Eleventh Hour Superpower / Video Games

11th-Hour Superpowers in Video Games.

---

• In Age of Mythology, the ever-withholding Zeus finally hands down a blessing to Arkantos that makes him a demigod in, yes, the Final Boss scenario. Seems a lot more could have been accomplished by doing this earlier. Comes with free strange godly garb and echoey voice.
• ANNO: Mutationem: Ann awakens her Super Mode skill after being struck by The Worf Effect during her first battle against Absalom, which gives her rapidly regenerating health that makes her effectively invincible, swords that are far more powerful than any of her normal weapons, and vastly increased stats that will utterly wipe the floor with normal enemies or deal severe damage to bosses.
• Army Men II has a special infinite ammo bazooka that can be found on the last level.
• Assassin's Creed:
  • In Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood you get the Apple of Eden, basically the tool of God, late in the game. Besides counterkilling, which only kills one person at a time, it also has a special attack in the form of an "Instant Death" Radius and a wider, second radius that makes those within kill each other or kneel before you. With the Apple, you destroy the armies of main villain Cesare Borgia and get him arrested for his crimes.
  • In Assassin's Creed: Revelations, the final Altair level has a 93-year old Altair use the Apple of Eden to fight the Mongol Horde sacking Masyaf. Unlike Ezio, the Apple is not Cast from Hit Points. Also, near the end of the game, Ezio leads the Assassins on an all-out assault upon the Arsenal. During the assault, he has infinite Assassin Signals, meaning that he can call upon assassins to rain down arrows as many times as he wants.
• Asura's Wrath has three. The first one is at the end of Act 2 Episode 12, where Asura turns into Berserker Asura, where he gains massive glowing arms and can shoot down an entire space fleet with no effort, and it's never used again afterwards. The second time happens in Act 3, Episode 18, and it is a really extreme example of this trope, Asura gets powered up by Mithra's prayer combined with her mother's guidance. He gains not 4, not 6, but over 100 pairs of arms that fuse into humongous gauntlets called Mantra Asura for the final battle with Gohma Vlitra. The final and most extreme one is at the beginning of Act 4, Episode 22, where Asura uses the newly-implanted Karma Fortress Reactor to absorb the massive planet-killing beam fired by Chakravartin, growing larger than the planet Gaea itself and gaining six humongous gauntlets known as Asura the Destructor or Six-Armed Mantra Asura. Notably, while this form does allow him to match and overpower Chakravartin, the enemy god manages to destroy all those arms by the time he goes One-Winged Angel and obstinately bringing Asura back down to just base form...but Asura has gotten so pissed off his power still surpasses Chakravartin even without any fancy abilities.
• In Aquaria, the 11th-Hour Superpower was the character's final form, given just before the final boss: although, just as you were finally getting used to having a power that could kill nearly anything on screen, it was taken away after the first form of the final boss, until the LAST form, leaving you to have to figure out other methods for those in between. Interesting in that you can stop the boss fight between the second and third forms and go off to do other stuff - but Celia apparently doesn't feel like stopping time anywhere else.
• In Autumn Dynasty from Touch Dimensions, the last level has a large army coming for you but the level becomes one of the easiest in the game. You have finally deciphered the secrets of gunpowder and cannon making. So now you are given the power to bombard almost anywhere on the map. Enemy forces struck by a cannon blast take heavy casualties allowing you to sit back and just blast the enemy out of existence.
• The battering ram from Bastion, although due to its limited range and slow attack speed, you might wish you could just use your normal weapons instead.
• Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg gives you the ''Light Ball' (which apprently stems from the Courage Emblems you've been collecting), and allows Billy to turn the Shadow Balls that Dark Raven shoots at him into 'Light Balls', which can be used like regular eggs, and is the only thing that can make Dark Raven vulnerable to damage.
• The Binding of Isaac:
  • Wrath of the Lamb's Very Definitely Final Dungeon starts you off with a room containing four locked chests. Better have four keys ready, because these chests are programmed to give you items normally found in the Treasure Room. And there's a pretty decent chance that one of these items will guarantee your survival.
  • The True Final Boss of Repentance silently gives the player an item after the boss right before it called Dogma. This gives flight, a Holy Mantle shield to block one hit, a slight stat boost, and it heals health/adds soul hearts up to six total hearts if the player character has less than that. This is to act as a breather for what is essentially two difficult bosses back-to-back, and the flight is all-but mandatory since the fight is a side-scroller where all of the ground is magma. Dogma can only be obtained in-game otherwise by either using a special rerolling dice that rerolls items by their ID, or by using something that warps the player to a room with nearly every item in the game.
• BioForge: Near the end of the game, your character acquires the ability to fire a destructive beam out of his wrist.
• Just before the Final Boss of Bionic Commando: Rearmed, you get the Bazooka upgrade, which allows you to freely control its shots. However, you can keep playing after beating the game and use this weapon everywhere else.
• BioShock:
  • Late in the penultimate level of BioShock 2, you get the final plasmid, which is rightfully described as "It's Bring Your Daughter to Work Day". You're the strongest and most powerful thing in all of Rapture, and Eleanor is just like Daddy. Together, you can just plow through about everything the city has to throw at you.
  • The Gatherer's Garden in the final level has the Telekinesis 3 plasmid upgrade, which allows Delta to pick up and throw live splicers at each other.
• In BioShock Infinite, your Eleventh Hour Superpower comes in the form of being able to control Songbird, just in time for the final battle. It proves to be extremely effective, being able to down gunships and large areas of enemies with ease.
• In Blades of Time, you get access to Ayumi's Dragon Form, which enhances her dmg and attacks dramatically... Only for the final fight, and it doesn't carry over to a new game.
• In Blaster Master Zero, if you've fulfilled the conditions to enter The Very Definitely Final Dungeon, your SOPHIA III will be replaced with the SOPHIA ZERO. All of the ZERO's weapons and sub-weapons have improved attack power, and their charged attacks can be fired instantly, as long as it has enough energy to do so (except for the Acceleration Cannon, which instead has its charge time cut in half), and it is immune to the blasting damage from the Cannon Shot's explosions.
  • Happens again in Blaster Master Zero 2. This time though, it's Eve who gets one, and for the most of the last area you're playing as Eve to rescue Jason with her new ability to purify mutants and a different vehicle.
• In BlazBlue: Continuum Shift, the Arcade Mode's final battle is against Hazama/Terumi. As Ragna, you get Blood Kain always-on without its life-loss effects.
  • Ragna's Azure Grimoire (the source of said powerup) in general. It's permanently grafted into his arm, but he seldom uses it. It's seen in action only in the aforementioned Terumi battle, his final battle with Unlimited Hakumen and Nu in Calamity Trigger's true ending, and as a probably non-canon Optional Boss in Calamity Trigger arcade mode. Why he dislikes using it is yet to be revealed.
    • Continuum Shift's story mode reveals why: Ragna's Grimoire is actually what's left of the Black Beast. In his Bad Ending, its power consumes Ragna and turns him into another Black Beast that has to be put down by Jubei and Rachel.
  • A villainous example occurs at the finale of Central Fiction with Yuuki Terumi killing Hakumen and taking over the Susano'o Unit that his soul occupied. The twist is that said Unit is the body of the Japanese God of Storms Susanoo...and it originally belonged to Terumi. He then proceeds to use the Unit's full power (Hakumen at his best only used up to 40% during the events of the series) and demolishes five of the strongest characters in the franchise without breaking a metaphorical sweat. It's pretty clear that he was only allowed to do this then because the plot would have been over in minutes any time earlier.
• In BoxxyQuest: The Gathering Storm, Catie draws on Virtua’s power as a last resort, just before her final climactic duel with Boxxyfan. This fully maxes out her HP and RP at 9999, and upgrades Hollow Wave into Hallow Wave, an even stronger version of the skill that doesn’t require Catie to sacrifice herself upon use.
• In the Wii version of A Boy and His Blob, you get the Instant Awesome: Just Add Mecha! jellybean right after Blob is brought back to life via the boy's Swiss-Army Tears. Because you can easily trample over all enemies with it, you only use it in the last two levels.
• At the end of Chelsea's part in Bunny Must Die, Chelsea fights Dechronos's second form. The player then starts playing as Bunny wearing a new gold bunny suit, which makes her automatically parry any attack and gives an ability to throw big fragging swords.
• At the very end of Card Shark, the player learns a trick called The Expert Dealer, which gives them complete control over the aces in the deck, letting them guarantee a particular player wins any given hand. The trick is used during the final game with Louis XV, which determines the ending you get.
• Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia gives you a glyph that allows unlimited flight... halfway through the final area. To be fair, you can use it in one of the bonus dungeons. The one that's entirely focused on combat.
  • You also get three Dominus glyphs throughout the first half of the game, but using them together automatically kills you until the very end of the game where the combination is required to defeat the final boss.
• Chaos Rings:
  • Chaos Rings II gives the main character his level 3 Awakening, Godslayer, in the middle of the True Final Boss. You get to keep it for the Playable Epilogue and Superboss fights.
  • In Chaos Rings III, the True Incarnatus — a glowing giant with extremely high stats that acts as a replacement for the entire party and can use all of the active members' abilities — can only be used against the final bosses. While the final final boss is more or less a Cutscene Boss, the one preceding it is tough enough that it's still a struggle to beat it even as the True Incarnatus.
• In Chorus, Nara and Forsa merge into the One during the final phase of the Final Boss fight with the Great Prophet. Their minds become as one and their power becomes immeasurable. Forsa's hull is covered in glowing blue lines and flames, his weapons are replaced by rapid-fire energy blasts that tear through any small ship, and his Rite of the Stars becomes so powerful he can smash through battleships in seconds.
• In The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay, after spending the entire game using stealth and the occasional small-arms shootout to make your way through the prison, the final level grants you access to a giant, heavily armored walking tank.
• Chrono Cross: The eponymous "Chrono Cross" is actually an optional Element you can only get near the end of the game. Although it does refill your used Elements under certain circumstances, its main use is to get the good ending when used against the final boss, which also completely bypasses the final boss fight. It's also used in a special spot to combine party members from other saves.
• City of Villains has one for each character class in the Barracuda Strike Force. The 5th Column's leader, Reichsman, is completely and utterly invincible thanks to the effects of a machine that takes energy from others and siphons it into him. The heroes defeat him in the Dr. Kahn Task Force by making a gun to nullify the effects of the machine. The villains instead round up the four Arachnos Patrons by lying to Lord Recluse, throw them in there, and siphon the power of the Patrons themselves into the team so they can stand against and strike down Reichsman. In addition to defense and damage buffs, Brutes gain an immunity to the effect that causes Reichsman to be near lethal in close-quarters combat, Corruptors get the ability to summon devils, Dominators get the ability to keep the entire room bar the team and Reichsman still, Stalkers get access to the swith that kills all of Reichsman's minions, and Masterminds can switch off Reichsman's invincibility. If you lack any of them, you're in for a tough fight.
• COGEN: Sword of Rewind: Just before you enter the final stage, Kohaku powers up by Fusing with Akasha in order to take on the final boss. This gives you infinite air dash and the ability to fire homing Sword Beams with normal attacks.
• Condemned 2: Bloodshot has The Voice, which lets you explode the heads of your enemies along with disabling their brain-damage-causing emanations long enough for you to apply the beatdown.
• Crysis:
  • In the final level, your suit gains the (plot-dependent) ability to short out the alien drones, and you get a nuclear grenade launcher, both expressly for the purpose of taking down the final boss. You're not even allowed to use the cannon on anything else. It is available in Multi-player as a Doomsday Weapon, though.
  • The Expansion Pack Crysis Warhead lets you grab an absolutely overpowered plasma rifle that can one shot a heavy tank, something nothing else can do except the demo charges. However, it's not required to kill the final boss (since the thing is vulnerable to other weapons), but it makes killing it both easier (because of its ridiculously high firepower) and harder (very limited range, it's not a sniper rifle), as well as extremely fun.
  • In Crysis 2, the last 3 levels have most of the MIKE maser guns found in the game, which is good news considering the fact that every alien in Manhattan is out to get you as you're heading straight for their HQ. The suit also gains the ability to re-purpose their supervirus into a weapon against them, which is how you win.
• In Crystalis, only seconds before the final boss do you merge your elemental swords together into the eponymous blade, which, amongst having the attack power needed to defeat the final boss, also allows you to shoot out giant orbs of power at any time, essentially turning the final boss into a shoot-em-up game.
• Dark Messiah:
  • While not introduced in the finale, but certainly in the protagonist's darkest hour, Sareth learns he is the titular Dark Messiah, and the son of what is essentially the deity of evil. His darkest hour? He was impaled on a spike by Arantir. His son-of-a-god revelation brings him back from the dead.
  • Also at this point, Xana, the succubus living in his head for most of the game, grants him a temporary demon form which deals mass amounts of damage and moves extremely fast. Very useful considering you have to get back all of your equipment.
• In the final part of The Darkness, an attack on the Big Bad's mansion takes place during a solar eclipse which massively augments your darkness-based powers. Might not sound all that impressive until you actually see what you're capable of (which is mostly made up of cutscenes that showcase your newfound power). Darklings, goblin-like minions spawned in small numbers to help you out, are spawning of their own accord by the dozen and swarm all over the place. The Black Hole ability, which...well...creates small black holes, is powerful enough to rip walls to pieces and pull in enemies from dozens of metres away. The Darkness Shield, which protects you from attacks, is strong enough to withstand a minigun barrage from a helicopter gunship. The Demon Arm, a spiked tendril used to impale enemies and throw them about, is used by the protagonist to pluck said gunship out of the sky and smash it to pieces. The only ability that doesn't demonstrate any obvious increase in power is Creeping Dark, a wall-crawling demon head used to scout distant areas and attack from safety, but it still puts the fear of God into the mooks you're fighting to the point where one of them throws himself through an upper-story window to escape from it.
• Dawn of War:
  • Dawn Of War II has the final mission against the Tyranids. You start with your four squads as usual while your strike cruiser is attacking the hive fleet in orbit. When the Armageddon is too heavily damaged, your other two squads come in via emergency drop-pod. Then Gabriel Angelos shows up, and helps you fight the final boss. Who has a damage shield. Good thing Gabriel comes with an ability that destroys shields and one that makes all squads invulnerable.
  • In Retribution, the final battle against Azariah Kyras gives you a free orbital bombardment to take him out.
• Death Road to Canada has a rather downplayed one that can still make a big difference. Characters with high morale before the last big siege gain a point in dexterity (running speed) for the rest of the run. There aren't a lot of opportunities to increase this stat otherwise.
• At the end of Chapter 1 of Deltarune, the player faces off against the King. During this fight, Kris can attempt to talk to him; however, the King will end up refusing to listen. This causes powerful new abilities to take the place of the talk action. Courage appears if Kris talks alone, and grants the party a defense boost; Red Buster appears if Kris and Susie talk, and it enables Kris to power up Susie's Rude Buster spell; and Dual Heal appears if Kris and Ralsei talk, and it combines their powers to heal the entire party. These abilities are then missing for most of Chapter 2, until Red Buster and Dual Heal return during Queen's first fight.
• Demon's Souls, of all possible games, gives you this in the Shrine of Storms, to avoid forcing an effective game restart for any melee-focused character. Against the Storm King, the final boss of this world, make a dash for the abandoned Stormruler sword, and you'll be throwing Razor Wind around like so much candy. It's strong enough to be superior to the innate damage potential of most ranged or magical characters, making it a weapon of choice for them as well, and to avoid balance issues, it loses most of its power outside of the Storm King's domain. Not, of course, that an Infinity +1 Sword will make this boss easy... it's still not that kind of game.
• In Deus Ex: Human Revolution, the Plasma Rifle is only received after fighting the second-to-last boss. At which point there's an Unexpected Gameplay Change, and the weapon becomes almost useless, since you don't really have any heavy enemies to fight. It may become useful again when facing the Final Boss, though.
• Devil May Cry:
  • In the first game, the Sparda Devil Trigger and its abilities are only usable in the two-part fight against Mundus and nowhere else (without cheating the game using tools, of course). And even if the game lets you start a New Game Plus playthrough with the Sparda sword, you'll have to wait until said Mundus fight in the near-end to access its Devil Trigger again.
  • In Devil May Cry 5, Nero unlocks his own Devil Trigger form while racing to intervene between Dante and Vergil killing each other during the penultimate mission. You then get to put this new power to the test in the final mission as Vergil challenges Nero, helped by a self-regenerating Devil Trigger meter and the return of the Devil Bringer and its "Buster" grab. On repeat playthroughs, Nero not only gets to keep his Devil Trigger and Devil Bringer abilities (meaning he has access to all the tools he lost from Devil May Cry 4) but you still get to use all the Devil Breaker features as well (via the ability to dissipate his new human-looking arm back into energy, letting him reattach Devil Breakers to his stump), giving Nero a huge upgrade to his gameplay for New Game Plus.
• Right before the final confrontation in Divinity: Original Sin II, your allies will appear and pray for your success. Their prayers impart a powerful blessing upon your party that grants them unlimited Source.
• In the very last event of Dragalia Lost, "Advent of the Origin", Euden, Zethia, and friends are fighting a losing battle against True Bahamut. All hope seems lost, but Euden is still not going to give up. This ultimate resistance to back down and willingness to fight regardless of the odds is what awakens his Bondforged Form. This also awakens a Bondforged Form for Zethia, after she becomes willing to fight alongside her brother no matter what. With their new forms, not only do Euden and Zethia use to defeat Bahamut, but use them in the final chapter to defeat Xenos.
• In Dragon Age: Origins, you gain the ability to call upon reinforcements during the siege of Denerim. It helps even the odds in the Final Battle, since the Final Boss is summoning its own reinforcements too. In Awakening, you can activate Tevinter Towers in the final dungeon that will grant you several one shot combat abilities such as mass healing, mass stun, and a damaging fire blast that are only available during the Final Battle. Siding with the Architect will also grant you an even more powerful fire attack aptly named "Cataclysm".
• Drakengard has a strange example of this for its Final Boss fight. The Queen Beast of the Grotesqueries begins to sing once it arrives in Tokyo, of "light and dark, good and evil." The mission is to silence its song. To do this, you emit the song back at the monstrosity so that the two cancel each other out. While being deeply symbolic of the protagonist's embodiment of humanity as a whole, it is impossible to describe how this conflict would take place in any world other than that of Platonic Forms or similar realms of higher existence. The symbolism is the reality, which leaves one clawing out their own eyes wondering where the reality is.
  • Although it becomes clearer when other Yoko Taro games' lore, like Nier. Caim, Angelus and the Queen-Beast really did end up in 2003 Tokyo.
• Played with in Driver: San Francisco. Most of the game takes place in Tanner's coma dream, which allows him to shift into any car on the road. In the penultimate chase, shifting is replaced with the ability to throw cars at Jericho. However, the final chase takes place in reality, after Tanner wakes up; all of his abilities like shifting and boosting are taken away, making you rely on pure driving skills.
• In Duel Savior Destiny, this happens multiple times by use of differing forms of various characters, but the most obvious of these is the one that takes place right before the final boss, where Taiga transforms into Super Taiga, which in terms of gameplay is Taiga with far better range, slightly better speed and damage, and the ability to autoblock like bosses do. In terms of story, he's actually more powerful than God.
• EarthBound Series:
  • In EarthBound Beginnings, the final boss is toppled by singing a song comprised of the 8 melodies collected during the game. The player receives the actual song prior to entering the final boss battle.
  • EarthBound's final boss was killed in a similar manner, where a character prays several times, using an ability that up to that point was almost useless. The only thing that prevents this from being a complete Guide Dang It! is that Porky hints that you should use the command.
    Porky: I know you have telepathy, or something. So just try and call for help, you pathetic so called heroes of justice!
  • Ness gets a MASSIVE stat boost at the end of the Magicant level, and Poo automatically learns PK Starstorm Omega upon entering The Very Definitely Final Dungeon.
  • In Mother 3, you get PK Love Ω for pulling the sixth needle. There are seven needles.
• The Elder Scrolls:
  • During the course of the Morrowind main quest, an event occurs which grants you Ideal Illness Immunity. Given that the setting is positively rife with Common and Blight diseases which lower your attributes and hinder progress, this is an extremely helpful power to gain.
  • Oblivion inverts this: Martin who is the only one who can fix the Oblivion Crisis has spent the whole game tagged as Quest-Essential, meaning he can't be killed. In the last two missions of the main quest (the Great Gate and the Seige on the Imperial City), he looses that tag meaning he can be killed, which gives you a game over. And seeing as friendly NPC's tend to have suicidal tactics...
  • Skyrim gives you the "Dragon Rend" shout, which makes dragon killing a LOT easier and is received towards the end of the main quest line. Bonus points as you often find or are taught shouts throughout the main quest line and receive Dragon Rend because you are actively trying to find out how Alduin was beaten last time.
• Etrian Odyssey:
  • Etrian Odyssey Untold: The Millennium Girl: In Story Mode, Kupala of the Forest Folk pulls a Heroic Sacrifice in order for the party to have their weapons become strong enough to defeat the final boss. That said, it does not make the boss easy for the unprepared.
  • Etrian Odyssey 2 Untold: The Fafnir Knight: At the climax of Story Mode, the protagonist uses the Holy Grail to become strong enough to beat the final boss on his own.
• Eternal Darkness:
  • At the end of Sanity's Requiem, you have to defeat the main enemy, Pious the Lich, as well as the dark god that the player chose at the beginning of the game while playing as Pious. You, as Alex Roivas, defeat them by summoning the dark god that directly opposes the one Pious summons. To summon it, you have to place the proper runes in a nine-rune "Circle of Power" which happens to be the largest circle in the game, in terms of having the most runes, in addition to spanning an entire city.
  • Another Eleventh Hour Superpower is essentially an Infinity +1 Sword that can only be obtained by collecting and placing various figures at certain chapters throughout the game. Alex Roivas collects it at the beginning of the final chapter. It's permanently enchanted, plus it can be thrown at enemies (making it an infinite-ammo ranged weapon, since it reappears in her hands shortly after).
• In Everquest II, this trope is in full force in the Vasty Deep: The Vestigal Cella zone. The boss of the zone can summon her elite guard, who can one-shot most people. If you burn her slowly, though, a dragon who you fought before will fly in and imbue you with the power of the seas, massively increasing your health and your damage to fight off the elite guard.
• In Fable, you get an Infinity +1 Sword — two variations with the different flavor but same function depending on alignment — at the end of the core story. It is pretty much guaranteed to be your main weapon throughout the short and brutal Lost Chapters.
• In Fahrenheit, Lucas Kane gains implausible martial arts skills just as he's being held up by several police officers. Granted, this happens at a point that's equivalent to the Disc-One Final Dungeon.
• In both Fairune 1 and 2. In 1 the Mamono/Monster Slayer sword is used to give Hope Girl wings, a tail and a Sword Beam to fight the boss with. In 2, the new Fairune Sword and Photon Blade give more elaborate forms, until the combined power of all three swords gives her something like an open top fighter jet.
• Fallout:
  • Fallout 3 has the Tesla Cannon from the Broken Steel DLC, an incredibly powerful shoulder-fired electric cannon that uses only one Electron Charge Pack, one of the most common ammo types, per shot. The earliest you can obtain it is at the final battle against the Enclave at Adams Air Force Base. Where it will be incredibly useful, given the insane number of Power Armor-wearing Enclave personnel there. And unlike "Take It Back!" from the core game, you have to fight them by yourself, with no Liberty Prime or Lyons' Pride backing you up.
  • Likewise on of the more powerful armors in the game, the Tesla armor is only found after you are kidnapped by the Enclave, who also tend to carry high end and hard to find guns.
  • Fallout: New Vegas lets you get Legate Lanius's BFS the Blade of the East after killing him, but you can't use it for much since you're past the Point of No Return at this point and New Vegas has no Playable Epilogue. It works great on General Oliver and his Rangers in the Mr. House and Wild Card endings, though.
• In Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon, Rex gains the Killstar in the penultimate mission of the game. It's essentially the glaive from Krull if it fired a laser that insta-gibbed enemies. While it is Cast From Hitpoints, the drain is slow enough to be largely inconsequential. However, doing the mission that nets you it automatically puts you in the endgame, forcing you into the final mission.
• Final Fantasy:
  • Final Fantasy VII:
    • If by the very last battle you don't have the Limit Break Omnislash yet, you automatically get it, and it's the only command available. Unless you select 'Defend' or just sit there not choosing anything - then Sephiroth hits Cloud once, and Cloud counterattacks once, and the final cut scene plays as normal. Perhaps the coolest part about that battle is that, using the in-game explanation of Limit Break being the result of increasing anger, Cloud's limit break gauge slowly increases during the intro to the battle, showing him getting angrier and angrier until he devastates with Omni-Slash.
    • You can get Cloud's Infinity +1 Sword "Ultima Weapon'' before the end of Disk 2 fairly easily if you're smart about it. But on a first playthrough it's not unlikely that you triggered the second visit to Midgar by accident while you were flying around looking for the boss you need to fight to get it, at which point, you have no choice but to complete Disk 2. Once you begin Disk 3, all that's left to do with your fancy new sword is go and kill Sephiroth.
  • Dirge of Cerberus has Vincent Valentine transform into Chaos and pull his ultimate weapon, Death Penalty, out of thin air for the final level.
  • Final Fantasy VIII: You can draw a magic called Apocalypse from the final boss's final form once she casts it herself. This magic isn't available anywhere else in the game (hence you can't Junction it; hacking it shows that it works better than practically anything) but can be used for some major damage due to its massive spell power.
  • In Final Fantasy X, after beating the final forms of Braska's Final Aeon (Jecht), another series of battles starts up to eventually show the True Final Boss. Because the Fayth as a whole want this to happen, they aid you by giving your characters a permanent Auto-Life - the only way to die is to suicide by stoning.
  • In Final Fantasy XIV, the reworked version of the Porta Decumana fight against the Ultima Weapon ends with it charging up Ultima, a Total Party Kill if allowed to go off because the Big Good Hydaelyn doesn't have the strength to protect the Warrior of Light from it again. However the boss has enough health remaining that Ultima would cast before it can be defeated. Instead, Hydaelyn gives what power she has left directly to the Warrior, bestowing a massive damage increase buff and also allowing the party to use a level three Limit Break for the first time despite only having four players (normally the third Limit Break bar unlocks when eight players are in the party).
  • Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles does this with Ultracite. Only available during the very final boss, automatically casts Firaga, Blizzaga, Thundaga, Curaga, or a brief period of Invincibility.
  • Crystal Bearers does it too. When Big Bad Jegran goes One-Winged Angel, it inadvertently activates a Super Mode for Layle, which lets him sky surf as well as greatly increases his powers.
  • In Final Fantasy Legend II, your world's Crystal Dragon Jesus joins your party for the final dungeon. Her stats are completely maxed out and she's got the best attacks in the game. However, she leaves just before you fight the (very tough) final boss.
  • In Final Fantasy Legend III, the only way to actually damage Xagor is to have the 4 Mystic Swords; magic helps, but the swords are the only weapons that will actually deal physical damage to him.
• Fire Emblem:
  • While some games partially avert this by making some legendary weapons available early on, they still qualify by not making The Hero's available until the final few chapters. In addition, most games in the series feature a super-powerful recruit who only joins for the final chapter. This character archetype is so common that it's got a nickname among the Fire Emblem community: the "Gotoh", after its first example. Others include Karel from Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade, Athos from Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade, and two Laguz kings and a third's top general from Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance.
  • The Naga tome from Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War, as you get it nearly right before fighting the final boss, and it has 30 Might (though all holy weapons are that powerful) and adds a grand total of 80 points in stat bonuses (Most legendary weapons in 4 provide a total of 30 bonus stat points... while in other entries in the series, legendaries rarely provide over 5 bonus stat points) and negates the final boss's ability to halve attack power. It also summons a giant glowing dragon to attack.
  • A notable example is the titular "Binding Blade" in Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade, since it allows you to dominate the remaining chapter (chapters if you had all of the other legendary weapons) with almost complete ease. The only real problem with it is that only the main character can use it. Which wouldn't be a problem normally (Roy's a decent character), but Roy doesn't class change until he gets the sword. What this means is that you're going up against basically level 36 enemies with someone at max level 21. Oh, that and the whole only 20 uses thing.
  • Ragnell in Path of Radiance. It's only usable for two-and-a-half chapters (out of more than thirty) in the entire game, but it's by far the best usable sword, being one of only two Unbreakable Weapons in the entire game, with good attack power and a ranged attack to boot. It allows the main character — who's arguably the best playable character in the game even with normal weapons — to rip through enemy hordes damn near single-handedly, and is the only equippable weapon that can damage the final boss. Ragnell goes to plot-defying lengths to conform to this trope. Ike presumably gets Ragnell much earlier in the storyline, but it doesn't appear in-game until the 3rd-to-last chapter. Even then, the sword waits until the end of that chapter to magically appear in Ike's inventory, at which point it becomes vital to use.
  • The sequel, Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn, kicks this up another notch.
    • In one of the last five chapters, you obtain Alondite, Ragnell's counterpart, except that any sword user can equip it. You also get every laguz king except Dheginsea before those final five chapters. Add to that that after 2 chapters you can make a weapon unbreakable for every character, you get a lot of these this game. On a second playthrough on, you can get Lehran; look at his stats — the cap in general is 40 and he has that in FIVE STATS to start. Granted, Lehran takes more work than any character ever in any Fire Emblem game to unlock, but he will make the fight easier.
    • While it's only the 11th-Hour Superpower of Part 1 (of four), you also get the Black Knight, who literally cannot be killed by any enemy units, but he still has a death speech.
  • In Fire Emblem: Awakening, two chapters away from the end, Chrom's Falchion is upgraded to the Exalted Falchion, which is the most effective weapon to use against Grima.
  • Fire Emblem Fates:
    • Corrin gets more powerful versions of his/her Yato as the game progresses, but the 'final' upgrade always comes at the penultimate chapter, after Yato's current form fails to leave a scratch on the penultimate boss. Which form it takes depends on the route Corrin takes, (Shadow, Blazing, or Omega) but the form that truly embodies this trope is Omega Yato, only possible on the Revelations route after all five divine weapons are reunited, the most effective weapon against the final boss, and this game's Fire Emblem.
    • In the final chapter of the "Heirs of Fate" DLC, the two Kanas combine their Shadow and Blazing Yatos to turn them both into Omega Yatos to defeat Anankos.
• The final boss of Freshly-Picked Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland sees Tingle use all the rupees he has collected in the game to power himself up so he can fly and shoot rupees. If all the rupee goods have been collected in the game, another power up will also be activated, boosting Tingle's stats and turning his suit pink.
• The final level of Gears of War 2 puts you in the pilot seat of a 40-foot tall Brumak, bustling with machine guns and rocket launchers. Suffice it to say, from that point on everything that gets in your way dies really quickly.
• In God Hand, the player begins the game as Gene, having just had his dismembered arm replaced by the God Hand, an arm formerly belonging to a mythical fighter who originally defeated the Demon King Angra. Just before the player throws down against Angra himself, Azel, his rival, who possesses the aforementioned mythical warrior's other arm, dismembers himself and gives the extra arm to Gene before being possessed by Angra, enabling Gene to fight Angra with both of the original God Hands. During the fight, Angra will occasionally summon the demonform enemies that used to be full fledged minibosses in their own rights — you can now kill them with three moderately weak hits.) Finally, after that event, you learn (for the final fight only) the Double Shaolin technique. It's the most powerful attack in the entire game.
• Pandora's Box in God of War, and the Blade of Olympus in the sequel (although you could also use the Blade for a little while in the beginning of the game). Pandora's Box is interesting in that it doesn't actually make Kratos more powerful game-wise, but story-wise, it's what grants him the power to defeat Ares.
• Each class has a special skill available for the fight against Shiro Tagachi, final boss of Guild Wars: Factions. The skill temporarily replaces one of your other 8 skills, is lost when you enter a town or outpost, and is very good. Also, you're gonna need it.
  • At the start of the final mission of 'Path of Fire' the second expansion for Guild Wars 2, your ally Rytlock Brimstone gives you his Flaming Sword Sohothin, to wield against the forces of the rogue war god Balthazar. It's absurdly powerful, doing outrageous DPS to any enemy within your reach and possessing a pair of devastating super moves that take ages to cool down but will basically wipe out anything around you short of the mission bosses themselves. You have to give it back once you're done, of course.
• Gungrave: Overdose: In the final battle, your character is filled with so much rage that his appearance changes slightly (Beyond the Grave's eye glows completely white and his hair goes super-saiyan-ish, Rocketbilly suddenly becomes shirtless, and Jyuji wears Bunji's shades and the flame on his back turns blue). The demolition shot gauge then begins to regenerate and fill up on its own, which lets you use your D. Shots more frequently.
• In Hacknet, TraceKill.exe is this. As its name implies, it completely suppresses any active trace while running.
• Half-Life:
  • Half-Life 2: The Dark Energy Gravity Gun that appears in the penultimate level. Different only in that it's available for the last several levels instead of merely the final boss fight. It's also the only weapon you can use for these sections, requiring a bit of extra work; its range is still limited, but since it was rather good to begin with, and it now causes instant death of a bone-breaking, muscle-dislocating nature in all humanoid enemies (the only kind you'll face until the strider halfway through and the two gunships at the very end) and can rip bolted-down wall monitors with Breen on them ranting at you off the wall with a simple yank, this hardly matters. It is also very, very fun. Since Word of God says we won't ever see the Dark Energy Gravity Gun again, Episode Two gave us the Magnusson Device, which is an instant kill if mounted on a Strider and detonated.
  • Half-Life: Alyx: After entering the Vault, Alyx is able to absorb its residual Vortigaunt energy with her Gravity Gloves and release it to instantly kill enemies. Since she doesn't have her weapons at this point, this new ability (along with the occasional grenade) is the only thing she can use against the Combine soldiers trapped in the Vault with her.
  • Black Mesa gives some love to the Gluon gun from the original Half-Life during its late game. Within the alien factory featured in the penultimate chapter are green crystals that provide an infinite ammo source for Gordon's energy weapons. They allow for the powerful but ammo-intensive Gluon gun to be used indefinitely provided you stay in their vicinity, leveling the playing field against the overwhelming number of Alien Controllers in the factory.
• Halo 3's final confrontation gives you an infinite-ammo Spartan Laser for use on the final enemy. Its infinite ammo drastically sets it apart from the previous Spartan Laser you used in a previous mission, who's ammunition was so limited that it made the weapon Awesome, but Impractical.
• A Hat in Time has a rather morbid version in the final boss, where the various characters decide to start killing one another to drop health powerups for Hat Kid on the basis that defeating Mustache Girl will reset the timeline. This effectively renders Hat Girl invulnerable for the final phase.
• In Homeworld Cataclysm, the manual says something easily forgettable about your fighter designs (which were traded to you) having their original weaponry replaced by standard guns, as the designs didn't work. In the last mission, you get the corrected plans — and find out that your standard fighters now use ion cannons, which are usually mounted on capital ships.
  • In Homeworld 2, the penultimate mission has you trade in your iconic mothership for Saijuuk, a Precursors ship that lacks the mothership's build capabilities (hopefully you still have a carrier and shipyard), but packs an epic Wave-Motion Gun. Said Wave-Motion Gun is the only thing that can harm the bombardment platforms the Big Bad sics on your home planet. Had the Big Bad not gone after Saijuuk, thereby giving you the opportunity to steal his hyperspace core, you would have been helpless against these platforms.
• The last mission of Hostile Waters: Antaeus Rising gives you the Vulture, a quick, cheap, heavily armed air unit. Unfortunately, it is utterly useless in that particular mission.
• In Iji, the Massacre, which is obtained after completing a successful pacifist run.
• inFAMOUS: the final karmic choice, just before the final boss has you decide to activate or destroy the Raysphere. Destroying it sets your karma to maximum whereas activating it sets your karma so low it will never rise, gives you an extra 4 battery cores and gives you a damage boost and cool colour change.
  • inFAMOUS 2 has this in the second-to-last story mission. A thunderstorm moves in when the mission begins, allowing Cole to draw power from the storm itself, allowing the player to recharge anywhere.
  • inFAMOUS: Second Son plays with the trope: Delsin finally gets the Concrete power... at its lowest strength, and can't change it to one of his better powersets. Luckily, Eugene brings in Core Relays to power it up.
• In Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy, at the very tail end of the final battle with Gol and Maia's giant robot, all four benevolent forms of Eco combine to form Light Eco, the only substance that can completely negate the Dark Eco threatening to subsume the world. Once that happens, the entire remainder of the battle consists of simply getting to the stuff while the ground vanishes and the robot begins firing wildly at you and enemies attack from all directions. Since it seems to give you the abilities of all the other Eco combined and boosted, along with invincibility, the game just throws you into the end cutscene as the Curb Stomp Kill ensues. In short: once you grab it, you win.
• Just Shapes & Beats: At the end of Story Mode, after the True Final Boss smashes the player to bits and the normal self-resurrection stops working, your friends use two of the MacGuffins to resurrect you into an invincible form that, unlike the rest of the game that you spent just dodging, can actually fight back.
• In Kid Icarus: Uprising, you are given the Three Sacred Treasures to use in Chapter 9 and the ensuing fight against Medusa. But it turns out Medusa is far from the final boss, and Hades, the real villain, outright destroys the Three Sacred Treasures when Pit tries to use them against him. This is followed by Pit obtaining the Great Sacred Treasure, a giant, all-powerful mech suit. However, Hades inflicts more and more damage to it throughout the battle, causing it to change into smaller and smaller forms; he outright destroys the Great Sacred Treasure near the battle's end, and (after some timely and completely unexpected assistance from Medusa) you are forced to use the G.S.T's cannon to charge up the final strike that decimates Hades' body, defeating him.
• In Kinder, Shunsuke obtains the White Rose Ring after going through the storybook area. The only thing left is to face off against the Final Boss, and the battle becomes a joke because the White Rose Ring leaves Shunsuke immune to any status-effect the boss may hit him with.
• In the Kingdom Hearts series:
  • In Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep, Aqua gets the game's best Keyblade in the Final Episode, the semi-hidden true conclusion to the game's storyline. It also forces you to use it in the secret episode added in the final mix version.
  • In the final battle of the prologue section of Kingdom Hearts II, Roxas gets to dual wield keyblades for the final showdown with Axel. It plays like Sora's drive version, except there isn't a gauge, so it's basically unlimited.
  • Upon entering the final world in Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, Sora is given an ability called "Trinity Limit" which gives you the ability to decimate any enemies on the screen provided you obtain one Goofy and Donald card during the battle.
  • Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days: Roxas gains the ability to dual wield the Oathkeeper and Oblivion Keyblades during the first part of Day 358 (the last mission). His attacking speed and power increase dramatically, letting him quickly kill the Neoshadows that spawn with only one or two hits.
• The second half of Nox is completely dedicated to assembling the ultra-powerful Staff of Oblivion, and yet you only get to use it against Hecubah and a few Mooks.
  • Ironically, although the Staff does effortlessly vacuum up Hecubah's mooks, it's actually only modestly effective against her (despite the whole point of assembling it being to have a weapon capable of defeating her). Instead, its best use seems to be stunning her for a second so you can hit her with a heavy spell like Fireball or Fist of Vengeance.
• Kingdom of Loathing: The final part of the final boss needs a special object in your inventory, the Wand of Nagamar. It takes the boss's powerful spells, and changes the way they work by turning them into anagrams. When you get this far, you can't lose.
  • It should be noted that the Wand of Nagamar (Nagamar is an anagram of... well, Anagram, for those who hadn't figured it out yet) is practically useless outside of that particular fight due to its abysmal power; a mere 40 out of a possible 200. This can actually make it hard for non-combat classes such as the Sauceror and Pastamancer to progress in the initial two stages of the boss fight due to having to rely on their spells — which may not always work — and having no real melee power as backup with which to finish off the stages.
  • This has been changed, though — now you don't have to actually equip the wand, you just have to have it in your inventory.
  • Facing your Nemesis' final form turns your Legendary Epic Weapon (which by this time is obsolete) into your Ultimate Legendary Epic Weapon, with its own Ultimate Special Attack. It's only 11th Hour in terms of that questline, though — defeating the Nemesis leaves you with the weapon and special attack, both of which are gamebreakers for the remainder of the main questline.
• Kirby games love to give you a special power for the final boss. These include the Star Rod in Kirby's Adventure, the Rainbow Sword in Kirby's Dream Land 2, the Love-Love Stick in Kirby's Dream Land 3, the Crystal + Ribbon combo in Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards, the Master sword in Kirby & the Amazing Mirror, and the Triple Star in Kirby: Squeak Squad. The latter two can be used in regular levels after beating the game (and, in the case of Triple Star, unlocking the ability room), and can take care of all otherwise ability-specific obstacles.
  • The Starship in Kirby Super Star and Landia in Kirby's Return to Dream Land may count as well, except for the fact that they are used for Unexpected Shmup Levels found late in the game and not against the actual final bosses.
  • Kirby: Triple Deluxe grants you the Hypernova ability you've been using all game at specified points, except this time you get it during the final phase of the final boss, and it causes Kirby to basically be able to negate anything she can throw at him by being able to inhale everything she has including laser beams.
  • Robobot Halberd Mode from Kirby: Planet Robobot is another Unexpected Shmup Level, albeit a Star Fox-based one, but it actually is used against the final boss.
  • The Star Allies Sparkler in Kirby Star Allies is a fusion between the Friend Star and four Heart Spears, giving it the power to defeat the final bosses outer phases.
  • Kirby and the Forgotten Land allows Mouthful Mode on a Big Badass Rig to finish off the final boss before it can pull Popstar through a portal to destroy the world.
• Knack receives a special move from Ava for him to defeat Xander in Knack II.
• In Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords, when after Kreia kills the Jedi Masters or talks to you after you kill them, you magically get either the dark side uberpower Force Crush or the Light Side uberpower Force Enlightenment, both of which are probably the best power for their respective alignments.
• The Legacy of Kain games seem fond of this:
  • In Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 2, you happen to be awarded the game world's ultimate weapon just before the final boss rush. This weapon isn't just extrememly powerful, but also makes you invincible, thereby turning what you'd think would be a tough climactic battle into a series of one-sided smackdowns that's actually impossible to lose.
  • Blood Omen 2: Legacy of Kain equipped you with the fully powered Soul Reaver for the final boss. It allows you to use the Soul Reaver in a New Game+, where its main advantage is that it's unbreakable.
  • Legacy of Kain: Defiance actually does it twice:
    • For the final mission as Raziel, you get the deadly Spirit Reaver upgrade, which rips through mooks in that level like wet tissue. It replaces the previous elemental Reaver upgrades you've obtained during the game, as the Spirit Reaver's power makes them obsolete (and you have no more elemental puzzles left to solve).
    • Kain, meanwhile, gets the restored Soul Reaver for use on the final boss. However, this is only for the story and not for the gameplay: using the developer's console to use the restored Soul Reaver outside of said boss reveal that it's only programmed for average strength.
• Dart's Divine Dragoon transformation and Rose's Dragon Buster sword in The Legend of Dragoon. Although you can backtrack through the last dungeon (but not out of it), you receive it literally just before the final boss.
• The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel: Rean gains access to Valimar and proceeds to beat Scarlet's Spiegel with him. A second time happens during his fight with Crow and later the Vermillion Apocalypse where Rean somehow activates a Super Mode of Valimar's that allows him to keep up with Ordine's own Super Mode.
• The Legend of Spyro: Appears in the form of an Infinity +1 Element during the Final Boss fights of the first two games in the trilogy. Naturally, you use their Fury attacks as your finishing move.
• The Legend of Zelda:
  • The Silver Arrows, or their expy the Light Arrows, in several of the Zelda games (but not in every appearance). In The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, the Light Arrows are a one-shot kill on almost everything. In The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds, you only get them halfway through the Final Boss battle.
  • The Legend of Zelda has the Red Ring, which quadruples your defense, but is unavailable until the last dungeon. Even worse in the second quest where the Red Ring is located only a few rooms away from Ganon.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening: Link doesn't get access to the Fire Rod, a ranged attack that can one-shot most enemies (including chickens), until the penultimate dungeon.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time: The final Great Fairy doubles your defense, but can only be reached using the Golden Gauntlets, which are found in the last dungeon.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask: The ludicrously powerful Fierce Deity's Mask, although you had to meet certain conditions first.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass:
    • Link's fairy companion randomly and without warning pulls the ability to stop time from nowhere in the first part of the Final Boss Fight. This continues on to the second and third rounds, as well.
    • The game gives you the Phantom Sword, which finally gives you the ability to kill normally invincible Phantoms, just before your last trek into the Temple of the Ocean King.
  • The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds: In the final phase of the final boss, Yuga Ganon merges into the wall, making him impossible to hit. Zelda gives Link the Bow of Light, an enchanted bow which can be used while merged into the wall and only exists for this boss
  • The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild: Link gets the Bow of Light during the fight against Dark Beast Ganon, and has to use it to shoot at Ganon's weak points while on horseback.
  • Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity: During the siege on Fort Hateno, the battle where Link is almost killed and all of Hyrule falls in Breath of the Wild, things go differently. In this alternate timeline, Zelda manages to awaken her power like before, but Hyrule has not yet been defeated. The massive horde of Guardians is fought by Zelda and the remaining forces of Hyrule including Link and the saved Champions as she uses the power of the Goddess and the Light Bow to completely throw the enemy force back. This happens not only in cutscene, but unlocks the Light Bow weapon and, with it, a new moveset for Zelda focused around her powers.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom: the Master Sword becomes this if you didn't get it during the rest of the game. The Light Dragon^note aka Zelda shows up and allows Link to pull the Master Sword from their forehead without fuss (when you would have needed at least two full stamina wheels previously) right before the final phase of the Final Boss.
• At the end of LISA: The Painful RPG, just before the final battle Brad not only gives in to complete and total despair but also begins to succumb to Joy Mutation, which causes his in-game class to change from "Nobody" to "Failure". This replaces any abilities he had with superpowered versions and he gains the ability to either cry out in pain (which induces fear in enemies) or shed tears for his sister (which restores his PP).
• Little Nemo: The Dream Master: Your only weapons are thrown candy, which does no more than stun enemies, and whatever abilities are granted by the animals you charm. In the last level, Nightmare Land, however, you are given the Royal Scepter, which fires actual damaging projectiles, although it has a lengthy charge-up period and only fires at a diagonally upward angle, only making it useful on the last few bosses.
• Either Lei, Yun, or Hong from the Inheritance chapter of Live A Live, depending on who the Earthen Heart Shifu's Inheritor is, is granted one shot of their level 16 attack, Heavenly Peaks Descent, for the last boss battle of their chapter. This attack usually knocks off 1/3 to 1/2 of the boss' health. Since it's unlikely, verging on impossible for any of these characters to hit level 16 during their chapter, this counts as an Eleventh Hour Superpower. Of course, in the game's FINAL chapter, it's entirely possible, if not exceptionally easy, for these characters to hit level 16 and become gods of death, seeing as this is the only level 16 technique, save for Pogo's (which causes sizable stat debuffs on him after use), that fires off as soon as you select it.
• Lost Planet: Extreme Condition gives you an incredibly agile, flight-capable Vital Suit very near the end of the game; prior only to a short corridor of enemies (to learn the controls) and the final boss. The suit controls so differently than any other that it might be considered an Unexpected Gameplay Change.
• Love of Magic: When sorcery leaves the world with the return of the Mother, Owyn finally gains the Sight and can see people's sparks and souls, and the links that they have. He can then disconnect those sparks, which he uses to kill Alex and Sarah without any possibility of them shifting to their backup bodies.
• In Lufia: Curse of the Sinistrals, Maxim gains the Dual Blade right before the Final Boss battle, along with its ability to freeze time. The True Final Boss in New Game Plus gives another Eleventh Hour Superpower in the form of Sword Beams.
• Madagascar: Alex's claw attack (which allows him to fight the fossa one-on-one) can only be unlocked in the final level (which fittingly is the eleventh level) of the console versions. As such, it can only be used during the Final Boss.
• In Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's Portable: The Battle of Aces, Reinforce's Final Boss fight against Material-D is greatly simplified by Hayate acting as a unison device for her (!), giving her all 18 Power Ups in the game.
• In Mass Effect 2, Harbinger-possessed Collectors start dropping heavy weapon ammo in the final fight, which makes the whole thing massively easier.
• Mega Man:
  • The five Mega Man (Classic) games on the Game Boy each feature a weapon obtained from a unique boss who is only fought after the eight bosses, but before the final Wily stage. As such, the player doesn't have much opportunity to use them, though they're often the weakness of the Final Boss, if not the only thing that can damage it:
    • Mega Man: Dr. Wily's Revenge has the Mirror Buster, which Mega Man obtains from Enker. It's an Attack Reflector that absorbs enemy projectiles and fires them back.
    • Mega Man II has the Sakugarne, which Mega Man gains from Quint. It's a Power Up Mount that can damage enemies by jumping on them. Unfortunately, it's finnicky at the best of times, though thankfully it's not necessary to beat the final boss.
    • Mega Man III features the Screw Crusher, which mega man gains from Punk. It's thrown in an upwards arc and has the most ammunition out of any weapon in the game.
    • Mega Man IV has the Ballade Cracker, which Mega Man gains from Ballade. It's an explosive projectile that can be thrown in eight directions.
    • Mega Man V has the Spark Chaser, which Mega Man gains from Terra. a laser that homes in on enemies and damages them repeatedly. Unlike the four previous weapons, however, Mega Man obtains this weapon much earlier, since Terra is fought before all of the bosses in Wily Star.
  • Mega Man X:
    • The first Mega Man X has Zero give you his Arm Cannon in the final stage, which upgrades your blaster significantly. Of course, experienced players will be well aware that you can find this upgrade (and several others) much earlier, but it's nice that the game gives you a freebie if you didn't find it before.
    • In Mega Man X3 has two of them:
    • In the game, the player can access Pink Capsules that contain special chips that further upgrade one of the armor parts he gets from regular capsules. If the player skips all of them, Mega Man can find another Pink Capsule in the first stage of Dr. Doppler's lab, which gives him all four upgrades and also colors his armor gold.
    • If the player defeats Vile with his weakness in the factory stage, and uses Zero to defeat the Miniboss of Doppler Stage 1, Zero will be gravely injured by said miniboss and give his saber to Mega Man.
    • Mega Man X5 hides the Ultimate Armor for X and Black Armor for Zero in a wide pit in the third fortress stage, although you can technically start with them by using built-in cheat codes at the character select.
  • In Mega Man Battle Network, Mega Man.EXE gets a special update just after losing to The Dragon in the end, making it possible to win. Technically, you probably could win without it, though.
• Metal Gear:
  • Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty has the High-Frequency Blade, a katana-like blade that slices enemies up and can even block bullets. The catch? You don't get it until almost at the end of the game, when Solid Snake gives Raiden his clothes back and also gives him the HF Blade, and it's only useful during the battle in the infamous Fission Mailed chamber and in the very final battle with Solidus Snake.
  • Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance gives Raiden Sam's HF Murasama for the final boss which allows him to cut through his nanomachine-reinforced skin.
• Frequently used in the Metroid series.
  • In Super Metroid, the all-powerful Hyper Beam is granted to Samus halfway through the final boss battle for use there and during the Load-Bearing Boss escape sequence.
  • Metroid Fusion is unique in that the boss-killing superweapon is the Ice Beam, a series staple which is typically gained midway through the game.
  • In Metroid Prime, the Phazon Beam serves a similar purpose (your HUD even reads "Hyper Mode"). In fact, since Super Metroid, every game in the series has had an anti-final-boss weapon of this sort.
  • In Metroid: Zero Mission, the Fully Powered Suit is rewarded for beating the penultimate boss. You also get the Power Bombs shortly after that, but by that point, very little game time is left unless you want to collect all expansions and this seems to be the only reason the Power Bombs are even in the game.
  • In Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, Samus gets the Light Suit, which allows her to navigate Dark Aether unharmed (previously, the poisonous atmosphere of Dark Aether would make Samus take constant damage) and to travel across Aether through beams of light; however, she only gets this shortly before going to the Supervillain Lair.
  • In Metroid Prime Pinball, the Force Ball is acquired at the start of the final boss fight.
  • Metroid Prime: Hunters features the Omega Cannon, which can later be unlocked for multiplayer (where it's an outright One-Hit Kill).
  • Metroid Prime 3: Corruption also put a twist on it by giving you access to the uber-weapon only a few hours in but limiting its usage; when the endgame hits, you lose access to all weapons but that one. Putting you in constant danger of death in the process.
  • In Metroid: Other M, the Power Bombs function as the ultimate boss-killing weapon (in previous games their main use was making navigation/collecting easier). Too bad the game doesn't tell you they have been enabled. You keep them in the Playable Epilogue, which allows you to obtain all the items.
  • Metroid: Samus Returns: After you defeat the penultimate boss, the Queen Metroid, the baby Metroid will follow you and destroy crystal formations that block your way, which is the only way to obtain certain upgrades if you backtrack to previous areas before returning to Samus's gunship.
  • Metroid Dread technically has two.
    • The first is the Omega Cannon, obtained temporarily at different points throughout the game by destroying and siphioning the data from the Central Units of each region of ZDR. It’s the only weapon capable of vanquishing the otherwise invincible E.M.M.I. robots prowling certain areas, but deactivates soon after you land the killing blow.
    • The second is the Metroid Suit, activated after the Final Boss fight with Raven Beak. Samus is so consumed with rage over Raven Beak's past deeds and future plans, that her Metroid DNA takes over completely. She is absolutely unstoppable in this form, with her basic beam now being the Hyper Beam (previously seen in Super), which is far stronger than even the Omega Cannon, and her Metroid energy-sucking abilities are boosted to have an area of effect. Unfortunately, she can't fully control said powers.
• Might and Magic VII gives you blaster guns for your final two missions, the latter of which will upgrade you to BFGs. It's a considerable upgrade from the swords, daggers, and staves you'd been using up to that point.
  • VI does something similar (the third mission from the end is all about getting blasters, but the second-to-last mission is non-combat and rather short), with the addition that blasters are actually necessary to win the game, rather than just very, very useful. Of course, in both games, you might want to go off and get a few more levels (for the skill points necessary to get better at hitting with your new 'superpower') before continuing with the main story, and it is entirely possible to have much of the game left after getting the blasters (the games do not end after the main quest does, and there are plenty of side-quests).
• Minecraft: Story Mode: Jesse gets an enchanted Diamond Weapon and a stronger suit of armor for the Final Battle with the Wither Storm.
• Modern Warfare 3 has a particularly weird example. The heroes have just waged and stopped World War 3, successfully prevented the conflict from going nuclear, and allowed a peace summit to take place. But just when the viewer is led to believe Makarov is going to get away with starting the whole shebang, all of a sudden here come Price and Yuri with Juggernaut Armor, striding invincibly into every single wall of gunfire Makarov could possibly throw at them. For added weirdness, the "superpower" in question doesn't make it to the twelfth hour: the armor catches on fire from a crashing helicopter, forcing them to remove it and proceed normally for the rest of the level.
• In MS Saga: A New Dawn, it's both the Nu Gundam and the Sazabi.
• no-one has to die.: Throughout the game, you are put into levels with several doors you need to close to save people, but you only have the ability to close one door, leading to many Sadistic Choices. During the Omega Ending, you get the ability to close up to four doors, letting you save everyone.
• Onimusha series:
  • In the original game, if you've completed a very difficult side-quest, you'll later be rewarded with the Bishamon Sword. Its basic attack deals more damage than anything in your arsenal... save its magic attack, which can be used infinitely. You get to use it for all of one room before reaching the final boss.
  • The powers granted by the five orbs in Onimusha 2: Samurai's Destiny, resulting in an Unexpected Gameplay Change into a third person shooter via turning the main character into a demonic equivalent of Mega Man.
  • In Onimusha 3: Demon Siege, clearing the last Dark Realm with Jacques nets you his strongest whip and unlimited magic attack. However, you cannot use it on anything but Jacques' final boss fight, though it is arguably much easier with it.
  • In Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams, for one part of the final boss fight, Soki is given the Oni Gauntlet (which holds the soul and power of Nobunaga Oda), allowing him to transform into a huge, heavily-armored ogre warrior. He can fly and use both of his swords at once, as well as getting a new skill called "Ultimate Critical".
• Paper Mario
  • In Paper Mario 64, the Peach Beam, which you can't defeat Bowser without, is granted halfway through the final boss battle. What's more, the game doesn't allow you to keep playing after beating the boss, instead returning you to your last save point.
  • Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door: Halfway through the battle with the Shadow Queen, Mario's Crystal Stars go out to all over the world, and the various people they've met all give their support to him, causing the Shadow Queen to lose her invincibility.
  • Paper Mario: Sticker Star: During the final battle, Kersti has Mario use her as a sticker for a massive powerup, which involves breaking through Bowser's defense and giving him 5 sticker slots if the wheel results in a jackpot...but it also involves sacrificing Kersti in the process.
  • Paper Mario: The Origami King: Bowser gets one in the second phase of the battle with King Olly, where the king transforms into a giant "Sumo Wrestler" version of himself. Olivia does the same to Bowser so he can fight him.
• Parasite Eve: The very-definitely-final boss is impervious to everything you use on it — bullets, rockets, shotguns, ultimate techniques... and then the main character is given bullets laced with her own DNA, lethal to the creature's own cellular structure. The resumed boss fight takes less than a minute to complete.
• The "anti-god" enhancements to your weapons in Penny Arcade Adventures: On The Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness: Episode 1 deal ten times as much damage to everything. Would you want to be punched in the face with extremely concentrated urine? Or be raked in the face with the soul of the evil leader of a mime cult?
• Peret em Heru: For the Prisoners: During the climax, Pharoah Khufu deems Kyosuke worthy of inheriting his powers. While this implicitly causes some problems for the survivors, as this is suggested to be responsible for the ruins collapsing, it also comes in very handy once they reach the riverbed, with him parting the waters long enough for them to cross safely.
• Perfect Dark: It's not in the last level, but the RCP-120 comes at just the right moment in the hardest level in the game for Joanna Dark to grab it, activate the Invisibility Cloak, and sneak past a dozen guards to defuse a bomb before it destroys the Institute.
• Persona:
  • In Persona 3, during the final confrontation, the Main Character draws power from all the people he's helped throughout the game, giving him the power of the Universe Arcana. Then the other team members give their encouragement, powering up a final attack that saves the day. And takes his life.
  • Persona 4:
    • In the original game, the player completes the Judgement Social Link and unlocks Lucifer after defeating Ameno-Sagiri, after which the game fast-forwards to the final day of gameplay. You can only use Lucifer in the true final dungeon and on the True Final Boss Izanami.
    • In Golden, additional content is added between unlocking Lucifer and the last day. However, Tohru Adachi's Social Link is maxed out in a story event on the last day, so you can only use Magatsu-Izanagi in the true final dungeon.
    • On the final day of the game, the protagonist does this against the final boss of the True Ending. He is granted Izanagi-no-Ookami, the ascended form of his default persona, which he then uses to pretty much punch the ever-living hell out of Izanami, who was behind everything about The Midnight Channel, Ameno-Sagiri, and the fog that tormented the residents of Inaba, as well as being the one who gave the protagonist, Adachi, and Namatame their powers in the first place.
  • Persona 5:
    • Joker pulls this during the final boss fight. He summons Satanael, his Ultimate Persona, who shoots the final boss in the head with a MASSIVE rifle.
    • In the original game, Morgana unlocks his ultimate persona, Mercurius, as he and the protagonist fall asleep on the night before Christmas Eve, the day the Phantom Thieves descend into Depths of Mementos for the final portions of the game.
    • In Royal, while the other party members can unlock their 3rd-tier Personas throughout January, Akechi and Kasumi (actually Sumire - long story) can only get theirs the literal day before the final battle, and can only use them against the True Final Boss and any random enemies you wander off to fight in their Palace.
• Pizza Tower: Not so much an extra ability as it is a massive boost to an existing one, but when Pizzahead decides to casually initiate a Boss Rush of every previous boss Peppino's faced on his trek up the tower, laughing all the while, Peppino loses every remaining ounce of his shit so completely his regular attack turns into a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown that can rip through half a boss' health bar on impact. Similarly, when playing as The Noise he instead powers up and starts glowing, with his normal bomb throw being replaced with him chucking a massive salvo of bombs that has a similar effect.
• In A Plague Tale: Innocence, Hugo gains the power to control rats in the final part of the game. This changes the gameplay drastically for the last chapter.
• Planescape: Torment:
  • The powerful "Symbol of Torment" is not available until the very final scenes of the game. Given the many ways available to deal with the final boss without fighting him, chances are good it never sees any use.
    • There's an entire Guide Dang It! hidden quest bringing an easily missable Chekhov's Gun (the Bronze Sphere), into the second-to-last area of the game, and then take a few dialogue options - one of which requires high Intelligence. Doing so rewards you with the aforementioned Symbol, two million experience points, and a way to defeat the Final Boss without a fight.
  • One of the Nameless One's normal abilities acquired at the beginning of the game is the ability to raise people from the dead, albeit with a lot of limitations. It doesn't come out until the very end that he can raise anyone from the dead. At will. Without cost.
• In Planet Alcatraz, when the final objective becomes clear, the orbital station will drop your squad state-of-the-art Imperial weaponry and armor.
• Platypus has the Lightning power-up star, which is seen in the power-up list if you wait in the main menu long enough. The catch? This power-up never appears until the last phase of the final boss, where the power-up stars switch to Lightning, where you'll fire beams that pierce through enemies.
• Pokémon:
  • In Pokémon Black and White, your legendary dragon awakens right before you confront the Final Boss, and you have to catch it to proceed. Unlike other instances of catching Pokémon in this game, you are then offered the option of putting the legendary dragon in your party — and given that it's an Olympus Mon with very high stats, while your own companions are not likely to be fully evolved at the time, it's definitely a great addition. Doing so will lead to a Cool Versus Awesome showdown between both version legendaries in the ensuing battle. Of course, you can defy this by opting to send the dragon to your box instead and proceed with your usual team.
  • In the final mission of Pokémon Ranger: Shadows of Almia, you are given the Vatonage Styler, which allows you to befriend any Pokémon, even if it has been hypnotized by Gigaremo Units. This is an Eleventh Hour Superpower because there are no Gigaremo Units in the game after this mission is completed. Also, you cannot even damage the final boss (Darkrai, implied to be the King of Almia reincarnated) until said Vatonage Styler is further upgraded by fusing with the Tears of the Princes. There is no use for this gem power outside of the final boss fight, so enjoy the pretty animation while you can.
  • In Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, Koriadon/Miraidon finally return to fighting form in their Apex Build/Ultimate Mode after getting past their mental barriers to protect the player and their friends right before the Post-Final Boss.
• Prayer of the Faithless:
  • During the Final Boss fight, Aeyr and Mia gain the Perfect Partner passive, which gives them a total of six actions per round instead of the usual three.
  • In the Tower of Sinners, Trill gains access to all of her Trance abilities rather than being limited to one element at a time.
• For the final level in Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, your awesome time-controlling dagger gets taken away, but you're given a sword that one-hit-kills any of the sand monsters, so fights generally go really fast. Then the sword gets taken away and the dagger is given back for the Final Boss fight (although the boss was human, so the sword probably wouldn't have worked on him anyway).
• Psychonauts:
  • The first game's 11th-Hour Superpower is a crackling field of psychic energy that allows you to grow to monstrous size, given to you by your character's father, who was secretly a psychic all along.
  • Psychonauts 2:
    • Mental Projection is the final ability obtained in the game right after the cutoff point. Its primary usage is getting items that were previously unobtainable before.
    • Just like in the first game, Nona gives Raz "everything she's got" to go toe-to-toe with a mental version of Maligula, which involves Raz growing to giant size to duke it out with her.
• In Purple, you get Final Frisbee right before you fight the final boss's enlargened form.
• While this isn't really a solely end-game instance, it IS very late in the game and only available to one class. In Quest for Glory IV, as a Wizard, you get Erana's Staff (Erana, for those unfamiliar, was an extremely, EXTREMELY powerful magic user who, with her magic, managed to enchant no fewer than six different places as "Peaceful" areas, where no violence of any form can work. In QFG3, you see a cheetah lounging near an antelope in one of these spots. Even after she died, her staff alone managed to generate spontaneous flora and the same peaceful-type area. Also, it was able to force lesser undead to stay away, and make greater undead REALLY uncomfortable near it.) After getting the staff, you can return to one of her enchanted places and face down the Faerie Queen. Doing this gives you access to the Resistance spell, which drastically reduces ALL magic damage done to you, and really costs nothing because of the staff itself being a veritable fountain of magic. So, this is actually TWO examples, the Staff and Resistance, which turns a Wizard into an engine of death (moreso than previously, at least.)
• Radiant Arc: When Zardon is revived, he curbstomps the party and nearly kills Linky. However, his pride gets the better of him and he neglects to finish them off, allowing Linky to regenerate himself and unlock more angelic power. Gameplay-wise, this gives Linky a permanent buff that grants him an additional 100% of his base stats.
• Unusually for the genre, the shmup RefleX has one in the final two stages: when fighting the ZODIAC Virgo, a Humongous Mecha that has been totally owning everything else in the game up to this point, your ship is destroyed when hit with More Dakka than its shields and armor can handle. Then it is revealed that your ship is in fact powered by a ZODIAC core itself (ZODIAC Ophiuchus, to be precise), and it suddenly gains glowing wing things and a reflection shield with infinite power. The rest of the fight is you owning the Virgo, as only one of its super-powered attacks can even harm you now (so long as you keep the shield up). You keep this upgrade when fighting ZODIAC Libra and two Kamui fighters in the Very Definitely Final Stage.
  Sadly, it does have a vicious twist. The No-Holds-Barred Beatdown delivered by the boss kills the pilot, and when she is dead the ship's AI (aka ZODIAC Ophiuchus) kicks in and activates the ship's full power. Also, the ship's armor is gone, meaning that one bullet that slips past your shields or one missile — missiles ignore shields — is all it takes to get a Game Over.
• Resident Evil:
  • In the original Resident Evil, Resident Evil 2, and Resident Evil 4, you are thrown a rocket launcher with which you take out the final boss in the game. Meanwhile, Resident Evil 3: Nemesis ends with the player coincidentally finding the big boss in the same room as a giant stationary rail gun.
  • In 4, you CAN beat Saddler without the rocket launcher, though this is VERY difficult and a lot less fun. There are also less powerful rocket launchers available throughout the game, which will kill every other boss with one shot.
  • This trope is basically in every game. Including the Linear Launcher in Resident Evil – Code: Veronica.
  • While it wasn't used on the final boss, the Kill Sat from Resident Evil 5 deserves a mention (imagine facing zombies with THAT).
  • In Resident Evil 6, at the end of Chris's campaign, Piers gets an actual superpower. His Emergency Transformation via C-Virus gives him Healing Factor and a Lightning Gun for an arm, but as it starts to affect his mind, he chooses to sacrifice himself in a supercharged attack that kills both him and the final boss. Also, Leon traditionally gets a rocket launcher to finish his final boss, and Ada steals a helicopter that makes her last level a lot more fun. Inverted with Jake, who gets in a Fisticuffs Boss fight with Ustanak.
• In Resistance 2, Hale defeats the Big Bad and absorbs his psychic powers, which reduce chimeras to chunky salsa. After a brief rampage, however, it turns out it probably wasn't for the best.
• In Rockman 4 Minus ∞, if you find yourself losing the final battle against the Petit Robot Masters, Proto Man comes in to give you the Wily Buster and refill all your health. The Wily Buster shoots charged shots instantly and reduces all damage taken from the bosses.
• In Rogue Galaxy, the main character Jaster gets a glowy power aura of strength and a BFS with infinite reach to defeat the final form of the True Final Boss. He also gets this with his fight with Seed and another person in the desert town, only minus the BFS.
• Rune Factory:
  • In Rune Factory 2, when you are near the end of the second generation, you gain a spellbook called "Dragon Break." This spellbook is only useful against the Final Boss. But, using it makes the final battle a Curb-Stomp Battle in your favor.
  • During the final fight against Ethelberd in Rune Factory 4, you reach a form where Ethelberd overtakes Ventuswill, becoming Ethelwill. You can technically beat this form, but it is deliberately extremely high in level, making it almost impossible. Ventuswill, with what mental control she has left, sends you her power, causing your level to skyrocket above 1,000 and refilling your HP after Lest/Frey gets knocked down.
• Ruina: Fairy Tale of the Forgotten Ruins: During the final battle, Overlord!Titus will cast a spell that drains the party's MP while reducing their stats and accuracy. However, the Iterio Fragment skill can be used to reverse that spell and regenerate MP each turn, allowing the party to spam their best skills.
• SaGa Frontier does this no less than three times — In Blue's game, after mastering magic after the battle with Rouge, finding T260's Omega Model body in the penultimate dungeon, and Red only gets learns Re-Al-Phoenix after he uses Al-Phoenix on The Dragon MBlackIII.
• In Saint Seiya Ougon Densetsu Kanketsu Hen, Seiya gets an inmense boost in "Sevensenses", a new really strong attack and the ability to refill his life and Cosmo bar every turn after doing the right moves against the Final Boss. This makes the player virtually invincible.
  • The other three Saints (Shiryu, Hyoga and Shun) gain a new ultra-powerful attack (or two) during their respective boss battles in the previous three Temples. What makes them fit here is that these boss battles are their last, since (in concordance with the manga/anime the game is based off) they each "die" (are removed from play, here) fighting their bosses.
• In Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game, the title character gets one in the form of a sword called "the Power of Understanding", and the obscenely-powerful Power of Love Sword in the final stage of the game, and you only have it for fighting the penultimate boss. Luckilly, there's a cheat code that allows you to use it throughout the entire game.
• Secret of Evermore has the Energize power, granted via Call Bead near the end of the game: It allows the use of Charged Attacks instantly, meaning your robot dog can rather effortlessly Beam Spam the final bosses to death. It's not very beneficial to the player character, due to his ultimate weapon of a bazooka lacking a charged attack (though it doesn't need it).
• In Secret of Mana, you didn't get access to the true power of the sword until you fight the final boss. One thing that was interesting is that the game leaves a gap in the spell lists of the Girl and Sprite and also doesn't allow you to upgrade to tier nine sword with the orbs, meaning that one could figure out something was going to happen if they stopped and thought about it a little (Dryad explicitly says that Thanatos sealed her magic).
• Shadow Warrior (2013): Upon re-forging the Nobitsura-Kage shortly before the final level, you are now able to perform your greatest crowd control technique WITH EVERY NORMAL SLICE (comparable to throwing chainsaws with the speed and skill of throwing shurikens). It is as awesome as it sounds.
• Shantae and the Pirate's Curse: While fighting the True Final Boss Shantae manages to reclaim her genie magic thanks to Risky's Batman Gambit with the Dark Magic, allowing her to whip the Pirate Master for maximum damage. Risky then provides a second dose of this trope by hijacking the Ammo Baron's Palace Disruptor Cannon, providing additional firepower to finish the Pirate Master off.
• In Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga 2, Serph fuses with Sera into the superbeing Seraph, whose demon form has no weaknesses in The Very Definitely Final Dungeon (also a Point of No Return).
• The Simpsons Hit & Run: The final story mission forces the player to drive a vehicle that can be unlocked in Level 2, the World War II vehicle, but with a rocket strapped to the back, boosting the SPEED and ACCELERATION stats for it to 5 stars.
• SiN:
  • The experimental fusion pulse rifle can only be obtained three levels from the endgame, and requires the assembly of several different pieces (the first of which is obtained very early in the game). Somewhat toyed with; while it is a deadly weapon in its own right, and is capable of killing most enemies from that point on with a couple shots, it won't do much good against the final boss.
  • The SiN (1998) Expansion Pack Wages of Sin similarly gave you a nuclear rocket launcher at the end of the game, although you were free to use it on anything you wanted (but you were probably better off saving it for the final boss).
• Sly Cooper: Sly gains the ability to walk on laser beams mere moments before the final boss fight in Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves.
• Sonic the Hedgehog:
  • Most of the games from Sonic & Knuckles on end with a boss fight in Super Mode, though the ability was unlockable in normal gameplay as well up until Sonic Adventure.
  • Sonic and the Secret Rings and Sonic and the Black Knight do things slightly differently, allowing Sonic to transform into Darkspine Sonic and Excalibur-Sonic to fight their respective final bosses.
  • Sonic Generations has the final boss as both Super Sonics, and after that they are unlocked for use in normal stages, as an equippable skill that can only be used on its own.
  • Sonic Colors has the Final Color Blaster (Final Prism Blaster in the Japanese translation), an All Your Powers Combined attack Sonic uses to finish off the final boss by combining the power of all the Wisps in the game.
  • Sonic Frontiers' "The Last Horizon" DLC, basically the Golden Ending to the game, gives us Super Sonic 2, which is Sonic harnessing the Cybercorruption he had been infected with the entire game with his Super Sonic form, to battle the final bosses.
• Both SoulBlazer and Illusion of Gaia have a Phoenix-based projectile, only unlocked in the last area, and the only way to damage the final boss. However, SoulBlazer does unlock it in the middle of the last zone, and you can leave and use it in previous areas.
• Despite being a fighting game, Soulcalibur VI manages to work this into its main story- Kilik, the main story's main protagonist, has a Superpowered Evil Side for his Soul Charge that is insanely overpowered, but causes him to steadily bleed out. The final boss fight of the story features a Kilik who is in his soul charge state permanently, without the bleed.
• In Spider-Man and the X-Men in Arcade's Revenge, Storm gets to use her typical powers in the final level, since that's the only time the player gets to play as her on dry land. She jumps higher and has stronger projectiles than any other character.
• Splatoon:
  • The equipment ability Last-Ditch Effort provides buffs to ink recovery, ink efficiency, and respawn speed when the match is down to the last 30 seconds. It will also activate in Ranked/Anarchy or League modes if the opponent's remaining objective counter is down to 30 or less.
  • The final battle of Splatoon 2's main campaign has Sheldon issue the player a Rainmaker (the overpowered signature weapon of the game mode of the same name) for the last phase of the fight.
  • The final battle of Splatoon 3 has a double whammy of this as Small Fry, the player's salmonid companion, gains a kaiju sized Huge Fry form after hearing a rendition of "Calamary Inkantation" preformed by the Squid Sisters, Deep Cut, and DJ Octavio and the player pilots DJ Octavio's mech, the Octobot King L3.GS, during the final battle.
• In Star Control II, you receive a fleet of ridiculously powerful battleships free of charge just before you venture into the final battle.
  • On the flip side, your main ship — which you can build into an even more ridiculously powerful badass of a ship before that point — gets neutered into near uselessness at the same time. Considering that the main ship, when fully specialized for combat, is more powerful than all twelve of your other ships put together, this is actually a downgrade if you ignore the one-shot plot weapon added to the main ship.
    • Contrary to general opinion, it is possible to unlock Chmmr Avatar ships before the final ship refit. And they will be sold for money, and not for free. On the other hand, the last leg of the plot consists of a grand total of a single run through hostile territory (where it's entirely possible to avoid anyone and everyone - as your movement isn't impaired), and a grand total of two battles (one of which is basically autocombat with 6 Chmmr Avatars, and the second one is a cakewalk by Pkunk Fury).
• At the end of Star Trek: Elite Force, you encounter a recharge station that increases both of your ammunition types (Federation energy and dilithium-based) to far beyond the previously imposed limits, just before the climactic battle.
• Sudeki does this too. After collecting the people of your own realm and their darkness counterparts, you set our for the final boss battle. Before engaging him, each of the characters fuse with their darkness counterparts to become complete and overly powerful, but you only get to play one full character out of the remaining four. The others are parted by a barrier.
• Summon Night: Swordcraft Story and Summon Night: Swordcraft Story 2 gives you the ultimate weapon before fighting the final boss.
• If you get a new mecha in the last few stages of a Super Robot Wars game, expect it to be a total gamebreaker. Here are a few: the Nirvash Spec 3 from the last stage of SRW Z, Alfimi in Impact and in OG 2, and in the good ending of Alpha 3, you get reinforcements on the last stage in the form of the Nashim Gun Eden, the final boss of Alpha 2, WITH HER FINAL BOSS STATS INTACT. It's pretty much impossible for her to be killed because of that massive HP bar, but you only get her after the final boss is around half dead.
  • At the second-to-last stage of OG Gaiden, Raul rescues his companions, who board the Excellence Lightning. And start acting as subpilots for the Lightning. It carries over into the final stage as well. Well-upgraded, Raul can practically solo the last two stages after this event.
  • Alpha Gaiden offers Sanger Zonvolt in his Thrudgelmir; although it is downgraded from his self, it's pretty much the best unit in the game. It has high HP and Armor, not so bad mobility (which isn't really needed), a nice set of weapons, and EN and HP regeneration L, making it pretty much unkillable. Considering the game is pretty Nintendo Hard, it isn't enough to solo the remaining stages alone, but getting him makes the True Final Boss fight against Shu Shirakawa MUCH more easier.
  • In Dark Prison where Shu Shirakawa is the headlining protagonist, him acquiring the Neo Granzon is treated as an 11th-Hour Superpower as he first has access to it after conning Shiva Volkruss, who surprisingly is just a Disc-One Final Boss as you still have 7 more stages to go and at the final stage of the game. He doesn't use it during the other stages because he treats it as his trump card.
  • Thanks to a mandatory event in scenario 56 of Super Robot Wars Z: Tengoku-hen, the entire cast attains the permanent status buff called "Shinka"^note Maximum Will +50, maximum Spirit Points +50, increase base damage to all unit weaponry by 2000.
  • Several units in Super Robot Wars V have final attacks or upgrades that are only unlocked in the last five stages of the game, such as the VangNex/GranVang's final attack, Vilkiss's True Ability Unlock, the Shin Getter's/Shin Dragon's Shin Shine Spark, the Xi Gundam's Missile Pod, the Double Zeta's Full Armor Parts (though those can be obtained earlier through as a secret), the Nadesico C's Phase Transition Cannon and the Yamato's Wave Motion Gun.
• Before the final mission of Superhero League of Hoboken, Toastbuster and Zaniac join the party. Toastbuster has the highest Brawn in the game, and Zaniac comes with the insanely powerful Power of Confusion.
• In Tales of Xillia 2, Ludger unlocks the full power of his Chromatus during the final boss fight, which gives you a fancy new Mystic Arte to finish him off with. You can carry it over into a New Game Plus, too.
• Team Fortress 2: Although there are no in-game mechanics to support this, in the last 20 seconds of an attack/defend map or a payload map, the attacking team will often rush onto the point in an chaotic swarm out of desperation. In public servers, even a rush of unorganized players is enough to tip the scales in favour of the attacking team.
• In Thunder Force VI, if you are playing as the Phoenix, your ship upgrades to the Syrinx for the final stage, which among other upgrades gets a completely overhauled Wave shot, changing it from a rapid-fire shot to a Wave-Motion Gun. This doesn't happen if you're playing as the Rynex-R (which gets no such upgrade) or if you've unlocked the Syrinx for entire-game use and picked it.
• Zigzagged in TIE Fighter, due in part to the game being released in installments.
  • The base game teases the fearsome TIE Defender in the second to last campaign, before finally putting it in the player's hands in the penultimate mission.
  • The Defender of the Empire expansion sees the player in the aforementioned TIE Defender for the balance of its first two campaigns, before taking it away for much of the third, ultimately replacing it with the even more powerful Missile Boat for the final few missions.
  • The Collector's CD edition, which contained all of the above content plus the Enemies of the Empire expansion,^note which finally concluded the game's storyline would end up subverting the trope. As in the previous expansion, the Missile Boat would be taken away from the player late in the game while at the same time yet another powerful new technology was teased - a cloaking device. However, not only would the player not get a cloaked ship to fly, it would actually be the cloaking device's flaws that factored into the story's conclusion.
• Depending on your definition, there is one or two in the final level of Titanfall 2. For the on-foot section, you get the SMART Auto-Aim Pistol, allowing you to easily carve a path through the enemy troops. In your Titan, you get access to the Legion loadout, that gives your Titan a Predator Chaingun, and allows it to temporarily activate its' own auto-aim abilities with its' core ability.
• Tomb Raider:
  • In Tomb Raider: Legend, you get Excalibur in Nepal. It's used only to break open a door to leave and to fight Amanda and the unknown creature.
  • In Tomb Raider: Underworld, you acquire Thor's hammer, Mjolnir, several levels before the end, and get to use it to wreak godlike havoc on enemies, be they simple gun-toting humans, sharks in water(!), or the various thralls emerging from the depths of Nifleheim, before ultimately planting it into the Big Bad's backside.
• Trauma Center:
  • At the end of the operation against the final GUILT strain, your 'Healing Touch' (which seemingly slows down time) automatically activates, as it has in operations before. The twist? If you haven't used it yet, you can use your use-anytime HT as well on top of the scripted one, and stop time, which indicates that Derek is activating the healing touch with both hands. This is the only way to win. Things get stranger in the Wii remake, Second Opinion. For the final postgame bonus level where you play as Nozomi, against this same GUILT, her Healing Touch doesn't normally slow time, but she inexplicably gets the ability to stop time too so that you can finish the level.
  • In the sequel, New Blood, your time-slow Healing Touch gets upgraded to stop time in the last part of the final operation (where it is again needed to win). This is not explained. Or mentioned. Or even noticeable most of the time, since the final boss spends most of the window you have to activate it standing still. But it happens.
• Because of how Undertale is structured, the game features two of these, with each possible route ending in one.
  • During the final boss fight in the True Pacifist route, if you run out of HP, your determination stops you from dying and you revive with full HP. The second phase starts off hopeless, with you unable to do anything. Even saving the game is impossible, but then you realize you can save something else. Your ACT command then turns into SAVE, with a new icon and flashing colors, which allows you to reach inside Asriel and "save" the souls he's absorbed and eventually Asriel himself.
  • At the end of the Genocide route the player finds the Real Knife and The Locket, a weapon with 99 ATK and an armour piece with 99 DEF respectively. However, there's only one enemy left in the game at this point, and the items are completely useless as he dies in one hit anyway and all his attacks can only do one damage per hit. It's even more useless because said enemy actually dodges attacks unlike everyone else and his attacks have a status ailment which ignores your invincibility frames, stacking damage in a poison like effect referred to as Karma.
• In the beginning of Act 3 of Tyranny, the Player Character discovers that they have the same power as their Evil Overlord to cause disasters on a massive scale, albeit temporarily as opposed to their century-spanning curses. Unfortunately, this marks them as a threat to the Overlord's power, resulting in the Last-Second Ending Choice where you wage a hopeless war or serve as their governor and rule the region in their stead.
• The final level of Unreal II: The Awakening gave you a gun that shoots black holes, which pretty much suck up and kill any enemy they even come close to. This weapon is the only thing that can kill the game's final boss monsters (whom it dispatches in one shot), but they're also armed with one, and can do the same to you. This weapon is so overpowered that a hit from an enemy will kill you even if you have god mode turned on. The kicker is that you first have to kill one of those creatures with only your regular weapons, while IT is armed with THE black hole gun you're going to be using the rest of the level.
• The first two Valkyrie Profile games do this. In the first's best ending, Lenneth is the only one who can do any significant damage to the Final Boss because she creates the sword Glance Reviver before the fight. This also gives her access to the full version of her Limit Break. In Silmeria, this happens when all three Valkyries and Alicia merge into one being, The Valkyrie, essentially a full-blown goddess, and again, only she can do any significant damage to the final boss, though there is apparently a hidden scene only shown if you slog through the battle without her.
  • Covenant of the Plume, however, only gives it to you for the worst of the three normal endings. In the best ending, you don't get a special sword, but you do get a Guest-Star Party Member.
• In Vanquish, after destroying one of Zaitsev's suits, the other one starts moving much more quickly, so Sam has Elena disable the limiters on the ARS to even the odds. Gameplay-wise, this doubles the amount of time you can spend in Augmented Reality.
• In Vay, right before you head to The Very Definitely Final Dungeon, all of the elemental orbs combine with the pieces of Vay Armor you've found to allow it to be used to its full potential. It's the only weapon capable of dealing significant damage to the Final Boss (as even PJ's Megablast and Inferno spells will barely scratch him), and reduces all magical damage against the hero to 25%. Simply put, if he gets killed at any point during the battle and you don't have a Phoenix Heart or Lifestone handy, consider yourself boned.
• In the strategy game Warhammer: Mark of Chaos and its novelization, both playable sides get this. The chaos champion transforms into a Daemon Prince after obtaining the MacGuffin while the Empire protagonist is given back his family's title of Elector Count, which carries with it access to a cool rune sword and the imperial menagerie containing a rideable griffon. In the game, the placement of both are more Sword of Plot Advancement with a full chapter remaining, while the novel had them used only for the last battle (especially the griffon).
• Warhammer Online has the Lost Vale, one of the hardest PVE raid areas in the game. The final boss, N'Kari, is a terror — but this is offset by colored orbs floating in the arena that increase your DPS, healing, or hitpoints to crazy levels for a short time. Just make sure they pick up the right ones — having your ranged attackers gain a truckload of hitpoints, your healers get a buff to damage dealing, and your tanks become very good at healing is not good.
• In Wild ARMs 2, the protagonist's Super Mode is powered by a demon sealed away hundreds of years ago combined with the holy sword used to seal it away. The final battle occurs after the demon breaks free, leaving only the sword that the protagonist was unable to draw at the beginning of the game. One "No More Holding Back" Speech later, he's blasting the demon with Combined Energy Attacks in his new "Hero of the Sword" form while the rest of humanity makes speeches about not leaving him to fight alone.
• In Wing Commander: Privateer, as you're headed towards an ambush planned by the navy for the Steltek drone that was following you the whole game, a Steltek ship appears and offers to upgrade the (already super-powerful) Steltek gun you've found earlier. You can decline, but it's unwise, since the upgrade is the only thing capable of even making a dent in the drone's shields.
• Within a Deep Forest has the final ball form that allows you to fly. Speed runs tend to sequence break to get this power much sooner than intended in order to blitz through earlier sections of the game.
• The World Ends with You has a strange example of this occurring mid-game.
  • Joshua gains a powered-up attack at the very end of the fifth day of his week. You get two days with his powered up form. This sounds longer than it is - a "day" is essentially a "chapter" in the game, and the final two days are relatively short and constrained to a relatively small area. After they're up, Joshua and his superpowered form leave until after you complete the game.
  • There is another, straight version of this trope applied during the final boss battle. During this battle, you're forced to fight alone. However, at regular intervals throughout the fight, an Action Command will appear on the top of the screen, healing you and boosting your attack power. Once you get the boss's health low enough, a gigantic Fusion Pin appears on the screen, allowing you to use your Fusion Attack with all three partners at once. While this "Quad Fusion Attack" merely serves as a flashy ending, it does reinforce the whole Power of Friendship theme.
• There are many boss fights and quest-related events in World of Warcraft that give your character a temporary (and occasionally massive) increase in power, which is generally required to overcome the challenge in question. Specific examples:
  • One of the earliest examples occurs in Blackwing Lair with Vaelastrasz, a corrupted, fully-grown red dragon capable of wiping the floor with you and your friends. Fortunately, he wants to be killed and so gives the raid a buff that enables everyone to go crazy with maximum damage output for three minutes.
  • Kael'thas in Tempest keep (not to be confused with his weakened Magister's Terrace version) also does this — the fight begins with him sending his four advisers at you one at a time. After killing them, their weapons spring to life, and killing them allows the entire raid to loot them to temporarily use as Infinity Plus One Swords, which are necessary in order to handle fighting all four of the aforementioned advisers at once and kill them before Kael'thas himself finally decides to start attacking you. The weapons in question fade after 15 minutes or when you leave the zone, but after the dungeon was changed to not require killing the first three bosses in order to fight Kael, a bored guild took these weapons to one of the earlier bosses and beat her down in record time.
  • Kil'jaeden in Sunwell Plateau is another example — at certain points in the fight, some of your characters can turn into dragons which can shield your group from his ultimate attack and breathe on them to drastically increase their attack and casting speed or regenerate large amounts of their health and mana.
  • Towards the end of the Death Knight starting quest chain, when you are taking part in the assault on Light's Hope Chapel, your character is given higher health and damage output (among other things) in order to compete with the Elite mob enemies at the Chapel. Likewise when you have to defeat Patchwerk back in Acherus almost immediately afterwards.
  • Much the same thing occurred during the now unavailable Battle for the Undercity quest — if you were an Alliance player, you got to be escorted by Varian Wrynn, while if you were with the Horde, you got to run with Thrall — in either case, you got a HUGE buff to your health, damage, and healing that turned you into an unstoppable one man army.
  • The Ulduar raid dungeon features some bosses whose mechanics involve powering up the raid. The first is Hodir, a frost giant whose room comes prestocked with frozen allies that you can thaw out to get some nice buffs, which are necessary for most groups to kill him within the time limit. It's taken to the ultimate conclusion in the Final Boss fight with Yogg-Saron, in which you can choose to be assisted by any or all of the four bosses you freed from its Mind Control earlier. They buff the raid's health, damage, healing, and damage resistance; however, you will gain more loot and bragging rights for killing him with the help of fewer Keepers. "One light in the darkness" indeed.
  • At the end of the final boss encounter in Throne of the Tides, Neptulon buffs the party with PURE WATER, giving ridiculously high health and power to everyone, which you need in order to defeat the kraken Ozumat.
  • Other times, you are simply given control of a powerful vehicle, drake or other things that are much more powerful than your character would usually be at that level. For a time those mechanics prevented players from coming back from subsequent expansions packs as the vehicles were required for the fight mechanics but finding a proper group was difficult. After a patch, all vehicles now scale with players equipment levels, thus coming back after an expansion or two allows your one vehicle to do the job of the 5, 10 or 25 it took initially.
  • During the final month of the Legion expansion, players could do a short questline that would unlock 126 traits for their artifact until the pre-patch for Battle For Azeroth.^note Prior to the questline, the highest possible number of traits was 101 and, due to the massive cost of later traits, most players only had 80 at the most
• X-COM:
  • The XCOM: Enemy Unknown remake has your squad Storming the Castle in the form of a giant Temple Ship. One member of the squad, the Volunteer, has reached a point in his or her psychic training that a new psi-ability is unlocked — the Rift, which creates a Swirly Energy Thingy that persists for a few turns, dealing damage to anyone in its radius. Since you're constantly getting stormed by the aliens, the ability is useful, although not really a Game-Breaker. In fact, the first time you use it, the Big Bad will compliment the Volunteer on his or her achievement (it turns out that the whole Alien Invasion was a Secret Test to turn humans into powerful warriors, combining strength, endurance, intelligence, and the Gift for...something. Given that you destroy the aliens at the end of the game, the plan has Gone Horribly Right. Also, the Big Bad pretty much states that all the aliens you have been fighting were earlier failures to create the perfect soldiers).
  • The sequel XCOM 2 also features this. The last mission gives you a very powerful psy-soldier with a unique gun to boot and very useful psi-abilities. The extra soldier also breaks the 6 team member limitation as the 7th soldier, which is a very helpful boost. You will need it.
• In X-Men Legends II: The Rise of Apocalypse, you get to try out the powers of the Four long enough to trash Apocalypse's powering-up device (it's the only way to do it, and if you don't, Apocalypse simply revives there the instant you defeat him).
• In Xenoblade Chronicles 1, Shulk receives his Infinity +1 Sword, the Monado III, right before the final phase of the Final Boss. New Game Plus allows the player to bring it over into the rest of the game. Shulk and the seventh party member both receive their ultimate arts, Monado Cyclone and Final Cross, towards the end of the game.
• XenoGears: Fei's Weltall become Weltall-2 at start of disc 2. Later, it gets an evolved upgrade into Xenogears just before the final dungeon.
• Zone of the Enders: The 2nd Runner has two of these. The first is Jehuty Version 2, gained just before the final dungeon, which is twice as strong as normal Jehuty. The second is Naked Jehuty, gained just before the final boss, which is ten times stronger than version 2 and can tear through former bosses like wet tissue paper. Playing with Naked Jehuty from the start on New Game Plus reveals that Degraded Boss was not in effect.

---