History ThatOneAttack / ShinMegamiTensei

* ''VideoGame/{{Persona 2}}'' duology; ''Innocent Sin'' and ''Eternal Punishment'':

*** [[spoiler:Takahisa Kandori]] has ''Wheel of Time'', which starts with dealing huge Almighty damage to your entire party and it gets stronger with each use. He also has ''Unperishable Black'', which halves your entire party's HP.

** ''Persona 5 Royal'' has a very subtle example during Okumura's boss fight, where right after he summons the Corporobo-GM's he will cast Rakukaja (raises defense) on one of them. Doesn't sound so bad, until you realize you have to beat them in two turns or else he'll essentially fully heal and revive them, and that single Rakukaja will allow the Corporobo to take a ''lot'' of punishment if you don't dispel it. Oh yeah, and the whole fight is on a 30 minute timer, and each of the Corporobo-GM's packs Megaton Raid, which is really strong for that point in the game, and all of them can potentially [[WeCannotGoOnWithoutYou gang up on the Protagonist]]. If you don't abuse their Psychic and Curse weakness and the Baton Pass mechanic for all it's worth, you're in trouble.

** [[spoiler:Beldr's]] ''Vampiric Mist''. Deals moderate damage to every party on the map that isn't immune to Curse and heals him for some of the damage that it inflicts. This is bad considering that [[spoiler:Beldr]] is immune to everything that you can throw at him the first time you fight him. During the second battle, only your main character's normal attack can hurt [[spoiler:Beldr]] and fortunately it acts like it hits his weakness.

** ''Redux'' also has ''Overdrain'', a skill used by the wardens of the Womb of Grief. It's basically the bastard child of Megidola (heavy Almighty damage) and Energy Drain (absorbs your HP and MP). A clean hit can cripple your party and bring the boss back to full strength in one fell swoop. Not fun to deal with. At least these bastards are optional {{Bonus Boss}}es.

** ''Blight'': a favorite of Macabres and Oses, as well as [[BonusBoss David]], which targets your entire party for 100% accurate low physical damage. For reference, by that point your hard-hitting physical will be the inaccurate ''Critical Wave'', or ''Heat Wave'' if you're a diligent grinder. Unlike ''Heat Wave'' however, ''Blight'' also has a built-in poison chance clocking in at roughly fifty percent. Add that to the fact it has the chance to critical, giving them another press turn and a probable Smirk, and a single ''Blight'' can be the harbinger of doom for an entire team. ''Blight'' is one of the most atrocious attacks even late into the game, as it will be a long time until you can get the ONE spell that will allow you to lift Poison from the entire party at once.
** ''Ancient Curse'', usable by Kenji and [[spoiler:Yaso Magatsuhi]], plus the Chaos/Neutral exclusive BonusBoss Izanami. Yay, let's have to deal with all five status ailments AT ONCE for the WHOLE PARTY! At least some demons, including the latter, can use a version of the same, ''Shivering Taboo'', when fused.

** [[BonusBoss Elizabeth]]'s infamous 9999 damage Megidolaon ([[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill the HP cap is 999, by the way..]]) She uses it once per move cycle, meaning you better have a way to counter it. And even if you do, if you break the rules of the fight, she'll immediately use it twice in a row to make sure you stay dead. The attack is so infamous that it returns in ''VideoGame/Persona4Arena'' as her OneHitKill attack.

** ''Samurai Frost'', used by [[BonusBoss Raiho]]. It's a powerful multi-hit Ice projectile that homes in on the player. The only real option you have to deal with it is to drop everything and block it, since the Pyro Jacks accompanying Raiho love to spam Pulinpa, which messes up your controls.

** '''Megidoladyne''', used by [[BonusBoss Lucifer]], is one of the worst ones in the franchise. It deals enormous almighty damage to everyone in ''[[FantasticNuke every friendly party]]'', and gets ''stronger'' the more times he uses it. 50% more powerful, to be exact. He will use it upon changing into [[TurnsRed his second form]], and every turn afterward. And inevitably again upon turning into [[OneWingedAngel his third form]]. Since Megidoladyne becomes more powerful every time he uses it, [[GameOver it becomes an instant-kill on the entire map after four/five uses]], and that's ''if'' the party is at level cap. Which means that you have to beat his second and third form without letting him have more than two turns. [[ThisIsGonnaSuck Welcome to Hell]], indeed.

** [[BonusBoss Alice]] has her SignatureMove, ''Die for Me!'', an almighty attack that hits the entire party, damaging both HP and MP, [[OneHitKill with damage equal to the target's maximum HP and MP]]. That means it will ''[[TotalPartyKill one-shot]]'' your entire party, and even if you revive them, their MP will still be zero. The only way to survive this is to have [[LastChanceHitPoint Endure or Endure+]], or resist almighty (unlike most games, ''Devil Survivor'' does provide Almighty-Resist).

** Any attack specialized to be likely to inflict freeze on player characters. If a character is frozen, any bosses who notice will inevitably use this opportunity to spam physical attacks on the frozen character to not only get guaranteed chains of {{Critical Hit}}s, but to get extra turns due to critical hits always giving extra turns as long as the attacker has an unblinking Press Turn icon remaining. To make matters worse, the frozen status turns off all immunities to physicals until you are defrosted. Also, freeze-specialized skills have a good chance of hitting a single character multiple times in a row, even if you didn't get frozen. Any frozen character subject to this strategy is almost guaranteed a swift death. Don't think you can outsmart these tactics by giving yourself ice immunities - any BonusBoss with such a skill will always have an unblockable almighty attack as backup.

** ''The'' BonusBoss, [[spoiler:Hito-Shura/Demi-Fiend]], has '''Gaea Rage'''. Deals four to five digits of almighty damage to your party. [[TotalPartyKill Your maximum HP is 999]]. He'll immediately use it at the start of battle to kill you before the command menu even shows up if you have ''any'' immunities, meaning you must expose yourself to the spells his demons have (especially the [[OneHitKill Dark spells]]). He also uses it every time two of his demons die. Problem is, he will replace those demons any time he can and if you ignore them, they will ''sacrifice themselves'' both to ''fully heal'' their master ''and'' make him throw Gaea Rage. The only defense against it is very vague and [[LuckBasedMission requires luck to work]]. [[ThisIsGonnaSuck You'll have nightmares about it]]. His non-Gaea Rage attacks also deal a lot of pain even for capped characters, and ''all'' of them have high critical chance, which means extra turns if they crit. Fortunately, Null Critical is ''not'' considered an immunity and will prevent him from getting those extra turns, [[GuideDangIt although the game will certainly not]] ''[[GuideDangIt tell]]'' [[GuideDangIt you this.]]

** The FinalBoss, [[spoiler: Medeus]], has ''Dark Breath'', which is a full-party Debilitate, and ''Dies Irae'', which deals massive Almighty damage. But this is nothing compared to the version of ''Dies Irae'' used by his BonusBoss form, [[spoiler: M-DEUS]]. Like ''Megidoladyne'' above, it gets stronger every time he uses it, but it ''also'' gets stronger ''every time a party member is KO'd''. Give the boss an inch and the fight can quickly become unwinnable due to Dies Irae doing far too much damage for even a max level party to survive.

** Satan, this game's {{Superboss}}, also has his (un)fair share. First and foremost, ''Futility'', his start-of-the-battle skill. It removes ''all'' of your passive resistance skills. So you'll have to constantly use shield spells to block OneHitKill spells. And no, you may not use [[AttackReflector Magic Repel]], since if you do he will just [[TotalPartyKill wipe you out]] as punishment. Then once every four turn, he will use ''God's Breath'', to wipe out your party. However, if any of your party members have their stats buffed to full (which means three times buff) he'll reset your stat changes to zero with Dekaja during the fourth turn instead. Think it's not as threatening as ''Gaea Rage''? Think again. If he happens to use too many debuffing moves (like Debilitate) before the fourth turn, you are dead. Basically, Satan doesn't just have That One Attacks. He turns ''everything in his arsenal into That One Attacks!'' And when he is reduced to half, he will use ''Temptation'', which has a ''100% chance of charming your party'' if you don't block it. After that, he will start using ''Retribution'' which just [[OneHitKill straight-up kills]] one person who has the lowest magic stat. Last but not least, on his last 1,500 HP, he will use ''Diarahan'' if you don't kill him quickly, which is a full heal back up to 30,000 HP, and repeating all of the above. [[SarcasmMode Have fun!]]

** ''Sol Niger'', used by Alciel, is an HPToOne attack that hits the whole party. Bosses get two actions in one turn, and Alciel will ''invariably'' use that second action to attack one of your characters. If he hits the Demi-Fiend? [[WeCannotGoOnWithoutYou You had better be used to that Game Over video.]]

** And, depending of the amount of money you happen to have at hand, you will want to kill yourself if an irredeemably stupid enemy hits you with ''Macca Beam'', or God forbid, ''Wastrel Beam''. You lose, not a fixed amount, but a percentage of your total. You can lose hundreds of thousands of Macca to Kangiten's Wastrel Beam.

** ''Asura Roga'', used by (who else?) Asura [[spoiler:(and Mem Aleph, if you're unlucky)]]. This causes Rage, which cannot be cured with anything but Amrita or Salvation (and you don't ''have'' the latter at this point). Raging characters will attack anyone randomly, including Asura maybe, but more likely at your party. This is worked around generally by doing this fight ALONE, with no summoned demons. while the rage status makes you attack party members or enemies randomly, you can't target yourself. This allows the main character to simply pummel Asura to death, who only otherwise uses fairly weak attacks.

** ''Requiem'', used by the final boss of the Chaos path. Think ''MA'' above was bad? Try an almighty-instant-kill that targets '''[[TotalPartyKill the entire party]]'''. The battle is nothing but a LuckBasedMission in which you will try to kill her before she busts Requiem out. It isn't guaranteed to hit either, but if it does, instant game over. Just in case you thought the Chaos final boss, [[spoiler:Pillar Zelenin]], would be easier than [[spoiler:Mem Aleph.]]

** ''Pandemic Bomb'': An attack that has a high chance of inflicting Sickness on the entire party. Sickness is a status effect that lowers the attack and defense of the afflicted, specifically by reducing attack damage by twenty-five percent and evasion to zero (meaning that attacks on a Sick character ''will always'' hit). It can be cured through the same means as Poison... but there's a catch. "Sickness" isn't just a fancy name. No, ''it's contagious'' - every turn (not every round, every ''turn'') there's a chance any unaffected party members will catch Sickness if there's a ''single'' affected character. Which means that unless you can cure the entire party at once, it's entirely possible that you cure a character, only for them to instantly get Sick again. This is a large part of why [[BonusBoss Beelzebub]] is so frustrating. It's even worse when he comboes it with ''Death's Door'', which [[HPToOne brings down the HP of any Sick character to ONE]].

** [[spoiler: BonusBoss Shiva's Tandava.]] It's an extremely powerful Almighty Attack that hits all of your Party. What makes it so deadly is that ''it drops your defense to minimum'', not two stages but ''minimum'' so not even two stacks of Luster Candy can stop it. Since it's Almighty, you can't guard against it, so you HAVE to bring a demon with Dekunda and attack debuffs lest he pummels you with his other attacks. The only saving grace is that he won't use it often when his allies are still alive but there's still a chance that he'll use it, making you easy pickings for the next turn.

** ''Rampage'', used by the Contrarian King. Hits your whole party up to 3 times for huge damage and will one-shot your entire party if you fight him as soon as you can.

** Like her younger sister, [[BonusBoss Margaret]] has a 9999-damage Megidolaon that she uses every 50th attack. Margaret also has a standard Megidolaon that inflicts a lot of damage when charged up, as well as Hassou Tobi, the ultimate physical ability, which hits all party members 8 times and is very difficult to survive on higher difficulties. Made worse in ''Golden'', as Margaret now takes two actions per turn, giving you half the time you had in the vanilla game.