History Main / DiscOneFinalDungeon

* The ''Dragon Quest'' series:
** ''VideoGame/DragonQuestIII'' pulls this with Baramos's castle. Likely one of the first examples of this in role-playing games, and one of the most effective since you've already explored most of the known world up to that point.
** In ''VideoGame/DragonQuestVI'', you spend several hours trying to find Murdaw. Then you fight a FAKE Murdaw in the dream world. Returning to the dream world, you go through a cave and Murdaw's castle and defeat him. There are two worlds and you have covered around half the map in both of them. There's still a long way to go.
** ''VideoGame/DragonQuestVII'' is probably the epitome of the Disc-One Final Dungeon. If the game had been a single disc, you'd have no idea that Orgodemir's initial defeat was only the first half of the game. Unfortunately, there's still a whole other disc to go.

** ''VideoGame/DragonQuestIX'' has Gittingham Palace, which was actually fairly convincing as the final dungeon until TheManBehindTheMan made himself known.

*** After spending about sixty hours assembling your party, gathering the {{plot coupon}}s and doing some side quests, you go to confront Mordegon at Yggdrasil. He swats you aside and scatters the party, forcing you to assemble it all over again.

** ''VideoGame/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtlesTurtlesInTime'' for the UsefulNotes/SuperNintendo does this as well, with again, the Technodrome. You face off against two bosses subsequently, [[Film/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtlesIITheSecretOfTheOoze Tokka and Rahzar]] and the [[BigBad Shredder]] as an {{inverted|Trope}} BackgroundBoss. Seeing as the subtitle "Turtles in Time" is not an ArtifactTitle, there is still half the game left.

* A pretty minor example is present in ''VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountry2DiddysKongQuest.'' The last proper world of the game is K. Rool's Keep at the very top of the Kremling's Island-Mountain home. The final level of every world is the Boss Battle, with this one called "Stronghold Showdown" located on the highest level of the fortress. Diddy and Dixie walk into the room where the presumed battle will take place, find Donkey bound in ropes hanging from the ceiling, and awkwardly begin celebrating as they are awarded with a Kremcoin typically given AFTER beating a boss. DK is pulled up to the ceiling, the small Kongs shout in surprise and climb further up the Castle. A small cutscene shows a huge, crocodile airship flying over the Castle as K. Rool climbs up from the Keep on a rope ladder with DK in tow. The Kongs have to go through one more level (apparently a portion of the seemingly massive rope ladder that has been twisted and bundled up like a power cord into a race track for birds) before they can fight K. Rool. The UsefulNotes/GameBoyAdvance version features a short dialog with K. Rool before he escapes and summons a firebreathing boss called Kerozene. Furthermore, there is a hidden world and a second, hidden boss battle with K. Rool that is accessible only after beating K. Rool the first time and obtaining every Kremcoin.

** ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBros1'': The first example in the series goes back all the way to the original game. Games of the time were usually a short sequence of levels that would repeat ad nauseam, with minor tweaks to increase difficulty along the way, so imagine the surprise of a gamer weaned on UsefulNotes/Atari2600 games who makes his way through world 1-4 only to discover that, not only did he ''not'' just rescue the princess, but there's a whole new set of levels to run through!

* The UsefulNotes/SegaGenesis shooting game ''VideoGame/TroubleShooter'' does this, even starting to roll the credits before going to the final level.

** ''[[VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog28Bit Sonic 2]]'': In the UsefulNotes/SegaMasterSystem and UsefulNotes/GameGear versions of the game, Sonic fights [[RobotMe Silver Sonic]] at the end of Scrambled Egg Zone. Whether or not Silver Sonic surrenders the sixth and final Chaos Emerald when he is defeated depends on whether or not Sonic has the other five in his inventory. If Sonic does, then he has one last world to complete; [[TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon Crystal Egg Zone]] (also resulting in the HappyEnding if Sonic completes it). If not, Sonic doesn't get to go to Crystal Egg Zone and the game ends on a sad note with Tails remaining Robotnik's prisoner.

*** Each expansion from ''A Realm Reborn'' onward concludes with a FinalBoss at the expansion's level cap, the Ultima Weapon and Lahabrea/Thancred in ''A Realm Reborn'', King Thorden and the Knights of the Round in ''Heavensward'', Shinryu/Zenos yae Galvus in ''Stormblood'', Emet-Selch[=/=]Hades in ''Shadowbringers'' and Meteion/The Endsinger and Zenos viator Galvus in ''Endwalker''. While many of the end game bosses after these encounters (like Extreme Primals and Alliance Raids) are technically {{Optional Boss}}es, the game's main scenario quest actually continues onward from this point, culminating in the lead up to the next expansion; Vishap at the Steps of Faith in ''A Realm Reborn'', The Griffin/Ilberd Feare in ''Heavensward'', The Ascian Elidibus[[note]]Posessing the body of Zenos[[/note]] in ''Stormblood'' and the Telophoroi Primal Lunar Ifrit in ''Shadowbringers'' are the ''actual'' final bosses of their respective expansions.

* ''VideoGame/JetForceGemini'': Mizar's Palace. It is there where the three main characters (plus Floyd after his HeelFaceTurn) reunite once their respective errands in the Tribals' solar system are completed, and where BigBad Mizar arrives. The grand confrontation occurs, and Lupus (the team's ''dog'') succesfully defeats Mizar...who then runs away and plans to reroute an asteroid to impact planet Earth out of revenge. Now the characters have to start TheGreatRepair to find the missing pieces of an ancient spaceship, reassemble it and catch up to Mizar to defeat him for good and find a way to prevent the Earth's doomsday. Bottom line, defeating Mizar for the first time only means 50% of the mission is complete!

* Almost any raid dungeon in ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' fits, thanks to how patches constantly add more throughout each expansion. At any given time the "current" raid is the Disc One Final Boss, you only get the expansion's final boss with the final content patch. A prominent example would be the first expansion's, ''Burning Crusade'', Black Temple. Illidan was built up as the expansion's focus and final boss, but Blizzard, new to creating expansion content, screwed up their pacing and didn't include enough raid content/released it too quickly. So they were forced to throw in the totally unexpected Sunwell Plateau in order to keep players engaged until the 2nd expansion was ready. Other prominent examples of "patch final dungeons" typically awarding the tier of raid gear just below the final raid of each expansion are the ancient Titan-forged city of Ulduar in ''Wrath of the Lich King'', the elemental plane of the Firelands in ''Cataclysm'', the resurgent mogu empire's ancient capital, the ''Throne of Thunder'' in ''Mists of Pandaria'', Blackrock Foundry, the blazing heart of the Iron Horde's war machine in ''Warlords of Draenor'', and the Demonic beachhead on Azeroth at the Tomb of Sargeras in ''Legion'', and the Eternal Palace of Queen Azshara of the Naga in ''Shadowlands''.

** ''VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiBowsersInsideStory'' has Bowser Castle and the Flab Zone, where you beat reach Bowser Castle and fight Fawful's minion, Midbus, as Bowser and reunite with Princess Peach inside Bowser's body as Mario & Luigi respectively, the two main goals of the game up to that point. After beating these areas, Fawful extracts Peach to awaken the Dark Star and blockades himself inside Peach's Castle, beginning the second half of the game.