Suppose you're playing a game (one that involves combat), and you then come up against a boss, one that you have no hope of defeating. So, of course, you lose the fight. (Let's assume that it's very obvious that you're meant to lose the fight.)

After the battle, instead of a game over, there is a cutscene in which you are shown to have easily defeated the boss, and that seems to proceed as though the fight had been an easy victory.

So, how would you feel if a game did this?

(Also, any games that actually do this at some point? Note that it only counts if the cutscene shows you having beaten the boss, not if some powerful friendly NPC comes and kills the boss for you.)

(The idea behind this topic comes from a common complaint about games that do the reverse; when you win a battle, but the cutscenes show you to have lost, basically.)

Depends on the details of the cutscene. If it starts from the end of the battle and then shows how the outcome was reversed, like the victor no longer paying attention and the defeated one managing to drag themselves back up for a stealth kill or the defeated one either intentionally or accidentally making use of some gimmick that snatches victory from the claws of defeat, makes sense. Otherwise, it's darn messed up. In either scenario.
What makes the reversing defeat scenario better is that you don't have to struggle to win first.

Yea if it was scripted with a good explanation, then i'd be ok with it.

If it had no explanation really or was there just to cheaply 'subvert expectation', it would be ass.

Either way it seems like lame story telling.

It's perfectly fine if the game is a Narcisist protagonist RPG.

If there's no reasonable explanation - nightmare/dream sequence, friendly NPC, allies join you, delusional protagonist, intermission that shows you reversing the battle - then I might feel annoyed enough to request a refund. I did get a refund on an iPhone game once for no reason other than that I really hated one specific plot quest, so it's not like it couldn't happen.

I'd think the game was bugged.

I'm pretty sure this happens in a few games I've played. Handwaved as simulators, or whatever may be.

I don't remember the names of the games, but I'm sure this has happened to me at least once. However, I don't think I've ever played a game where the cutscene actually shows that you're victorious, since you actually lost. I honestly hate it when a game does this, especially when I have the tendency to restart the fight when my character's health is already too low and that I see no chance of winning, simply because I wish to not waste my time on the game over screen. Therefore it just sucks when it turns out that you're actually supposed to lose for the story to continue or something like that.

This can only happen if your health actually gets low during the battle. Some of the games I've played with "supposed to lose" battles have the boss kill you outright before your HP gets that low.

(Also, in some games, resetting can take longer than the game over screen, especially if the game over screen is short and the game takes a while to boot, or if save points are relatively scarce.)

Except, it's not "reverse". It would be a reverse if, as you said above, NPC would come to your rescue or your character pulled some trick to defeat the boss. Because I don't know any cases when you win a battle but cutscenes show you have lost. However, I know a few cases when you win a battle and AFTER THAT you have a cut scene where the boss character pulls some dirty trick on you and ultimately wins.

This can happen if the developers didn't expect the battle to be winnable, but the player somehow managed to win the battle. (This isn't the only possible behavior. In some versions of Final Fantasy 2, for example, using cheats to win the opening battle may cause the game to crash, which on the GBA results in a restart.)

Lufia 2 has a boss that's winnable, and if you win, there's a bit of extra dialog and you get a nice weapon, but the game then otherwise continues as though you had lost the battle. Lufia: The Legend Returns does this multiple times. (Worth noting that, at least in TLR (not sure about the Lufia 2 example), the items are treated as blue chest items in case you decide to explore the Ancient Cave.)

None of this is about broken games, actually.

The FF2 example involves the player using cheats. Without cheats, there's no way for any of your characters to do any damage, and the enemies will kill you in one hit. Since it's the first battle, there's no chance to get any stronger or get any tools that would allow you to win that battle. (Worth noting that, once you get past this, the game *does* make it possible to get the tools to win difficult battles. For example, an early town has guards blocking the buildings; you can kill them, but they'll just remain there as though nothing happened. (Good way to get some powerful items early, however.))

The Lufia 2/TLR examples are, I believe, cases where they deliberately made it possible, but difficult, to win, particularly since there's even unique dialog and a special reward.

Then again, apparently in Dragon Warrior 3, there's a cutscene battle in which a certain character dies in combat with some powerful enemy. If that character wins, there's some dialog to handle that case, but I believe it's mathematically impossible for that to happen.

I would assume its a glitch in the game.

I do think scripted fights are a bygone era now. You can have battles that are incredibly hard that you arnt meant to win but if you have a New game + feature or are skillful enough, you can win (Kingdom Hearts did this well in 1). Even then, if you lose, unless there is a cutscene immediately after, I assume its game over and time to either try again or to grind to see if Im missing something.

To suddenly get a win of all things seems off.

And yet, you said that down the line in the story it's said that you lost. This kind of inconsistency is a clear bug, not a feature.

And? You are supposed to lose the battle anyway. If you use cheat to win instead of losing - you are breaking the game. That's no different than no-clipping code that allowes you to go somewhere you shouldn't be without talking to some NPC of finding important item that you are supposed to have when you reach certain point of the story.