Great Moments of I Am So Not Ready For This

[Kged]

Come to think of it, the most obvious and graphic example of trying something I just wasn't ready for has to be fighting a giant in Skyrim. I didn't even want to fight him, but something accidental happened and it was on. And this wasn't early in the game, I was well on in levelling and study of the arcane arts by this time and really not worried by anything anymore. So OK, I thought, I'm a serious mage - you wanna dance? Let's d

(cut to my character sailing over the mountains)

That first time really is one of the great moments I've ever had in all gaming. Just being knocked clean off the world with a single blow...man alive. That made me rethink exactly how much of a badass I was.

This video captures it beautifully at 4:18.


Another good example of getting out of your depth appears at 0:27, and at 1:33 you get that special Skyrim experience - winding up your most powerful combat spell, gleefully unleashing it on the foe, and it doing absolutely nothing. Run awaaaaay.

 

[Malty Milk Whistle]

Soulsilver, was feeling fairly confident.
Then Whitney's Miltank.
I don't even have to explain.
That thing traded away it's soul for demonic amounts of attack and HP.

 

[Charli]

I was a complete Klepto in FF9 and was one of the few people who ran into this unintentionally:

http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Ozma

I WAS NOT PREPARED. Flattened in I think...2 moves.

 

[Alexander Stark]

Oblivion mod Nehrim. The bounty hunting quest line was pretty casual until suddenly, the Butcher.

 

[MasterOfHisOwnDomain]

Black and White, when I arrive in the final land and Nemesis takes my creature and curses it. Then proceeds to roundly beat me to death. Looking up guides now, people recommend sending entire wonders through the void to reach there, I was wholly unprepared ...

 

[Tsun Tzu]

In a game? The original F.E.A.R. ...the first time Alma...introduces herself. Immediate-

In a show? The third episode of Madoka Magicka.

Christ. I had to leave the computer for a few minutes and pace.

 

[Silvanus]

Every single time Nemesis turned up in RE3, this was my response, complimented by heartrate and breathing going nuts.

But the absolute worst time? I had locked myself safe inside a save room, but I knew Nemesis was right outside. He'd chased me the fuck in there in the first place, and every time I opened the door, there he was, charging down the street. I sat. I planned for ages. Eventually I decided I would take the RPG, launch one at him to make him flinch, and then hightail it.

I opened the door. "S.T.A.R.S.....". I aimed, I launched. A firey grenade of doom flew at him and I felt, momentarily, like a boss. Then... Nemesis casually, mid-stride, turned to the side to avoid it.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

I'd say my most recent one happened in Shadowrun Returns.

I was raiding a corporate high rise looking for information and the mission called for a decker. While I fancied my PC as something of a decker, the constant need for combat proficiency dictated that I never really invested heavily in programs. So while my character was individually powerful in the Matrix, should the defenses actually be sturdy I was often up a creek.

To that end, I hired a decker. After locating the secure jack point, he set to work while the rest of the team held the doors as waves of corporate security tried to dislodge him. Unfortunately, due to some bad timing where grunts arrived at both doors simultaneously, a turn ended with 3 corp soldiers standing with a clear shot at a guy desperately trying to hack one of the most secure networks you see in the game. In spite of the armor spell on him, the intevening objects and the range, all three fired and landed blows, killing the decker instantly.

As the only other hacker on the team, it was left to me to finish the job. Not only would this reduce the combat power considerably (I had a street samurai and a support mage rounding out the team) but I was having trouble making progress as a character with access to better programs and executibles across the board. Since the only other option was to restart the whole level - a 20 minute rewind at this point, I jumped in. The only advantage I had in the matrix? I had the best deck in the game so while I might not have any power behind my programs I could at least execute them quickly.

Standing against this was a network well on the way to an alarm and crawling with White IC. I was able to just barely make it to the final node to unlock the elevator and had cleared the IC protecting the data when security finally caught on. Suddenly the node is flooded with Black IC and enemy Deckers. At this point I was in far too deep to back out and, even if I could make it to the exit node, the team would still be locked in a corporate high rise full of increasingly angry security. So I did the only thing I could - I made a beeline for the elevator controls. 2 AP took me to the point and I very nearly made it out of the room - just enough time for the black IC to catch up.

At that point, there was only one way out - try and outrun the black IC just long enough to be taken down by white IC - dumpshock probably wouldn't kill me but four black IC programs and a pair of deckers certainly could. To that end I threw down every trick in the book - suppressing the IC, throwing up firewalls, and trying like hell to only take damage against my deck (rather than my brain). As this happened, the battle in meatspace grew steadily in intensity only slacking as the last soldiers who made it on the elevators before I regained control crumpled to join the carpet of their comrades.

Back in the Matrix there was no more room to run, no guarntee of any white IC. So I summoned the only program I had left, an exploder, and went to work. In two desperate rounds of combat I managed to kill one of the deckers and got rid of almost all the black IC - enough that I could once again try and make a run for it out of the matrix. I got hit a few times on the way out by other black IC programs that kept popping up all around me but I made it to the exit node.

While I may have succeeded, it wasn't through careful preparation; I never intended to have to hack the damn system myself. The whole endeavor was a calamity of errors where we only succeeded through luck. Had it been a pen and paper game, I'd have burned an edge to survive that run.

 

[momijirabbit]

[ img ]http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/File:Trema_ffx2.jpg[ /img ]

First time I fought him I was using the triple Cat Nip gunner technique, I used it to beat Chac and I thought it would work on him.
Ya... took off half his HP then he flattened us with one single move.
Frick Ultima and Trema.

I will beat him in the HD remaster.

 

[Kaiser6012]

Well, from a personal standpoint, my greatest "Oh, man, this is gonna suuuuuck..." moment happened in a Genesis game called Phantasy Star 4.

Now, for reference,

Spoiler

this terrifying gentlemonster

is the final boss of Phantasy Stars 1 through 3. He just keeps popping up like some sort of hideous whack-a-mole. Anyway.

Playing through Phantasy Star 4, you're given hints left, right and centre that an evil sorcerer by the name of Zio is a fairly big bad. He's petrified cities, reduced other cities to rubble, converted yet other cities to fawning sycophants worshipping him like he's some dark messiah... you get the idea. Oh, and real magic is a non-entity in this setting. The best most can manage is a watered down "technique". Power of this magnitude is inconcievable.

The quest to heal the planet takes us to this guy's fortress. The plan is relatively simple: wait for the master of the house to be absent, sneak in, rescue an android he has captured somewhere in his tower, run for the nearest untainted town. It's infested with baddies, but they're not worth trouble. You get to the end of the tower maze and there's a dude waiting, like most end-dungeon bosses do. Easily dispatched, opens stairs, everything's groovy.

Going up two further levels, really short with no enemies or treasure, we find our android chained to the wall. Get her cut down, she thanks us and heals the party.
Warning sign number one: free healing mid-dungeon rings all sorts of genre-savvy bells. This dungeon's not finished yet. Then she drops the bombshell: the target we need the android to fix is actually in the basement of the tower we're in. And it's been sealed by the sorcerer.

Who just got home.

But, it's cool. We just got healed, we could predict this sort of thing coming. Cutscene, red eyes, yada yada.

Then the fight happens.

Spoiler

This is what the tower looks like when fighting everything else

Spoiler

THIS is what the tower looks like when we're fighting said sorcerer.

That starts. He first uses a magic barrier. Little OP, but we can-

Wait, why are all of my most powerful attacks no-selling on him? Can I not hurt him? Maybe the barrier wears off...
Then he starts charging for... something. You try and wail on him, but all the attacks just ping off him.
Then this happens:

Spoiler

And you just know it isn't going to end well.

So, yeah. Not only do I know it's a hopeless cause, but when that happens, the game forces a retreat. People die from that attack. Like, Aerith die, not just RPG die.
When the final boss from all the prior games shows up at a guy's beck and call... yeah, call the handymen to get you out of that wood, 'cause you're screwed.

 

[superpandasauras]

You guys remember Kingdom Hearts II? I do. back when I was a kid, I was going through Hollow Bastion(after I had already beaten the game) and I found THIS ************

Spoiler

So being a naive little shit, and having no idea who he was, I decide "Who's this whimsical fellow? I think I'll talk to him" then the fight happened, and thIs was basically me.

Spoiler

After, no joke, a full week, I beat him. That is also my best childhood moment.
tl;dr Fuck Sephiroth

 

[cojo965]

As OP said, the first encounter with Death in DDA. Worse, it was in the middle of fighting a Garm and some Elder Ogre or something, inside a building. I go "AHA, I'll take care of you!" with my fledgling Magick Archer. I open fire.

I don't see any damage. I shoot more, still nothing. Then he catches up and sleeps me. My Pawn saved my ass and I watched the other two get cut down. The Garm is closing in, the Elder Ogre starts beating down my Pawn.

I hauled ass. Didn't even care where I ended up. Which of course landed me in a confrontation with some kind of zombie dragon with plague breath. I killed that son of a *****, but it was the last time I played the game. Was a bit too much for me.

Oh, I didn't even fight him my first encounter with him. I just saw him and knew he was not someone to fuck with. I looked him up later to see if I was justified, I was.

 

[Nosirrah]

I just started swtor a few days ago and seeing how i was 2 levels above the recommended level, decided to solo the black talon mission. I got through to the part where three guys are waiting at the shuttle and looked at the health of the leader, ~5300. i looked at mine, (~1700) and decided to to come up with a strategy to pick off the guys, one by one. several seconds later, vette was turned into swiss cheese and i found myself able to breathe without opening my mouth. Mission failed, i left the area, and now can't return for some reason.

 

[WindKnight]

Spoiler: This...

Spoiler: ...and this

First time I confronted them, I had such a "WHAT THE FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU--" moment, especially with how easy they killed me. They're still challenging even when at max level. If you could take them out, you were set for life!

At least with the Emerald Weapon you see him swimming around and can avoid him until you're ready. Ruby on the other hand, screw that rat bastard.

First time you're playing through the game you just see this little red thing out in the desert. "Huh, what the heck is that? Kinda looks like some dude in a red cloak wandering around in the desert. I'm just gonna go down and see if I can get a closer loo---HOLY CRAP IT'S A FRICKIN' WEAPON FIGHT!" And then he proceeds to beat the ever-living crap out of you.

To-date I've never beaten Ruby for the free Golden Chocobo, always had to breed my own. I can kick Emerald's ass, though.

you pretty much need knights of the round and/or the w summon materia to kill ruby (and even then you need to be lucky), and to get knights of the round, you need a gold chocobo...

 

[Miss G.]

For me, it was getting The Last of Us and playing through to the end. I can honestly say that the only game that had shooting elements that I've ever owned or played was Deadpool, and I get spooked real easy with horror stuff so it was rather out of character. I watched videogamesawesome live and fell in love with the story and the characters enough to try a game like this despite that. I appreciate that Frasier only plays games live with the chat, in little segments at a time so his followers that haven't picked up a copy can see if it interests them and they can get it like I did. This way, the game makers can still get sales they might not have had otherwise. I've learned what not to do mostly from his mistakes and derping around so I was able to finish it in 19 hours, some of it spent waiting for the right moment to strike or from dying a long time into a section but not near the next checkpoint. I was so scared I had to play with my brother and sister nearby and in the daytime to get through it. Going through New Game+ right now since I played on Easy and I hope to at least play through it on Hard at some point.

I just thought this was cute.
http://fc09.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2013/181/e/9/the_last_of_us_by_iamarg-d69ykmn.gif

 

[purf]

A recent round of X-COM comes to mind, the mission introducing the Sectopods.

Spoiler: tiny bit of spoiler

Disregarding the UFO's sides, I go in through the front door promptly alerting the two Outsiders.

..and I quickly dispatch them - not realising their purpose as being guardians. I finish the round and the game goes "Alien Activity", "Alien Activity", "Alien Activity",... uh, what? "Alien Activity" times freaking 20 or something. Needless to say, it didn't end so well. It actually didn't end so well a couple of times more. I still have to finish that mission, started a new game in the meantime.

 

[OneCatch]

In a game? The original F.E.A.R. ...the first time Alma...introduces herself. Immediate-

That gif is brilliant!

The first FEAR didn't bother me much.
The expansions didn't bother me much.
The first half of FEAR 2 didn't bother me at all.
Then Wade. Elementary. High. School.

Fuck.

It's like that Doctor Who episode, Blink.

You get to a section where it's pitch dark apart from a few small lights flash back on intermittantly. And every now and again you'll see either Alma or other stuff out of the corner of your eye, then by the next flash it'll be gone, and then you'll see her slightly closer, or turning to face you, or something.

-----------------

OT: The Mongols and Timurids showing up in Medieval I and II Total War certainly qualify. Whoever you are, wherever you are, however big your empire, you'll almost inevitably be unprepared.
Playing as a western country you almost feel bad for the AI when they show up in the East and curbstomp everything until they reach Western Europe and get bogged down by all the castles.

Same with the civil war in Rome Total War - by the point it happens the Roman factions will be the most powerful in the game, and they all declare war on you simultaneously.
And if you're playing as Julii or Scipii you'll inevitably be horribly outnumbered by the Brutii, who usually have Greece as a military and economic powerhouse.