SNK Boss - Television Tropes & Idioms

No one knows of my power? So it is for a God like me!

"Hey, who allowed them to join this tournament? They're way too strong to compete; I mean, what's up with that? Someone is going to have to take that team down!"

—Announcer, Capcom vs. SNK 2

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, often cannot be thrown, 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 he'd be a lot stronger than even the strongest of mortals.

Some of these types of bosses tend to not have a crouch animation. This is done to make it impossible to tell whether the boss is blocking low or high and arrange your moves accordingly. They also sometimes have either invisible or infinite super meters.

The rationalization behind these cheap CPU players is that if a CPU utterly destroys the player the first time he/she faces such a boss, a pissed off player would get mad enough to keep trying to get even for that defeat, therefore pumping more quarters into the arcade machine they're playing on. Too bad many players make it to the boss on their last quarter...

Occasionally, these bosses may have an Achilles Heel that utilizes special moves from characters that usually have limited utility. It is unknown whether these are intentional or not.

Takes its name from the company SNK, which seems to love making bosses like this. This is also a case of Follow The Leader, especially with Arc System Works.

Subtrope of That One Boss. Many of these are MK Walkers. See also Boss Dissonance.

open/close all folders

Examples:

Trope Namer: SNK Playmore

Obviously, this being SNK, the King Of Fighters series had loads and loads of these:
- The SNK boss by which all others are defined is Rugal Bernstein from The King of Fighters '94, the first and arguably the hardest. His first form is cake, but once round 2 starts and that tux comes off, hoo, boy are you in for one cheap son of a bitch.
- The series upped the ante considerably in '95 with Saisyu Kusanagi followed by Omega Rugal.
  - '96 had two bosses in a row with Chizuru and Goenitz (who is difficult to hit, let alone beat) and there's also a Boss Team, natch. If the computer felt like it, Goenitz could be completely unbeatable by any means. All he had to do was spam his Wind of Night tornado attack which can come 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.
  - '97 had Orochi Iori (or Leona), the Orochi Team, and then Orochi himself (who has Marukare, a screen-filler attack): all in a row (Although unlike the others' Orochi's AI was poor. Had it been at the level of the previous bosses, combined with vicious priority attacks, Orochi would have been near unbeatable).
  - Then came '98, which had Omega Rugal once again. This time he has a whole slew of new moves, such as the fusion of Kaiser Wave and Reppuken called the Gravity Smash which not only had nasty priority, but covered his body when eh charged it, making it hard to hit him out of it, his Destruction Omega super move (a grab that does ridiculous amounts of damage), and a devastating super called the Rugal Execution which drains your health at a very rapid rate. Also his Genocide Cutter is now Dark Genocide, which is a 3-hit version of the original.
  - The enhanced remake of '98, Ultimate Match, has Orochi, Goenitz, AND Omega Rugal as bosses. Which one you encounter depends on how many super finishes you get on your opponents. Orochi has been revamped from his original incarnation and now has a crouching animation, along with updated normals and several of his original moves switched around, but his Marukare screen filler super still does ridiculous damage. Of course, the biggest change in the bosses was Goenitz, who is even CHEAPER than in 96. Not only can his Winds of Night hit you while you're knocked down now, but he has a new command attack, a new special move, and vastly upgraded super attacks. Omega Rugal is roughly the same as before, except slightly faster. And of course, all 3 of them have increased stamina.
- The NESTS saga had Krizalid in '99, Clone Zero in 2000, and concluded with Original Zero the so-called "lovable" Igniz (pictured above) in 2001.
  - Krizalid had a pansy first form like Rugal (then again he did have a HUGE overcoat on him...), but in round 2 he burns off the coat and starts spamming a Tornado Kick attack (Called Typhon Rage) that has priority over everything. Also his supers at max level do 90 percent of your health bar!
  - Clone Zero in '00 had a screen-filling super that did 60+ percent damage and can easily Guard Break your characters.
  - Original Zero in in '01 is the same as his clone, except for the fact that he already has 3 strikers to make up for the lack of moves that Clone Zero had: Ron, (a "Guard Breaking Striker") Krizalid, and a huge black lion named Glaugan), mainly to differentiate him from his clone.
  - And, finally, we come to Igniz. Oh, God, where do we begin ...fireballs that have absolute priority, cheap whip attacks that go a ridiculously long range and could lead to an infinite, and a super called the Brutal God Project where he rushes you, pins you in the corner, whips you, hits you with the edges of his cape, does one of his own supers within this super, and finally engulfs you in a ball of energy, the whole combo doing roughly 80 PERCENT DAMAGE!!! See it for yourself. Did we also mention he has an infinite combo, and will use it if he ever feels like it? Lord have mercy if you attempt to beat him at Level 8 difficulty. Actually, it's pretty possible to defeat him, but you have to play his own game for that.
  - Note that Krizalid (both forms), and both Zeros were susceptible to trips. A lot. To the point that any team (which is most of them) with a sliding character (df+B) could easily defeat said bosses by simply getting one good trip on them (and then repeating said trip at a certain point in their "standing back up" animation). Several people declare this tactic cheap, but it does lead the endings 90% of the time, so yeah... Alternatively, they were also fairly susceptible to throws (command or otherwise), with much the same crowd reactions.
  - To conclude the NESTS saga, we have 2002, which has, by far, the cheapest version of Rugal to date. One Hit Kill Combos by the dozen, the return of Reppuken, 3 Kaiser Wave variants, a 3-hit Genocide Cutter... AAAAAGGGGGHHHHH!!!!! To make up for it, his MAX 2 is a series of Kaiser Waves that are horribly inaccurate. Unfortunately, it STILL does a sickening amount of damage. And in the unlikely event you Dodge Roll in front of Rugal when he's charging a Kaiser Wave, it'll STILL hit you while he's charging! And that video doesn't even show the worst of it: there's a Game Breaking Bug with the Kaiser Wave. If he happens to release it at ''just'' the right moment that you come out of the Dodge Roll, it hovers. '''FOREVER.''' So basically he would have this one ball of energy floating behind his ass (or in front of his crotch, if you managed to switch sides) until he launches another Kaiser Wave (HSDM included), or grabs you (supers included, but check out what happens when you do his Gigantic Pressure) It's like Benimaru's hovering lightning ball HSDM, but evil, never ending and guarateed OHKO.
  - The remake of 2002, Unlimited Match, has all of the NESTS Saga bosses: Krizalid, Clone Zero, Original Zero, Igniz, AND Rugal! Krizalid is, surprisingly, the most broken out of them all because he builds his super meter extremely fast, has horrid infinites and his MAX 2 (Lightning Disaster, a full-screen attack that sends a bunch of lasers into the air) can hit you while you're on the ground. He also has insane juggles and can even juggle into the aforementioned MAX 2! Clone Zero is roughly the most balanced out of all of them. His new MAX 2 (Anryuuten Hazaki, a Shun Goku Satsu-esque attack) does decent damage as do all his other moves. Original Zero is also decently balanced, but can be considered cheap because he's much faster than in 2001, AND with some effort, can spam his Krizalid striker to juggle you forever. His MAX 2, Kyou Hoshi Mikaijin, is essentially Clone Zero's, but with the addition of assistance from his Strikers, starting with Ron whacking your soul from your body and culminating with all three strikers ganging up to beat the tar out of said soul. Finally, Igniz is exactly the same as he was in 2001. Unfortunately, this means he still has his Sagittarius Blade (QCF+HP) infinite. His new MAX 2 (Disintegrational Universe) is undoubtedly the most visually impressive - he traps you in a curse seal, which encases you inside a black orb that Igniz turns into a galaxy/nebula, and Igniz makes said galaxy/nebula explode.
  - If you did not lose more than 2 teammates after beating the final stage (which consists of one of the first 4 aforementioned bosses), you enter a special battle against Rugal. Rugal is roughly the same as before (Except he's no longer voiced by Norio Wakamoto), and that means he has increased stamina for his boss version, but his Beads Destructor now bounces you off the wall and his Kaiser Phoenix is not only more accurate, but also hits you while you're on the ground, though as a trade off, its damage output is pathetic. His AI is also much smarter and doesn't spam Kaiser Wave as much, but remember that one glitch from the video above this entry? Yeah, it's still there (It was present in Neowave, too). Oh, and if you lose the match it's Game Over. As per usual, all the bosses do decreased damage when playing as them.
- 2003 marked the debut of Rugal's son Adel to the fray. Unfortunately, Adel not only inherited his father's moves and essence of Badass (Sans villainy, he's more of an honorable chap), but also his SNK Boss Syndrome. While he lacks his father's Kaiser Wave (until XI anyway), his Reppukens (Or rahter, Reppukyaku, since he fired it with his feet) come out very fast, his God Press is unblockable (including the Gigantic Pressure), and the Genocide Cutter is now a super which does a ridiculous amount of damage. Mukai, the True Final Boss from the same game, surprisingly subverts this trope, as other than a full screen LDM, he has nothing that gives him hellish priority. On the other hand...
- Magaki from XI seems to be SNK's way of saying "we gave up trying to think of ways to mess with you, so here's a boss that throws more projectiles than a bleeding Touhou character". He loves abusing his fireballs, to the point where there will be lots of them flying everywhere including ones that disappear halfway and reappear behind you. Then there are also the large, semi-invisible ones. Then his psychedelic pink full screen-filler attack that will hurt your eyes the first few times (you'll get used to it). It's hard as hell to even get close to him, and if you do, he'll probably just throw you right back with his little frontal explosion whenever he feels like it.
- 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).
- The 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.
- Speaking of portable KOF games, we mustn't forget The King of Fighters EX 2: Howling Blood, whose end boss is a Brainwashed And Crazy kid named Sinobu Amou, who was part of an experiment by Gustav Munchausen to transplant Goenitz's soul for reincarnation. The AI isn't that hard...until Round 2 when he suddenly Turns Gold, becomes faster and more powerful, and starts hurling attacks from every single direction with absolute priority. Oh, and he changes elements from wind to lightning. You will HATE Sinobu, guaranteed. His winquote puts it perfectly into perspective:
  "HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! I BROKE YOU!!!"
- It should be noted that for several KOF games ('98 and 2002, among others), if the player opts to use a continue, the player can choose from several power boosts, including reducing your enemy to 1/3 of his health. The maddening side effect of choosing this option is that your enemy recovers a little bit of health after every win. Combine this with the chance you may not be able to inflict more than a few pixels of damage on these bosses, and voila: Your enemy starts each round with more health than the previous round.
- The King of Fighters XII averts this simply because it has no proper boss character.
  - Might possibly be doubly averted with the revelation of 3 downloadable characters. The return of Rugal is inevitable. You cannot deny it.
Johann in Rage of the Dragons. He has fireballs that throw him backwards out of the way of almost anything coming over them. He also has absolute priority, takes no block damage, does ridiculous amounts of damage, and a prescient AI. Johann can also throw you (with appropriately Massive Damage) out of anything. Including a roll, a Super Move, and even another throw.
The Fatal Fury games predates all of SNK's previous games with Geese Howard.
- In the first one, he was 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 (even when you were simply jumping at him he could grab you out of the air with said counter-throw), setting the boundaries to be later broken by Rugal. Fortunately for the player, he suffered from the same bug as all other players. He is vulnerable for the first frame of standing up. All you gotta do is knock him down once, and then you can simply use your charge attack on him as he gets up, which is always a knockdown if it connects, and is a guaranteed hit against a rising computer opponent. I'm not sure whether human players also suffer from this problem.
- It Got Worse in Real Bout Special, because Geese returns as the games' True Final Boss only if you have a high enough score after beating Krauser. This incarnation, commonly known as Nightmare Geese to fans (And later officially christened that), really IS a nightmare (Figuratively and literally, since the battle is hinted to be one big nightmare). Not only do his Reppukens have absolute priority, but he can fire 2 Shippukens and 2 Double Shippukens (that's 4 Shippukens!) in the air! He's so broken that most of his Combos do 100% damage! This version introduced the claw version of his Raising/Raging Storm, which did a ridiculous amount of block damage, and he also has a newly super-powered version of his Thunder Break super from Real Bout ... which is now unblockable while jumping and hits at random places across the arena, even hitting the extra lanes! Worse, still, lose to him once and its Game Over, man.
- Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse, it did. The King of Fighters 2002: Unlimited Match BROUGHT BACK Nightmare Geese, and gave him all sorts of enhancements to his moveset that made him the pinnacle of overpowered. Lightning fast Reppukens, Shippukens that had no recovery time and could be fired TWICE IN A ROW, a Double Shippuken which much like its RBS version can be used twice, thus FOUR SHIPPUKENS, a Jaeiken that led into a juggle, the "Claw" Raging Storm that can now OTG, and many other edits that make this version of Geese one of the cheapest SNK bosses out there. He also has a new MAX 2 where he takes off his shirt and starts building a huge Reppuken, which he promptly blasts you with after it's reached roughly quadruple size (The activation's reminiscent of his lesser known Raising Dead End super from Fatal Fury Wild Ambition). Couple that with the literally psychic AI that predicts every input you do and naturally responds with the correct counter for your offense and you have one of the most unbeatable bosses in SNK's history. Not only that, but you have to BEAT HIM in the last Expert Challenge in Challenge Mode to unlock everything. Good luck.
- Likewise, Geese's half-brother Krauser also shares some SNK Boss Syndrome, but only in his debut game: Fatal Fury 2. His AI is infuriating as all hell, and his moves hit incredibly hard. What clinches his status? You know how you have to be at low health to use your super? That doesn't apply to Krauser, meaning he can Kaiser Wave you at any time.
- Mark of the Wolves inverts this somewhat, with the sub-boss being the SNK Boss and the Final Boss being somewhat balanced. The sub-boss, Grant, has several powerful attacks at his disposal which can decimate your health bar in mere seconds. Be especially wary if his T.O.P meter kicks in, because his moves will do extra damage, and you may end up getting killed by last-minute damage scaling. The final boss, Kain, is surprisingly easy...until Round 2 where he gets a full T.O.P meter for the rest of the match.
In Art Of Fighting Mr. Big and Mr. Karate were hard enough. Geese Howard in Art of Fighting 2 made things worse.
- Mr. Karate is extremely susceptible to jump kicks, and can be beaten pretty easily by just repeatedly doing these off the wall. The problem is getting to him in the first place - even at the lowest difficulty, Mr. Big is ridiculously hard.
- Mr. Big can be easily crushed by jump kicks as well, just keep hitting uptoward and kick at the same time, you will jump kick him to death easily.
- In contrast, Mr. Big in Art of Fighting 2 is a complete joke. Just repeatedly tap the weakest attack button and give him a Death By A Thousand Cuts. No matter what, it does work on him... at least with King.
And then came SNK vs Capcom: SVC Chaos, one of the SNK games with Capcom, which furthered Mr. Karate's shenanigans, as the SNK side final boss is a powered-up version of him, called "Serious Mr. Karate". His health and damage are higher than pretty much all other characters, his moves have insane priority and most are invincible on startup, and pretty much all of them knock you back across the screen, nullifying all that hard work you had to do to even get close to him. Oh, and you know those huge fireballs (the Haoh-sho-koken) the Art of Fighting characters are fond of throwing? Yeah, he can do three of those. In a row. Normal Mr. Karate at least had it as an Exceed. Serious Mr. Karate has it as a SPECIAL THAT HE COULD DO AT ANYTIME WITHOUT LOSING A POWER STOCK.. Also, his Ko'oh Ken functions much like his 2002 counterpart (He is Takuma after all)...but now they have huge range and come out very fast. And they nullify whatever comes across them. Most of his moves do take off quite a bit of guard meter and he can easily guard crush you although you can't do the same when you get to play as this guy in the console version. To finish, his supers count as special moves and his Exceed is completely unblockable (but has pretty poor priority strangely so it is possible to hit him out of it with a Dragon Punch or something).
- The Capcom side final boss is Shin Akuma, who's just as cheap. In this game, his supers that he used to have normally are considered special moves and take 0 super stocks to perform, with the exception of the Raging Demon. Worse still is that he has all the perks that Shin Akuma normally has (a full-screen Raging Demon and double air fireballs, insanely fast teleport with no recovery time). But the worst part is definitely his Exceed, the Misogi, which homes in on your characters position, comes out lightning fast, and is UNBLOCKABLE. You have to be really lucky or skilled to avoid/counter that move.
  - AND depending on how you did throughout the entire game prior to fighting either Serious Mr. Karate or Shin Akuma, you go to Heaven to fight Athena. Except it's not the Athena you all know and love from Psycho Soldier, (And The King Of Fighters) but Goddess Athena from a much-older action game of the same name. All of her attacks count as supers but are actually special moves, much like Shin Akuma & Serious Mr. Karate. What makes her worse than both of them combined? All of them have absolute priority and do RIDICULOUS damage for special moves. Her Exceed is blockable, yes, but if she's already got you down to almost half of your first lifebar (which she will, guaranteed) and you don't block, it's an INSTANT KILL. To add insult to injury, when she wins she turns you into an animal. But she's ridiculously easy and her moves are easy to avoid if you know how they work. Honestly, she's nothing compared to the one in Hell. His name...
  - ... isRed Arremer. At first it seems like he's balanced, but then he starts summoning strikers that paralyze you. Then he starts flying. Then he rams into you. Then he chews on you and then throws you. Then you die. Then you get turned into a lowly demon.
  - The absolute worst part of both the Athena and Red Arremer fights is that if you lose, you don't get to try again and have to start over completely, much like Final Bison in Street Fighter Alpha 3. However, it's somewhat logical here, seeing as your character would never be able to fight again as an animal or small demon.
The Samurai Shodown series had many of these as well:
- Amakusa in part 1 likes to bitchslap you into a corner and keep you there for an easy infinite. He also has 2 fireballs (one being unblockable), and he teleports like crazy and throws you as soon as he gets out of it. If you beat him in Round 1, a cutscene occurs where he powers up and unleashes the powers of his dark god to make him stronger and also harder.
- Then came Mizuki in part 2, who had several moves that caused Interface Screw, in addition to using several of Amakusa's previous tactics.
- Zankuro in part 3 could literally kill you in 3 hits.
- Part 4 has you fight not one, nor two, but three bosses in sequence. The first is a CPU-only version of Amakusa with purple skin who is always in Bust mode (except if you also use a character who's in Bust Mode when fighting him). This version of Amakusa, sometimes called Aku-Amakusa, is NOT the SNK boss of the game, however, as he's the same as the player version. Upon beating him, you fight the real SNK boss, Zankuro, for the 2nd time in the series. He's more intelligent this time around, and his Heavy Slash cuts off half of your health bar. Afterwards, it's a cakewalk when you fight your rival in one final battle.
- Samurai Shodown 5 and its mid boss Sankuro carry on the proud tradition of SNK Boss cheapness: First off his takes way less damage from attacks, plus his special attacks involve calling in annoying helpers (the sliding girl isn't so bad, but the guy coming down from the sky does a sick amount of damage, and the grabbing guy from behind is usually coupled with a healing move that restores almost a quarter of Sankuro's life bar). Add to it that his super is apparently an instant kill. Add to it the fact that Sankuro is only the MID-BOSS... yeah, Samurai Shodown has a bunch of SNK bosses.
- Don't forget the final boss Gaoh. Once you damage him enough he goes to an invincible demon armor mode and will charge at you constantly like a rhino, and you have to wait until the mode ends.
- And then, rounding out the previous two examples is Yumeji, Gaoh's Dragon. He/she is essentially Bust Mode Ukyo on steroids. He/she has a nodachi that can take off 3/4ths of his/her opponent's health bar in a single strike and an inescapable multi-hitting trap move that is almost as damaging, but much harder to avoid. And if that's not enough... he/she has the ability to transform into the other fighters and use their signature moves.
- 5 Special has you fight Amakusa, Zankuro, Gaoh, and Mizuki in sequence, but the only ones who really qualify as SNK Bosses are Zankuro and Mizuki because Amakusa's AI was rather retarded and Gaoh was heavily nerfed. Zankuro is even more intelligent than in 4, despite being balanced somewhat, and he has a new counter move that he uses all the time. Mizuki lost her Interface Screw moves, but got a whole lot of new non-screwy moves that still make her a cheap bitch.
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 - a clone of Orochi, King Leo of Savage Reign / 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.
- To go more in-depth, remember King Lion's Nightmare move, that counter where he went black and any move that hit made him combo you badly? His King Leo form abuses that like a motherfuck. Mizuchi is basically Orochi with an added touch of Goenitz, meaning that he will abuse an energy pillar special which, while Orochi possessed it before, did not abuse it as much. Neo-Dio teleports a lot and is an incredible block-whore. Goodman is basically Igniz mixed with Magaki from The King of Fighters XI, and uses a whip to control a weird flaming monkey spirit. He can control it for as long as he wants, in any direction. And his super move actually makes it stronger. You will hate Goodman.

Capcom

As expected, the Street Fighter series has many of these:
- The original Street Fighter had Sagat as the final boss, who was not only the most powerful iteration of Sagat in the series, but also capable of knocking off more than half your life bar in one hit. And to top ti all, all the now-standard Fighting Game special moves like Hadoukens and such were considered secrets at the time, with very few knowing of their existance, let alone the exact command to do them.
- 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.
  - Some games, however, make it worse. Apparently someone at Capcom decided that Akuma wasn't powerful enough, and thus Shin Akuma was born. He regains the double air fireballs from Super Turbo, deals double damage with all of his moves, his teleports are completely invincible, and his Raging Demon now goes all the way across the screen. By far the most infuriating version of Shin Akuma appears in HD Remix, where the AI suddenly says "Fuck you" and beats the shit out of you.
- Street Fighter Alpha 3 had M. Bison, whose Psycho Crusher attack is quite different between normal and boss versions, and his teleport has 0 lag. The only way to hit him is to counter all of his attacks, which requires mind-boggling amounts of skill. Also, you can't continue if you lose to him.
- Street Fighter IV gives us Seth, the half naked man-cyborg Final Boss. He seems like a pushover during Round 1, but when you beat him once he says "I Let You Win," and a much more evil remix of the previous BGM starts playing. Watch now as you see him teleport with incredible accuracy and perform the EXACT move that counters your strategy. Still, there are ways to get around Seth's now-omniscient AI. It's best to use high-priority attacks against him and bait his wakeup attacks.
  - And when you finally get to play as him, he takes twice the normal amount of damage! Yes, his defense is the lowest in the game next to Akuma. Skilled Seth players, however, are able to work around this setback and still manage to juggle and combo their opponents senseless, even if it's for pathetically not-massive damage.
  - Seth has one saving grace... a single, simple kryptonite move that makes it possible to walk all over him on the hardest difficulty: Zangief's Spinning Lariat. Its high damage and priority, coupled with Zangy being invulnerable while spinning, means that Seth will be repeatedly teleporting straight into your fists. As long as you aren't dumb enough to walk up right next to him while he's on the ground (he'll ALWAYS grab you with a piledriver on getup), you can literally finish him off using one button. Indeed, a one-button Spinning Clothesline is part of the default controller setup. (If you aren't big, scarred, and Russian, though, kiss your tushie goodbye.)
  - Actually, rapid usage of Zangief's Spinning Lariat works on all AI opponents, even on Hardest difficulty, due to a glitch in said AI which makes it unable to see the Lariats coming.
  - Although it hasn't been tested extensively, This Troper was able to get similar results and pull off a near perfect match with El Fuerte's Fahita Buster. Seth's AI doesn't seem to be very good at handling the move, so he does very little to defend against it if you nail him as soon as he gets up from the last one.
  - C. Viper's Low Thunder Knuckle gets similar results. This Troper would have felt cheap spamming it for an easy win if Viper hadn't spent the past hour mopping the floor with him.
- 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.
  - In defense of Gill, Seraphic Wing and Meteor Strike don't come out as often as, say, Igniz's Brutal God Project and Original Zero's cheap-ass Black Hole (with its accompanying guard-breaking lackey Ron). Resurrection is pretty much guaranteed unless he expends his bar on one of his other Supers prior to KO though.
  - It should also be said that if you happen to knock Gill out of Seraphic Wing or Meteor Strike (the former is more likely), he will keep his entire super bar. Thus, if he doesn't whip out another super (which has a very slim chance of happening), defeating him will initiate his usage of Resurrection. Luckily, if you continue a set amount of times in 3rd Strike the CPU's difficulty will be bumped down a level, which eases a bit of the pain of fighting Gill. You can tell whether or not the difficulty will be lowered if Gill starts using his taunt (read: "laughing his ass off at you"), which is something he never does regularly.
As well as their Capcom Vs Whatever series:
- The Marvel VS. series contains several SNK Bosses.
  - X Men: Children of the Atom had the Juggernaut (bitch), who hit like hell and took a few blows to remember he had a hit stun. Then you faced Magneto, Master of Magnet. His AI is complete bullshit and seeks to royally piss you off at the worst possible time. He has a projectile which has absolute priority, can fly well beyond your character's reach (except if you're using Storm or Sentinel), and has a move which sends four magnetic orbs that home in on you and keep you stunned in the air if they connect. To top it all off, he has two super moves, a trait which no other character has. One of them sends a bunch of rocks flying at you, while the other sends a bunch of energy pillars that cancel all projectiles. Also, Boss Magneto's X-Bar fills up automatically without him actually having to do anything, and will go from empty to full in the span of about 5 seconds, allowing him to use his super-moves all he wants. And he has an energy shield! Thank God he was toned down and revamped in later games.^*
    ^{Well, not so much. He's in the God Tier of Marvel vs. Capcom 2 for a reason...}
  - X-Men VS. Street Fighter had Apocalypse, who surprisingly subverted this trope due to him growing to gigantic size and having easily-avoidable attacks.
  - Marvel Super Heroes VS. Street Fighter, on the other hand, had a True Final Boss fight right after Apocalypse - Cyber Akuma/Mech Gouki. Cyber Akuma is basically Akuma but with a more infuriating AI, completely blown-out-of-proportion-overpowered moves, and a homing Rocket Punch just to add more injury to injury.
  - Marvel VS. Capcom has Onslaught (the one that nobody likes because they think he ruined various Marvel series FOREVER). He is the epitome of cheapness in the Marvel VS. series. To start things off, he has Juggernaut's invincible bum-rush, can create missiles to prevent you from doing air attacks, has a larger version of Magneto's E.M. Disruptor along with his Magnetic Tempest, can instantly teleport, and to top it all off, he can summon random Brainwashed characters to do his bidding while he sits in the background healing himself. And just when you think you've beaten him, he grows to Apocalypse's size and takes off his helmet. Now he has Apocalypse's moveset as well, and now has Magneto's Hypergrav stun move and a bigger, more powerful version of his Magnetic Shockwave super. Know his name and fear it.
  - Marvel VS. Capcom 2 has Abyss, who surprisingly subverts this trope somewhat. He has 3 forms, but they can be easily beaten by following his pattern of easily telegraphed specials and supers. The second form was particularly easy to beat. Just projectile-spam from the opposite edge of the screen, and he'll fold like a creased piece of paper.
  - Unless you made an all-melee team, then he's bastardly hard, what with having nearly no hit-stun at all and so able to use any of its attacks at you during your combos. Not to mention that if it decided to simply spam green-bubbles-of-death you can do little but get captured and receive its attacks in the ass. Also, the last form can be infuriating. Of the three he is the least predictable, does the most chip-damage, disappears all the time and has knick of completely vanishing from your screen and attacking from affar, where you can't see which attacks it is doing (and some of them can nearly kill an average character). Or, better yet, he may decide to just get out of the arena altogether and start spamming its ranged attacks from off-screen. As I said, an all-melee team is still royally screwed and he can still be royally annoying.
- 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. Predictably, the AI is exempted from this limitation (reverses it, even). But well... maybe there're some exceptions.
- And finally, we have Tatsunoko vs. Capcom's Yami, which has three forms, and in the latest one, he has a grab attack with a damage almost equal to a Lv3 combo!!!
- But his last form is really the only difficult thing about him, since his two other forms have very slow attacks that are ridiculously telegraphed and easily blocked. He's just very tedious to fight since attempting to use any sort of combo is suicide, and his first form is infuriating if he manages to back you into a corner, since he has a short-range attack that instantly drains your entire super bar.
Gundam Vs Gundam NEXT had Kira Yamato in Strike Freedom (In EX Stage final, where you have to in single player not only obtain a certain amount of points but also not die at all) whom first attacks you in Strike Freedom Form, Then in his Meteor where he gets a set of new moves and an annoying powerful attack that will smash most 1000 class mechs before losing the meteor and enters permanent SEED mode, which mean he can HIMAT burst to his heart's content. He was available in the next update but lacked the Meteor ability and can only go into SEED mode for a limited time. Some people thought he was worse than Devil Gundam, at least he stood still.
- WaDom earns the new SNK boss award, a constant melee involving its legs, a counter grab. and oh you gotta kill two of them. Or the stage with Char, Quattro and Sazabi boss stage. Char carves you a new one with his speedy melees, Quattro does you in with its Wave Motion Gun and Char spams funnels and the beam shotgun.

Arc System Works

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 in which the background goes black, a bunch of warning signs appear as I-No sprouts wings, and she fires off a shitload of weird heart-shaped things that sodomize your health bar if you are unlucky enough to get hit. 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), which is actually an Instant Kill disguised as a super where she suddenly becomes naked while laser beams sprout out from her body. There's also Gold and Black modes for individual characters, and are a great way to artificially increase the difficulty when fighting the CPU. They also appear in Story Mode, disguised in the normal palette for the character.
  - Guilty Gear XX Slash added Holy Order Sol, whose boss form (fought randomly in place of I-no) was not only obscenely fast and strong, but had a CPU-exclusive move called Flame Distortion (basically a chemically-enhanced Dragon Install) that further increased his strength and speed, regenerated his health and gave him an infinite super meter for a set time.
  - Accent Core makes it even worse - it has both Boss I-No and Boss Order-Sol, fought in sequence. Instant Kills are unusable during the fight with I-No, and you can't continue against Order-Sol - lose one set and it's game over. Not to mention that you need at least 10 Overdrive finishes and use no continues to fight Order-Sol after beating I-no.
  - We mustn't forget the final Mission of Reload, 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.
More recently, Arc System Works' Fist Of The North Star Fighting Game has a superpowered version of Raoh at the end. Renamed Ken-Oh (After his tyrant persona in the source material), the boss version is ALWAYS in Musou Tensei mode, has all of his powerups active, and has a new super which fires a HUGE FUCKING LASER (Basically the true version of Tensho Honretsu or Heaven Command Charge) at his opponent.
BlazBlue, also from Arc System avoids this somewhat as both bosses are considered generally balanced (Nu -13- has the lowest amount of life in the game and Hakumen is so slow that he generally considered bottom tier by the tournament community. Didn't prevent Nu from being considered a High Tier Induced Scrappy, though.). However, they (as well as two other characters, Rachel and Ragna) have "Unlimited" versions which fit this trope to a tee, with the exception that they can be unlocked and played (although they are outright banned for ranked battles online).
- Unlimited Hakumen's damage output and speed are increased to the stats that he has when in Mugen mode, and his super meter gain is sped up to 3-4 times the normal speed. He is the penultimate boss in most character's Arcade Modes.
- Unlimited Nu's drive attacks summon two swords at once instead of one, her Legacy Edge summons out more swords from the gate, her Calamity Sword fires 4 swords instead of one, and she has super-meter auto-gain. She is the final boss in most characters' Arcade Modes.
- Unlimited Rachel can do Sword Iris without the Lobelias as a requirement, and both it and its super version go in either two ways: one summons four in a row in front of her, and the other one is a delayed strike in which the second lightning bolt tracks the opponent. Her strikers also last longer and she has super meter auto-gain. She is the final boss in Nu's Arcade Mode.
- The worst of them all is Unlimited Ragna, who is always in Blood Kain, is faster, and stronger. And he also has super meter auto-gain as well as his drive moves healing him even more than usual. And Triple Health! He is the Arcade Mode's True Final Boss.
- In the console version's Story Mode, whenever a opponent needs to be more boss-like for story purposes, the game simply gives them an unlimited super bar.
  - The PSP version and 2010 DLC for the PS 3 and 360 versions have Unlimited versions of everyone else! Hoo boy.
- Unlimited Jin now has enhanced Drive attacks that summon up more ice pillars. His normal specials are now the EX versions and all of them freeze you. On top of that, his D Ice Sword fires 3 at once, and his Icecar now has bouncing properties, meaning you can juggle after them now. And his Ice Wave super now fires 2 at once and his Ice Arrow super keeps you in the air longer while he recovers at the same rate.
- Unlimited Noel is faster, can fire all 3 versions of her Optic Barrel in succession, fires 3 missiles if the gun hits with Fenrir, fires 5 missiles without bullets with Thor, and her Chain Revolver moves can now be done more times.
- Unlimited Taokaka has faster Drive attacks, can chain any move into any other move, and her "This is for the tuna!" super now does 100 hits. Also her Hexa-Edge can now be done in the air.
- Unlimited Tager gets wheels installed in his boots, allowing him to run at super fucking fast speeds and able to go across the screen in less than 60 frames. He also has autoguard against all mid and high attacks while he's running, and his Genesic Emerald Tager Buster is now performed by hitting Back+C and sucks you in hyper-fast when magnetized. Speaking of which, his magnetism now lasts for 30 seconds instead of 7. THE POWER OF SCIENCE!
- Unlimited Litchi has enhanced versions of her Three Dragons move that move farther and deal multiple hits, and her All Green now makes 3 energy geysers appear. You can also charge up her Three Dragons like Jam from Guilty Gear by doing Forward+B.
- Unlimited Arakune can now run, is really fast in the air, and when the opponent is cursed he now summons 3 of every bug. BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE$EEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!
- Unlimited Bang has 20 Nails and can use his B and C shuriken the samw way as his A and D shurikens. All of his special moves except his nails now add to his Fu-Rin-Ka-Zan meter, and his command throws add 4 symbols instantly, as well as teleporting him a short distance to reach the opponent. Oh and his Heavenly Phoenix goes across the screen.
- Unlimited Carl becomes slower, but in exchange Nirvana becomes hyper fast, does not drain health when under Carl's control, and has enhanced attacks. In further exchange, however, the Clap Loop is no longer possible.
  - And now as of Continuum Shift we have Unlimited Hazama, who is about 3 times as fast as he is normally is and has super and drive meter auto-gain, as expected. What isn't expected is that he has a green force field around him that, if you get caught in it, drains your health and adds it to his. God help us if Unlimited Tsubaki in the inevitable console version is worse than this.
And ArcSys has done it again in Battle Fantasia with its end boss, End of Deathbringer (like the original, except constantly on fire!) Though he lacks a Super Move meter, his lone super-special attack, Apocalypse Flame (activated after an unpredictable countdown), almost completely fills the screen, and will burn off a large chunk of HP to anyone who hasn't mastered Gachi counters. This, of course, is provided you manage to survive his regular special attacks, which deal a lot of damage and have insane priority. And unless you go into "Heat Up!" mode, you won't be able to cause anything but chip damage to him.

Namco

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).
- His 'stun' is a game Breaker. If you are jumping in the air, the stun will drop you down to the floor and you will reel from it. If you are as far away from Jinpachi as the game will allow, the stun will hit you and you are unable to move. If you are blocking, you are stunned and unable to move. If you are on the floor, the stun will hit you, make you stand, and have you reel. Ask any Tekken player you know how bad would it be if you couldn't move for six seconds, given that Tekken's claim to fame is juggling and combo-ability. Then add to the fact the weakest of Jinpachi's moves will take off a fifth of your lifebar and is combo-able. And you have the equation for a true SNK Boss.
- Skill evens things out a lot, for sure, but there's one thing that gets you no matter what - The stun/fireball combo. Go go, random stun counter followed by avoid-this-or-die fireball. Both mechanics are fine on their own, but when combined, there's nothing you can do.
- 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.
  - Wrong. He's incredibly susceptible to jump kicks. Wait... Where have we seen this before?
- Even worse, the Bonus Boss NANCY-MI847J. Has ten times the energy bar of other fighters, cannot be stunned or juggled, attacks with lasers, machine guns, and missiles, and has an Eye Beams attack that cuts holes in the floor, killing you instantly if you're standing there.
- We seem to be forgetting about Boss Jin, whom you fight before Azazel, and right after Nancy. At the start of the round he automatically activates Rage Mode, meaning he deals twice the amount of normal damage. Not only that, but his AI suddenly increases to that of an expert player, no matter if you're fighting the CPU or a ghost, and will counter your strategies at every turn. But there's one thing he can never, ever see coming: throws. Again, where have we seen this before? Namco must be incredibly Genre Savvy.
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.
- But here's the fun part: he can't see throws coming from a mile away, and they take off as much of his health bar as they would yours. Thank you, Namco programmers, you may live.
- Why exactly is grabbing so efficient against a boss that's on fire?
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.
- He's actually playable in IV... Nightmare has a secret move that transforms him into Night Terror. He's even cheaper this time.
- 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.)
  - Great Wall is 66_33_99A+B, if anyone cares to know.
  - Chronicles of the Sword also suffered heavily from this, and coupled with the same insane AI as every other mode in the game, many just resort to choosing the Iron Sword discipline, and spamming the shoulder button moves.
Soul Calibur IV actually averts this, believe it or not, with its final boss, Algol. While he's fast and strong, he never feels impossible, and his projectiles are not only blockable but they can be parried to reflect them back against him. In the Tower of Lost Souls mode, he actually does appear to fight like an SNK Boss, until you figure out the bug in his AI. In the right circumstances, he'll ring himself out, every time those circumstances are presented to him.
- In Tower of Lost Souls mode he has a 50% chance each SECOND of "unblockability" - which includes being impossible to parry - being granted to his next attack, takes 30% normal damage, does double normal damage, has two health bars, and drains life with every attack? Essentially, if he hits you the battle is probably lost.
  - Neo-Sith Munchkin Starkiller (The Apprentice) in Arcade. While not -quite- SNK level, he does seem to have an uncanny knack for sidestepping verticals, vert-jabbing horizontals, air-juggling and... to cap it all off... a truly ridiculous frequency of Just Impacts. Astaroth's sweep+crush cheese is strongly recommended.

Other Commercial Fighting Games

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 the beginning, we had Goro and Shang Tsung. Goro had the highest defensive and attack stats of any character in MK 1, and his stomp could get heavily annoying. He also had an unblockable fireball that came out very fast, and an overpowered throw that did almost 40% damage. Shang Tsung also had unblockable and cheap fireballs, and could morph into any character at random, including GORO! If he just so happens to morph, the character's AI will be at the maximum level, meaning it'll be extremely difficult to land a hit.
- Then came Mortal Kombat II, which introduced us to ~~Tony the Tiger~~ Kintaro. He's basically Goro but taken a step further in difficulty. His fireball is slower, but still unblockable. His stomp is more easily telegraphed, but now it has a shorter version which stuns you for a LONG time. Should you beat Kintaro, you go on to fight Shao Kahn. The first thing you'll notice is that he has a head start at the beginning of the round, and overrides the "FIGHT!" message from appearing with his taunt (since he's the announcer after all). What differentiates him from the previous bosses is that all of his moves, when blocked, put your character into hitstun, and have no lag time inbetween. The only way to defend against him is to dodge his attacks, which is easier said than done. He can throw an energy spear, ram you with a shoulder charge, sparta kick you all the way to the other side of the screen, and throw a mean right hook that also sends you the same way.
- Mortal Kombat 3 decided to drop the traditional 4-armed Shokan sub-bosses in favor of Motaro, a demonic Centaur. He easily outshines the previous sub-bosses in cheapness, and is the grand champion of SNK Bosses in Mortal Kombat. Projectiles thrown at him bounce right back at you, he teleports like crazy, his attacks (throw included) do WAY too much damage, and he can fire an infinite number of energy balls from his metal tail in any direction. You'll need an extensive knowledge of your character's bread-and-butter combos in order to win against him. Should you beat him, you will have to once again fight Shao Kahn, but this time he is much different than before. This time he's really pissed off about your defeating him in MKII, and can now utterly destroy you in roughly 12 seconds. How? He button-reads, is faster than he was in MKII, does more damage while taking less, traded his energy javelin for an unblockable Eye Beam, now has an upwards version of his shoulder charge in case of jump-ins, and he can pull out a giant metal hammer that automatically dizzies you regardless of whether you blocked or not. "It's official: You Suck!"
- Mortal Kombat 4 didn't offer anything, but Deadly Alliance gave us Moloch, a blue oni that acts like a red oni, with Glowing Eyes Of Doom and a ball-'n-chain strapped to his hand. He takes roughly half-normal damage, and has ridiculous attacks such as a non-telegraphed bum-rush.
- The worst thing about Moloch is if you win one round against him, he just stands there and roars. If you want the satisfaction of seeing him fall, you need to win the match.
- Mortal Kombat: Deception introduced Onaga, the mighty Dragon King, for the first time, and boy howdy does he live up to his name. First off, he's BIG. Really, really BIG. Bigger than Goro, Kintaro, Motaro, and Moloch combined. Secondly, he breathes unblockable fire that causes massive hitstun. He can also use his wings (which are even BIGGER than his body) to backdash away from combos, while doing some of his own. His throw is also really poweful, and cuts off about 40-50% of your health. There is a catch, though: you can break the 6 Kamidogu around the stage to stun him and do more damage for a small period of time. But even then, there's another catch: the stage has a Death Trap (the spikes surrounding the arena) which you can't knock Onaga into, but he can knock you into it, unless you turned off the Death Trap option.
  - You actually can block the 'unblockable' fire. You have to crouch and block. You still get set on fire visually, but you don't take any damage. Also, it should be noted that he also is immune to projectile attacks, and while he can't crouch, his guard is both high and low at the same time.
  - The game foreshadows Onaga's immunity to projectiles in the opening cutscene: he walks through sustained fire from Shang Tsung, Quan Chi, and Raiden at the same time.
- Finally, we come to Mortal Kombat: Armageddon, which gives us the fire elemental Blaze as the Final Boss. Some of you may remember Blaze as the fiery-looking secret character from Deadly Alliance. Yeah, that version's gone. Instead we get a giant lava titan that can do a rolling attack, teleport, and do overpowered combos. Definitely harder than Onaga.
Alpha-152 in Dead Or Alive 4, a superpowered Kasumi clone made of...something (Jello? Cool Mint Listerine? Semen?). She's 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. She also has a very annoying throw that can instantly kill you where she holds you down and then launches you into the explosive floor of her stage.
- Certain characters have an easier time fighting her than others. It's been too long to remember exactly which characters, but if memory serves, quicker characters and characters that are difficult to read (Helena, Brad) had an easier time, as they can adjust to her teleport attacks quicker, not to mention the ability to just rush at her and get a few moves off before she teleported again.
  - This troper found that Alpha was never easy, though she/it/that-horrid-bitch was easier to take down as Nicole, with the charge-attacks. Mind you, it could have just been practice.
  - She doesn't suffer from SNK Boss Syndrome, no; she revels in it. It's so bad that when she reviewed the game on X Play, Morgan Webb openly threatened @152's AI's programmers with bodily harm should she ever meet them in person.
- Before Alpha, there was Tengu in Dead Or Alive 2. He returned in 4 as a balanced secret character, but in his original debut game he was a bastard. His AI was almost completely omniscient and would counter everything. His moves did tremendous damage, yes, but he had one move that skyrocketed him to boss territory: he charges up and creates a giant gust of wind around himself, knocking the opponent away. He would do this move all the time, and it was also unblockable.
  - In the Updated Rerelease, Dead Or Alive 2 Ultimate, he gains a new CPU-exclusive move for his exclusive stage which cannot be accessed: he can change the weather. It's really distracting and it can hurt your eyes if you're not prepared for it. And while he's doing this he can charge at you freely.
- After Tengu, Ayane's foster father Genra/Omega made his debut in Dead Or Alive 3. First, you fight him in a really weird camera angle. Secondly, the fire around his stage makes everything super-blurry so you can't see his attacks. Finally, you of his attacks has to be jumped over, which is easier said than done.
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.
- The Narukagami boss is 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.
  - His back, however, isn't protected at all, and striking him from the front stuns him long enough to get that shot in.
- 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. But be warned. The first time you fight him, we will Just Shoot You.
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. She also has a FUCKING annoying and unblockable super where she shoots a raygun at you and turns you into a FROG
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 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)"
- European player: "(laughs some more)"
- It is worth noting that in Boss Rush mode, the bosses are toned down from the same difficulty equivalents of Subspace Emissary mode. That is, fighting Tabuu in Intense in SSE is even harder than doing it in Intense in the Boss Rush mode. This is because of the aforementioned extra 'lives' thing you get in SSE.
  - The difference is not in difficulty, but in length : all bosses do pretty much the same amount of damage in SSE and Boss Rush, but they have a LOT less HP in Boss Rush.
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... the exact same battle, but the boss starts out with an empty super meter instead. Whoopee.
- 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.
- 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.
  - Arcana Heart 3 tops it off with first having miniboss Scharlotte (Heavily inspired by Hazama's moveset) and then have you fight Ragnarok, A Humungous Mecha bent on destroying Japan, if you do not understand how to fight the likes of onslaught, you are pretty much done for. Unlike the previous bosses, this is a Do Or Die battle, run out of time or lose. You lose.
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 any given Virtua Fighter. On one hand, it still counts if you beat the game without defeating her, but if you want to see the good ending, you have to win, and in 4 you only get one shot.
The 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.
- His AI in DW3 is actually worse than average: while he knows to use his first charge attack to make you stumble, almost every time he waits so long to attack you again that you can recover first. (Then you need only have low health for free Musou and the victory.)
- In Dynasty Warriors 4 they also start his incredible weakness to arrows (they murder him). This actually extends to the AI where in one situation he actually turned away from the player controlled max level Zhao Yun to brutally murder a random body-guard that shot him in the back of the head with an arrow.
- Warriors Orochi series seems to make Lu Bu's AI even stupider. In the first game, he can easily be tricked into giving up Red Hare, and any decent player should have the cavalier up high, making your basic attacks against him pretty good. In the second he's worse as he will start laying into the Redshirts following once you've dismounted him, stolen Red Hare and given him distance. He'll use up Musou on these guys before coming at you.
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.
Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! ups the difficulty to ludicrous levels for the fight against the eponymous boxer—a single punch from the guy KO's you, and his weak spot is only exposed very rarely. And there are no saves.
- To be fair, that One Hit Kill only happens in the first and third rounds, and it's his Limit Break.
  - When Punch-Out was re-released in the 90s, it replaced Tyson with a sprite-swap named Mr. Dream because Nintendo's contract with Tyson expired. His AI was replaced, too, but not in the good way. This was the version released on the Wii's Arcade.
  - The Retraux of Punch-Out for the Wii does not have Mike Tyson (obviously, considering several controversies), but it has something even better. Donkey Kong.
Chaos from Dissidia: Final Fantasy is a great example of this trope. Not only does he attack faster then any other character in the game by a wide margin, but his attacks massively lower your break gauge and increase his own. He then usually chains his break attacks into his HP attacks. Did I mention he has 3 forms? Fully recovering HP each time while you're left at the amount you had? The developers of this game hate us.
- And this says nothing about the several ways in which he breaks the basic rules of the game! To wit:
  - When he uses his Divine Punishment attack, you better hit him out of it before the flame pillars start, because after that, he doesn't even get hit by any attacks.
  - His Demonsdance attack chains together a massive string of bonecrushing hits, with several HP attacks in the combo! The closest players can get is Shantotto's magical HP comboes, but this A: Has far less damage, with the two extra HP attacks combined doing maybe 1000 damage at the highest level under the best circumstances, while chaos will hit for about three times that much with EACH attack in the combo every time and B: pulling off even one extra attack is near impossible, while chaos does the full thing every time.
  - Oh, and he's got the Shinryu Summon. Not only can he use it multiple times, sometimes in the same phase, but the effect of the summon is not fixed! Good luck guessing whether he's going to cut your Brave, multiply his own, accelerate its growth, or just freeze his brave so he doesn't have to rest between HP attacks. have fun!
Metal Sonic of Sonic The Fighters will grind you into the steel floor of his stage. Faster and stronger than regular characters, his grab involves dropping you from the air to take out a little more than a quarter of your health, and he even rips off M. Bison's Psycho Crusher for devestating effect. Makes it all the more satisfying when you achieve Super Sonic and smash his face in. Robotnik? Anticlimax Boss.
- Oh, yeah, and he has an attack that takes off half your health in a single strike.
- Interestingly, Robotnik (or "Robotonic" by the intro) actually has some devastating moves, as evidenced by using a cheat device to unlock him. His status as an Anticlimax Boss may have actually been a case of AI Stupidity.
Ohga from Voltage Fighter Gowcaizer is bastardly. He has absurdly quick recovery time, for starters. Also, his BASIC special moves consist of a very damaging triple uppercut, a teleport that causes damage if your character is in his path (and you will be), and a kaiser wave-esque projectile. This projectile is quite large, and can only be blocked or jumped over; attempting to cancel it out with your own projectile will cause it to burst into five seeking fireballs. Jumping over it also leaves your character to be a sitting duck for his triple uppercut.
Rumble Roses. When you play through the story mode of any character, eventually you fight someone called Lady X. Which looks like a woman in a pantsuit with a metal mask and metal gloves. While she's obviously strong, has strong moves and is hard to humiliate(yeah, that's part of the game); she's not overpowered. Then when you beat her, the pantsuit comes off...and you realize it's a cyborg. Now Lady X Substance is suddenly way stronger and almost impossible to humiliate...and can do weird cyborg stuff. She has unique moves that other characters couldn't do as they involve her upper body turning 180 degrees, her fist can detach from her arm and let her do a ROCKET PUNCH...and here's the worst part: All characters have "taunts" which build up their special meter a little but cause no harm to the enemy. HER taunt involves her body turning around like mad (and playing an alarm) and she quickly runs around the ring. If she touches you, you fly off with HIGH damage...and all you can do is avoid her. AND the taunt fills her meter completely.
- You get a few seconds to step out of the ring when you see her preparing the taunt.
Young Toguro is the final boss of the generally substandard Yu Yu Hakusho: Dark Tournament, and has powers to match. Bear in mind that the previous fights were against very strong characters, but ones with normal restrictions. Toguro has insane speed and power, about a two-head height (and therefore a very large reach) advantage, a three-kick counter, and at least two combos that can put you down in no time flat. Both include low blows, forcing you to block while crouching - a difficult position from which to retaliate. And once you deplete his first health meter, he powers up with a second one and becomes much more aggressive.
- On the other hand, his projectiles are no big deal and leave him wide open. And you do get two rounds. There is a glitch, however, that causes both characters to move in slow motion if you hit Toguro in a certain way while he's entering his second form. The glitch remains until you land another "dramatic" slow-mo move.
Dragonball Z: Budokai 2. Dragon World mode and Kid Buu, who among other things, was pretty much unblockable.
- It got worse in Budokai Tenkaichi. Kid Buu has a Blast 2 move which is a long and crazy combo with nasty priority that the AI LOVES to spam in BT 2. Then there's Android 13, whose super form has a normal Blast 2 that is XBOX HUEG, there's Broly who is surprisingly fast for a huge guy, Syn Shenron/Omega Shenron/Yi Xing Long, whose attacks have vicious priority and worst of all, Cell, who is jsut plain horrible.
- In Budokai 3 Kid Buu not only gains an Ultimate Attack, but the new Ki system means he starts with 6 bars (whereas you generally start with 3). And to top it all off, to unlock Uub, you must fight him down to 1 bar (difficult itself on later difficulties), then go back to Kaioken or base form (unless you'd been fighting there the entire time. Again, difficult), and THEN use the Super Spirit Bomb technique and WIN the power struggle. Note: If you lose the power struggle, he dies anyway. And you don't get Uub.
  - And that's not even to mention Uub vs. Omega Shenron on the hardest difficulty... or Omega Shenron in any of the story modes, for that matter. "30 Seconds to kill him AND do it using my Ultimate Move? WTF?!"
Mutilator from Bio F.R.E.A.K.S. It's a bit like fighting Metal Gear Rex, only it's a Fighting Game. And the arena is flooded. And the water is full of sharks.
Final Boss Gaara from Clash of Ninja 2, who, among other things, could not be staggered. No, not by any hit. No, not even then.

Not Fighting Games

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 Ultra's Zenka, based on the (in)famously badass Sanger Zonvolt, has full screen specials, supers and EX Super (some of them unblockable or do massive chip damage), high priority, is much faster than her range would imply and tends to exploit these advantages to the fullest.
- Next, comes Zmega, based on Rugal Bernstein, but in Story Mode, he's weaker than what you'd expect from a Shout Out to one of the greatest SNK Bosses out there. Still, the game plays it cruelly in that there's only one round against him: should you lose, you automatically lose the game, but given the stand in Zmega's difficulty compared to Zenka, it's rather relative. However, this trope applies to his form taken at the end of Battle Royale Mode called Shin-Z, so much that even if you have an allied CPU still standing to fight with you, his sheer tendency to combo his specials directly to a super absurdly well, no thanks to crazy priority, turns frustration and keyboard breaking Up To Eleven. Should you lose against him, you have to engage a survival battle against 5 enemies first before he pops out again.
- Finally, in comes Alpha, based on The Four Gods from Super Robot Wars. The True Final Boss in Story Mode, Alpha carries the WORST use of super and EX Super spamming possible, moreso than Zenka. In fact, he will often combine them in a normal combo or interrupt them in the worst timing possible, but that's not to mention Alpha can interrupt during your combo into his supers. Said supers are like taking the full brunt of Zenka's supers (though Alpha's EX Super is far worse than Zenka's).
  - It Got Worse: the newest edition of the game now gives Alpha Gill's Resurrection super (full hit point restoration, unless interrupted), provided Alpha's POW bar allows him to use it if KO'ed for the round.
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 its height (it's a cat, as opposed to the rest of high school aged cast), however Nightmare Cat fires off super moves rapid fire, and uses its short height to it's advantage, ensuring you can barely land a hit. Fortunately, 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.
MUGEN, the fighting Game Maker, obviously has several hundred of these. Besides being a nice place to find most of the other entries on this list, the most noteworthy include:
- Hyper Gogeta by Supermystery, with his screen-filling Kamehameha.
- The Legendary SSJ 3 Nightmare, probably one of the more infamous examples. Broly has a minute long intro of him powering up that knocks the opponent down and into a wall. If you've managed to survive that you have to deal with an annoyingly sturdy shield, shitloads of ki blasts and noisy shouting. And when he wants to, he can go straight to SSJ 4 where he becomes literally invincible and coats the screen with explosions.
- Master Geese by Cannon Musume, an MVC-styled version of Geese Howard that has been nicknamed "Master Cheese" for his unblockable and cheap super moves. Not to mention his Deadly Rave is a One Hit Kill.
- Hyper Neo-Kamek by Kamek, who gives a new definition to the phrase Beam Spam.
- Light Yagami from Death Note who, well, has a Death Note. (and CAN READ HIS OPPONENT'S NAME FROM THE TOP OF THE SCREEN)
  - Mitigated slightly by his low defense. Doesn't excuse him from this trope, though.
- Dark Reiko Hikari by Kamek, a crazy, blisteringly fast teenage girl who also hits you with a bus, and has TWO One Hit Kill moves. Voiced by Etna.
- The Rox Howard Clones, who turn a one on one into a one on seven.
- Just about any 'Evil Ken' type (a wide variety of Ryus, Kens, Akumas, and Dans which began, apparently, with a certain build of Ken), who all try and outdo each other with ridiculous priority moves, combo capacity, and overpowered super moves.
  - Combine this with a lot of impressive chemicals and crank it Up To Eleven, and you have Rare Akuma.
- Hyper Akuma also deserves a mention. To break it down completely, he has:
  - Ability to almost completely ignore attacks from other characters.
  - Ability to gain energy from being hit.
  - Insane attack speed. Racking up combos into the double digits is common when he is in play.
  - Very high strength. With the right moves he can wipe out an opponent within 10 seconds.
  - High movement speed. Capable of traversing the screen very quickly in a single leap.
  - A move which lets him cross the screen within 1 second and usually ends up behind the opponent. Also, he cannot be hit when using this move.
  - Another move which lets him cross the screen quickly. When he passes his opponent, it counts as a 7-hit combo. Spammable.
  - Projectile attacks which act as 8-hit combos. Also spammable, especially in air.
  - A healing factor that would put Wolverine and Deadpool to shame. Heals through super attacks.
  - Supers which often cover the screen, cannot be interrupted, have combo numbers ranging from 20-999, and eat up at least a third of the opponent's health bar. In addition, some of hte Supers cost very little energy and some ever recharge your energy bar.
  - Ability to SPAM super moves by mashing buttons at the right time while a super move is being performed.
  - And to top it all off, an aura which can reduce the opponent's health bar to nothing in seconds. Hyper Akuma has this on BY DEFAULT.
- Neo-Reaper Isabeau SSJ 9, for an unblockable near-insta-kill fire attack.
- Sephiroth, whose melee attacks cover half the screen, has 200% health as well as 220% defense, has three instant-kill moves(two of which are unblockable and unavoidable), can teleport with invulnerability, as well as charging his super energy invincibly, and is uncomboable. I've beaten him with Michael Jackson.
  - Though... said Sephiroth is considered an awful character since it features stolen codes and terrible collision boxes. And it's relatively easy to beat, specially if you use moves that drive him into custom states, like grapples.
  - There's also a Mega Man sprite edit of Sephiroth floating around that INSTANTLY KILLS YOU when his life meter drops to a certain point...great.
- And while we're at it, there's Gustav Munchausen from the K.O.F. Memorial game, who features insane chip damage, full-screen supers, and a brutal AI, and gains super energy ultra-fast.
- A Japanese imageboard took it upon themselves to make a Mugen game starring practically all their memes; as you may have guessed, insanity ensues. Still, nothing can prepare you for the final boss, Hato Sabure. To start, it's what appears to be a giant chocolate peep with Glowing Eyes Of Doom. Who can fly via a jet engine and drop on you For Massive Damage, randomly counter physical blows by knocking you to the other side of the room, and is an absolute master of projectile spam-it has eye lasers, bombs, missiles, and fireballs, which all fire out of mechanical hatches that appear from its body. Fortunately, as with the rest of these bosses, the wide variety of characters allows a huge amount of ways of beating him to death.
- Ayu Tukimiya. She's a little angel girl. The first fight with her is like fighting a tough (but not horrible) AI opponent. Take her out once though... and she gains a massively fast regenerating super bar, regenerating health, and I-no's infamous Megalomania attack.
- Cheap Boss Type, is a parody of these. You think fans would know better than to complain about it given the name. Also brings up the question of why M.U.G.E.N. players simply don't delete crap characters and move on to better ones.
- Zeeky H. Bomb, if only due to the fact that all his moves are strikers bar two. The saving grace of this fight is that Zeeky has no custom AI, and as such will constantly move randomly back and forth, leaving himself open.
- Don Drago has made Geese, Yashiro, Takuma and Goenitz, and has a habit of including all their movelists into seperate modes. Do the maths.
- Omega. He's a fair and very well-done example compared to the rest, sure, but the thing is, in the original games he appeared in, you can run away and take advantage of his Ax Crazy fighting style. This time, you can't. And he has new supers. Oh Crap.
Kron, the final boss of PSX Fighting Game Cardinal Syn, is a particularly ruthless example. The final form of the game's Big Bad, Syn, Kron is a freaking huge dragon who, in addition to sporting ridiculously powerful attacks (fire bombs, anyone?), possessing the ability to fly, and being so huge and powerful she takes much less damage than any other character, she also has a one-hit kill move (in which she bites the player character in half) which she tries to utilise quite frequently. Also, the stage in which you fight her has an infinite time limit, which means that the player is unable to be a cheap bastard by simply getting a few hits in and staying out of her way until the timer runs out, out of pure desperation.
- Even worse, Kron can be unlocked as a playable character. Ouch.
  - Even worse, when she's unlocked, the player can face her in any play mode. Including Survival Mode. In which she's just as frustrating to fight as she is in Arcade Mode. Yup. Just try getting a good Survival win rate when you're facing her.
In the first renditions of Melty Blood, we had Aoko Aozaki, who was later balanced as a normal character and given a new moveset. But in the first game she was pretty much a Fighting Game version of a Touhou character, with an egregious case of Beam Spam. There was also the secret boss Giant Akiha, who was a parody of Apocalypse from X-Men/Marvel Super Heroes VS. Street Fighter, that did an insane amount of damage.
- A later revision replaced G-Akiha with...Neko-Arc, a small, deformed cat version of Arcueid which had attacks with absolute priority. Also, she was small and very hard to hit.
  - Act Cadenza introduced White Len, an alternate version of Len that easily takes Aoko's former place as the SNK Boss. She had a drastically different moveset than in the Ver. B update, and most of her attacks had absolute priority and did a lot of damage. Neko-Arc also got an alternate version called Neko-Arc Chaos, who parodied Nrvqnsr Chaos' moveset but with the same attributes as the original Neko-Arc.
  - Ver. B of Act Cadenza introduced a new hidden boss: Neko-Chaos Black G666. Created by Kohaku in an alternate story mode for Neko-Arc, this is a true successor to G-Akiha. It also has an egregious amount of Beam Spam, but also has other attacks like a drill and a missile arm. It's extremely hard to beat due to the large amount of damage it does. At first it can only be fought in Neko-Arc Chaos' secret story, but if you beat it you unlock Giant Attack Mode, which lets you beat it with any character.
  - Actress Again gives us Dust of Osiris, only available to certain characters. It's an alternate-reality version of Sion, and it's pretty cheap in its own right. Look it up on You Tube and see for yourself. And if you beat Boss Rush mode without losing a round, well... you get to fight Archetype Arcueid, who can kill you instantly. And is then unlocked as a playable character... with all her moves and damage intact.
Dragonball Z: Budokai 2. Dragon World mode and Kid Buu, who among other things, was pretty much unblockable.
Tenshi Hinanai of Touhou Project's Scarlet Weather Rhapsody eventually fits this trope. While at first she's only a little stronger than most of the enemies you've fought so far, her final attack is absolutely brutal. If you don't knock her out before she starts doing it, she starts spamming almost impossible to dodge lasers. Oh, and if you get hit by one, she starts another one before the first one finishes, so if you ever get hit by one of these lasers, there's a very good chance that you just die.
- In lunatic mode she fires 3 at once which actually is quite unfair. However due to the limit system it will only do about 3k damage, which is still alot but not enough to kill you. The gimmick to this spell, is to bait her lasers on 1 side then graze though them. Also this attack will guard break near instantly if you accidentally started blocking border escape immediately.