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"Cripes! I wish life was like those video games where all you had to do to defeat the bad guy was jump on him!"
Jazz, Jazz Jackrabbitnote 

No matter how much Collision Damage they can dish out, the enemies in almost any Platform Game seem to be vulnerable to people jumping on top of them and cannot inflict damage when touched there. It's effective against any creature in the game, except for that one foe with spikes on its head that has to be defeated in another manner. And if you can land that hit, you can probably use them as a Goomba Springboard. Mario was the pioneer, and then all other platformers jumped on the bandwagon.

Consider the average man weighs about ninety kilos/two hundred pounds (body, clothes and equipment all included); having that much weight suddenly land on your head would be enough to knock most people (let alone squishy mushroom critters) out cold. The biggest problems are getting high enough above a person to execute the stomp and not hurting yourself while landing, but fictional Jump Physics make those trivial.

This attack is commonly abbreviated to just 'stomping', but differs from the real world Finishing Stomp in that the latter involves forcibly bringing down one's foot on an already-downed opponent, whereas this technique simply has you apply your whole body weight to the target through both feet.

Ground Pound is a more powerful variant.


Video Game Examples:

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    Action Adventure 
  • Obake. While jumping on enemies doesn't kill them, it lets you stand on top of them and possess them. Once you're in a possessed body, you can still stand on top of enemies like this.
  • Drawn to Life lets you jump on enemies if you want to save your ammo.
  • In Rune, jumping on enemies from a decent height is an instant kill.
  • The Voodoo mask and the plague beetle from Banana Nababa will try to jump on top of you during their fights while trying to hit with their long ranged attacks.
  • While a little tricky to pull off, you can jump on enemies in the Batman Arkham games. This will stun them, letting you perform a take-down.
  • In Intrusion 2 Jumping on enemy soldier's heads is a effective way to defeat them and will even earn you a Steam achievement.
  • Player characters in Legacy of the Wizard normally deal damage using ranged attacks that consume magic, but equipping the Powered Boots lets a character kill monsters in one hit by jumping on them.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening: Goombas make a cameo in this game, and can be stomped using a magical feather. They drop a health refill to reward players that have bought enough Nintendo franchises to recognize their attribute.
  • If you equip the Armor power in [PROTOTYPE], you can Goomba Stomp pedestrians and other human enemies into a fine paste. Your character weighs about two tons. Doing so without the Armor is not guaranteed to kill them, but it will still hurt.

    Action RPG 
  • In E.V.O.: Search for Eden, jumping on an enemy is one of your many weapons (along with charging tackles, bites, and sometimes horns). You can even improve your Goomba Stomping ability by evolving forms who are heavier and/or who can jump higher. Quite a few upgrades have the goomba stomp in mind. In chapter 2: Early Creatures Of Land the enemy Bull Ikustega and the Boss Ikustega can do this to you if given the chance.
  • The one foe that must be killed to progress in Deus Ex is easily dealt with via this (as he stand in place and you can enter the area on the ledge above him), allowing the game to be completed without the use of items. Even outside of a self imposed challenge, this is still the most fun way, and quickest (the only downside being some minimal falling damage if you don't have a jump enhancing augmentation)
  • The Turian Havoc multiplayer character in Mass Effect 3 has this as his special ability. Aided by a jetpack.
  • Though it's not likely to be lethal, in Dark Souls any falling player or enemy will damage and stagger any other upon dropping on them, even from a chest-high wall.
  • The new Powered Armor gameplay dynamics in Fallout 4 enable you to do this. You can feel and hear the weight of the frame hit the ground when jumping from a story or so up, and it's only logical for you to wonder what would happen if you landed on someone...

    Arcade 
  • Joust's combat consisted of trying to hit your opponent when you were at a higher positiothan them.
  • Also represented in Balloon Fight. While you aren't hopping on their heads necessarily, you are bumping into their balloons and parachutes from above.
  • The protagonist of the arcade version of Rygar can stun enemies by jumping on their heads. If he obtains the "tiger" powerup his jump becomes lethal.

    Beat 'em Up 

    Driving Game 
  • In the 1983 Sega game Up'n Down, the player's car can crush other cars by jumping on them.
  • Also in Data East's Bump 'n' Jump, you can crash other cars by jumping on them.
  • In Burnout Paradise, you can drive your car off a ledge or ramp and land on a rival racer for a "Vertical Takedown".

    Fighting Game 
  • Shokan fighters from Goro on down in the Mortal Kombat series have a common move of leaping high into the air and stomping the crap out of their opponents.
  • Street Fighter
    • One of Bison's special attacks has him leap into the air and and do a manly stomp on his opponent's head.
    • Chun-Li can also do it. Especially in Third Strike.
    • Menat's back throw in 5 has her jump onto her opponent's shoulders and stomp on their face.
  • Many characters in Dead or Alive have a special move that allows them to jump on a downed enemy after a combo for additional damage.
  • Super Smash Bros.
    • Super Smash Bros. Melee: This appears in Adventure Mode, in which most enemies must be defeated more conventionally, but Goombas and Koopas still die when you jump on them as a nod to their game of origin.
    • Super Smash Bros. Brawl retains this mechanic in its own Adventure Mode (Subspace Emissary), and it also has a Giant Goomba which can dish out decent Collision Damage unless you can get above it, at which point bouncing up and down on its head about six times sends it down for the count. Stomping on the small Goombas almost always results in an Item Drop.
    • Outside of Goombas, several characters have a stomping move as their down aerials. Some of these characters include Captain Falcon, Ganondorf, Ness, Greninja, Zelda and Donkey Kong. Ironically, neither Mario nor Luigi have stomping moves in spite of it being their Signature Move, but Dr. Mario, Mario's Moveset Clone originating from a spinoff series, receives it in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.
    • From Super Smash Bros. Brawl onwards, jumping while above another player allows you to jump off of them, called a footstall jump. This doesn't do any damage, but does stun the footstalled for a small amount of time. This can be fatel if they are above the void. While crouching, Piranha Plant cannot footstalled, and in fact attacks the player attempting to footstall them, as a reference to their immunity from being stomped in the original Mario games.
  • Body Blows: One of the characters, Yit-U, can do this as one of his methods of attack. In the event an opponent is close enough when he launches himself into the air at the start of the attack, it can also double as an upper cut punch.

    First-Person Shooter 
  • In Perfect Dark's penultimate level, you can kill Elvis this way.
  • The drop pods in PlanetSide 2 can one-hit-kill infantry by landing on them. Drop pods are also capable of crushing aircraft out of the sky - Fighters will be instagibbed, while larger aircraft like the Liberator gunship will survive but likely crash afterwards due to the impact of the pod sending it off course. Landing on vehicles is almost always fatal to the drop pod user, however.
  • In Team Fortress 2:
    • One of the Soldier's unlockable secondaries is the Mantreads, a pair of boots that give him this ability - if the Soldier is falling from high enough that'd result in fall damagenote , but lands on an enemy instead of the ground, then the fall damage is transferred to the poor sap he landed on, multiplied by three and accompanied by a cartoony "boioioing" sound for good measure. Not bad for a class that's at its fastest when Rocket Jumping. The "Jungle Inferno" update added an increase in movement control while rocket jumping and a massive knockback resistance, to make the stomping easier.
    • Prior to the Mantreads' introduction, the Goomba Stomp Mod was a fairly popular server mod. It was an instant kill, but any class could theoretically pull it off.
    • "Jungle Inferno" also gave the Pyro the Thermal Thruster. It has the same effect as the Mantreads, but only if the Pyro is landing from a jetpack jump; it doesn't work if you simply fall off a high ledge.
    • Saxton Hale in the VS Saxton Hale gamemode can instantly kill almost any class by falling on top of them. This, coupled with his ability to jump really high, his Ground Pound attack that increases his fall speed, and his immunity to Fall Damage, makes this much easier to pull off compared to every other class.
  • Downplayed in the Borderlands series. Jumping on an enemy deals a tiny amount of damage for however long you can keep bouncing on its head. The first game even has an achievement for killing an enemy with jump damage: "My Brother is an Italian Plumber".
  • Mirror's Edge has this as one of Faith's many maneuvers. Dropping onto an enemy from an elevated position will have her stomping on them with both feet, instantly incapacitating them. The Achievement/Trophy is titled, "It's-a Me!"
  • An unusual FPS example: Rise of the Triad allows you to kill Mooks and deathmatch opponents by jumping on them. Doing this successfully in the Score More deathmatch mode rewards you with the highest amount of points, due to how difficult it is to pull off on another player.
  • In Unreal Tournament, you landing on something else reduces the damage based on your jumping ability, but not something else landing on you, with the result that fan mods that increase jumping ability naturally result in Goomba Stomping.
  • Funnily enough, Left 4 Dead uses this. Landing on top of a Common Infected's head from above will kill itnote . This can earn you an achievement. Also, landing on the head of an infected negates fall damage, allowing one to survive ridiculous falls, though it's very risky. This can be exploited in areas where the zombies are all climbing up — for example, a ladder — by standing on the edge, letting them group up and then jumping to land on their heads. Entire hordes can be wiped out this way.
  • Dystopia lets you use a charged jump to deal major damage to anything you are standing on, especially people. Since it requires a charge time, it's really only used on players that are climbing ladders and players that are busy in Cyberspace.
  • There is a feature in Urban Terror that requires some good timing and skill in order to jump down, land on an opponent and "stomp" them to death. Unsurprisingly, it's indeed called "Goomba kill".
  • Far Cry 3 has an unlockable skill that allows you to land on top of enemies and stab them, which gives extra XP and won't alert nearby enemies.
  • BioShock 2 has a non-interactive example in its intro cutscene: When your Little Sister (Eleanor) strays and gets caught by some ruffians who happen to be on the floor below you, your opening move is to leap over the railing directly onto one of them.
  • In BioShock Infinite, you can jump off the skyrails and knock enemies off ledges, walkways, and buildings by jumping right onto them.
  • In Deus Ex, you can actually kill mooks and non-hostile NPCs this way by getting on top of a ledge or even a crate then jumping on them to cause gradual damage until they die.
  • In SUPERHOT, you can kill enemies by jumping on their heads, which is quite useful if unarmed or to conserve ammo.
  • Neon White: Balloon Demons die when they're stepped on. As a nice bonus, they give you an upward boost at the same time, helping with platforming and mobility.

    Hack ‘n’ Slash 
  • In Dynasty Warriors 8, Liu Shan gains an aerial musou attack called Avian Strike. As you may have guessed, it entails him stomping on the heads of enemy soldiers.

    Metroidvania 
  • In Bunny Must Die, Bunny and Chelsea can not only stomp enemies, but also projectiles (and this is sometimes the only way to reach certain areas). They both gain special shoes that allow them to increase their stomp damage.
  • Beacon of Hope: This is one of Beacon's two main ways of attacking.
  • Several enemies in An Untitled Story can be defeated by jumping on them. It's generally more effective than shooting.
  • Wallenschwein from Heidelberg 1693 is a zombie-demon boss whose main attack during his boss fight is jumping in and out the screen trying to stomp you.

    Minigame 
  • In the first two Robot Ninja Haggle Man mini-games in Retro Game Challenge, this is one of the only ways to kill an enemy. The other is to get them in front of a door and hide behind one of the same color.
  • Mario Party:
    • Mario Party 4: A minigame in the Extra Room shares a name with this trope, but otherwise averts it, as you instead run them over with a giant wooden robot instead of stomping them.
    • Mario Party 7: Curiously, the minigame Royal Rumpus plays with the trope. Merely stomping the Goombas won't be enough to defeat them; instead, the two dueling characters have to Ground Pound them in order to defeat them and earn one point apiece. Pounding a golden Goomba yields three points, but it's hard to do so as they run faster. After 15 seconds, whoever scores the highest wins; if both players have the same score, the minigame ends in a tie.
    • Mario Party 10: Mega Goomba's Ladder Leap has players climb ladders to reach a higher platform, before jumping down to land atop the Mega Goomba's head to damage it and score points.
    • Mario Party: Star Rush: Mario and Luigi have the unique ability to stomp on Goombas they find hiding in tall grass while moving around the boards to earn a few extra coins.
  • Due to being a game centered around Wreaking Havok, Garry's Mod allows you to do this to other players, crushing them whenever you land hard enough on their heads. That said, this is also Deconstructed; landing on them doesn't necessarily mean you're immune to fall damage, and unless you have something that enables you to not take damage from falling, you will likely die from stomping someone.
  • WarioWare: Over the course of the series, there has been a microgame where Wario has to stomp one or more Goombas in a screen taken from Super Mario Bros.. It made its debut in the first game, WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgame$.

    Platformer 
  • You can beat the only enemy type in The Adventures Of Scratch Cat by jumping on its head.
  • Ayo the Clown: Before getting his balloon sword, this is the only way Ayo can defeat enemies.
  • Crossbow Warrior - The Legend of William Tell: If you don't want to shoot soldiers with the crossbow, you can make William Tell beat enemies by jumping on them.
  • The Ur-Example may have been the legendary ZX Spectrum game Horace And The Spiders. However, it wasn't present on some of the levels where spiders have to be avoided instead.
  • Garfield's Nightmare: Garfield can defeat most enemies by jumping over them. However, this won't work against spiked mooks.
  • Ninjish Guy In Low Res World: You can beat the blue Ninjish Guys by jumping on them.
  • Shantae: Half-Genie Hero: The Blobfish form is constantly bouncing, and attacks enemies by landing on them.
  • In the PC version of Shrek 2 one of the ways you can defeat enemies is by jumping on their heads. They even have an animation for it where they get flattened like a pancake.
  • Skunny: Save Our Pizzas: One of the ways to defeat enemies is by jumping on them.
  • Stitchy In Tooki Trouble: Some enemies can be beaten by jumping on them.
  • Super Catboy grants you the ability to flatten all low-level enemies, including most canines, by head-stomping, even though your feline protagonist can fight with his fists. There's also an andromorphic bull boss who attacks you by jumping and stomping away.
  • Super Mario Bros.:
    • The first Super Mario Bros. is the Trope Codifier and Trope Namer. It is Mario's main method of defeating enemies, including the eponymous Goomba, in one hit and sends Koopas and Buzzy Beetles into their shells, allowing the shell to be kicked at enemies.
    • Enemies from the NES era the Goomba Stomp works on: Goombas and all variants thereof save for Micro-Goombas, Koopas (but not their shell), Bullet Bills, Missile Bills, Lakitu (if he's not throwing a spiny egg, and he will be), flying Cheep-Cheeps, flying Bloopers (in The Lost Levels), Hammer Bros. (if they aren't throwing a hammer), Boomerang Bros. (if they aren't throwing a boomerang), Fire Bros., Sledge Bros. (if they aren't throwing a hammer), Koopalings (if they aren't firing, requires three hits), Flame Chomps, Rocky Wrenches, and Boom-Boom (requires three hits). Goomba Stomps also allow you to redirect Lemmy's balls. It doesn't work on Spinies and Piranha Plants unless, that is, you are in World 5-3 of Super Mario Bros. 3, where Kuribo's Shoe lets you stomp Piranha Plants and Spinies.
    • A lot of new players are thrown completely off-guard when they find that this trope is NOT used in the very first Mario Bros., where you have move beneath the platforms your enemies are under, bump it from underneath to flip them over and leap up to then kick them off the stage. Adding to the confusion is how the unstompable Shellcreepers look just like the very-stompable Koopa Troopas from the later games. In modern remakes, Nintendo replaces the Shellcreepers with Spinies specifically to combat the confusion.
    • Super Mario World introduced a variation of the Goombas called Galoombasnote , which are not killed with a regular jump. Instead, they become temporarily dazed and can be used as a thrown weapon against other creatures. A spin-jump will kill them outright, however. Note that they never tried that again with Goombas in Mario.
    • New Super Mario Bros.: All of the bosses in the subseries, excluding Bowser and Dry Bowser, are subjected to this trope. You can also attack them with fireballs, and Bowser isn't immune either, but it's not as effective on the stronger bosses. Dry Bowser in the first New Super Mario Bros. is unique in that he's immune to Goomba Stomp and fireballs, because the only way to defeat him is by throwing him into the pit with the help of the bridge's axe.
    • Yoshi's Island has this for most enemies (including Shy Guys, who were immune to this trope in their debuting Mario game); but when Goombas do show up, jumping on them squashes them but doesn't actually kill them: they just scurry around flattened and eventually pop back up.
    • The Wario Land series doesn't let you outright kill most enemies simply with the goomba stomp, but it at least stuns them temporarily and allows them to be beaten up or thrown at other obstacles. Except a few enemies in the first game and later which can be dispatched with the attack.
    • In the fangame Super Mario War, this is the primary way of defeating your opponents.
  • Despite Goombas appearing in the first game, it wasn't in Distorted Travesty 3 that the player could finally stomp them, and various other Mario enemies. Though, oddly, koopas entirely vanish when stomped, leaving no shells behind.
  • This is Aladdin's primary attack in Aladdin (Capcom). Although, the movie does put more emphasis on Aladdin's acrobatic agility over his swordmanship, which he only very briefly uses in the final battle.
  • Crash Bandicoot: Crash can defeat enemies by either stomping them (unless they're spiky) or performing a spin attack (though for the latter the timing needs to be dead-on).
  • Pac-Man World: One of Pac-Man's default attacks in several of the games, although there are certain Elite Mook enemies which can No-Sell his stomp. For instance, Mummy enemies in the underground caverns cannot be stomped due to their spiked headgears - try that and Pac-Man suffers a missing life via impalement.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog
    • Sonic the Hedgehog was considered a subversion at its release; Sonic could attack an enemy from any angle, so long as Sonic was rolled into a ball and was not aiming at spikes - but simply landing on an enemy if he wasn't curled up would cause contact damage as if he'd just walked straight into the baddie. In later games Sonic picked up the dash attack, giving him even more options (and throwing him into the spikes if you didn't watch it).
    • Sonic Advance threw a few people off this way. Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles all still default to rolling into a ball mid-jump, allowing for the traditional "stomp" on top of their other abilities, but Amy doesn't curl into a ball and will suffer Collision Damage if she doesn't swing her hammer in conjunction with the jump.
    • The vast majority of the bosses in each of the Sonic series do leave their head as the only open spot.
  • The various Smurfs platformer games, such as Infogrames' The Smurfs (1994) and Ubisoft's The Smurfs 2. The only known exception is Coleco's Smurf: Rescue In Gargamel's Castle.
  • Commander Keen:
    • The first installment in the series includes Yorps, which can be knocked out (though not killed) by jumping on them.
    • The fourth episode has a fly enemy that can be defeated by jumping on it, but only when using the pogo stick.
    • In the Game Boy Color version, most aliens become vulnerable to this after shooting them.
  • Castlevania
    • In some games, you can stomp enemies with a diving kick after you get the double jump ability. It does minimal damage, but you can do it again and again as long as you're in mid-air.
    • In Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow and Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow, this attack increases damage the longer you've been in midair. Abusing the Medusa Head soul for hang-time counts.
  • The early levels of The Lion King. Justifiable, since it could be pouncing and five of lions' six extremities are pointy and can conceivably kill things they jump on, but it still doesn't explain how a cub can take down a hyena that's like twice his size, or why Simba can no longer goomba stomp as an adult when he's heavier and pointier.
  • The Jungle Book: Mowgli can do this as well besides using Edible Ammunition projectiles.
  • Mega Man II (that's Roman numeral II for the Game Boy game, as opposed to Arabic numeral 2 for the NES game) features the Sakugarne, a sort of a pogo-jackhammer-thing which allows you to damage enemies by jumping on them. Its only purpose is to force you to fight the final boss in a weird way.
  • Donkey Kong
  • Kirby:
    • Kirby can cause falling damage... but only if he falls from a great enough height, or uses the Stone power from above to turn into a heavy object.
    • In Kirby's Dream Land 3, you're able stomp on enemies in the traditional manner if you're riding on Rick, Nago, or Kine, which makes getting around areas a lot easier.
  • DuckTales for the NES has Scrooge bouncing off of enemies with his cane. It is, in fact, very effective in-game. More so than his golf swing.
  • Castle of Illusion, though it's less of a stomp and more of a sit; Mickey only causes damage when he lands butt-first on the enemy.
  • In Epic Mickey, jumping on enemies stuns them long enough for you to spray them with paint or thinner.
  • As per the above quote, Jazz Jackrabbit averted this trope for the most part. A normal jump on an enemy's head would usually end up hurting you, unless you used a specific stomp move.
  • In Mega Man ZX Advent, Bifrost can crush enemies under his feet... since he's bloody huge.
  • Some Tiny Toon Adventures games use this trope, such as the 1991 NES game of the same name, Babs' Big Break, and Buster's Hidden Treasure. Buster Busts Loose, on the other hand, averts it. In that game, jumping on enemies hurts Buster, so his basic method of attacking them is with a flip kick move that goes in an arch, activated by pressing the action button. This move can actually miss enemies at times, so Buster has to be in the right place while using it for it to work.
  • Joe & Mac feature a Caveman Stomp.
  • de Blob has a twist: You defeat enemies by coming down hard on them ("stomp" is debatable for a character with no feet), but you expend a number of paint points depending on the target. If you don't have enough points, the attack fails. And if you touch an enemy without any imbuement of paint, it damages you.
  • A goomba stomp is your only weapon in Eversion.
  • Cosmo's Cosmic Adventure: The eponymous characters can stomp onto the majority of enemies to defeat them, though some require more than one hit (the one-legged dragons from the second and third episodes require seven stomps, making them the most enduring enemies aside from the Final Boss in the first and third episodesnote ). You even get bonus points by stomping certain enemies while they're in mid-air.
  • Nearly all SpongeBob SquarePants handheld games have this, as part of a general resemblance to Super Mario.
  • Ogmo from Jumper series can jump on cannonballs to destroy and bounce off them. Stage 10-4 of Jumper Two features EvilBots which Ogmo can stomp upon.
  • In Purple, you can dispose enemies this way, granting extra Scoring Points if you can stomp them without landing inbetween. Of course, there are exceptions.
  • In Halo games from Halo: Reach onward, the goomba stomp is an available animation for assassinating an enemy from mid-air. And yes, using an Elite to cushion your fall by landing on its head is both as funny and as awesome as it sounds.
  • Lep's World: Some of the enemies can be beaten by jumping on them (twice in the case of snails).
  • In Monster Racers, stomping your opponent is one way to slow them down during a race.
  • Ninja: Shadow of Darkness:
    • Walking skeletons, upon receiving enough damage, will fall apart... only to attack you as two entities, an upper body that crawls towards you and a pair of skeltal legs that kicks you down. The best way to defeat the upper half is to jump on it and stomp it to pieces.
    • In a later level, against the Spider Queen Boss, the Queen will lay eggs which will hatch into baby spiders and swarm at you. They are too small to punch, so the best way to kill them is by jumping on them.
  • In Flink, stomping is not only the normal way to defeat enemies, but it also works for opening treasure chests.
  • In Little Nemo: The Dream Master, Nemo can do this only as a frog.
  • In the Kim Possible games Drakken's Demise and Team Possible, this is a valid method of attacking henchmen outside of the usual fisticuffs and gadgets. This method was removed in later games as once jumping on a hapless henchman they would be unable to defend themselves.
  • In A Hat in Time, Hat Kid can perform a homing dive-tackle in addition to using her Parasol of Pain. Some enemies will become immune to one form of attack if it is used repeatedly, forcing you to switch to the other one.
  • In Sheep Happens, Perseus can jump on the heads of other runners and can rack up combos by jumping on several in a row without touching the ground. If he does this while riding a sheep, he'll start surfing the sheep.
  • In the Toaplan Arcade Game Demon's World, an effective way of defeating most enemies is to stomp on them. This might be surprising, since the player character carries a gun.
  • In Shovel Knight the Shovel Drop allows the Knight to perform this on enemies and automatically bounce back in the air to perform another Drop. The attack is useful for eliminating most basic enemies and can be used to bounce across certain bottomless pits containing multiple enemies. Some enemy types are immune, partially protected, or have the ability to block this attack.
  • In The Adventures of Lomax you can jump on enemies, but you will only bounce off their heads, without damaging them.
  • Deconstructed by the Flash game The Visit - even something as simple as going to your girlfriend's house may end with you sentenced for murder, because when you jump, you inevitably destroy or kill whatever you land on.
  • In Rolo to the Rescue, Rolo and friends defeat enemies by stomping on them, repeatedly in the case of hedgehogs and Boss Battles.
  • Bug: The titular character's primary attack was to jump on enemies with his stinger tail. Notably, Bug had to be either actively jumping or spinning off a springboard in order to deal damage, if Bug fell off an edge (without his stinger ready), he would take damage if he landed on an enemy.
  • Clarence's Big Chance: Lampshaded; Clarence is so heavy that he crushes enemies by jumping on them.
  • Germination: Your main form of attack against the plants.
  • Inverted in Default Dan, where, to defeat enemies, you have to hit them from underneath.
  • Bugdom: Only one enemy can die this way — the bee grubs in levels 6 and 7. Everything else is tough enough to require one or more kicks (or a Rolling Attack).
  • Kang Fu: Klont can jump on certain enemies to kill them.
  • Super Treadmill: Stomping on dogs kills them.
  • Ginger Beyond The Crystal: Ginger can defeat certain enemies by jumping on them.
  • Giana Sisters: Most of enemies in the entire series -Owls, Bugs, Killer Bees, Dragons- can be killed by leaping onto them.
  • Muri: You can jump on enemies to kill them. According to the developer's blog, it was implemented to make it a safer option than it otherwise would be when jumping from unknown places, even though Leap of Faith issues are deliberately avoided.
  • Minty Fresh Adventure! and Fresh Minty Adventure: This works for multiple enemies, but not all, but it at least stuns everyone. Also, the effects for them in the Cave of Wisdom, get explosions when done.
  • Tiny Hands Adventure: Borti can defeat plenty of Mooks by jumping on them.
  • Super Lucky's Tale: Lucky can either jump on his enemies or Tail Slap them.
  • So Many Me: In their base form, Filo and the Mes can defeat enemies by jumping on top of them.
  • Curse Crackers: For Whom The Belle Toils: Belle can defeat most enemies by jumping on them, unless they're wearing helmets. Even the ones she can't defeat that way can still be useful to jump on when it comes to platforming. Averted with Bonnie, who can't defeat enemies by jumping on them unless a specific button is pressed to make her do a slam attack.
  • In Asterix (Sega Master System), this is zigzagged. Asterix and Obelix can attack enemies by landing on them, but they have to attack mid-jump in order to kill enemies by jumping on them. They get hurt otherwise if the player doesn't push the attack button after jumping. Asterix will aim his fist below him while Obelix performs a Ground Pound.
  • Magical Girl Critical: This is one of Momoka's only option easly on for defeating enemies (the other is whacking them with her wand). Her mascot Nyaggard calls this a applying a weight of 50 kg, which Momoka's very defensive about.
  • T'ai Fu: Wrath of the Tiger: The Monkey Bounce Combo, which has T'ai curl up into a ball and bounce off his enemy's head. Especially effective against the Rat Pirate Captain and the Boar Boss.
  • Drake and the Wizards: Drake can kill most enemies by jumping on top of them.

    Puzzle 
  • The basic enemies in Braid are Goomba analogues, which are defeated predictably, and provide Tim with a boosted jump after he bounces off their heads. The goombas also get a boosted jump if they land on Tim's head, which is used in a few puzzles where the goomba can carry on after Tim dies from the stomp and rewinds time to resurrect himself. Enemies can also inadvertently goomba stomp each other. Easier to see with the rabbit-plant enemies, since they actually jump in order to attack.

    Racing 
  • Iggy's Reckin' Balls: One attack you can perform on rival racers. It doesn't kill them, but it does stun them for a few seconds and gives you a massive height increase on your jump. Oddly, the actual enemies on the track tend not to be affected by head-stomping.

    Rail Shooter 
  • Star Wars Trilogy Arcade: Yes, this game is a rail shooter, but this trope actually happens... if you press the Event button while it's glowing at the right time during the on-foot segment of the Endor level, that is: an Ewok will leap onto a stormtrooper's head, defeating him and netting you more points than you'd have gotten if you'd simply shot him.

    Real Time Strategy 
  • Pikmin: If you throw a Pikmin directly on top of any Dwarf Bulborb or Dwarf Bulbear, it instantly kills them. Very useful even though they don't pose much of a threat. Purple pikmin in the sequel are especially suited for this, since their heaviness also stuns larger enemies that aren't killed outright by the first hit.
  • Dawn of War:
    • Dawn of War II: When you are landed on by 500 pounds of armor, jet pack and Space Marine... It can be upgraded to Supress any enemy squad member it doesn't outright kill
    • Some of the Tyranids can do it too. Except they don't need jetpacks. But only if they're near a Synapse Creature.
    • Interestingly, several editions ago it was a valid tactic in the tabletop game as well, although mainly the Fantasy line: units would both take and cause damage when something fell on them, particularly if they dropped or crashed from Flying High. Enter Bloodthirsters and Lords of Change, which were immune to non-magical damage, including falling damage, so you could take out that nigh-invulnerable unit of Ironbreakers by flying your Greater Daemon above it and... stopping.
    • Giants can still pull it off by rolling "Jump Up And Down", which makes them... well... jump up and down. One White Dwarf article for a few years back had a Giant pluck a High Elf Noble off the back of his griffon, chuck him to the ground, and begin stomping.
    • The Ork warboss Zagstruk can do this, although he cheats; not only does he have a jetpack, he has Armed Legs.
  • Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3: Sickle, Soviet four-legged anti-infantry mecha walker. As if three 12.7mm machineguns not enough for enemy troops massacre, it can also leap on infantry, crushing them. Reaper, Sickle prototype from Uprising expansion, will crush even any vehicle in this manner, through its legs will break after only one jump.

    Roguelike 
  • In Spelunky, this is one of the more effective ways of getting rid of the various Goddamn Bats that populate the underground levels. It also cancels out falling damage. And since you're going down, down, down all the time, it's remarkably easy to pull off. However, there are a few enemies who are immune to this attack, and a couple that are actively deadly if you try it on them.
  • In Voidigo, this is one of the game's main methods of attack. The dodge ability takes the form of a jump, and landing on an enemy has various effects, from knocking it down, briefly stunning it, or killing it outright in the case of very small enemies. Chaining stomps also grants the player increased invincibility frames, extremely useful for surviving high difficulties, and many items also enhance the player's stomps, from flying boots that add an additional attack to a stomp to slippers and insoles that add elemental effects. The main character, Drash, also starts out with the Antivoid Combo Strike powerup that gives her the ability to unleash an explosion by chaining stomps off multiple enemies. At high combo levels the explosion can level an entire section of a room.

    Roleplaying Game 
  • In the Final Fantasy series, the signature ability of Dragoons is to jump very high in the air and then run the enemy through with their weapon (typically a lance).
  • The Engineer class in Guild Wars 2 can Rocket Jump and stomp whoever's beneath them when they land.
  • In all of the Mario RPGs, (Super Mario RPG, Paper Mario, Mario & Luigi) Mario's first attack usually consists of nothing more than jumping on the enemy's head, often multiple times in a row. This only fails to work if the opponent is The Spiny, and a number of the games have ways to get around that.
  • In the Paper Mario series, Mario can use a multitude of different jumps that can inflict Status Effects. They also benefit more from attack boosting effects than his hammer due to their usually multi-hitting nature, making them the preferred method of attack against anything that doesn't have high defense. Ironically enough, Goombas in that series, both friendly and hostile, use a Goomba Stomp as their basic means of attack, known as the Headbonk.
  • Watch this scene from Tales of the Abyss and tell me this isn't exactly what Guy does to Legretta.
  • In Quest for Glory I, the Antwerp can do this to you.
  • Cliff in Star Ocean: Till the End of Time has the Aerial Assault move. It's one of his strongest single-hit attacks, capable of inflicting a One-Hit Kill against even some of the extremely tough end-game enemies in an ambush.

    Shooter 
  • Alien Hominid. Jumping on top of an enemy lets you ride them around, and you can either jump off or choose to kill them by biting their head off or throwing them at other enemies.
  • In the MechWarrior games, you can use jumpjets to try to crush the enemy mechs. Considering that the lightest mech weighs 20 tons, and the heaviest ones can be in the range of 80-100 tons. The original BattleTech tabletop wargame uses this as a valid attack, called "Death from Above", and can actually be dangerous for the attacker if they screw it up.
  • Dark Forces Saga:
    • Jedi Outcast and Jedi Academy are odd examples, as jumping on enemies won't kill them, but it will knock them down for a free hit or two. Given that you're using a lightsaber, this pretty much guarantees their death; there's even an animation for it, though it's apparently meant for more conventional knockdowns, such as Force pushing them. The name Death From Above was also given to an attack in Outcast made using the strong style while jump and striking forward, which was very difficult to block and all but killed the opponent in a single hit. Ordinary lightsaber-wielding AI opponents are also vulnerable to this, though they tend to dodge before being killed on the ground. However, Reborn Masters lack the Artificial Stupidity of their lesser peers and will actually hit you with their lightsabers if you try to jump on them.
    • In the original Jedi Knight, the Force Jump ability dealt damage to both the user and anyone beneath them, if one jumped high enough. Obviously it wasn't a useful tactic for the player since it's likely to kill them as well, but worked for one particular boss who had a habit of landing on the player.
  • The goomba stomp is the preferred method of destroying enemies in the FPS/Platform Game hybrid Jumping Flash!, as you could only have up to 3 1-shot weapons.
  • The Gunner from Monday Night Combat has a variant of this, his slam ability can be used while airborne and will kill any pro (and most bots) who happens to be underneath when he lands.
  • In the Turrican games, there are some little robots that you can defeat by jumping on them a few times. Rather bizarre for a game which otherwise resembles a mix between Metroid and Contra...
  • A common way of dispatching enemies in DownWell. It also recharges your gunboots.

    Stealth 
  • Splinter Cell has a version of this; falling or jumping onto an enemy will usually knock him out. Of course, the fact it's not a Platformer is what makes it interesting. The animation makes it clear that Sam is hitting the baddie with a double-handed ax blow, so it's not quite a Goomba Stomp, but in gameplay terms mechanically the same.
  • XIII: Dropping onto an enemy was an effective way of knocking them out (which, in this game, meant down for good) without needing to expend ammo.
  • In later Metal Gear games, if you drop down from a high place to a low one on an enemy, you'll knock them out.
  • Tenchu: The Ninja have a unique stealth kill if you drop down on your enemy from above.

    Survival Horror 

Non-Video Game Examples:

    Anime & Manga 
  • Cells at Work and Friends!: While Killer T prefers to use his fists to destroy invading viruses, he's not above using this to ward off a virus attack.
  • Rebuild World: When Akira is fighting a giant shapeshifting monster that can split and recombine into different forms, once Akira starts attacking its weak point, it launches into the air above him. Akira has to use compressed time to set his Cool Bike to max speed, stand on the front of it, and then jump using the full strength of his Powered Armor to launch himself like a bullet in order to escape, leaving the bike to be crushed.
  • Cyberpunk: Edgerunners: Adam Smasher pulls one off when he leaps off the roof of Arasaka Tower and lands right on top of poor Rebecca. The results aren't pretty.
  • In the final episode of Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn, the Ra Cailum invade Cheyanne Base and the Tri-Stars go to take out the two Zeta Pluses and the Gustav Karl guarding the base. The second Zeta Plus transforms into its waverider form and tries to escape, only for a Jesta to drop in and stomp him into the ground, legs hilariously sticking up

    Comic Books 
  • Legion of Super-Heroes: Stone Boy of the Legion Auxiliary does a variant of this. All legionnaires have rings that allow them to fly, and his usual means of fighting is to deactivate the ring immediately above his foe's head. Given how much he weighs, it's quite effective.
  • The protagonist of No Hero favors this tactic during the period after he becomes a vigilante and before he gets any superpowers. We only get to see him doing it once, that also being his first confirmed kill—he drops down from three stories up, and the unfortunate mugger is hit so hard his ears pop right off in a spurt of blood.
  • Supergirl stomps on Kryptonite Man with both feet during their first battle in her second solo book.

    Fan Works 

    Films — Live-Action 

    Live-Action TV 
  • Planet Dinosaur: "Attacking a creature 10 times your own weight carries risks." Mapusaurus, meet Argentinosaurus feet.
  • Kamen Rider Ex-Aid has a miniature Genm doing this to a miniature Lazar in the eyecatch. As it turns out, this was subtle foreshadowing as Genm ends up killing Lazar.
  • NCIS: Take Gibbs' utter intolerance for anything that tampers with a crime scene, add his general hatred of technology, mix in the fact that a scheduled and automated roomba was eerily sucking up shell casings at the site of a shooting, and the result is that Gibbs invents the Roomba Stomp.

    Pinballs 

    Pro Wrestling 

    Tabletop Games 
  • BattleTech does this in likely the biggest way out there. Sure, you've got all manner of Missile Racks, Autocannons, Laser Batteries, PPC's, Gauss Rifles and all the other destructive goodies you could ask for... But if you've got the skill to pull it off, almost nothing puts down a problem faster than firing up your Jump Jets, heading airborne, and dropping the full weight of your 'mech on top of another. When a specimen of the classic jump-capable assault 'mech, the Highlander, does this, it's known both in and out of universe as the Highlander Burial, due to 90 tons dropping on even a 100 ton 'mech will cause heaping amounts of damage and when used against a significantly lighter mech it can physically mash them into the ground. It's usually seen as a rather extreme measure, as it has the potential to be botched badly, and damages your own 'mech even when successful.
  • In Warhammer 40,000, Space Marine players (and their opponents as well) often find that hundreds of pounds of heavily armored jump-pack-equipped Assault Marine can be quite an effective weapon in itself.

    Web Animation 
  • Red vs. Blue has Agent South Dakota land on an Innie and catch his shotgun so it doesn't land and make a loud noise - as if a Spartan landing on a person wouldn't make that noise anyway.
  • DSBT InsaniT: Frog and Andy do this to the monsters they encounter in the game they're playing in 'VRcade'.

    Webcomics 

    Western Animation 
  • Justice League: During the second part of "Fury", as Aresia—the main villain of the story—sneaks onto an airbase to steal one of its planes to carry out her Gendercide, she does this to one of the (female) guards patrolling the area and knocks her out cold.

Cranky Kong: You kids have it easy! When I was your age, jumping on top of monsters was a surefire way to get yourself killed! Your only options were to grab some weapon or just get out of the way. Monsters are far too squishy nowadays!

Alternative Title(s): Jump On Its Head

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Goomba Stomp

The troper namer, and one of the most common ways to deal with enemies in the entire Super Mario Bros franchise

How well does it match the trope?

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Main / GoombaStomp

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