History Main / SkippableBoss

*** Downplayed with Misty, Lt. Surge, Eirika, Koga, and Sabrina. You can put off all of their Gym battles for a bit if you want to do things out of order, but eventually you will have to wheel back and take them out in order to unlock important HM moves and the Viridian City Gym.

* ''VideoGame/{{Cuphead}}'' has several downplayed examples. First, you don't have to defeat any of the minibosses from the run-and-gun stages; each has a few ways of boosting yourself past them (which allows for a PacifistRun). Second, later patches allow you to skip phases on a few bosses, which will result in the next phase being a bit harder. The Onion stage of The Root Pack, for example, can be skipped by not attacking the onion, and thus not causing him to cry damaging tears.

** The Mantis Lords canalso be skipped -- they guard the earliest entrance to Deepnest, but that area can also be accesed from two other entrances in the Fungal Wastes and a third in the Queen's Gardens. However, beating them does give access to the earliest convenient entrance, and has the secondary bonus of making the mantis enemies non-hostile going forward.

*** Subverted with four major bosses ("Blights") that are tied to the plot. You can choose to ignore them and head straight to the FinalBoss if you wish, but skipping the dungeon bosses will not grant you the magical abilities you would have earned for beating them plus some side quests won't open up until you beat the dungeons. If you get to the final boss without beating any of the major bosses first, they show up and you have to fight them anyway before you can fight the final boss.

** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTearsOfTheKingdom'': Like in ''Breath of the Wild'', neglecting the questlines to solve the regional anomalies will force you to fight the Temples' associated bosses back to back during the endgame. However, you will at least manage to skip the MiniBoss battles against [[spoiler:Yunobo (in his brainwashed form)]], Moragia and Sludge Like.

** Notably, you only need to defeat two shardbearers to access the Capital City. Since you've got multiple paths of approach to each boss, Godrick, Rennala, Radahn and Rykard are all skippable if you know where to go. Radahn and Rykard are likely more out of the way than Godrick and Rennala however. You will likely want to fight all of the demigods though, as their fight grants useful runes for levelling up, buffs to your character with Rune Arcs and Remembrances that can be cashed in for powerful weapons and spells. Their legacy dungeons or quest lines leading up to them also will give you vital runes.

* The open-world nature of ''VideoGame/EldenRing'' allows for some freedom of movement and a player with a good eye can find alternate routes around the world that bypass bosses that obstruct the expected route. Most notably, the main bosses of Limgrave, Margit and Godrick, can be skipped if you discover a path that goes around Stormveil Castle, letting the player access Liurnia behind it and allowing them to improve their gear before coming back to them.

* ''VideoGame/TombRaider'': The T-Rex encounter in the first three games can be ignored entirely (the dinosaur in the 2nd game is optional since it guards a secret), although you will have a much harder time trying to navigate the area as you pick up key items while being attacked. Larson on his second encounter can be ignored by just running past him and grabbing the Scion, which triggers the end of the level, so killing Larson is purely optional. In the Anniversary remake, the T-Rex can no longer be ignored. You can also ignore Natla after you knock her down the first time and focus on escaping, as she won't be able to hit you from the platforms you need to use to escape.

* ''VideoGame/{{Deltarune}}'': The miniboss battle against [[PunnyName Tasque Manager]] can be skipped if you answer her questions about the paintings in her room correctly. (Technically, the battle still '''starts''', but Tasque Manager begins with a full Mercy gauge and can be spared immediately, ending the fight before she or her minions can do anything.) However, most players will probably not succeed the quiz unless they specifically take the time to take notes on all the paintings before interacting with the Tasque Manager.