Near-Villain Victories in Video Games.
- Ace Attorney: Phoenix Wright can never go into a trial and win, he has to be getting his ass kicked until he comes to a point where everything seems hopeless. That's when he can turn things around. Possibly was the same for Mia Fey. In general, near the end of every case there's a moment where e.g. the prosecutor points out that you have no decisive evidence to prove the murderer's guilt, and as the murderer stands there gloating and mocking you, Phoenix manages to get a bright idea at the last minute, or someone bursts into the courtroom with a piece of vital evidence just before the judge announces his verdict, etc.
- In the course of the series, Phoenix was defended by his mentor in one of his first cases, defends his own best friend in his first trial, defends the sister of his mentor, apparently accused by the victim of the murder (who was said mentor), successfully brings about the downfall of a man blackmailing half the legal system, defends a man whose own costume was worn at the scene of the murder, defends a hated prosecutor accused of killing a man a few days before, then successfully defends the same man for a crime committed fifteen years ago by a different prosecutor who had never lost a case before, by correctly accusing the same perfect prosecutor, takes down a viciously corrupt chief of police while defending someone who had already confessed to the crime repeatedly and in detail, defended someone without his memory, defended his assistant from a crime that, circumstances show, could only have been committed by said assistant, prosecuted a killing whose perpetrator was actually remorseful for and in which the defendant was framed by accident, successfully maneuvered a Manipulative Bastard into confessing to a crime while his assistant was held hostage to ensure said bastard's acquittal, defended someone in two trials in two consecutive days, defended someone already found guilty due to an impostor defense attorney, and finally, successfully defended a woman he thought had tried to kill him because he was convinced of her innocence (oh, and the evidence is all against her, too). Lampshaded by the fact every case except one (and the series title in Japan), all have the word "Turnabout" in them, the one that doesn't is outright called "Rise From The Ashes", and how in the English versions he's named Phoenix for his tendency to "come back from the dead".
- In Daughter for Dessert, this happens at the protagonist's trial. Right when Mortelli takes the stand, the player has no reason to believe that he can be found as anything but guilty. However, it turns out that Mortelli has ruined all of the evidence against the protagonist, leading to his acquittal.
- In the climax of Uncharted 4: A Thief's End, Rafe finally reaches Henry Avery's teasure and gains the upper hand over Nate during their battle. He actually would have had the chance to kill him if he wasn't distracted monologuing.
- In The World Ends with You, Kitanji has Neku at his mercy. His brilliant Evil Plan that he had spent the entire game setting up has come to fruition, leaving Neku alone and defenseless. The reapers summon a whole army of Noise and are about to erase Neku when the Spanner in the Works sets in.
- NEO: The World Ends with You one-ups its predecessor by not only having the villain outright win, but do so twice, with Rindo's first attempt at using his time-rewinding powers to stop the destruction of Shibuya being just as much a failure as the first run through since those rewinds are what's causing the city's destruction.
- Soul Nomad & the World Eaters had a few when you were fighting the World Eaters, Raksha especially seemed unstoppable
- In Dragon Quest IX, after you defeat the Big Bad Corvus in battle, he says he will destroy the world anyways. Then his one true love, a mortal named Serena explains she didn't betray him, at which point he stops, invoking this trope.
- Final Fantasy:
- In Final Fantasy II, just after you unseal and obtain the Ultima spell, the Emperor conjures a massive magical Cyclone and completely destroys most of the towns between Palamecia and Fynn, along with sucking up a good number of people from Fynn. The heroes then proceed to fly into the Cyclone and take down the Emperor...only for things to get even worse from there.
- Final Fantasy IV:
- The Final Boss has effortlessly overpowered you. It seems like all hope is lost until every other character transfer their messages to the heroes via a prayer, which completely heal everyone.
- In the Underworld battle against Golbez, he uses Binding Coldnote to trap everybody in place then knocks them out one by one. Before Cecil is killed, Rydia pops in with the Mist Dragon and revives everyone.
- Repeated with the final battle of the sequel Final Fantasy IV: The After Years, clearly as a Shout-Out with more characters being benched on the spaceship.
- Final Fantasy V: Just before the Final Battle, Big Bad Exdeath has succeeded in fully harnessing the Power of the Void, allowing him to throw the cities and allies that he wasn't able to the first time, then ends up throwing the Warriors of Light themselves into the Void. It takes the intervention of the spirits of the Warriors of Dawn and King Tycoon to reverse this and to stymie Exdeath, allowing the heroes to get a fighting chance.
- Final Fantasy VI deserves special mention for including that one rare time when the heroes don't save the day. It even goes as far as to place the heroes at the exact right time and place to save the world from imminent destruction, and then have them fail. The heroes manage to kill Kefka and save the world in the end, but for a while there, the villain did win.
- Final Fantasy VII has Sephiroth's plan for Meteor to smash into the Planet almost succeed, even after his defeat. It's Divine Intervention that saves the day in the end.
- Final Fantasy IX does this during a Hopeless Boss Fight.
- Star Ocean: The Second Story also deserves this mention: At the end of Disc 1 you face the Big Bad for the fate of the world of Expel. You get trounced, Expel is destroyed (although returned to existence later) and you wake up on the Big Bad's home planet.
- The DS and GCN Custom Robo games use this at their seemingly invincible final bosses. The example in the DS version is a lot like the one in Final Fantasy IV.
- Master Detective Archives: Rain Code:
- Yomi was so close to murdering the five remaining Master Detectives, including Yuma and Vivia after he has his followers assassinate anyone who poses a threat to him, including Chief Yakou and the deceased detectives in Chapter 0. He would've blown Yuma and Vivia's brains out if Makoto and Martina hadn't got him arrested for his crimes against Kanai Ward's citizens.
- During Chapter 5, Makoto Kagutsuchi has just about everyone on his side, barring his rivals, and has disposed of the detectives who suspect him as a villain. All Makoto had to do was replace the original Number One of the WDO, since Makoto was his clone, and he would've gained unlimited power. He abandons this upon reformation. However, it's likely it would've been meaningless even if he did succeed, since his original resigned from his position beforehand.
- Metroid series:
- Super Metroid: During the final battle with Mother Brain, she uses the Hyper Beam, an unavoidable and devastating attack against Samus. Once Mother Brain starts doing this, she uses this attack and Chip Damage until Samus is unable to stand. Just as she's winding up for the killing blow, the last Metroid suddenly appears and attacks Mother Brain, saving Samus' life; it then transfers the Hyper Beam to Samus as it heals her, letting Samus defeat Mother Brain for good.
- Metroid Prime 3: Corruption: When Samus makes planetfall on the last planet, she becomes so corrupted by the planet Phaaze's omnipresent Phazon that her ship doesn't even recognise her. The final area and boss fights are time limited against Samus' encroaching terminal corruption, the same Phazon madness that brought the Space Pirates and the game's other three bounty hunters under Dark Samus' control. Victory for Samus' evil Phazon doppelganger seems assured... until Samus fights her way to the corrupted Aurora Unit controlling Phaaze and kills it, setting off the destruction of Phaaze itself and all Phazon in the universe with it.
- Metroid Dread: Directly after the final boss fight, Raven Beak suddenly grabs Samus by the throat with no effort, as if his entire boss battle was just toying with her. He strangles her as he gloats about how he plans to clone her and take over the galaxy with the resulting army, and Samus seems to slip into unconciousness and death as her Power Suit powers down. All seems lost, with Raven Beak set to put his plan into action. But, then Samus's Metroid abilities finally awaken fully, and the resulting Heroic Second Wind utterly destroys Raven Beak.
- Castlevania: Symphony of the Night does a player-dependent example of this during the prologue battle with Dracula. If your health reaches 0, Maria runs in and casts a crap load of buff spells turning the fight into a Foregone Victory.
- There isn't a final boss from a Paper Mario game that doesn't do this. Super Mario RPG and Mario & Luigi are immune. So far.
- Paper Mario even starts with a near-villain victory - Bowser takes over Peach's Castle, seemingly finally defeats Mario for good, with no chance that he could bounce back. It's only due to circumstances outside Bowser's control and knowledge that he is defeatable in the first place.
- Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door is also notable that Grodus nearly succeeds despite meeting all the standard conditions for 'defeated' - he's just lost a climactic boss battle to Mario and is visibly on his last legs with none of his army by him. However, he is also deep in the unsealed Shadow Palace and successfully gets the Shadow Queen to possess a vessel, with her even standing there before him. Despite being trounced by Mario, only the fact that Evil Is Not a Toy means that Grodus doesn't get everything he wanted.
- This also happens in main-series games. Notable is Super Mario Galaxy, where Bowser is minutes away from completing his plan when Mario arrives.
- The Legend of Zelda:
- In A Link to the Past, Agahnim has captured six of the Seven Maidens and Ganon has conquered the Sacred Realm, also having killed the previous Link and got the full Triforce in the beginning of the game. Later Agahnim captures Zelda too and sends Link to the Dark World. If not for the Moon Pearl, Link would not stand a chance. Even with it, he earns his ultimate victory.
- Ganondorf in Ocarina of Time scores a fairly impressive victory during the first arc of the game — he tricks the heroes into doing most of the work for him. He then kills the King, conquers Hyrule and reigns supreme for seven years, while the rightful heir to the throne has to
change her gendercross dress in order to effectively hide from him, and The Hero is put in an enchanted sleep that will allow him to grow up sufficiently in order to put the kingdom back to rights. And even when Link does manage to clean most of his influence, Ganondorf captures Zelda the moment she unmasks herself, lures Link to his castle and barely loses in the final fight, even disarming Link at one point. - The Wind Waker: At the climax, Ganondorf gets all but one foot away from achieving his goal of acquiring the Triforce once and for all, something he'd spent five games trying to do. Pity for him that the King of Hyrule beats him at the last second and has his wish granted instead.
- In Twilight Princess, Zant and the Twilight took over all of Hyrule except for the backwater province that also happened to be Link's home, and then got beaten back into its hidey hole. He manages to beat Link and hurt Midna badly enough Zelda had to sacrifice herself, only to be later defeated and left slumped in his throne while Link goes to rescue Zelda. Ganondorf turns out to be behind Zant and able to revive him. He possesses Zelda but is forced out of her. In the ensuing fight, he actually kills Midna before Link beats him and sets everything right.
- Hyrule Warriors sees Ganondorf triumph over the heroes, personally defeat Link and Zelda, and claim all three pieces of the Triforce. It's actually a bit of a jaw-dropper, since the heroes only just manage to claw back enough power to win. And you play as him as he crushes Hyrule.
- In Minish Cap, Vaati, after disguising himself as the King of Hyrule, getting the soldiers away from the castle by telling them to look for the Light Force, and turning everyone except Link and Ezlo to stone, comes dangerously close to killing Zelda when Link barges in, interrupting him — after having to go through three battles directly beforehand, a bell chiming after the first two. Upon the third bell, Vaati would have completely drained Zelda of the Light Force, and the penultimate battle in the game is against the notoriously sturdy Darknuts. The third bell is even timed, so if you/Link fail(s) to destroy them in time, Zelda is dead and Vaati actually does win, though this is not recognized as actual canon as Link does manage to thwart Vaati's plans, albeit by a very narrow margin.
- Kingdom Hearts III has Master Xehanort successfully forge the χ-blade and put his plan into unlocking Kingdom Hearts into motion. The only reason he doesn't get far is because Sora's friends transport him to Scala ad Caelum using his power over time and space against him, allowing Sora, Donald, and Goofy to confront Xehanort and put an end to his ambitions once for all with the help of a time-traveling future Sora and his friends destroying Xehanort's combined Soul Jars at the same time.
- Myth: The first two games love this trope. By the time Balor is defeated, there are fewer than 30 of the Legion left alive (most are incinerated when Balor's head explodes), Madrigal (the last major free city of the North) has been razed, and only a handful of small villages remain. At the end of the sequel, Soulblighter almost destroys the world by shattering a massive mountain range before Alric is able to stop him.
- Super Smash Bros.:
- At one point in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, every single playable character (and Master Hand) is dead (well, trophyified). Then Dedede's timed badges go off and Luigi, Ness and Kirby revive. Thanks to them (and Sonic, who comes in to prevent the Big Bad from killing everyone again), the whole roster is again able to kick ass.
- The Super Smash Bros. Ultimate story mode "World of Light" starts off like this when a malevolent light being effortlessly defeats and captures the entire 70+ roster... save for Kirby, who just barely manages to escape by pushing his warp star to FTL speeds.
- Fate/stay night has this in all the routes.
- Fate. By the end of it, only Shirou and Saber are in any position to take on Kirei and Gilgamesh, with all other Servants dead, Illya captured to be used as the vessel for the Grail, and Rin is still recovering from her injuries dealt by Kirei. Even with Avalon, Saber is going up against Gilgamesh handicapped and with slim odds (especially she remembers from the last War she didn't stand a chance even with a proper Master), and Shirou's fighting against a priest who can use the power of the Grail's curses. Both of them are very nearly overpowered and killed by their foes before Avalon's true power activates and gives them the breathing room to finish off their shocked opponents.
- Unlimited Blade Works. Gilgamesh has turned Shinji into the vessel for the Grail and only Saber, Rin, and Shirou can hope to stop him with all their other allies dead (or so they think), and Saber and Rin need to go off to stop the Grail on their own and leave Shirou to deal with Gilgamesh. Even when Shirou manages to take down Gilgamesh, he still tries to pull a Taking You with Me and with Rin indisposed and Saber the same (or gone depending on the ending), Shirou would have died if not for Archer being Not Quite Dead.
- Heavens Feel. First Saber is gone. Very gone. Then in quick succession, Archer dies, Berserker follows and Shirou loses an arm. Plus, Saber is Not Quite Dead... but that's not a good thing. Then Sakura is revealed to be the Shadow, plus Zouken Matou controls her. And Berserker is back, plus blind and insane... insaner. So many things go wrong that by the time you get to the end you're down to Tohsaka, Shirou, and Rider. Tohsaka has a weapon she isn't sure will work, Shirou has severe brain damage plus a limited amount of times he can project before he'll die, and Rider is a loose cannon at best. Luckily, Sakura makes things a bit easier by killing True Assassin and Zouken for them. Even when they manage to stop Sakura and the corrupted Saber, Shirou's the only one left who can actually stop the Grail, and he's half-dead and dying while getting his ass beat by Kirei. Only the fact Kirei dies from his own previous injuries first gives him the chance to destroy the Grail (fatally or not depends on the ending).
- Mortal Kombat:
- Mortal Kombat 3: To break it down, Shao Khan revives his dead wife on Earthrealm, allowing him to step through the boundaries separating it from Outworld and claim her, thus forcing a merger of the two realms without the need of the eponymous tournament. Not only that, but he immediately steals the souls of everyone on Earth, and sends out extermination squads to take care of The Chosen Ones who had their souls spared. He barely avoided victory, due to his underestimating the power and tenacity of his foes.
- Mortal Kombat 9 sees things get worse: Raiden's attempts to prevent Armageddon see the situation deteriorate until the only surviving Earthrealm warriors are Johnny Cage and Sonya Blade. The only reason Shao Khan's attempt to conquer the realm failed was because Raiden finally realized that the future message of "He must win" referred to Shao Khan: allowing him to conquer Earthrealm would force the Elder Gods into action.
- Mortal Kombat X had this happen twice. The first time Shinnok manages to reach the Jinsei, essentially the life force of the Earth realm, and is about to absorb it. But Johnny Cage's Shadow Power turns out to be able counter his own and, combined with Johnny's fighting skills, he's able to beat Shinnok to which Raiden seals him within Shinnok's own amulet. The second time happens years later, after a convoluted set of events, Shinnok is freed and once more attacks the Jinsei. This time he does absorb it, gains a monstrous new form and almost brings about Earth's destruction. But Johnny's daughter, Cassie, fights him this time and well, History Repeats, only this time Shinnok is killed and Raiden manages to undo the damage...if not with unexpected side effects to his personality.
- Mortal Kombat 11 doubles up on this as well. The main story has the heroes struggling against Kronika and her minions throughout, but eventually start racking up decisive victories, up to and including the birth of Fire God Liu Kang; unfortunately, since Kronika has everything she needs to rewrite history and the time to make it happen, only this last bit is not rewound out of existence, even if it ends with her fused into glass and shattered. And then there's Aftermath, where Kronika suffers worse losses and gets completely destroyed... or, should we say, eaten by Shang Tsung, who spent the entire story scheming to take the Crown and eliminate all his competition in one fell swoop. What makes it this is that Fire God Liu Kang saw this coming and planned around Shang Tsung doing exactly that, only to dive in at the last second and loot the Crown from him. Only the player can decide if Shang Tsung gets away with it in the end, and it's this if he doesn't.
- The Fallout series does this in every episode.
- Fallout: while you are hunting for the Master and the Vats, the mutant army is on the doorstep of Vault 13.
- Fallout 2: by the time you get to the Oil Rig, the Enclave is ready to launch the modified FEV biotoxin into a jetstream which would completely depopulate North America.
- Fallout 3: fortunately for the good guys, the Enclave doesn't know the code to activate Project Purity which results in the Brotherhood launching a desperate siege and pushing them out of there. However, the Enclave was about to use their Kill Sat on the Citadel afterwards so it counts as two.
- Fallout: New Vegas has this as a possible ending; depending on how thoroughly you complete sidequests and make friends with folks that have a lot of firepower, the ultimate battle for Hoover Dam is either an unbelievably harsh battle of attrition, or a hysterically drawn out Curb-Stomp Battle as all your allies come rushing in for one Big Damn Heroes moment after the other. However, before the Player Character got involved in the war, Caesar was successful in demoralizing the NCR. If the Courier was never involved, then the Legion would have succeeded in bombing the monorail, assassinating President Kimball, and Caesar still would have received treatment for his tumor (either by enslaving a doctor or by ordering his soldiers to explore a vault full of feral ghouls for an Auto-Doc part). House also predicted that Caesar had a 70% chance of winning the second battle of Hoover Dam before their intervention.
- Halo:
- At the end of Halo 2 and the middle of Halo 3, the Halos were activated and charging, and just a few minutes from firing and killing all life in the galaxy just before the heroes could push the off switch.
- At the end of Halo 4, the Didact's ship is already in position to annihilate all life on Earth (in fact, he's already taken out one city) when Chief and Cortana are finally able to stop him.
- The first Mass Effect game had you racing against time to stop Saren and Sovereign from opening the secret Mass Relay built into the Citadel to let the Reaper fleet through and begin the massacre of all sentient life in the galaxy.
- However, it's clear that the invasion is still coming and Shepard's actions have, at most, merely delayed it. This is proved true in The Arrival when Shepard is forced to destroy a Mass Relay and an entire inhabited solar system to buy the Galaxy some time. It turns out this was only several months, as the invasion finally happens in Mass Effect 3.
- Cerberus comes very close to pulling off this and a Team Rocket Wins in the third game, by going on the offensive and repeatedly hampering everyone's attempts to combat the Reapers effectively. Eventually the Alliance is forced to perform an all-out assault after they steal crucial information needed to finish the Crucible.
- King's Quest:
- The second Air Gem test in the Fan Remake of King's Quest II. The canonical games glossed over this point, but the kingdom is in ruins, the hero's kids have been condemned to death, and the hero himself is close to breaking... then in walks the Big Bad offering a Deal with the Devil.
- Canonical ones in the series: walking into the wedding hall in King's Quest VI to see "Cassima" enthusiastically declaring her intent to marry the Grand Vizier. And in King's Quest IV when Lolotte nastily declares that Rosella will have the Standard Hero Reward of marrying her grotesque "son" turns out he's just a prisoner, too, strips Rosella of all her possessions, and locks her up.
- In the Space Quest series: Roger is captured by Vohaul in Space Quest II: Vohaul's Revenge, shrunken down to miniature size, and shoved in a jar while Vohaul readies the launch of his clone army of life insurance salesmen. In Space Quest V, Roger is stranded on the bridge of the Goliath, surrounded by Pukoids, and the ship's heading for Confederation space, ready to spread The Corruption to all of known space. If you prepared for this, then WD-40 and Cliffy show up for a Big Damn Heroes moment. Space Quest VI isn't as dramatic, but it is sad. After the Big Bad tried to kill Roger, Stellar shows up and pulls a Heroic Sacrifice. He can only bang on the door helplessly as she appears to succumb to the gas. Worse, Sharpei is going to get away with it because she is the wealthy and well-connected widow of a famous admiral while Roger and Stellar are "just" a janitor and soldier.
- In FreeSpace Shivans were held in the last moment from entering Sol system with their near-invulnerable superdestroyer Lucifer and destroying Earth. The human strike forcess that were sent to destroy Lucifer were ambushed on the numerous occasions, narrowly preventing their own destruction and almost being too late before final engagement. And all of that wouldn't be even possible without Deux Ex Machina miracle that was discovery of the precursor relic. It gave the Terrans and Vasudans the crucial information of how to destroy Lucifer and allowed a small team of pilots to intercept her inside subspace, where her inpenetrable shields were turned off.
- Pokémon had been slowly hedging in that direction for a while with the villains of several games coming ever closer to their goals.
- In Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire, the bad guys manage to awaken their legendary, but due to using the wrong orb, they cannot control it and the rampaging legendary summons massive sunlight enough to cause a drought (Groudon)/a heavy rain which threatens to flood the entire world (Kyogre). Only you can appease the legendary (and defeat/capture it) because you have the right orb for the job. In Emerald, both legendaries are awoken and proceed to fight each other, causing a quickly-swapping drought/heavy rain which is as much or even more threathening than in Ruby/Sapphire. Since you don't have either orb, only Rayquaza can keep both Groudon and Kyogre in line, and it's up to you to seek its help.
- In Pokémon Black and White, the bad guys got their legendary. They proceed to defeat the league champion, leaving them with the firepower and the moral authority to get the region to release their Pokémon. In their castle (which has risen from the ground to surround the Pokémon League headquarters), scientists are hacking into the Pokémon storage system, elevating them to global threat. And while N wishes to face you in a one on one battle first, the Sages are a little more pragmatic and intend to take you six on one and quite likely kill you before you make it that far. If you do, you still don't have, or don't know where to find, the opposite legendary, which might even the odds a little in that battle. You have the stone to awaken him, but no idea where or how to use it. Then your childhood friend Bianca rounds up the gym leaders of Unova who hold off the sages, and the stone you've been carrying all along ends up working at the last minute. The rest is up to you.
- In Pokémon Diamond and Pearl, Cyrus arguably comes even closer than Ghetsis. Even if N had beaten the player character, that wouldn't necessarily have handed him the region since there are plenty of other strong trainers about (particularly Cynthia) and there's the very real possibility that N would have worked out what was going on and stopped Ghetsis personally. Throughout Diamond, Pearl and Platinum, you fail to stop any of Galactic's Commanders or Cyrus even once, up to and including when you reach Spear Pillar, where only a major Deus Ex Machina stops Cyrus' total victory.
- In Pokémon Sun and Moon, Lusamine momentarily succeeds in her plan by finally traveling to the Ultra Beast dimension and likewise unleashing the Ultra Beasts onto the world. With the only hope that the heroes can prevent this is a vague rumor that the island's Legendary Pokemon lies beyond a vast and trecherous canyon. Fortunately the Pokemon that Lillie has been hiding in her bag the entire time turns out to be the pre-evolution to such a Legendary Pokemon.
- Command & Conquer had a few of these.
- To take the most telling example, Kane in Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun was only three hours from launching his World Altering Missle when Mike McNeill arrived to the battlefield. Said missile would have converted all life on the planet into Tiberium-based life.
- In the meaningfully-named Allied mission "Last Chance" in Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2, the Soviets almost succeed in using a Psychic Amplifier to mass mind control the entire United States. When the device is destroyed, the Soviet commander in charge of that part of the front is pretty darn livid, immediately detonating a nuclear missile to wipe out Chicago.
- In the opening of Yuri's Revenge, Yuri activates his Psychic Dominator network, successfully mind controlling most of the planet. It's only due to one of them getting temporarily damaged that a time travel device the Allies built can be activated to undo Yuri's plan.
- The Allied Campaign cuts it even closer, as the compromised Psychic Dominator gets repaired and begins counting down again once you capture enough Power Plants, with mere seconds left on the clock when Einstein's Time Machine activates.
- In RuneScape, Lucien has completed the Ritual of Rejuvenation, sacrificing the weakest member of his species to recharge the powers of the rest, and he also has possession of the Stone of Jas, in his attempt to become a god. Then the Dragonkin kill him.
- No More Heroes: Jeane manages to shove her fist inside of Travis' heart and needs only rip it out. Then enters Shinobu, paying you back for sparing her life, who then proceeds to cut the arm off as Travis goes for the finish.
- Ōkami eventually gets rather dire as Yami has Ammy near death with her powers cut off and no help coming, but Issun went through with his role of being the person who reminds the world of Ammy, allowing her to regain much of her lost power.
- Street Fighter Alpha 3: In Ryu's ending, M. Bison gets up and attacks Ryu with a cheap shot, rendering him in danger of succumbing to the Psycho Power and getting his consciousness overwritten by Bison's. Unfortunately for the Dictator, what he didn't count on was Ryu tapping into Heroic Willpower, subsequently Shin Shoryuken'ing him in the face and causing him to explode. This also happens if you are playing as M. Bison, but lose the last battle against Ryu, by the way.
- In The King of Fighters '94, both Benimaru Nikaido and Goro Daimon were taken down during the final battle, and if Kyo Kusanagi didn't assume the worst when he saw his father unconscious after Rugal beat him to almost death, he would have never gone into an Unstoppable Rage-induced Heroic Second Wind and Rugal would have won. Kyo gets lucky for a second time in the next game when Rugal's own power destroys him.
- In Hyperdimension Neptunia V, as early as Chapter 3, Mr. Badd could have won against the three CPU goddesses without him having to lift a finger. The only flaw in his plan is an unknown fourth CPU goddess who was present at that time (and to be fair, Vert WAS being covert at that time, trying to observe Lowee's CPU).
- Hyperdimension Neptunia mk2 sets this up right for them start, with the CPUs having been defeated an imprisioned three years ago, and the heroes barely scraping together enough Applied Phlebotinum to rescue one of them. The rest of the game is about turning things around.
- Ghost Trick is about as damn near close as a story can come. To wit: almost everyone is trapped underwater in the penultimate chapter. The submarine Lynne, Kamila, Sissel, and Missile's ghost are on is unsalvageable. Detective Jowd is elsewhere, dead in a room drifting to the bottom of the ocean. Commander Sith has plucked the Temisk fragment from Yomiel's body and is on his way back to his homeland. The only way the protagonists end up standing a chance is by launching Sissel and Missile's ghosts to Jowd's location via torpedo, rewinding back to Jowd's death, then rewinding back to Yomiel's "death" in Temisk Park ten years ago to finally Set Right What Once Went Wrong. Essentially the timeline that you left behind when Sissel was launched on the torpedo is completely doomed and you only save everyone by rewriting history.
- By the end of the first Robopon, Dr. Zero has completed his revenge on Prince Tail, imprisoned Princess Darcy, and controls everything on Porombo Island. Cody is the only one that's able to stop him at all.
- In Yu-Gi-Oh! Reshef of Destruction, both Reshef and Bandit Keith come very close to winning; Keith loses because the Winged Dragon of Ra refused to awaken for him and fried him with lightning when he forced you to hand Slifer over. Reshef only loses because Yugi, Joey, and Kaiba team up and weaken him to the point where he's barely beatable. Even after you win, he then tries to take over Pegasus completely and almost succeeds anyway.
- Big Bad Raul Menendez of Call of Duty: Black Ops II is the epitome of this trope. After witnessing the death of his parents in his childhood and finally, the loss of his daughter at the hands of Frank Woods, Raul plots a plan that almost entirely kills not just the JSOC, but the entire US. He literally had the US at their mercy, and if it wasn't for Section, then chances are that Cordis Die could have ravaged the world.
- In The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Mankar Camoran and his Mythic Dawn cult are defeated just prior to the climax of the game, though they succeed in their ultimate goal of summoning Mehrunes Dagon, the Daedric Prince of Destruction, to the mortal world at full power. With Dagon towering over the Imperial City, it appears that all hope has been lost for mortal-kind. Then, Martin performs a Heroic Sacrifice, shattering the Amulet of Kings to become an avatar of Akatosh. Martin/Akatosh banishes Dagon, saving the world, but takes the life of the last in the Septim line in the process.
- Happens very often in the Tomb Raider series:
- The Big Bad in Tomb Raider II manages to steal the magical artifact for himself before Lara can get to it and gains its powers. Lara barely manages to defeat him when he gains his powered up dragon form and steal the dagger back.
- Tomb Raider III has the Big Bad steal all the artifacts Lara had collected and uses them to activate the meteorite's power to transform into a freakishly mutated giant spider creature. Lara barely prevents the bad guy from winning by taking the artifacts back, which depowers him, and then killing him.
- Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation has Lara running around collecting armor pieces that can summon Horus so that he can defeat the evil god Set. However, Set's powers are too strong and he cancels Horus's summoning. Lara can't cause any harm to Set with her weapons either, but she manages avoid him long enough to escape his chamber and reseal him before he can destroy the world.
- Blazblue: Yuuki Terumi's victory or defeat comes down to the very wire. 99% of all existence has been destroyed, he's found the gates to the Azure (which would give him all the power he needs To Create a Playground for Evil), easily defeated its guardian and even got past the gate into the Azure itself. It comes down to a one-to-one duel between him and Ragna in that spot. If you lose that match, Terumi absolutely and completely wins.
- Body Harvest: The opening cinematic shows the aliens returning to wipe out the last human survivors on a space station after already harvesting most of humanity. Adam is the only Super-Soldier who manages to escape by a hair's breath and actually use the Time Machine to correct the past.
- In Trials of Mana, the Big Bad succeeds in acquiring the Sword of Mana, releasing 8 Beasts of the Apocalypse from imprisonment, absorbing the power of the Sword and the 8 beasts into themselves, elevating themselves to god-hood, and killing the goddess of mana before the heroes are able to defeat them.
- At the end of Chapter 5 of Super Danganronpa Another 2, Mikado Sannoji has all but won: he's murdered Teruya, successfully pinned the crime on his subordinate Iroha, and kicks back and watches as everyone is executed. Unfortunately for him, Syobai forcefully logs everyone out of the simulation right before they all die, sparking a chain of events that culminate in Sora valiantly sacrificing her existence to stop him once and for all.
- Rose Guns Days: By the end of Season 4, Gabriel Kaburaya has crushed Club Primavera and the criminal underworld, killed off a good chunk of the main cast, ensured he will go down in history as a hero who saved the city, and just fended off an assassination attempt. Then he gets shot by Butler and dies bleeding out on the floor.
- Diablo III: Diablo gets about as close to victory as he could've possibly been in this game. The final act of the main story sees him become the reborn Prime Evil and use his new power to utterly curbstomp Heaven's forces when he launches his invasion. By the time the Nephalem catches up to him, they're the only one left to take him on, as the angels have lost their power from Diablo corrupting the Crystal Arch.
- The Final Battle brings Diablo quite literally one step away from total victory.Midway through the fight, he cracks the Crystal Arch by stomping on it. Had he stomped just one more time, he'd have destroyed the Arch, cast Heaven and Sanctuary into darkness and won the Eternal Conflict in Hell's favour for good.
- In the final chapter of Wild ARMs: Million Memories Mother enters her One-Winged Angel form and coats the Memory Maze in darkness, erasing all the memories of Filgaia, and your entire party one by one until only Rudy is left. It takes a a pep talk from Rudy's late grandfather, and his new friend Brittany to create a new ARM based on The Power of Friendship to blast Mother down, break her hold on the Memory Maze and revive all your other party members, so you can defeat her in the Final Battle.
- In The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Alduin would have won if he had just waited ten to fifteen seconds longer to reveal himself in Helgen, as the Last Dragonborn was literally about to be executed by the Empire when he showed himself.
- Xenoblade Chronicles 3, Ouroboros is captured after breaking Ghondor out of the Agnian prison. On the day of Mio's Homecoming, X and Shania watch to make sure none of the party tries to escape. After Mio is supposedly wiped away, Consul N moves in to execute the Ouroboros team, starting with Noah... What miraculously puts a damper in the execution is that Consul M swapped bodies with present-day Mio and gave her and her friends a fighting chance to live.
