Final Fantasy II (A.K.A. "Son, you are SO screwed")
Right after you enter your name, you go right into your first fight, versus four horsemen (HAH!). They get the first strike. They hit for 900 damage or higher while you barely have the chance to notice, the first time the party stats come up, that your guys have 20-40 HP each; within one turn about half of your party's dead--if you're lucky, anyway. Often they only leave just one of your characters alive, letting you make some half-assed attempt at trying to hit them (you can't run and you don't have any magic) before they finish the job.
You won't last more than one turn in general; though I've never seen the enemies wipe all of your people out on the first strike, I wouldn't be surprised if that also happened a good share of the time. (Going the other way, if you have ridiculous luck and enough of the horsemen wait out their turns, you
could survive two turns, theoretically. Doubtful!)
In any case--insofar as I know--the opening of
FFII stands as the first actual "unwinnable battle" in Console RPG history.
Granted, it probably didn't happen without inspiration; there was a boss fight that was
mostly unwinnable (even though the game continues without penalty) in the middle of the original
Phantasy Star, released one year earlier; with enough preparation and extensive leveling, however, it
was possible to win that fight. Square took Rieko Kodama's idea to its logical conclusion--they eliminated the middleman and gave you
no chance at all. The fight comes right as the game opens, so there's obviously no time to level up for it; this whole affair might, at most, take up a minute and a half of your play time. (It'll also be the only battle with Leon in your party for a very long while. So long, in fact, that you'll probably wonder why they ever made you take the trouble to name him to begin with.)
Akitoshi Kawazu was said to have a fairly large hand in designing this particular game in the series. (The "use skill to level skill" mechanic would play a larger role in his SaGa games a bit later.) Out of all of the original post-Denyuusha Square staff still at the "Square" half of Square Enix, he was known for taking the biggest risks.
FFII's opening was a pretty big risk in itself--players could've shut the game off after that fight with the unwavering belief that there was no way to win it. (And a few probably did!) But five'll get you ten that the opening was even partly Kawazu's idea.
Yet another piece of videogame history that we missed in proper temporal context. (But we got pretty close; Nintendo
almost brought it out domestically after its release.) Ahwell...I enjoyed it even long after-the-fact.
I've got another that comes to mind; will post about it in a bit.
Player
