use all three of his. Just about the only upside is that during Resurrection, Gill is wide open, and a single hit stops the attack (although he also has a force field, so getting to him isn't easy) - so it's pretty likely he won't get back all his health. In addition, Resurrection shuts off Gill's Super Meter, so it can only happen once a round, for what it's worth.
- This troper has nothing but respect for the way Gill just beats you with pure brawn (Greek Wrestling, to be more specific). Seraphic Wing and Meteor Strike doesn't come out as often as, say, Igniz's Brutal God Project and Original Zero's cheap-ass Black Hole (with the accompanying lackey Ron who breaks your guard).
- Super Smash Bros Brawl's Adventure mode did an acceptable job with bosses, right up until the last one, Tabuu. He has moves that do an insane amount of damage, can teleport, usually right before you get to him after recovering from said attack, has an insane amount of health, and has a move that some Street Fighter players might recognize from Gill. It looks exactly like his Seraphic Wing attack, and it does the same thing, instantly kills you (though you can avoid it if you dodge three times in a row). It's interesting to note, though, that all of his attacks bar the latter come from the Kirby character, Marx. At least you get a SIX lives/characters in Subspace Emissary to tackle him.
- However, Sakurai had to be a bastard. In Boss Rush mode, you only get one life. Good luck beating it on Intense, as per one of the challenges that can't be bypassed with a Golden Hammer.
- Sakurai: "[laughs]"
- Capcom vs. SNK 2 has Shin Akuma and God Rugal, both the result of one absorbing the other's power.
- Oddly enough, the two bosses in question are actually balanced for player-vs-player matches. They are, in fact, capable of doing very damaging moves, executing crazy combos, and juggling the opponent all over the place, but they actually receive significantly more damage than other characters when they get hit. The computer battles are hard because the A.I. is just very, very, good at playing these characters; you have to manage to hit them before their glass jaw matters during the fight.
- The Eternal Champion, from the obscure-but-popular Genesis Fighter Eternal Champions. Not only is he as strong as him being on this list would imply, you have to beat him five times in one round, and each time he uses a different (but equally painful) move set.
- And if you were lucky enough to get ahold of Eternal Champions CD, the Sega CD version, you had to do it not once, but twice. Then you also went up against the Dark Champion, who had the same annoying multiple-self-resurrection abilities. Oh, and that's without mentioning the fact that the computer in these games can ignore the game's rules by spamming their special attacks, despite having an apparently functional "Inner Spirit" gauge. The Champions in particular like to repeatedly Insult you, destroying your ability to use special attacks while using their own invincible-ground-sweeping abilities... over and over and over.
- The worst part is you only get one (or was it two?) chance(s) to win the last battle, or you have to start to whole game again (on the Genesis version anyway).
- Mildred from Arcana Heart. In her first form (from story mode), you have one round to beat her or lose. She doesn't actually move, but she effortlessly attacks you from across the screen with massive knockback attacks that are undodgeable (but, fortunately, not unblockable). Oh, and she has an insanely high defense, if you can actually manage to get close enough to damage her beyond projectile chipping.
- Now, consider this as if you were the developer. After the player lost that battle, would you a) Give them a breather fight or bad ending OR b) Throw them against another boss that's ten times harder, with access to all the best moves in the game (including giving her regular special moves that are supers for anyone else that uses them), a dangerous new super that does nearly half a health bar in damage if not blocked and hits the entire screen, whose mid-air or ground recovery instantly leaves her standing up on ground level, and who starts with a full super meter, as well as having defense nearly as good as the first form? ... If you answered "a", you don't hate the players as much as the people who made Arcana Heart. If the Mary Sue trope could be applied to an SNK Boss, Mildred would be A-number-one on the list.
- And if you do beat the first form, you instead get... a slightly easier version of the exact same battle.
- The PS2 version allows you to cheat, as well, by setting the number of rounds required to win the match and deliberately unbalancing them so that you only have to win one round compared to the CPU's five.
- To be fair, her AI is complete garbage (often using the same move over and over, even when there's no chance of it actually connecting), and her first form is laughably easy once you get the hang of the proper way to Beam Spam her. Of course, this probably just seems so because this troper had fought many of the much harder ones from above years earlier. Eventually, a player will come to expect these sorts of bosses...
- But pity the poor Arcana/Character combinations that can't Beam Spam.
- Everyone with Fire arcana: Charged Launcher -> Air Combo -> Let her recover as you land on the ground -> Charge Launcher as she reappears -> Go back to Air Combo and repeat everything. Works for this troper but it's quite harder with Kira or Fiona (Fiona users can also abuse standing C).
- Another of her weakness: Slides. She tends not to block them. God bless those characters that can combo off their slide.
- Arcana Heart 2 gives us the somewhat less frustrating Angelia. In arcade mode, she simply plays like a smart computer opponent (including her annoyingly effective but technically sound "Halo Dash->Halo Super" tactic) and doesn't seem to use her arcana at all...but she still doesn't seem to have charge her halo dash attack, since she can and does use it constantly (especially during attack clashes). In Story mode, on the other hand, she uses the same tactics, but her arcana (Mildred, incidentally) is always active, meaning Mildred launches attacks of her own pretty much independently. In addition Angelia also has a certain unavailable-to-players super where she...drops a building on you. Seriously. Needless to say, it's unblockable and does over half a health bar of damage, though she thankfully only uses it infrequently.
- In Sugoi! Arcana Heart 2 (the update), players CAN use Angelia's building drop super. Also, in Story Mode, there is a new hidden boss named Parace L'Sia, who makes Mildred from the original look like a gigantic joke. Seriously - look at this video
 .
- What, you didn't think SNK would skimp on boss difficulty for their big Mascot Fighter, did you? All four bosses (Neo-Dio of World Heroes, Mizuchi, King Lion of Kizuna Encounter and Big Bad Goodman) in Neo Geo Battle Coliseum have regenerating health, annoying attacks, and do an insane amount of damage. Plus, due to the way the game's arcade mode is set up, you only get one shot at them before you have to continue. The worst of these bosses has to be King Lion, due to his extremely annoying counter move. If it weren't for his excellent boss music, it'd be unbearable.
- This troper finds Mizuchi the worse. Think Orochi with some of Goenitz's moves, worse. You just can't beat him (and any of the bosses for that matter) only with damage, you must have someone who can heal (Nakoruru per ex.) and someone who can freeze Mizuchi (Iori with his 8 glasses of wine move).
- The fighting game Battle K-Road claims "Super Real Fighting". And who do you fight at the end of this game which features takedowns and such? A bear. Yes, a bear. Named Mr. Bear. Who has a Dragon Punch. And can knock most of your life off in one hit. Where's Tekken's Paul Phoenix when you need him...
- Similar is Fighter's History Dynamite's hidden boss: you fight...an ox. And like Mr. Bear he'll likely stomp your rear end.
- Dural, in Virtua Fighter 4. Made worse by the fact that you cannot continue if you lose to her.
- The Dynasty Warriors series' Lu Bu averts this trope in the same way that modern Akuma does — he's an example of That One Boss, but the only gameplay aspect unavailable to players is "hyper mode," which is not exclusive to him. In the AI department, this troper hasn't observed him being noticeably better than any other NPC officer.
- King of Fighters R2, for the Neo Geo Pocket Color, has Rugal as it's final SNK Boss. Being from SNK, this is expected. However, there is a two second lag before he starts attacking, and depending on your skill you can combo him to zero in those two seconds before he gets a swing off.
- This troper is amazed that no one has mentioned what is arguably the prototype of all 2-D fighting games, Karate Champ. Once a player reaches 8th Degree Belt level, the computer-controlled opponent becomes practically unbeatable, anticipating and countering a player's every move with frequency only a literal god of fighting could be expected to pull off.
Doujin Fighters/Fan-made Games
- Eternal Fighter Zero, an otherwise very balanced doujin game, has Kanna as the final boss. Her melee attacks have immense range and her projectiles are fast and cover a lot of area. Her AI is also incredibly skilled at blocking attacks, making it difficult to land any normal hit. Her character is available to the player as well, without any nerfing at all, which is why she's banned from tournament play.
- Kanna's only banned because players acually use the insane damage, comboability, and priority of her attacks, whereas the AI only defends well. Unknown /Mirror Mizuka/Eien no Mizuka, however, has been a source of frustration, as she (in her boss mode) takes full advantages of her moves' invincibility frames and spams high-priority projectiles that do almost as much damage blocked. (Thank god for the fact that you can't be chipped to submission in this game.)
- Super Cosplay War's Zenka. Zenka, based on the (in)famously badass Sanger Zonvolt, has full screen attacks, several of which are unblockable or do massive chip damage, is much faster than her range would imply, and tends to exploit these advantages to the fullest. Apparently there's an even harder boss after her, but this troper still hasn't managed to defeat her in any consistent way yet.
- The bosses you're talking about would be Alpha, who is based on the whole Choukijin set. Not only does he love spamming his supers, he often combine them in combos or interrupt them in the worst timing possible, not to mention, INTERRUPT your combo into his own super. And those Supers are like taking the full brunt of Zenka's super (and the Hazan-ken was actually far worse). The previous boss (after actually beating Zenka without continues), thankfully has no such thing, except that it's a one-round fight. Lose and you have to restart all over.
- That boss, Zmega, who is based on Rugal Bernstein, actually becomes this one in the Battle Royal mode, so much that even if you have your teammate, his sheer tendency to combo his moves to Super absurdly well enough, and his crazy priority moves, may not even be enough for players to handle. And should you lose against him, you have to engage a survival battle against 5 enemies first before he pops out again.
- Nightmare Cat, from Azumanga Fighter (a doujin fighting game based on Azumanga Daioh), is a permanently Burst Moded version of Kamineko. Now bear in mind that Burst Mode normally has to be triggered manually by filling all 5 bars of the special gauge, AND being at low health, but that gains access to that specific character's ultimate move, and having infinite uses of the super moves. Kamineko is one of the more annoying (but balanced) characters due to it's height (it's a cat, as opposed to the rest of high school aged cast), however Nightmare Cat fires off super moves rapid fire, and uses it's short height to it's advantage, ensuring you can barely land a hit. Fortunately, win or lose you progress to the next battle anyway.
- The flash game South Park: Tokugawa has a final boss that is essentially, if not completely unbeatable, though this is in part due to poor game design in general, all of the unblockable moves and teleporting don't help.
- Shizuru in Mai-HiME: Fuuka Taisen, when fought in Natsuki's Story mode. Shizuru loves to use her Super Special summon less than ten seconds into every battle, which fills the ground with slowly-advancing Kiyohime snake heads that are very hard to block, and will keep going indefinitely until they reach the edge of the screen. In addition, her "evil mode" lacks a block animation, which makes it complete guesswork to determine whether or not your hits connect, and has no problem spamming her whirling spear attack up close or whenever projectiles come her way. So, in essence, she's almost like her anime incarnation. Good thing her "good side" is an unlockable character.
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