Finishing moves (必殺技, Hissatsu Waza?) in video games are player character moves that often involve the violent and gory death of the enemy it is performed upon. The most (in)famous examples of these types of finishing moves are the "Fatalities" of the Mortal Kombat franchise, which involve attacks ranging from decapitation of a defeated opponent to even eating them whole and spitting out the bones. Other games featuring finishing moves include Cardinal Syn, Samurai Shodown, Mace: The Dark Age, Killer Instinct, God of War, BloodRayne, Eternal Champions, Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War, Kasumi Ninja, BloodStorm, Ultra Vortek, Time Killers, Way Of The Warrior, Unreal Championship 2, Primal Rage, Weaponlord, Gears of War, The Warriors, Smackdown Vs. Raw, and Ninja Gaiden 2. Finishing moves or the equivalent thereof also frequently appear in Console RPGs as well. Examples include "Limit Breaks" in Final Fantasy VII, "Purify Weird Soul" in Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth, or "Deathblows" in Xenogears. [edit] Uses and iterations - Animality – Finishing move in Mortal Kombat 3 that had the winning character turn into an animal to finish off the defeated opponent.
- Babality – A finishing move from the Mortal Kombat series that turned the defeated opponent into a baby. It was one of several finishing moves featured in Mortal Kombat II that didn't result in death.
- Brutality – A finishing move featured in the SNES and Genesis versions of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, as well as in Mortal Kombat Trilogy, and Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks. The winner performs a large combo on the defeated player, causing them to burst into an explosion of blood and bones, generally more than actually found in a human body (including several ribcages and skulls).
- Cinekill – Unique finishing move from Eternal Champions for the Sega CD. It showed an FMV movie of the defeated opponent being finished off by the Eternal Champion. These were the most difficult moves to pull off in the game.
- Claytality - Parody finishing moves from Clay Fighter 63 1/3. They're several for each character and are often humorous in context.
- Death Blow – When dealing the finishing move on an enemy in No More Heroes, an arrow is displayed on the screen. The enemy can be finished off by swinging the Wii Remote in the direction of the arrow, resulting in decapitation, vertical bisection or horizontal bisection at the waist.
- Death Move – a generic finishing move term used in Kasumi Ninja and certain other Mortal Kombat clones.
- Destruction/Scrap – A set of finishing moves from One Must Fall 2097. The player must first perform the Scrap move which will damage the opponent's machine, then follow with the Destruction move which will kill it.
- Execution – In the Manhunt series, there are three different styled "executions" to be performed: hasty, violent and gruesome. The execution used is determined by how long the player holds the action button while creeping stealthily upon an unsuspecting enemy. Other variations of these moves include "jump executions," where the player drops from higher elevation than the opponent, finishing them, and "environmental executions," such as pushing an enemy face-first into a live fuse box, using telephone cords to strangle an enemy or beating an enemy to death in a toilet.
- Fatality – A self explanatory term most popularly coined by its appearance in the Mortal Kombat series. Defeated players are killed in numerous bloody, often overly elaborate ways, ranging from having their hearts ripped out to being torn apart limb by limb, or even being eaten by a giant dragon.
- Fatal K.O. - A finishing move featured in the Fist of the North Star fighting game by Sega. Each character has at least one "Deadly Fist Blow" (一撃必殺奥義, Ichigeki Hissatsu Ōgi?, "Deadly One-Strike Secret Technique") that can only be performed when the opponent is vulnerable (indicated by a "death star" mark under the opponent's life gauge). These finishing moves were usually signature techniques used by the characters in the original manga.
- Final Smash - Although not strictly speaking a finishing move, by collecting a Smash Ball in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, the player can use a special attack that usually does serious damage. The attacks are character specific and have varying effects.
- Friendship – A finishing move introduced in Mortal Kombat II in response to the criticism over the previous game's violence. Performing a friendship has the winning character show a sign of good will towards the defeated character, such as signing them an autograph.
- Hara Kiri – A non-traditional finishing move featured in Mortal Kombat: Deception where the defeated opponent could kill themselves instead of allow being killed or being hit by the winning player.
- Humiliation – A finishing move featured in Killer Instinct that did not kill the opponent, but resulted in the defeated player's character dancing.
- Instant Kill – An instant-defeat move from the Guilty Gear series. After entering a special mode, which forbids the use of tension-based techniques, the player is capable of executing a special, often slow or easy-to-avoid move, which, if connects, will reduce the enemy's lifebar to zero, making a flashy "DESTROYED" emblem appear. If the move misses, the player's tension bar is lost.
- In Kingdom Hearts II, it is impossible to kill a boss without using a finishing move. These could take the form of magic, combo finishers, or other moves such as reaction commands, but normal attacks do not kill bosses.
- Mercy – A finishing move in Mortal Kombat 3. Rather than killing the opponent, it gave them a very slight increase to their health bar after defeat, allowing the round to continue. Players were required to perform a Mercy and then defeat their opponent again in order to perform an Animality.
- No Mercy – The term used for finishing moves in the arcade game Killer Instinct.
- Nudality – Featured in the arcade game Tattoo Assassins. The opponent's clothes disappear, showing him or her nude, though the hands cover the genitals.
- Overkill – Another term for a finishing move involving the winning character slaying the other, it's been used as the defining term for finishing moves in such games as Killer Instinct and is the name of the background fatalities from the Eternal Champions series. In programming terms for the Doom source code, the resulting death and animation from a rocket blast or BFG splash damage is called an Overkill defined by damage received going over the set amount of hit points of the character. Gibbing or fragging are more popular terms used by players.
- Poopality – A parody finishing move featured in Ultra Vortek for the Atari Jaguar, which causes the opponent to turn into a pile of feces with fart noises as background sounds.
- Sunder – A special finishing move featured in the arcade fighting game BloodStorm, it involved cutting the opponent in half but not killing them right away, it is different than most finishers because it isn't an instant kill and the torso is still controllable.
- Super Combo Finish – Introduced in the Street Fighter series in Super Street Fighter II Turbo, defeating an opponent with a Super Combo (a powerful version of a special move) resulted in a Super Combo Finish, which awarded bonus points and a flashing screen. Later Capcom fighting games featured variations of the Super Combo Finish such as the Custom Combo Finish in Street Fighter Alpha 2, Hyper Combo Finish and Variable Combo Finish in X-Men vs. Street Fighter, and Ultra Combo Finish in Street Fighter IV.
- Sync-Kill – In Dawn of War, units that defeat another unit in close combat will usually perform a violent killing animation. This ranges in complexity depending on the given units. Similar are in the sequal Dawn of War II.
- Totalled! – A sort of a finishing move in the Vigilante 8 vehicular combat series. The text "Total it" will appear on the screen after winning the opponent and the player has a chance to give the opponent the final blow with a character specific special weapon or using a special combo.
- Ultimate KO - A finishing move featured in Art of Fighting 3. Normally a player has to win a set number of rounds to finish a match. However, if the player defeats an opponent who has less than 25% of their life gauge left and no energy left in their spirit gauge by using a Hidden Special Move, then the match can be won in just one round.
- Vendetta – Finishing moves unique to each character in Eternal Champions for the Sega CD.
- WWE Smackdown vs Raw 2000,2006,2007,2008,2009 - Each WWE superstar has their own unique move that ususaly allows them to pin or submit their opposition in a wrestling match.
[edit] Trivia - The fighting game called Weaponlord for the SNES and Genesis featured a unique combo based finishing move system. It required the player to string together normal combos with finisher combos which included: decapitation, debraining, disembowling, skin head and many many other bloody moves. The possibilities were nearly endless for any skilled player to pull off but the skill level needed also kept the moves difficult for beginners to pull off. This kind of system was later adapted into the Kreate-a-Fatality system in Mortal Kombat Armageddon that some players felt was lacking and lazy on Midway's part.
- Primal Rage stirred up the campaigns to ban video game violence when a mother saw her son perform Chaos' Yellow Shower finishing move. Ironically, since this move features the performer urinating on his defeated opponent, the offensive nature of it has little to do with violence itself. It can be seen here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3aNlTkiTGo
- This rating scale replaced the earlier Sega-exclusive VRC rating scale.
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