The final boss is often the most climactic part of any video game. The game hypes you up for the final confrontation by hyping up the fight and setting up expectations that’ll pay off when you ultimately claim victory.

But some games do entirely away with that. You can ignore all the side quests and main missions and go straight to the big boss to beat the game, though that might be a little underwhelming for a first playthrough.

Of course, that’s going to be almost impossible for any would-be challenger unless they lock in or already know how the final fight works. Still, it’s an interesting experience to try and fight the final boss before you play the game in earnest.

This list covers 10 great games where you are free to challenge the big bad guy the second the controls are handed to you. Whether you should or not is a different story.

10 Crackdown 3

Climb The Tower At Its Full Force

The main antagonistic force of Crackdown 3 is the evil corporation TerraNova, which is led by the cartoonishly evil Elizabeth Niemand, who looks down on the city of New Providence atop her gaudy tower that you can see from every point on the map. The TerraNova tower is heavily guarded, from turrets to soldiers to toxic gas that halt your progress.

The game expects you to explore the city of New Providence and shut down each branch of TerraNova to disable the tower’s defenses while upgrading your abilities and weapons. Reasonable, right? Except nothing is stopping you from reaching the top of the tower at level one except for your own skill.

Because of the way traversal works in Crackdown 3 and the fact that the tower has scalable ledges, you can technically reach the top of the TerraNova tower and fight Niemand straight away, though beating her is another question.

9 Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair

Impossible? No. Insanely Difficult? Yes.

The main reason you travel throughout the overworld of Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair is to save the members of the Royal Beettalion Guard so that you can have extra protection for the final battle to come, as it is the ultimate test of your endurance. Well, the puns are also a test of your patience.

At the beginning of the game, you enter the titular Impossible Lair and fight the evil capitalist bee Capital B, but there’s a reason “Impossible” is in the title of the game: the final battle is a gauntlet of boss fights against Capital B along with insanely difficult platforming sections interspersed between the fights.

Between those fights, you have to navigate his labyrinthine lair, which is filled with enemies and traps, with tight maneuvers that would make your palms sweat.

To make things even more difficult, there are next to no checkpoints throughout the encounter. Because you barely have any protection at the start of the game, normal players are destined to lose the battle and start their true journey there.

But the talented few can zip through every obstacle with no problem, and beat Capital B with less than half an hour. Just watch the developers react to a 16-minute speedrun of the game.

8 Chrono Trigger

The Devs Are Proud Of You

In Chrono Trigger, you can challenge the final boss, Lavos, at any point of the story, though he is almost impossible to beat at the start of your journey.

Most of the listed games can be beaten early with the right skills and equipment, but when it comes to turn-based tactical JRPGs, it’s practically impossible to beat a game early unless the developers let you or you find the right cheat/exploit.

Chrono Trigger is one of these games, as it’s impossible to beat the final boss at the very beginning. Still, it is possible to beat the final boss earlier than intended.

By beating Lavos prematurely, you can unlock one of many good endings, most notably the Programmer Ending, where you can talk to the developers and even the late Akira Toriyama.

To earn the Programmer’s Ending, players will have to either beat Lavos at the Ocean Palace, which is considered the harder method because you’re not supposed to win, or beat him at the start of a New Game+, where you have better gear and levels, though you still have limited options and a smaller party.

7 Mega Man X5

Time To Put Down Sigma

It’s been a longstanding Mega Man tradition to include a Stage Select where you choose which stage to tackle and which boss to fight at any point, and Mega Man X5 is no exception. The only difference is that now you get to play as either X or Zero.

This time, Mega Man X5 lets you dictate the difficulty of the game.

While you can challenge any of the many bosses in the game to gain new abilities and power-ups, you can decide when to take the fight directly to Sigma at any time, though that might be significantly harder.

Any Mega Man fan and speedrunner would revel in the challenge of a no-damage run.

6 Morrowind

Welcome, Moon-And-Star

Morrowind is a massive open-world RPG that became a benchmark for the range of freedom that the player can have to explore the world and discover new quests, while the main storyline can be tackled at any point.

The final boss of Morrowind is Dagoth Ur, a delusional wannabe-god who seeks to establish a Dunmer ethnostate and recreate reality according to his image through the use of a mechanical titan powered by a god’s heart. He’s absolutely abhorrent but has a slight charm that we can’t help but enjoy.

From the start of the game, you know where he is: underneath the Red Mountain, where he’s slowly accumulating power.

While you can follow the story and complete the main story quests to increase your power and obtain some useful gear, you can also go straight to the Red Mountain and take the fight to Dagoth Ur.

Unfortunately, Dagoth Ur is invincible, and his source of power is the Heart of Lorkhan, which can only be destroyed with the Dwemer tools Sunder and Keening.

5 Soul Sacrifice

Relive The Past

In Soul Sacrifice, you play as an innocent bystander enslaved by the cruel and powerful sorcerer Magusar. During your imprisonment awaiting to be sacrificed, a talking book called Librom helps you by letting you relive memories of past battles to gain experience.

Of course, you can choose to undergo these Phantom Quests to become more powerful and to defeat Magusar and put a stop to his tyranny, but you can also talk to Librom and tell him you want to fight Magusar before completing all the main stories.

There are two endings if you play through the game normally, where you can either spare or sacrifice Magusar. If you manage to beat Magusar before completing all the story quests, then you’ll unlock a third ending where you don’t get to choose either option.

The problem is that the third ending is probably not worth the effort since all you get is an anticlimactic credit roll and your character musing about the future of the world.

4 Devil May Cry 5

Deadweight No Longer

At the beginning of Devil May Cry 5, you play as Devil Hunter Nero, who climbs the demon tree Qliphoth to reclaim his left arm after the demon Urizen took it from him to fuel his conquest for more power.

Urizen, through some technical and predictable plot twists, is the final boss of the game, and you get to fight him from the jump. However, you’re meant to lose this boss fight because all you have is one arm and your basic attacks and abilities.

Throughout the boss fight, Urizen sits idly on his throne, dishing out attacks as you hack and slash helplessly against his crystalline shield.

Although the crystal blocks your attacks against the demon, it has a health bar, so if you manage to break the crystal, Urizen will be vulnerable, and you can deal some serious damage to him until the crystal recovers.

While you’re meant to lose this fight, it is entirely possible to win against Urizen prematurely, giving you a half-assed joke ending. You can also get the same ending if you beat him in your rematch later in the game.

3 NieR: Automata

Making Yoko Taro Proud

After several playthroughs, not even I knew about this secret. In NieR: Automata, which is easily one of the best hack-and-slash games ever made, there’s a secret code that lets you bypass the entire game all the way to the post-credits and final ending.

There are a total of five main endings to NieR: Automata, each requiring a playthrough of the story to achieve. However, with this secret code, you can skip past Ending E and unlock Chapter Select and Debug Mode, where you have complete freedom to mess around in the game.

This secret, which was discovered by Lance McDonald, took more than three years to find after the release of the game. According to him, this secret code can only be used right after the prologue boss fight against Marx, and you need to stand right in the middle between two conspicuous barrels to activate the code.

If you’re curious about the cheat code, Lance provided the following instructions in his video: While holding R2, press Up, Down, up, Right, Left, Square, Circle, Triangle, and Cross. This creates a pattern that resembles the logo of PlatinumGames.

2 Legend of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild

Straight To Ganon

As one of the best open-world games in recent memory, Breath of the Wild gives you complete freedom to craft your own narrative. Whether you want to follow the main story, get distracted by the hundreds of side quests and collectibles, or head straight to Hyrule Castle and slap Calamity Ganon with a tree branch, the choice is yours.

But to even begin your free-roam adventure, you must first complete the gorgeous Great Plateau prologue section, where you can earn your paraglider and unique Sheikah Slate abilities. Without those, you won’t be able to beat the game unless you use exploits or glitches.

The journey to Hyrule Castle and Calamity Ganon is tough, even if you’re well-prepared. Some have taken to the ultimate challenge by heading straight to Ganon right after the Great Plateau section.

Much like Metal Gear’s Naked Snake, these challengers are equipped with nothing but their skills and knowledge of how to navigate the castle, procuring upgrades and gear on-site.

1 Legend of Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom

A True Test Of Endurance

While this may seem like a two-in-one because Tears of the Kingdom is a direct sequel to Breath of the Wild, the execution of the open-world and final battle is quite different and significantly harder.

On your quest to destroy Ganondorf, the game expects you to follow the main story and complete story missions to gather not just equipment and abilities but also allies who will accompany you during the final battle. These allies will hold off the army and bypass any boss fights you’ve fought previously.

Without your allies, you’re forced to face the Demon King’s army all by yourself, all the while facing the many bosses that you would’ve fought if you had played the game normally.

But that’s not all. Fighting Ganondorf himself is an incredibly tough challenge even when you’re prepared as he has three phases before you can beat him, so it takes a special kind of skill to beat him without the necessary equipment and upgrades.