Flawless Victory

Johnny Cage wins!

You win! Perfect!

—Announcer, Street Fighter II

In Fighting Games, if you manage to defeat an opponent without taking any damage yourself, you'll get a caption to appear on the screen, acknowledging your awesomeness.

Games that bother with points will usually give you points for it, but it's not necessary. After all, even having it acknowledged is something of a Bragging Rights Reward.

In Fighting Games that have you scoring points for finishing a round, earning a Flawless Victory earns you the most points, and may be a requirement for a specific bonus boss fight. In Mortal Kombat, earning a Double Flawless Victory and executing your Fatality in the Pit stage without using a Block is necessary for unlocking the bonus battle with then-secret character Reptile, and in certain versions (most notably, the PC one) shadows had to be flying past on the background, which was quite uncommon.

Cherry Tapping can make the victory both flawless and humiliating. See No Casualties Run for the strategy game equivalent. A No Damage Run is what happens when you manage to make every battle a Flawless Victory.

Examples of Flawless Victory include:

• Mortal Kombat is the Trope Namer.
• Street Fighter II rewarded you by giving you extra points on the end-of-round bonus. This carried into Street Fighter 3, with the announcer yelling "All right, that's cool!" The Marvel/Tatsunoko vs. Capcom games had "Perfect".
• Pocket Fighter
• Primal Rage uses the phrase "TOTAL DOMINATION!"
• Intelligent Qube (also known as Kurushi) has "PERRRRRRRRRRRRRRFECT" for when you complete a stage in the alloted number of 'steps' and "EEEEEEXCELLENT" for when you do it in fewer 'steps'. You have to get these or you'll lose your back row. Which is quickly lethal.
• King of Fighters has had it since '94. "PERFECT!" Thing is, because the KOF series is a team-based fighter, you can knock your opponent to a tiny percentage of health, lose the round, then take them out in two hits with your next character and still get a Perfect bonus. This is why "Straight" (defeating the entire enemy team with one character) gives a higher bonus than "Perfect".
• Games such as the Super Smash Bros. series, and even non-Fighting Games like Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games, will occasionally have a reward for winning a match with a perfect. Super Smash Bros. Melee in particular required you to never take a hit in an entire game to get one bonus.
  • Forget that, there was an achievement for never taking any damage and never attacking anyone. Good thing they were only For the Lulz.
    • And there's a trophy for getting every award in the game at least once, including those.
• In the more recent Yu-Gi-Oh! video games, you get more duel points for winning without taking damage.
• One Dragon Ball Z game also gave you more points for a perfect win. This was not turned for the Single-Stroke Battle mode.
• Fahrenheit (2005 video game) displayed "GREAT!" caption when you won the action minigames.
• Soul Calibur gives you extra gold in story mode for getting perfects, as well as, in some trials in IV, giving hidden items for fulfilling a certain criteria.
  • Even when the opponent has 0% health. Also odd is it happens when you have full health at the end, not from not getting hit (so regenerating from damage does give you it, but entering battle with less than full health doesn't let you get it even if you aren't hit)
• Tekken has "Perfect!" It also inverts it with "Excellent!" (or "Great!"), which you get by winning with 5% health or less.
• If one team kills all members of another in Team Fortress 2 during an Arena round, without anyone on their own team dying, the scoreboard is headed with: "Flawless Victory!"
  • It's also inverted for the losing team, who receives the message "Flawless Defeat!"
    • "You didn't kill any of them!"
  • There's also an achievement for defending certain levels and not letting the offensive team get any capture points. Fairly hard to do, but oh so satisfying.
• In the Tales (series), falling between fighters and RPGs, you get crazy bonuses to your Grade if you end a fight without any of your party members being damaged.
• Killer Instinct had a special subtitle if you won a match without losing a single round ("Supreme Victory", or "Awesome Victory" if you finish the match with a Fatality or Humiliation) and had the standard "Perfect!" if you won without taking any damage.
• In Mischief Makers, beating a boss without taking damage is the way to get that stage's Gold Gem.
• The Dead or Alive games will have the announcer shout "GREAT!" while the same word displays on the screen if you avoid getting hit during a round. If you avoid getting hit in both rounds of a match, the second round will have "GREATEST!" instead.
• Bemani games often have some form of this, usually with one for a Full Combo (hitting every note with a satisfactory judgment) and a perfect run:
  • In Beatmania IIDX from 10th Style onwards, if you clear a song hitting every note with a GOOD judgment or better, the judgment line will light upward and you'll get a "FULL COMBO" caption. The song will also be marked with a flashing "FULL COMBO" caption by your score record data on the song selection menu. If you hit every note with a GREAT or better, this is replaced with a gold "PERFECT", although the flash at the end of the song still only says "FULL COMBO".
  • Same with newer versions of Pop'n music, but with "NO BAD!", as well as "PERFECT!" if you get a perfect score.
  • In Dance Dance Revolution games starting with DDR X, getting a GREAT! or better on every step causes a green light-up effect at the end with "FULL COMBO" over it and a green circular mark; both the text and the mark are displayed next to your grade. Meanwhile, getting a PERFECT!! or MARVELOUS!! on every step nets you a "PERFECT FULL COMBO!" with a gold flash and a gold mark, and the announcer yells "Perfect Full Combo!" at the Results screen. Additionally, your combo is displayed in gold instead of the usual green if your combo has consisted of all PERFECT!! or MARVELOUS!! so far, and has a white glow for all MARVELOUS!!. Previous versions also had various recognitions of such feats:
    • Up through DDR 3rd Mix, the game would award a SSS grade for a Perfect Full Combo, and the announcer would say "Oh god! Oh god!" at the Results screen. A Full Combo earned you a or a SS or S depending on your ratio of Perfects.
    • 4th Mix changed this to a AA for a Perfect Full Combo and A for Full Combo.
    • 5th Mix changed it yet again to AAA and AA respectively.
    • DDRMAX (6th Mix) removed the Full Combo requirement for a AA, and the announcer quote for a AAA was changed to "Can I call you a dancing master?"
    • SuperNOVA had a white swirly effect under your grade for a Full Combo.
    • SuperNOVA 2 changed the requirement for a AAA to simply 99% of the maximum score, but added the "Perfect Full Combo!!" and gold mark, and a darker yellow mark for Full Combo.
  • In The Groove can have the following display next to your grade:
    • - "Full Fantastic Combo" with a trophy above it for getting every single step "Fantastic!"
    • - "One Excellent" with a flag above it for getting one "Excellent" and all the rest "Fantastic!"
    • - "Single Digit Excellents" with a plaque above it for getting 2-9 Excellents and all the rest Fantastic
    • - "Full Excellent Combo" with a plaque above it for getting every step Excellent or better
    • - "One Great" with a flag above it for getting one "Great" and all the rest Excellent or better
    • - "Single Digit Greats" with a ribbon above it for getting 2-9 Greats and all the rest Excellent or better
    • - "Full Great Combo" with a ribbon above it for getting every step Great or better
    • All of the above also require that you not drop any hold or roll arrows.
    • In addition, once you're 20% into the song, your combo will glow blue if you're getting all Fantastics, or gold if you're getting all Excellent or better.
  • Both Guitar Freaks and Drum Mania write "FULL COMBO" over your grade and give you a score bonus for hitting every note with a GOOD or better. A GREAT or better on every note earns you a SS, and all PERFECTs earn you a SS with "EXCELLENT" in place of the usual Full Combo text.
  • jubeat has the usual "FULL COMBO" acknowledgment for hitting every note, while hitting every note with perfect timing triggers a brief flashy animation that culminates in plastering "EXCELLENT" all over the results screen, which also replaces your grade.
• Tetris the Grand Master and its sequel: On getting the Grand Master rank, you get "YOU ARE GRAND MASTER!"
• In Cave Story, defeating the boss of the Waterway without taking damage will net you the Alien Badge.
• In Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia, defeating a boss without taking damage will reward you with a medal.
  • In Dracula X: Rondo of Blood (and the Dracula X Chronicles remake), if you defeat the boss with a full life bar, you get an extra life. Contrary to popular belief, you CAN take damage, as long as you get a meat/ice cream (depending on who you're playing as) before the end of the stage.
• In the Story Mode of Final Fantasy Dissidia, one of the potential DP bonuses (DP being what you use to move around the map and having more of it leading to bonuses) in certain fights is to clear the fight without taking any damage. This bonus is even called a "Flawless Victory."
  • There's also a milder version, "Flawless HP Victory", where you must not take any HP damage - you're allowed to take Bravery hits.
• In Muramasa: The Demon Blade, winning a battle without losing any HP will earn you a "Completely Unscathed" bonus, which grants you a small extra percentage of experience points.
• Pokémon Ranger grants this sort of bonus not only for not taking any damage during a Pokémon encounter, but also for capturing a Pokémon with an unbroken line (i.e. the Pokémon can't attempt to break the styler line by moving through it). Keep in mind that even if you get hit by an attack that does 0 damage due to damage reduction, you still lose the "No Damage" bonus.
  • Speaking of Pokémon, In Pokémon Stadium 1 and 2 if you defeat an opponent in the Stadium without any of your Pokémon fainting in battle, you get an extra continue. This is especially helpful if you lose to a later opponent.
    • Don't forget about Battle Revolution. Same thing. Only those are your only continues. Granted, you won't really need them if you brought your own, but still... You do get extra money for them.
• The Guitar Hero franchise, especially GHWT and beyond, award extra in-game cash for a perfect performance.
  • Most GH games give a gold star result (usually 5-star, although 4-gold-stars and 3-gold-stars are possible) for hitting all the gems. In GH 5, getting a full combo (No errors)^[1] gives you an extra star on top of what you have (which will ALWAYS be 5 stars) in addition to turning them gold.
• Rock Band has the "flawless" title that only appears when someone gets 100% (not necessarily a full combo). That game also has gold stars, but it's score based so you don't need a full combo for it (and can technically fail to get it even if you get a full combo).
  • What's worse on both of these is that the Drummer must use two different scoring strategies (or "Overdrive Paths") - one for single player, a different one for multiplayer. The difference? Every fill removes some notes from the chart, decreasing the possible combo. At the same time, a fill must be played (complete with the crash at the end) to activate Overdrive, and they'll keep appearing as long as you have 50% Overdrive without being in Overdrive. This means five drummers can get 100% notes hit, never break their combo, and have completely different note streaks on the same song.
• The Unreal series has this.
  • Winning a round of Onslaught, CTF, or Bombing Run in Unreal Tournament 2004 with no points scored by the other team gives this announcement. The inverse is called "Humilliating Defeat" in 2004. In the single player mode, it's an achievement.
  • Winning a Warfare round in Unreal Tournament III without taking any damage to your core gets the announcer to say this.
• BlazBlue has "Perfect!"
  • The game only checks if the winner has full health, not if he actually got hit or not. Thus, you can still get this bonus with Ragna even if you get hit, as Ragna can heal himself for an extremely small amount every time he hits with a some attacks (unless it's his Unlimited form). His HP Draining abilities are so weak though, you may as well have not gotten hit.
• Getting one in a Grandia game results in whoever delivered the last blow saying a different victory quote than normal, and in III, a slight recovery of everyone's SP.
• Many Shoot Em Ups will yield a "No Miss Bonus" for clearing a stage without dying.
  • In Touhou, if you drain a boss's spell card's corresponding section of the boss's Life Meter without losing lives or bombing, you get a Spell Card Bonus and the spell card is counted as "captured." However, if you're playing as the Marisa-Nitori team in Subterranean Animism, due to Nitori's bomb mechanic (which instead of clearing out bullets grants temporary invincibility for one hit) the condition is slightly different: you can still fire a bomb, as long as you don't get hit.
• At the end of each stage in Point Blank, you get a bonus equal to your shot accuracy * 1,000. If you don't miss a shot, you get an extra 1,000 points. Interestingly, you can get over 100% accuracy (as a result of shooting through a window to another target), but you only get the 1,000-point bonus if you don't miss; if your accuracy is , for instance, 150%, but you miss at all, your accuracy bonus will only be 1,500 instead of 2,500.
• In the DJMAX series (except for Trilogy and Technika), getting 100% judgments will yield an S grade. In Technika, this is accompanied by a "Perfect Play" graphic next to the song disc.
  • In Trilogy, your grade and the announcer's comments are based on your score (which is heavily influenced by your combo, which you inflate by spamming Fever). Which means if you get 100%, if you don't use Fever at all, it's still quite possible to get a D and some disparaging comments (What do you mean I am "the novice"?! I 100%'d this song, Jerkass!)
• Batman: Arkham Asylum awards a hefty points bonus for completing a fight challenge without the enemies landing a single hit on you.
• In the Inazuma Eleven series, winning an exhibition match in a complete shutout with at least 5 goals earns you an S rank. This is the only way to get an S -- if the other team scores even a single goal, the best you can do is an A rank (though thankfully you can replay exhibition matches as much as you please if you want the S).
• Apogee shareware fighter Xenophage. Not only will the announcer say "Perfect!" for a flawless victory, but when you are on the receiving end of one, he will call you "Pathetic!"
• Dragon Age has achievements for completing origin stories or the game without anyone dying in combat.
• Wave Race 64 rewards players finishing in first with no penalties for steering on the wrong side of the speed buoys with the the announcer screaming "Banzai!" as they cross the finish line.
• Gears of War 3 has the "I'm a Beast!" medal, which requires you to complete all 12 waves of Beast in a row without failing on each of the four difficulties.
• Both Devil Survivor games have two of these, one for winning without taking damage, and one for defeating all three opposing demons in one round. Both net you extra Macca (money).

Non Video Game Examples

• Comedian Dat Phan brings up this very phrase, joking on how he was at a urinal in a public restroom when a stranger approached and asked if he knew martial arts.

'Dat Phan: "I'm takin' a piss, man!"

• Real Life example: In the first battle of the Spanish-American War, Commodore Dewey managed to lead the U.S. Navy into defeating the entire Spanish fleet stationed in Manila Bay without a single American casualty.
• A Game Show example: Japanese game show Tokyo Friend Park 2 called it a "Grand Slam" and awarded a bonus prize of a trip to either Disneyland (California) or Disneyland Paris if the contestants pull off a perfect 5-for-5 record in the main game.
  • Also, in some of the individual games, a flawless victory can double the team's winnings for the round. For example, in "Quiz! Body and Brain", the team has to get 6 out of 10 questions correct to win. If they sweep the first 6 in a row, they get to continue playing and try to get the remaining 4 for a double win. Of particular note is "Flashsauraus", an arcade-like "stop the light" game where the player has to jump off a platform and hit the gigantic button with their feet. It's hard enough to get the requisite 3 out of 8 successes to win, but a perfect 8-out-of-8 run nets the team a triple win.
• Another game show example: On the Japanese quiz show Time Shock, a contestant who sweeps every question in a round is rewarded with a bonus prize, complete with Confetti Drop. In early days, this was an international vacation plus cash for a total value of 1 million yen; this was later changed to a flat-out 1 million yen in cash.
• Yet another Japanese quiz show example: On Panel Quiz Attack 25, all 4 players normally receive 10,000 yen per point at the end of the main game. But if a contestant pulls off the maximum possible win margin of 25 to 0 to 0 to 0, their winnings are doubled to 500,000 yen.
• Baseball's perfect game is a definite flawless victory.

1. ↑ An error is defined as any action that breaks your combo. For singers, it is any result that isn't "Excellent". For Instrumentalists, it's missing a note or playing the wrong one.