The only option is to lose

[Lunar Templar]

In the beginning of Zone Of The Enders 2, I knew I wasn't going to win. Granted, during the battle itself, I was able to hold my own, even whittle him down steadily. IT WAS WINNABLE! Until the cutscene. X_X

the end of ZoE 1 was kinda like that to, cept you can't kill him at all, but you HAVE to dodge, or you still get the game over x.x. though fighting him or dodging gets different reactions, so that was neat.

also, Demon's Souls :/ its beatable but you have to be an uber bad ass to do it, i ALMOST killed it, once, after that x.x smushed with in seconds

 

[Mafoobula]

Most recent example: Rhythm (pretty sure that was his name) in The World Ends With You. I can remember other steamrolling examples in a lot of RPGs and even a couple fighting games. I know there are a few examples I'm forgetting... Oh well.

 

[Extra-Ordinary]

I guess I don't really dislike them too much; at least when it's made obvious that you're going to lose, because then the game has given you fair warning. At that point, the only reason I would hate it is if I didn't hit them at all. Be it an unbeatable boss or a huge legion of enemies, I get pissed if I don't at least give them a scratch or take a few of them with me; because then it goes from "heroic last stand" to "What the hell just happened?" That's why I like the Halo Reach last stand. You can be killed in 32 seconds by a grunt with a lucky grenade, but in the final cutscene you'll take out a few elites.

 

[Foxbat Flyer]

Ive played some of those Supposed to loose fights, i never realise until my 5th try or so when i say, "SCREW THIS!!!" let it go to the dead screen, but it never comes

 

[OmniscientOstrich]

In FF9, having to fight Beatrix 3 times only to have her pull that deus ex machina move that puts you down to 1HP when she was done fucking with you each time was rather annoying, though it did actually serve to make her a threatening villain and god knows the game needed one of those when fucking Kuja is supposed to be the main antagonist.

 

[TheAceTheOne]

For some reason, Dwarf Fortress comes to mind: You can't win. You can only prolong your loss.

 

[Nargleblarg]

Every battle in demon souls....oh wait you're supposed to win those, crap.

Megaman X's first level comes to mind you need Zero to come save you when you lose and possibly help tuck you into bed while he's at it.

 

[Luke5515]

This was one thing I liked about Deus Ex HR

Spoiler

When your airship crashed and Malik is getting hit you can choose to take Maliks advice and leave her and slip in quietly behind the attackers while they are taking the airship out or stay and defend her. Previous encounters like this in other games ended up with me being able to defend them but in the end it was for naught and the object I was defending was destroyed anyway. With DEHR I was able to defend Malik successfully and have her live on and I personally felt really proud of myself for doing so.

I remember I was like

Spoiler

"No! You sons of bitches writers! How could you kill my favorite secondary character!" Then I played through again and saved her and was happy.

 

[tombman888]

I liked the first Leon fight in Kingdom Hearts. Hes very powerful for the level you at, but if youre good, it is possible to defeat him. Sora ends up about to land the finishing blow, then passing out due to exhaustion. Story remains the same, but Leon suffers the indignity of getting his ass kicked.

This, and the fight against Sabor, the leopard in the Tarzan world. If you get her down to 0 hp, it makes it look as if you've won, but she actually just "Plays dead" then Tarzan comes in and saves your ass, just like he would if you lost.

 

[MetroidNut]

Chrono Trigger has a couple (though if you're unprepared, some actual boss battles might seem like supposed-to-lose fights). Some can be a little annoying - you're not sure whether you should use healing items when they might turn out to have been wasted.

But there's one that, in my opinion at least, stands as a great example of a well-done supposed-to-lose battle.

You have fought your way through what could easily be the final dungeon of the game. It has been a struggle; you have never before been tried as much as you were in the Ocean Palace. And at last, the time comes. You finally encounter your mortal foe face-to-face. It is time to battle Lavos for the fate of the world.

And he one-hit-KOs you.

Beforehand, the game's been telling you Lavos is incredibly powerful, but...being insta-killed by him really drove home the point for me. Plus, it makes the actual end-game battle against Lavos that much more satisfying. Not to mention the fun to be had in winning the supposed-to-lose fight, which is actually quite possible, especially if you're on a New Game +.

 

[Ilikemilkshake]

This was one thing I liked about Deus Ex HR

Spoiler

When your airship crashed and Malik is getting hit you can choose to take Maliks advice and leave her and slip in quietly behind the attackers while they are taking the airship out or stay and defend her. Previous encounters like this in other games ended up with me being able to defend them but in the end it was for naught and the object I was defending was destroyed anyway. With DEHR I was able to defend Malik successfully and have her live on and I personally felt really proud of myself for doing so.

You're frikkin kiddin me right? wow i actually feel genuinly bad that i didnt do that, the way the conversation went it seemed like it was scripted for me not to be able to
I was specialised in hacking and pretty much only had a tranq rifle so i almost definatly wouldnt have been able too anyway but damn

As for the original question, all of the player characters that get killed off in the various CoD games was kind of annoying, especially playing through on veteran, dying a thousand times trying to get to the end of a level, where its scripted that you die -.-

There's also Medal of Honour

Spoiler

In the mission where you and your squad are ambushed and you have a last stand in a crappy mud hut, as you slowly run low on both ammo and hope, i actually thought it was a supposed to lose battle. It had been going on for quite a while and just as i was about to be overwhelmed two Apache helicopters show up and blow away the enmemies.. it was glorious, a genuinly stand out moment in the game

 

[Saltyk]

I can think of two games that had a ton of unwinnable battles. I'm going to use spoiler tags to save space. Yes, there are THAT many unwinnable fights in these games.

Spoiler: Breath of Fire 3 had 3. Well, technically one of them was "winnable".

The first comes after a certain event in the story where you ended up angering what amounts to the mafia. They send two horsemen things (just go with it) named Balio and Sunder to kill you. This fight is completely unwinnable. Strangely, due to a misprint in the original strategy guide, people still believe that you can win it. You can't. People have proven it through serious attempts (where they had dealt something like 10,000 or more damage to just one of them), and checking the games programming to reveal they they technically didn't even exist in the fight.

The second comes after Ryu awakens to his dragon powers. Once more he fights against Balio and Sunder, but this time Princess Nina is unconscious beside them. If Ryu is VERY strong for that point of the game, a minimum level of 16, and abuses his dragon forms, he can survive long enough for Nina to awaken and run away. If you heal her, which you'd have to do in human form, she'll wake up faster. After she runs Balio and Sunder will give chase after a few turns. So, it is winnable, but very hard. You're more likely to lose, honestly. And you don't get much for winning.

The third and final unwinnable fight is against Garr. Garr basically has infinite HP, or damn close, and if he can't kill you after so many turns gains a huge attack boost that will let him deal more damage than you can possibly survive. And don't forget his "Lucky Strikes" that do double damage and he seems to get easily every other attack even before his attack boost.

Spoiler: Star Ocean The second story abused these so bad.

Star Ocean the second story practically wrote the book on unwinnable fights.

First, Claude versus Dias. Claude can't even damage him and Dias can easily deal 500 damage a hit. Even if you over level, you probably won't exceed 2,000 Hp. So, do the math.

Later, you fight a flying monster. If memory serves his name was Shin. If it wasn't, I shall continue to refer to him as such anyway. Once more, you can't hurt Shin. It's ironic since there's a chance that Dias is in your party (if you're playing as Rena). In the end, all you have to do is survive for about a minute or so. Which is quite possible.

Then, you fight Shin again. This time he'll murder your party and throw them into the ocean. Fun.

After defeating Shin, who was obviously the enemy leader, you encounter the Ten Wise Men. The actual leaders. They send one of there number to fight you. Guess what. You can't damage him. To add insult to injury, he uses a shield ability that won't even let you touch him to do no damage. And he does about 1,500 damage with each attack. Once more it's a game of stay away from the deadly maniac.

Oh, we're not done yet. Much later in the game, you attempt to attack the Ten Wise Men's home base. After sending out some machines to deal with you, a few of their members will take the challenge. I think there are three of them in this fight. You already know how this one goes. Though, I can't remember if you were doing no damage or if the story just decides that you couldn't win.

But it's not even done yet. After reaching the game's final Save point, you can return to a certain city and view a particular scene. If you do, the Final Boss becomes insanely strong. Yep, he'll be pretty much unbeatable. You can actually do some things to get better gear and level up, but it doesn't add anything other than a greater challenge. By the way, the maximum level in this game is 255, I think.

In the beginning of Zone Of The Enders 2, I knew I wasn't going to win. Granted, during the battle itself, I was able to hold my own, even whittle him down steadily. IT WAS WINNABLE! Until the cutscene. X_X

the end of ZoE 1 was kinda like that to, cept you can't kill him at all, but you HAVE to dodge, or you still get the game over x.x. though fighting him or dodging gets different reactions, so that was neat.

also, Demon's Souls :/ its beatable but you have to be an uber bad ass to do it, i ALMOST killed it, once, after that x.x smushed with in seconds

Yeah, but it really sucks that the unbeatable battle in Zone of the Enders came at the end of the game. You spent all that time becoming powerful, but you still couldn't beat Anubis. Though, it did make beating Anubis senseless in Zone of the Enders 2 so satisfying.

 

[Nevyrmoore]

The first Deus Ex had you go up against Gunther in the park if you didn't stay to save your brother. You have to lose, and Paul ends up dead. And then you have to fight him again in Paris anyway. How irritating. Of course, you could stay and fight will Paul to save him...and you "die" there too.

It is actually possible to take out all the agents sent in to try and take out Paul. Done it a couple of times myself. Once you do, Paul heads out of the building and you get to go back to the park...to fight Gunther. Or not, if you decide to go quietly.

 

[SidingWithTheEnemy]

I don't like games where my choice, or freedom is being taken away. So I rather tend to forget those moments as quickly as possible.

BUT ONE event was actually fun:
In A Bards Tale you had to lose a fist fight against a stupid moron who wanted to impress his girlfriend because then he gave you the key or something. Since the Bard already was very pissed about it - it really really made me feel all warm inside.

 

[Uzbekistan]

Final Fantasy 2. You start off facing against four (at the time) really high level mons. You can't do any damage to them, and they kill you instantly.

Then there's also the boss battle with Leon in Kingdom Hearts. You can win it, but its nigh impossible to do so and you get the same ending animation no matter what.

Also, in one of the Ace Attorney series (I can't remember which one) you have to present a make or break piece of evidence but the first few lines ARE EXACTLY THE SAME. Soooo many resets.

 

[Atmos Duality]

The first Tales of Symphonia, the first time you run into Ygndr... whatever the Final Bosses name was. Dragged the fight out for over an hour and used 90% of my items before I finally died and found out it was a supposed to lose. I felt better though when I beat him in the real fight severely under leveled

Lord Yggdrasil aka

Spoiler

Mithos

.

Before him, it was

Spoiler

Kratos, who suddenly gained about 45 levels and 10000 HP in the span of 10 seconds

, but you *could* beat him...on your second playthrough. Didn't change much, obviously since Mr Y is in God Mode for the first time you fight him.

 

[2HF]

The only time I've ever come across this it was on FFX. It was so long ago I can't really remember what it was... I remember I was fighting this big boss type character who ambushed me and as the battle progressed you either got pushed backwards or pushed the boss backwards depending on how you were doing. I got him pushed back pretty far until it wouldn't go any further. Then I started losing and got pushed off the edge in to some ravine, which it turns out I was supposed to go. I was really confused and annoyed with it at the time because the idea of being supposed to lose never even crossed my mind, and I was actually pretty pleased with how well I was doing in the battle early on. I have never played any other battle like that since. I guess it's because I don't really play JRPGs any more. Never did much to begin with anyway, but you get the idea.

You're not supposed to lose to the Chocobo Eater. You can, but you're not supposed to. Defeating it by draining all its HP earns a certain item and knocking it off the cliff is rewarded with an even better one.

 

[FilipJPhry]

Metal Gear 3 when you "fight" the Sorrow. I had no idea what to do. Was stuck there for a long ass time until I remembered to feign death.