Basic Trope: If you play well enough, you have to fight a much harder Final Boss.
- Straight: If you can finish Tales of Troperia without anyone dying, then you get to fight The Man Behind the Man in a much harder final boss fight. Defeating him gives you the Golden Ending.
- Exaggerated:
- You can only fight the true final boss if you get 100% Completion.
- The above, with loads of Permanently Missable Content.
- There's a True True Final Boss after beating True Final Boss when requirements are met.
- The game has a True Final Boss, a Truer Final Boss and Truest Final Boss, each of which are harder than the last.
- There are multiple true final bosses in Tales of Troperia and getting 100% Completion will require to stand up and defeat them all.
- In order to get the True Final Boss, you need to beat the game without anyone dying, get 100% Completion for the list of Mons, finish all the sidequests, and resolve a Guide Dang It! subplot. Have fun!
- You can only fight the True Final Boss if you finish the game without taking any damage at all. Since the game starts with a Hopeless Boss Fight, it is literally impossible to do this outside of cheats and exploits.
- The True Final Boss can only be fought on Hard and the Harder Than Hard difficulties, with each harder difficulty adding a new form that is tougher than the last. On the hardest difficulty, you will need to pull out all of the stops and make use of everything you know to win this fight.
- Downplayed:
- You get to fight the true final boss even if you achieved as little as 70% Completion.
- The regular final boss becomes much harder on subsequent playthroughs, and beating the boss again gets you a different ending.
- Justified:
- The true final boss only shows up for those they deem worthy of the challenge.
- The True Final Boss is The Man Behind the Man.
- The True Final Boss takes place in an alternate timeline, and is actually the Final Boss going One-Winged Angel in a fit of desperation.
- The True Final Boss is a reward for playing on the Harder Than Hard difficulty modes.
- In order to meet the True Final Boss, you need to finish a subplot that the True Final Boss is related to.
- The true final boss will flee the country (with all the magic he has stolen) if you don't reach him before the reports of your victories reach him.
- The True Final Boss is actually Claidheamh. Even after everything you've done, he's still always the true final combat encounter.
- Inverted:
- If you do well enough, you scare the Big Bad away and only have to fight one of their minions.
- The True Final Boss appears only if you play the game poorly, and/or at a lower than expected level. Cue the Hopeless Curb-Stomp Battle.
- Subverted: After you defeat the boss very quickly, a cutscene shows you chase down and confront the Man Behind the Man, and then gun him down without the cutscene even ending. It turns out to just be the Golden Ending.
- The True Final Boss is only fightable if you play on the Easier Than Easy difficulties.
- Double Subverted:
- After you gun down the Man Behind the Man, you have to fight off The Dragon Behind The Dragon.
- Then the Man Behind the Man transforms...
- Parodied: After you defeat the Final Boss, hundreds of Men Behind The Man (and one woman) appear, each claiming to be the true Big Bad. After fifty or so battles, the main character screams for it to end. The game complies, leaving you to face the True Final Boss: the credits.
- Zig Zagged: After you defeat the final boss, The Man Behind the Man appears to fight you, only to be blown away from offscreen. However, it turns out they was blown away by the Final Boss, who wasn't so defeated after all, and wants to challenge you to one last fight. If you don't lose a single life to him, they then goes One-Winged Angel and you face the true final form. Then the Man Behind the Man resurfaces, more powerful this time.
- Averted: No matter how well or poorly you play, you fight the same Final Boss.
- Enforced: The programmers want to give the players a reward for 100% Completion.
- Lampshaded: "I must have done really well, if you're impressed enough to fight me in person."
- Invoked: The Man Behind the Man laughs at you after the credits finish rolling, saying "Now try doing it without continues."
- Exploited: The player of the game notes he's doing well, and stashes a few e-tanks after the final boss in case this trope occurs.
- Defied: As Invoked, but they add, "We won't give you anything for it, but it'll be fun!"
- Discussed: "...If you're so powerful, why didn't you fight me first?"
- Conversed: "Don't miss that room! The real bad guy won't show up unless you've covered the whole map!"
- Deconstructed: Your character is battered and exhausted from the epic battle with the Final Boss, and you are only able to watch in horror as your character struggles to move while the true final boss slaughters them.
- Reconstructed: ...Unless you accomplished the secret tasks in each level, in which case you get control back, your character gets a second wind, and you engage in the most epic battle of the game.
- Played For Laughs:
- The True Final Boss is invulnerable to all damage except for the Joke Item.
- The True Final Boss's health bar fills up, showcasing that they have 99 health bars. Attacking them once causes them to emit a high pitched scream, and their HP bars drain as fast as they filled, while the main characters and the Final Boss burst out laughing.
- Played For Drama:
- If you do not fight the True Final Boss, you get only the Bad Ending as they take over after you're gone.
- The True Final Boss is so hard that nobody, not even the developers, can beat them. And to make it worse, if you lose against them, you get a Downer Ending in which they slaughter you. Because defeating the boss is the only way to win the game and get the Golden Ending, an outrage is caused in the real world. Eventually, the fandom forces the developers to sign a contract saying that they will never put any True Final Boss in any of their games again. Or else the fandom will firebomb and shoot up the developers' headquarters.
Look out! The True Final Boss just appeared!.
