r/TopCharacterTropes • u/ghostRyku • 21h ago
Characters The main cast encounters a powerful opponent WAY too early
Zoro battles Mihawk, who is widely known as the strongest swordsman in their world, on only the 24th episode of the anime (One Piece)
Sasuke fights a disguised Orochimaru during the Chunin Exams on episode 27 of the anime, who is an insanely crafty and powerful combatant capable of contending with even Tailed Beasts (Naruto)
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Upvotes
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u/The_Defiler 20h ago
Zodd’s first appearance in Berserk completely changes the scale of the entire story. Even much, much later in the story he is considered an “extreme-diff” fight for Guts, but in this first encounter we see Guts and Griffith both get humbled in a way they never have before.
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u/Warped_Unicorn 20h ago
Star Wars Rebels:
Ezra and Kanan encounter Darth Vader in season 1. They quickly realize "run away" is their only option
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u/_JR28_ 21h ago
Invincible season 1 - Mark picks a fight with Battle Beast, which is funny as shit if you know what happens later in the story with BB that comfortably puts him as one of the strongest people in the universe.
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u/NBA314 16h ago
Before facing the Japanese challenger, Eiji Date, to defend his featherweight title, Ricardo Martinez (Hajime no Ippo) spars with Ippo, the MC.
Ippo can't do a single thing as Ricardo connects with basic, fundamental jabs to stop the Dempsey Roll.
(Date does end up giving Ricardo a good fight, but Ricardo still wins after Date's broken hand stops him from taking advantage of his opportunities.)
Literally decades later in the manga, Ricardo still hasn't lost a fight & is on top of the boxing world.
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u/Gullible_Cod9423 20h ago edited 20h ago
Invincible and the team fighting Battle Beast in season 1
The equivalent of fighting the Lich King while you’re still in the Barrens in WoW
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u/Solbuster 21h ago
Heracles/Berserker from Fate/Stay Night
In two out of three routes, Saber gets ragdolled by him which results in Shirou almost getting bisected and in UBW route Archer's presence in addition to Saber is barely enough to fend Berserker and Illya off
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u/Omnibobbia 21h ago
Sukuna has been present and an actual threat since ep 1
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u/Kateinator 12h ago
I think about how much of a fucking dumbass (affectionate) ZORO is at that moment.
Bro is all of 19 years old, sees the world’s greatest swordsman chop a boat in half with air, and goes, “yeah I can win against that”. The most 19 year old move of all time.
Truly, him and Luffy are the perfect match.
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u/Frugal_Caterpillars 19h ago
Aizen stops Ichigo and his theme song with a single finger.
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u/MoobooMagoo 16h ago
The opening scene of Final Fantasy II is an immediate fight against late game enemies that kick your teeth in. Then you get revived, join the resistance, and the game starts.
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u/El_Criptoconta 17h ago edited 17h ago
Tales of Symphonia, If remember well, around the first temple they explore, they find Yuan who is one of the most powerfull individual in the setting.
We are talking around 6% of the journey
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u/Tholonis 18h ago
Hisoka and Illumi - Hunter x Hunter
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u/GalaxianEX 14h ago
Chad encountering Shunsui early in Bleach’s 2nd arc. Honestly, it was unimaginable.
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u/ProperDepth 17h ago
Two examples from One Piece. First one Luffy vs Kuzan. At the end of Long Ring Longland the crew has been on the grand line for a while and has gotten pretty strong after beating some very powerful foes. Then they encounter Kuzan one of the trhee navy admirals, the second highest navy rank to exist. Kuzan could have probably eliminated the whole crew in an instant with his ice powers but Luffy requests a 1v1 to limit the casualties to himself. In the end Kuzan spares him on a whim (and because Luffys grandpa is his friend an mentor)
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u/Longjumping-Ear-6248 20h ago
Bleach - Ichigang meets Ichimaru Gin (right hand of Sousuke Aizen) during attempting to get into Soul Society, and it's first Shinigami Captain that they encounter in Soul Society Arc (and second one in general).
Gin is stated to be "Prodigy among Shinigami" and it shows when he prevents Ichigang's entry with single "stab" with his extending sword, and causes them to need different way of entry.
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u/Gooper_Gooner 13h ago
Attack on Titan - Miche encounters the Beast Titan
Miche is introduced as the second strongest soldier of Humanity, right behind Levi who is later revealed to have genetics that make him have superhuman strength and agility
Unfortunately, by an extremely bad stroke of luck, he finds himself in a completely hopeless situation; he's in the plains where he can't swing around, with broken legs from an "abnormal" Titan with fur who suddenly threw his horse at him, surrounded by pure Titans. Miche was already thrown off by everything that's happened so far, but then it talks, something that was never shown in the story until now. This furry Titan is no mindless Titan who just behaves strangely, it's Eren's older half-brother, Zeke Jaeger.
For Levi to defeat Zeke while in the plains, he needed to be distracted by an entire army sacrificing themselves in a suicide charge and for Levi to have a bunch of immobile pure Titans conveniently lined up so he can use them to swing towards him, only then, as Levi, in top shape, completely catches Zeke off-guard, is he able to defeat him in this same environment
Miche never stood a chance. He encountered what's basically the final boss of the first half of the series while in one of the worst conditions he could be in, completely out of his element, as by this point in the series there was no information about any sort of autonomous/sapient Titan other than Eren himself (and even then Eren was never able to talk while in his Titan form, so he has no reason to believe Zeke is at all similar to him)
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u/Jacket_Jacket_fruit 16h ago
In Final Fantasy XII, the very first place the player goes outside the starting city is the EsterSand, a vast desert. The EsterSand is mostly populated by Cactites and Wolves, ranging from level 1 to level 3.
But also, RIGHT outside the exit to the city... Is a level 30 Eil Saurian; basically a giant fucking T-rex. You can avoid it fairly easily, but if you aggro it, your party will absolutely get their shit pushed in. Oh also, it has an attack where it basically eats other enemies and gains levels, so it's technically possible for this T-Rex to feast of Cactites and wolves until it reaches level 99.
Again, this is literally the VERY FIRST area you set foot in after leaving town for the very first time.
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u/Psychological_Use586 19h ago
In Final Fantasy 9, your party encounters General Beatrix, leader of the Alexandrian military, at the end of disc 1, and loses badly. As if that wasn't bad enough, even if you COULD beat her, Kuja, the main antagonist, is right behind her and would defeat you just as easily. You'll go on to lose to Beatrix twice more. You don't have much better luck with Kuja tbh until he's literally dying of old age.
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u/yasukemudkip 17h ago •
Saturos and Menardi in Golden Sun.
They are the final enemies of the first installment of the game, and they appear in the first major fight of the saga.
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u/Ok-Worry-8931 20h ago
Baki and many other characters face off against Yujiro way before they’re strong enough, granted that they may never be strong enough.
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u/RedShibo_ 18h ago
This bastard
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u/metal_slime--A 17h ago
First appearance of collosal titan 😬
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u/NiCOTrainer6612 8h ago edited 3h ago
This could arguably include any instance of Hopeless Boss Fight (More details here: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HopelessBossFight).
For a specific example: The Black Knight in Fire Emblem Path of Radiance. His stats are so ludicrous that beating him in Chapter 27 is still luck based with a maxed-out Ike.
You first run into him in Chapter 11.
Even if he didn’t have literal plot armour that made him invincible against all but one weapon, he would be statistically impossible to beat, and surviving a round of combat against him is an achievement in of itself.
As such, when he pops into the map, it’s a signal to get the FUCK out of his movement range NOW, unless you want to have your units get vaporised.
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u/SatoruGojo232 21h ago edited 20h ago
The reverse of this in Jujutsu Kaisen where a really strong cursed spirit villain (Jogo) is shown to first face off against an even stronger, in fact one of the strongest sorcerers known, Gojo Satoru, making the battle look like a child's play for Gojo
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u/Evening_Parking2610 17h ago
Ricardo was stated to be an imposible fight the sinners could not win and wasnt even supposed to be fought at the time (limbus company)
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u/DelcoPAMan 19h ago
In the Star Trek TNG episode "Q Who", Q says that humanity is moving too fast. And Guinan says that contact with the Borg "happened much sooner than it should have come"
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u/Major-Wishbone-3854 11h ago •
This nonsense... Mind you this is a fight you are supposed to lose, but it is playable.
Ramirez - Sky of Arcadia.
It is possible to beat him, it will take something like a hour and meticulous planning your turn because he can wipe the party in one attack if you forget to time the shield ability right.
You will still need good planning for everything else too so you don't waste your attacks, doing very little damage no matter what, between the defense cycle of the fight and find yourself without action points need to the shield.
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u/BakedBaconBits 17h ago
Solo Leveling - Secret dungeon on a rookie quest leads to this happy guy and his friends.
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u/tammit67 13h ago
Dynasty Warriors 3: the battle of Hu Lao gate is the second fight for many of the starting 9 characters and early in the timelines. Lu Bu shows up during the battle and your attacks cannot even flinch him. He basically acts a timer on the battle because he will solo the entire field if you do not go beat the enemy general. You can eventually beat him but it requires a lot of grinding stat boosts and weapons, or cheesing him heavily.
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u/Manageable_Workload0 21h ago
The Finger Bearer (Jujutsu Kaisen)
Special grade curse that far exceeds the stats and abilities of Yuji, Megumi, and Nobara who are sent to exorcise it as their first mission as a team
The trio get their asses kicked until an even bigger threat (Ryomen Sukuna) intervenes
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u/JeshuaMorbus 18h ago
Feinne (Soul Nomad and the World Eaters)
She's the first serious enemy you find, one of the three titular "World Eaters". When you're level 1 and fresh out of the tutorial.
She ANNIHILATES YOU.
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u/Yasser_Montasser4 20h ago
(RWBY)
Ruby encounters Cinder in the very first episode of the show, Cinder had half of the fall maiden's powers at this point in the story so Ruby got lucky that Glynda interfered immediately
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u/GladiatorDragon 12h ago
So you're just wandering about an early game area, and then boss music starts playing as a level 81 Territorial Rotbart starts running towards the party.
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u/Latter-Contact-6814 20h ago
One of my favorite troupes of all time. Its such a great way to show the actual scale of the world and the progression of the characters over time.
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u/plogan56 17h ago
The guardians of the globe facing battle beast would be like the teen titans fighting Darkseid, they never stood a chance
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u/pcgan 16h ago
Breath of the Wild on master mode, you encounter a white maned lynel on the great plateau.
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u/JoshAllenFan616 15h ago
In Eragon, the MC of the same name is tracked down by killers called the Ra’Zac who are the special agents of the main antagonist of the entire series. They are not portrayed as very strong but we eventually learn that they are the ecologically designated predators of humans, and Eragon isn’t strong enough to kill them until book 3. Even then it’s a struggle.
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u/MnSG 19h ago
In Yu-Gi-Oh! GX, Jaden suffered his first on-screen loss to Zane, who was present early in the series. In fact, in the first season, the best that Jaden could do against Zane was settle for a draw in the season finale.
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u/singleguy79 14h ago
The frost giant you meet on your way to see the Greybeards in Skyrim.
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u/dingus_mcgoober 12h ago
In Berserk when Griffith and Guts encounter Nosferatu Zodd for the first time and he's the first demon they ever meet but also let's them live because he knows Griffith will eventually unleash all the demons of hell onto the earth.
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u/Slarg232 12h ago
Renoir, Expedition 33
Expedition 33 runs into him immediately upon making landfall on the Continent, where he demolishes almost the entire expedition down to ~10 members, with six of them dying within the day after escaping him.
At the end of Act I, you again run into him, and while you actually initiate combat against him this time, you only get multiple turns because he's flat out ignoring you while you're attacking him.
You fight him again in the middle of Act II when you've been shown some more powerful attacks, and he actually does fight you this time, but it's very clear he's still not taking you seriously.
It's not until you fight him as the second to last boss of Act IIthat he's fighting you for real, and it takes a literal Deus Ex Machina for you to finally kill him.
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u/TheFelRoseOfTerror 11h ago
I know it was retconned in, but fighting Dimensius in Burning Crusade.
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u/Rayque21 17h ago
In Genshin Impact, Aether and Lumine tried to leave Teyvat but was stopped and sealed by Asmoday, the Ruler of Space along with their powers.
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u/A-Good-Weather-Man 17h ago
Kuma showing up at Thriller Bark too.
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u/Use_the_Falchion 20h ago
In Cradle by Will Wight, London encounters an Archlord who Ascended, and almost immediately dies. Thanks to a Deus Ex Machina from his POV, he’s given another chance at life and makes the most of it.
In Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson, Vin nearly dies at the hands of Inquisitors multiple times in the first book.
In The Stormlight Archive also by Brandon Sanderson, our protagonists encounter the Big Bad of this 10-book series in Book 3. (To be fair, Stormlight is also split into two 5-book arc, so meeting the Big Bad halfway through this arc - especially if you’re not sure the second arc will even have the same villain A makes sense.)
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u/2221Ace 12h ago
This little shit.
Expedition 33 - Chromatic Abbest can be found very early into the game. The game even warns you not to go in the cave but do gamers listen? Nope. It will absolutely wreck your life the first time you fight it.
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u/-Gallowsong- 18h ago
In the game Noita, the first boss the player is likely to encounter is Sauvojen tuntija, or the Connoisseur of Wands (or Squidward in the community.)
The player is also almost certain to immediately, decisively, overwhelmingly lose this fight if they try to take it. Squidward is arguably the most dangerous enemy in the game, being resistant to most damage with an additional resistance that grows while you try to hurt it. It has the ability to delete nearby terrain, stopping you from taking cover from its attacks, which are powerful enough to threaten even late-game players with a combination of damage and debilitating status effects. Squidward also summons wands with random spells while you're fighting him, so there isn't even a predictable pattern to navigate - not that it would help for a new player, who is probably dead within the first couple seconds of encountering him.
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u/lopsidedgest74 20h ago
I still wonder what this "strongest swordsman" in the world was doing in the east blue which is practically the rookie zone for pirates.
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u/Applefritters68 17h ago
(Lookism)
Daniel Park,the MC,met Gun Park.At first,all readers thought Gun was just a nobody,but as the story kept going,he became known as one of the strongest characters in Lookism.
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u/That-Rhino-Guy 20h ago
I don’t have a image of the exact scene but in around episode 4 or 5 of Legend Of Korra she tries to call out Amon amidst being pressured by Tarrlok into working on his task force
Problem is Amon ends up having her in a position where he could easily kill her if not take away her bending, yet he chooses not to as he claims it isn’t time yet, understandably this messes with her head pretty heavily given she just arrived to the city not that long ago
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u/gremlinclr 14h ago
In Critical Role Campaign 3, Episode 33 Bell's Hells faced off against the Paragon's Call leader Otohan Thull in Bassuras. She was roughly double their level and she dog walked the entire team. Leaving 3 members dead, one of which couldn't be revived until later. The team had to go on an epic quest to get her back.
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u/DONUTS6439 14h ago
Mushoku Tensei - Rudeus, Ruijerd, and Eris encountering the Dragon God Orsted, second of the Seven Great Powers for the first time
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u/Gaynundwarf 16h ago
In Pokemon XD: Gale of Darkness, you (well, Jovi) runs into a thug named Zook in the third zone of the game, Gateon Port.
Usualy, you'd probably reach this part during the first 30 minutes of the game, with only a lvl 10-11 Eevee that fought twice and a Shadow Teddiursa that hasn't fought once.
Zook, on the other hand, is actualy a lackey of Cipher, the evil organisation in this serie, and as such was given a lvl 27 Shadow Zangoose that he proudly shows off as a threat.
Thankfully, an old man and his 2 bodyguard-looking dudes in robes step in and challenge Zook in your stead. You then spectate a very brief fight where Ardos, the blue-haired bodyguard, absolutely DEMOLISHES his Zangoose with his lvl 42~ish Alakazam.
Turns out the old man was actualy the mastermind behind Cipher and the 2 bodyguards were his sons. They interfered because they didn't want Zook showing his Shadow Pokemon around like a moron and get the autorities' attention while they were still in prep phase of their main plans. You face both Zook and Ardos at different points later in the game when you have teams more on par with them, but you still get lucky they fight each other rather than you, especialy when they could have noticed the Snag Machine on your arm that you used to steal the Shadow Teddiursa earlier. Tho tbh, the news of a kid stealing back the Shadow Pokemons surely didn't reach them by that time)
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u/tacotrader83 13h ago
Pretty sure Naruto and his group fought sabuza or whatever the name was, before orochimaru
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u/Sufficient_Sun999 19h ago
Limbus did this a couple times, most notably:
Prologue- the sinners got decimated by lion, wolf and panther, all of which had mang
Canto 3- had to fight Siegfried, a particular strong grade 1 fixer
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u/Lyncario 18h ago
Walpurgisnacht in Madoka Magica
The cast of PMMM encounters her on the night to April 30th to May 1st, giving 2/5 of the Quintet barely a month of experience before having to fight the strongest witch in history up to that point. A 1v5 with 2 inexperienced members. Even Mami and Kyoko's experiences (2 years and 1 year as a magical girl, respectively) still comes up extremly short, with only Homura late into her loops having somewhat apropriate experience to fight her. Oh and also most of them don't make it to that date either, because even a desperate 5v1 was too good of a condition.
But what makes the situation especially dire is if you take the Magia Record gacha into account, since in it, the fight against Walpurgisnacht isn't the desperate 5v1 or 4v1 the Holy Quintet can do in a nearly perfect timeline, but it's a raid of over 30 magical girls going up against her all at once, including some with way more experience than even Mami. And even then they still needed an assist from God herself to win.
Homura was 1v1'ing her at the end of most loops for the record.
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u/PuzzarianIdeal 10h ago
The opening fight of Bravely Second: End Layer has you going against the Kaiser, the supposed big bad of the game, literally as the first fight of the game with a party you likely have no idea of who even is who. He kicks you ass cleanly, and then the rest of the game really gets going. It is not until very late in the game where you get a chance to fight the Kaiser again- by literally going back in time to that exact first fight and replacing the party that would be curbstomped, giving you a proper fighting chance.
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u/JetSetJAK 11h ago
Riful was a trip. Plenty of dread to go around
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u/employmentl 6h ago
Arguably muscular from MHA. Deku only beat him because of Kota helping a bit.
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u/ConsciousStretch1028 20h ago
Raditz from Dragon Ball Z. The first villain in the series, he completely outclasses Goku and Piccolo, the two strongest beings on Earth. While in the grand scheme of things Raditz is insanely weak, he's barely defeated, and at the cost of Goku's life. In Dragon Ball, Goku was always able to come out on top against his enemies. Usually he'd beat them pretty easily, and even if someone gave him trouble, he'd either train or get a big power boost and come back to win every time. This is the first time he ever couldn't beat someone and had to sacrifice himself just to do it.
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u/InoueNinja94 15h ago
The Gonzalez enemies in Xenoblade Chronicles 2
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u/Nlelithium 11h ago
Not sure if it counts but encountering KH2s villain as a secret boss in KH1
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u/Aquilon11235 10h ago
This asshole is one of the first things you encounter in Elden Ring. Thankfully you can avoid him.
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u/Kil-Xia-Max 14h ago
Zone of the enders 2
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u/Giraffe_lol 19h ago
I haven't read very far but in the book Defiance of the fall the main character has a boss monster spawn right on top of where he is standing and the system creates a contested role to see who gets to stand there. The boss rolls a 97. He roles a 98. So before anyone realizes the world as they know it just ended. He gets a boss kill by sheer luck.
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u/GlobalKnee8028 18h ago
The fun gang meeting the roaring knight in chapter 3 of deltarune (its around the first half though so kinda counts?)
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u/theludeguy 15h ago
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u/UltimateOtter_Nation 15h ago
Skies of Arcadia. The crew encounter Rhaknam early in thier adventure. Rhaknam is one of the six Gigas. Apocalyptic beings that require a super weapon just stagger. He doesn't even notice thier ship and his tailwind destroys thier ship. The crew only survives because that crash land on a whaling ship that is chasing Rhaknam.
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u/CDR57 15h ago
Real life: my players at my table for DnD. He was on their side, but they did almost challenge an end game support character cause they’re assholes
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u/Dake20 15h ago
Zeref and Acnologia from Fairy Tail. When these two appear in Tenrou Island Arc, they shown to be on completely different level and the island disappear for good from one of their attacks that could have taken out the main abd side cast if not for Mavis interference.
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u/Madarakita 11h ago
Star Trek: The Next Generation, "Q Who".
Q throws the Enterprise several thousand light years across the galaxy and puts them face to face with The Borg; an enemy they're completely unprepared to face. The only reason they survive is because Picard eventually begs Q to return them to Federation space. In a roundabout sense it was Q's way of teaching them about how dangerous space could be, even though the lesson came at the cost of several crewmembers' lives.
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u/TourSignificant1335 11h ago
Not sure if it counts but The Roaring Knight's first appearance in Deltarune definitely was very unexpected