Bait and Switch Boss

You've blasted your way through the enemy's lair, demolished the Mooks, and solved the puzzles. Now it's time to face the boss of the stage, right beyond those big conspicuously ornate doors. Your loins are girded for the fight as you barge in and see...a boss. Not a particularly fearsome boss, really. I mean, you've fought something almost exactly like him about four levels ago. The boss prepares to unleash his fury...

Until a giant blade comes out of nowhere, bisecting him. Your vision slowly runs up the blade to the face of the REAL boss of the stage, almost three times the size of the boss he just bisected...and he's looking back at you.

A Bait-And-Switch Boss is those times when the apparent boss for the stage gets replaced by the real boss, who then steps up to the plate to challenge you. The primary version has the boss destroy the 'bait' boss before he even attacks, but some games may have you fight the lesser boss for a bit before the real boss takes his place.

The real boss could be a Giant Space Flea From Nowhere. It could also be The Man Behind the Man, but it isn't a requirement that the real boss is in any way the real leader or in greater authority, aside from his presumed rank. If the new boss is a familiar face, then the story just got Hijacked by Ganon.

If you actually have to finish the first boss off yourself then go against another, it's a Trick Boss.

Compare Worf Effect.

Anime and Manga

 * In Gantz, the first target is the Onion Alien, a scrawny, panicky little man who can do little more than say "Onions are enough for me". The hunters corner him, taunt him and then blow his head up...at which point a much larger, much brawnier alien walks up. He bears a slight resemblance to the Onion Alien (one hunter suggests he's the first one's dad), and he's really pissed off. This one slaughters all but four of the hunters before the survivors kill him.
 * This actually seems to happen almost habitually in all their hunts. That is, Gantz gives them one or a few targets, and then more keep showing up. Think of the Buddha statues battle, for example.
 * In the manga The Law of Ueki Plus, when the main characters start their siege on the Big Bad. Plus, four generals are introduced as his guards. They are immediately dispatched by the main group on the next page, being run over by a T-rex. It's just as awesome as it sounds.
 * In Pokémon Red and Blue, the eighth and final Gym Leader is Giovanni, the Big Bad of Team Rocket. In the Pokémon anime, Giovanni leaves his duty at the exact same moment that Ash was at the Gym's doorstep, ready to challenge him. Instead, Ash has to face off against Jessie and James, who Giovanni temporarily left in charge.
 * In Gamaran at the beginning of the second part of the tournament, it seems that Gama's gonna fight the Kanasemanji School leader Muraku Matsumoto, but then he decides to step back and let Gama fight with Saizou Fujibayashi, leader of the Tamagakushi Ninja School.

Live Action TV

 * In the season 5 finale of Law and Order Special Victims Unit, a male urophiliac potty-peeper who installs hidden cameras in ladies' bathrooms is quickly and easily apprehended by police. With an overwhelming pile of evidence incriminating him, he folds quickly, about a quarter of the way into the episode's length--but not before offering up video footage of what turns out to be a far more disturbing crime, which becomes the "actual" plot of the episode.
 * The Law and Order series have done this on several occasions, of course it's easy to see coming when they manage to try and convict a person in the first half hour.
 * In Season 4 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Spike is watching Buffy from an balcony giving a speech about how he's back and this time he's going to kill the slayer, but is interrupted by being tazered and surrounded by the real season's villains The Initiative.
 * For the finale of Let's Go Kamen Rider, OOO has defeated the Great Leader of Shocker, blasting him into the distance. Out of the rubble emerges King Dark, ready to fight the Riders not unlike what happened at All Riders vs. Dai-Shocker.
 * Subverted in NCIS, when they capture the mole's boss, and it's someone whose wife is being held hostage.
 * This is what happens to the Raiders, who were the Disc One Final Boss on Babylon Five. They're last seen on board their mothership, gloating about how between the ancient relic they've captured and the Centauri nobleman they're about to ransom, they're going to get enough money to buy a whole fleet of warships, rendering their losses in previous episodes inconsequential- and then a Shadow warship drops out of hyperspace and vaporizes them with downright contemptuous ease.

Video Games

 * Ace Combat Zero the Belkan War has a secret boss that only appears on the hardest difficulty of the bonus mission. When it appears, it destroys the squadron you would face on any other difficulty before turning on the player.
 * Aero Fighters 2 has something alike in the level that takes place in Australia, when a warship appears from behind you and starts attacking... just to be rammed and destroyed by the real boss: a far larguer helicopter carrier-battleship.
 * In the final level of the Alien vs. Predator arcade Beat'Em Up by Capcom, you mow down your way to a fat colonel that is getting Aliens for the Weyland-Yutani company. After you take out his last mooks he steps forward to face you... only to be impaled and torn in half by the Alien Queen, which you thought you killed three levels earlier and who isn't a Stationary Boss like she was earlier due to not being attached to her egg sac anymore. Cue hellish final boss fight.
 * Borderlands has Commandant Steele yell at you for stealing artifacts the whole game, only to be replaced by Giant Space Flea From Nowhere when she opens the vault.
 * In Castle Crashers, when you reach the first boss fight, you first see a barbarian about twice the size of the regular Mooks. Then there's pounding on the door behind him and it falls onto him, as an even larger barbarian shows up -- this one fills up nearly half the screen.
 * In the Thieves' Forest, a grizzly bear attempts to attack your party, but an off-screen Giant Mook, which is causing the ground to tremble with its footsteeps, freaks out the bear so much that he craps himself and retreats back into his bush. You run away from this boss in the next stage, then fight him for real in a later level.
 * Castlevania has a few. In Harmony of Dissonance you enter the boss room in a later part of the game, and see a Living Armour marching towards you. Looks exactly like the one you fought about twenty levels ago, only with a BFS... Until it's destroyed in one hit by Talos, the real boss (the big armor that you ran away from at the start of the game).
 * Another one in Harmony of Dissonance occurs when you walk into a boss room to find a Peeping Eye. Extremely weak enemy. Move a bit to the right, hero, and you'll find the REAL boss, a Peeping Big.
 * Another version of Bait and Switch occurs in Aria of Sorrow. You've pounded Death and Legion, two of the more intimidating bosses so far, and are expecting a good challenge in the Battle Arena stage. You enter the boss room, and the bats hanging on the roof form into... the Giant Bat? A common boss, but universally a low-level boss in Castlevania. What's he doing this late a level?... Until a massive hand comes out of the background and crushes the bat in its grip, heralding the arrival of Balore, the real boss.
 * Fairly early in Cave Story, you encounter a power switch that supplies power to the fans (which you need to activate) and something called "Malco." Turns out that Malco is the nearby security bot, which promptly prepares to kill you, before the Recurring Boss drops down out of the sky to take you on and lands on top of it.
 * Later on, a major villain shows up and prepares to fight you, when the ground suddenly begins shaking. The villain remarks that she's no longer needed and teleports away as a giant monster bursts out of the ground.
 * Contra series
 * Shattered Soldier has Mr. Heli-Robo, a Transforming Mecha that chases the player throughout Mission 1. It eventually appears at the end of the stage, where it is promptly crushed by Slave Beast Taka the actual boss.
 * In Stage 2 of Contra 4, the player has to face a group of four enemy snipers in black who are tougher to kill than the regular mooks. When only one of the black-clad snipers remains, a tail suddenly grabs him and cuts him in half. Then the true boss rears his ugly head.
 * Dino Crisis 2 has you fighting and constantly running from a one-eyed T-Rex (who's justifiably pissed off seeing as you and your team are the ones responsible for blowing up its eye). What's worse than fighting a T-Rex, you might ask?  The "good" news? You get to fight (and more likely run from) it about two rooms later!
 * The arcade game Dungeon Magic (from 1993, but playable now via MAME) has a classic example of this. After chasing the evil wizard Venom through three scenarios, each of which ends with him escaping and leaving you to fight one of his minions, you face off with him. He summons a Demon Lord...which kills him in one blow, and then fights you.
 * The first boss of Dynamite Headdy shows up at the end of the second world with a new vehicle, only to be squashed by the real boss. He even remains stuck in the boss's underside for the whole fight.
 * A variant occurs in Donkey Kong 64. Diddy enters a boss room, finding it inhabited by a small, insect-sized dragon which buzzes irritatingly around his head, so he jumps on it and squashes it. Then an identical but much larger dragon crawls out of the lava behind Diddy; it's not happy.
 * At the end of 1-3 in Demon's Souls, you find a typical Fat Minister, the likes of which you've been fighting as regular enemies before. At first it looks like he would be the boss, but suddenly he gets stabbed from behind and thrown out by the real boss, The Penetrator.
 * In Final Fantasy IV,
 * In Final Fantasy V, after retrieving one of the Plot Coupons, one of the Big Bad's minions shows up, ready to fight you; only to be swept away (somewhat literally) by . However,.
 * Early on in Final Fantasy VIII, Squall and company run into Biggs and Wedge atop the Dollet Communication Tower. After depleting their health (a simple feat - they're only slightly better than normal Galbadian Soldiers and Elites), they get sucked up in a tornado as Elvoret gets annoyed at all the racket.
 * Also inverted with a bait and switch ally. If you've got Odin by the time you fight Seifer the last time, Odin shows up (which he never usually does in boss fights), attacks Seifer, and is killed(!). Later in the battle, Gilgamesh shows up and beats Seifer instantly for you, and replaces Odin from then on.
 * Final Fantasy X features an example in the beginning of the game. Tidus, the main character, battles several minor enemies who ambush him in the water. After he defeats two of them, a massive unbeatable (at that point) boss, Geosgaeno, kills the remaining enemy and promptly attacks you.
 * Final Fantasy XII combines this trope with Fluffy the Terrible
 * Final Fantasy XIII continues the trend with Jihl, although many agree that she deserved it after some less than meritorious behavior.
 * In one of the side missions later in the game, your objective is to fight Zenobia, an Undying Cie'th--that is, a Cie'th holding onto immense hatred for the fal'Cie that cursed it. Zenobia rises from the ground, in all its Body Horror glory, only to be
 * In the sequel, though, Zenobia appears to be fightable.
 * The last enemy you face during Titan's trials is one of the Undying, which kills the behemoth Titan had intended for you to fight.
 * In Fire Emblem, six and seven
 * In the beginning of God of War: Chains of Olympus, a cyclops armed with a gigantic club smashes through a door you're trying to open. You drive off his first attack, and then the massive Basilisk, the real first boss, nibbles the cyclops from outside the door and eats it. At least he leaves you his club to use on the big lizard.
 * Two of the bosses for Gunstar Heroes qualify. After fighting your way through an entire army, the boss warning sounds as you approach an invulnerable soldier who's just standing there and...swaying his torso around? The boss read-out identifies him as "Final Great Soldier", and lists his attack as "Love Love Dancing". After a few awkward seconds, the real boss, the Big Bad's Dragon shows up, chews him out, and tosses him aside. The whole boss warning/read-out sequence starts up again to herald the upcoming fight.
 * As well, when you face off with Grey, the Big Bad, his evil scheme fails on him, and he gets blasted by the real boss, Golden Silver.
 * Oddly, despite being a sequel, not a remake, the exact same things happen again in Gunstar Super Heroes. The entire plot of Gunstar Super Heroes basically revolves around the exact same things as the original Gunstar Heroes happening again, but with more story and explanation surrounding them this time.
 * In I Wanna Be the Guy, right before you enter the Palace of The Guy the moon, which has been pestering you throughout the game, drops down from the sky to confront you...and then the real boss, the robot dragon from Mega Man 2, beats it down and the real fight begins.
 * In Jade Cocoon 2, all the non story bosses are oversized versions of regular monsters, and before fighting a short fmv clip is played. In one of them a large Dragon fly buzzes at you menacingly. It looks a little out of place in the water world, and seems smaller than other bosses. It then gets eaten by a HUGE frog monster, who then attacks you.
 * The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess does this in the fourth dungeon (which may seem like the final dungeon if you aren't familiar with the series tradition of having two sets of MacGuffin). Big Bad Zant appears, but rather than facing Link directly he just drives his sword into the skull of a dragon skeleton, animating the boss of the dungeon. Even then you may think it's just his The Dragon and you'll be facing him afterwards, but no.
 * Not to mention that he's, y'know,.
 * The Lord of the Rings Online has one in the quest "Tomb of Elendil": after wearing down the first boss for a while, he runs over and wakes up the real boss, a giant turtle that eats the first boss for waking him up.
 * Lunar Dragon Song does this in reverse.
 * In Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo, Dan originally appears as the final boss, only to get jumped by Akuma before the round starts.
 * Metroid Prime Hunters - In one stage, the player is about to face a guardian
 * This happens twice on Metroid Prime 2: Echoes. Both times, you face off against an "alpha" version of a wild creature you've already faced before, but then, it gets possessed by the Ing. Neither one is very far into the game.
 * Zig-zagged at the end of Metroid Fusion. You get mauled by the big nasty-looking boss first, then the boss you thought just died shows up...and gets destroyed in one shot (at least giving you the firepower to kill the original enemy).
 * No More Heroes had  of these: , is taken out by  , and just before the fight with final boss begins.
 * Its sequel No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle has more, numerically speaking. Out of the 51 ranked assassins in the United States, All in all, that's  bosses that the player does not get to fight.
 * In Paper Mario, what you expect to be a rematch against the first-level Quirky Miniboss Squad is interrupted when all four of them get knocked out by the Recurring Boss, who demands one last fight from you.
 * Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door has an...interesting variant. Where you THINK you're fighting the chapter boss, and it goes through the entire sequence of the end of a chapter. But for some reason, there's no Peach or Bowser segment...
 * Done in Prince of Persia: Warrior Within in the True Final Boss ending. If you got all the health upgrades, as you prepare for . Earlier in the game, you're about to confront the Crow on an outside ledge, but it just then gets killed by the Dahaka, and yet another Escape Sequence begins.
 * Rocket Knight Adventures for Genesis had you finally get into the evil pig space station and lay some smackdown on the Pig Emperor. Except he's a robotic impersonator, and once you beat him you find out the real boss is an ancient malevolent computer.
 * In Salamander 2, the sequel to Salamander (known as Life Force in the United States), you encounter the first boss of the first game, the giant brain Golem. Golem attacks you at the end of the first stage in Salamander 2. A few seconds later, Golem is gobbled up by a gigantic serpent-like creature. You then end up fighting this giant serpent instead as the boss proper.
 * In Star Fox Adventures, you've barely begun fighting General Scales when the real final boss has him give up the Krazoa spirit(killing Scales when he resists). He doesn't reveal himself until the after the last McGuffin is in place--
 * Super Street Fighter II Turbo normally has you fight M. Bison for the final showdown. But if you've beaten the game without losing a single round, Bison is taken out in one shot by Akuma, who becomes your final opponent.
 * Also happens in the first Street Fighter Alpha, as well as in the first Street Fighter EX.
 * In Alpha 2, each character has a secret rival who will interrupt one of the scheduled matches if the player fulfills certain conditions.
 * Played for laughs in Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo, where after defeating all of the other characters a pumped up Dan Hibiki stands up as the final boss...and then Akuma pops out kicking Dan's ass and making him flee in tears, facing you with a nasty evil grin. For those of you who don't know, Dan is the Glass Joe of the game.
 * Also played with in Alpha 3. Sometimes when you fight Karin, Sakura's rival, the pre-match animation will show her muscled butler waiting to fight you instead - then Karin throws a pot at him, he runs off, and she gets ready to fight.
 * The entire plot of Tron Two Point Oh builds up to a final confrontation against Thorne, the 12-foot-tall Big Bad Super-Virus...and when you finally get to his inner sanctum, . The rest of the game is also a case of a Halfway Plot Switch, as the last several levels has you chasing after greedy corporate hackers after an entire game of battling The Virus.
 * (cough) Not "out of nowhere". The Kernel has been out to get you too. You're an unauthorized program and you escaped him once already, while killing his men. Also, at that point, you're trying to save Thorne, because he is the only one who has the codes to get you out of the system and back to the physical world. The Kernel doesn't want you to save him.
 * The final boss of Two Crude Dudes for Master System 2 was the evil scientist who'd unleashed all those hideous mutants upon post-apocalyptic New York. He's hilariously easy to beat the crap out of and throw around like a ragdoll...until he suddenly mutates into a gigantic asskicking monstrosity.
 * Clive Barker's Undying does this with the final boss fight, no less than four times. Here we go:
 * First, you fight Bethany, who's been set up to be the final boss all through the game.
 * After killing her,  appears and reveals that he's been behind the whole thing! Looks like he's the final boss...but then Patrick just unceremoniously decapitates him mid-speech...
 * ...which results in the much-hyped Undying King being summoned, leaping out of the ground looking like a pissed-off mummy, as befit his name, only to seemingly disintegrate before engaging you...
 * ...only then . After him, the game ends. Promise.
 * Viewtiful Joe 2 ends a later stage with yet another appearance by the Recurring Boss. His conversation with the heroes lasts for a good half-minute before he is taken down and replaced by the Noble Demon Expy Rival from the first game. Oh, and did we mention an almost exact thing happens in the next level, this time without even the excuse of being a different character?
 * Winback: First, Cecile, the Dragon, turns against and kills the Big Bad, Kenneth. Then Dan, The Mole and Man Behind the Man, shows up and shoots Cecile in revenge for his brother. Then you fight Dan as the apparently Final Boss, but after you defeat him, it turns out that Cecile is Not Quite Dead, although he's an Anticlimax Boss if you figure out how to get past the laser fences.
 * The World Ends With You tries to set you up expecting a rematch with.
 * In World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade, the apparent final boss of the Arcatraz dungeon is an insane Blood Elf who hides in a magical bubble and releases three random minibosses (and an obnoxious but allied Gnome) from the cells around him. After defeating them, the "real" final boss, a Sealed Evil in a Can (a Mind Rape insect mage) (and presumably the reason the Elf was crazy, given all that babbling about a "master"), is released; he kills the crazy elf rather swiftly then moves on to you.
 * The Trial of the Crusader raid has another, rather sad one. A gnome warlock named Wilfred Fizzlebang, rather confident about his abilities and his supposed immense power. He intends to summon a Doomguard (a rather powerful demon, but not ridiculously powerful, however). Instead, he accidentally summons a huge Eredar Lord, a much more deadly demonic sorcerer, and proceeds to attempt to convince said demon (who is about 20 times bigger than him) that HE, the gnome, is in charge here. Needless to say, he gets swiftly killed by his summoned demon, who then proceeds to blast away at the players.
 * In the Cataclysm expansion, there's another example of this in the Stonecore. The very first pull in the instance has you fight Milhouse Manastorm (incidentally the same gnome as in the Burning Crusade example above), who fights until he's at half health and runs to the next trash pull. Finally, you have him and his group of adds cornered, and he's channeling a powerful spell. But as soon as you engage him, a giant gyreworm named Corborus bursts out of nowhere, knocking the gnome and his group far away, never to be seen again. You fight the worm (who puts up a decent fight, especially on heroic mode).
 * In Yoshis Island, when you get to the boss room in Baby Bowser's castle, it looks as though you are about to confront Kamek, but then Bowser wakes up, complains about the noise, and proceeds to stomp Kamek flat and kick him away. Kamek later shows up all fine just to provide a segue to the second phase of the battle and take Bowser away when he's defeated.
 * Similarly, at the end of Super Mario Galaxy, just right before you even get to Bowser, you see Bowser Jr. once more, but instead of fighting him, he simply flies away in his spaceship, and as a result you actually end up fighting Bowser directly.
 * In the first two stages of The Punisher arcade game by Capcom, Frank Castle and Nick Fury run after mafia boss Bruno Costa, eventually cornering him and setting up for a not so intimidating boss battle. Suddenly, a laser sweeps away Bruno and his henchmen in a single hit, and a huge robot sent by the Kingpin engages the player instead.
 * A Olympus Coliseum mission in Kingdom Hearts 358 Days Over 2 has you fighting in a tournament (which plays in the exact same way as the tournaments in the first Kingdom Hearts). The final opponent there is...Xigbar? Just wail out some of his lifebars and cue the uninvited appearance of the mission's boss: the Guard Armor from the first game. And when it seems like Xigbar will assist you in fighting it, he instead dumps you for the boss battle. That clever little sneak.
 * One Piece: Unlimited Cruise Episode 2 plays this pretty straight with the battle against Donquixote Doflamingo. At first it looks like you're going to fight against Bellamy, the relatively weak and easily dispatched villain from the Jaya arc. All of a sudden, a pink arm rises from the boss container and takes control of Bellamy. This is followed by the rest of Doflamingo's body, which proceeds to KICK. YOUR. ASS.
 * You know Zouken Matou, big bad of the Heavens Feel route in Fate/stay night? Yea, turns out Sakura wasn't as brain dead as he assumed. Cue bridge drop with
 * In Yu-Gi-Oh! Worldwide Edition: Stairway to the Destined Duel, sometimes a nearby duelists with a story connection to the person you challenge will make your opponent go away and you'll have to fight them instead. An example would be Marik and Bakura or Mokuba and Seto Kaiba. You could try to challenge Bakura, but then Marik shows up out of nowhere and drives him away with possibly the worst excuse ever to trick someone with this line,"If I recall correctly, there is something you need to take care of right away...you don't have the luxury of wasting any time here, correct." This works and you face Marik.
 * Every now and then, a Rare Hunter will show up to give an in-story example, and will replace any character.
 * Any character that has an alternate ("Yami") form can do this to themselves. Yami Yugi and Yami Bakura are their default forms, but can switch out with Regular Yugi or Bakura. Marik can switch out with Yami Bakura, who is a lot more aggressive. These examples mean minimal, though, as they use the same decks.
 * Generalissimo Killt is setup as the Big Bad of Bionic Commando Rearmed. When you meet him, he is immediately backstabbed by the newly-resurrected Hitler "Leader".
 * Same in the original game, except Hitler "Master-D" is somehow able to folgorate Killt from inside his resurrection chamber.
 * In an early dungeon in Mega Man Legends 2, the MacGuffin at the end of the dungeon is gone when you get there. This is not surprising, as you already fought a Cowardly Boss pursuing the same MacGuffin twice in the same dungeon. He then shows up behind you...and informs you that he doesn't have it, then leaves you to fight the boss that does.
 * In Star Wars: The Force Unleashed 2, while on Cato Neimoidia, you end up with him in a gladiator arena, surrounded by the corpses of countless warriors and wild beasts. Suddenly, a large gate nearby opens up, and out steps a rancor. Starkiller smirks and readies his blades... and then, from beneath the ground, a humongous hand reaches up, smashes the rancor into the ground, and pulls it under. And then said hand's owner comes out to play. Say hello to the Gorog.
 * In Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure, the final boss is apparently your Arch Enemy Weasleby. However,
 * Subverted in Blaz Blue: Continuum Shift, where one battle in Hakumen's Arcade Mode path seems to set you up against, but then   appears...and then she only speaks briefly with Hakumen before making way for  , for real.
 * The first Mass Effect made you think that the entire final battle was going to be against Saren while the fleet dealt with Sovereign. While it is possible to get into a final boss fight with Saren, either way you get into a fight when Sovereign takes over Saren's body.
 * In Sonic Colors, Eggman tries to use mind control to force a fight between Sonic and Tails, but when the device he's using breaks down, he's got a regular boss ready to go.
 * In Sonic 3 and Knuckles, when you reach Sky Sanctuary with Knuckles, it looks like you're going to fight the Eggrobo yet again, shortly before Mecha Sonic shows up and destroys it.
 * Ape Escape 2 has Hikaru finally meet Specter after defeating the Freaky Monkey Five. Specter talks about how he'll beat Hikaru with a powerful mecha...when Yellow Monkey, the one who run after you beat him, appears again, and giant size. After Yellow destroys the mecha because he's told not to eat more Vita-Z bananas Specter leaves you to deal with the new problem.
 * In Adventure Quest, One Eyed Doll decides to assist you in battling Chaos Lord Discordia. You battle your way to what you believe to be Chaos Lord Discordia, only for One Eyed Doll to suddenly reveal that actually, she's Chaos Lord Discordia, and that other guy was just a victim of her Mind Control.
 * Pokémon Black and White:
 * Used creatively in Devil May Cry 4. The boss of mission five appears to be two luminescent Horny Devils with ice powers, fought in a snowing courtyard, but as you fight them they seem unusually pathetic, rarely ever attacking and doing little when they do. Damage them enough, though, and
 * In Kingdom of Loathing, there's a Bonus Puzzle Boss called the Guy Made of Bees. His opening line is "We are Bees. We hate you." There's also a special challenge path called Bees Hate You. Curiously, the Guy Made of Bees doesn't appear in his usual location during a Bees Hate You run. Given the page you're on, you've probably guessed that.
 * Subverted in Last Scenario. At the end of the Disc One Final Dungeon,, gets literally and figuratively stabbed in the back by , who reveals that he's been manipulating him all along. Despite being mortally wounded, gets back up and fights you anyway.
 * Zuma's Revenge has the final boss, Zhaka Mu. After putting out the four torches, the mysterious cloaked figure reveals themselves to be a chicken-themed boss monster with an enormous health bar.
 * At the end of the fourth chapter in Mega Man 8 Bit Deathmatch's single player campaign, it appears you're going to fight the Cockroach Twins, only for them to be stomped flat by the Metool Daddy.
 * In Solatorobo, Red finally wises up and answers the third guardian's riddle, gaining the last piece of the Flute without having to fight him. However, at that exact moment Blanck shows up and a boss battle against him ensues.
 * Abobos Big Adventure first has Jaws being eaten by the larger Big Daddy. Later just as it seems you are about to fight the giant Contra end-boss alien
 * The Panther King from Conkers Bad Fur Day. At first, it looks like if you're going to fight him at the end of the game's final level, but then a Xenomorph queen show up for no reason, kills the Panther King, and as a result the final boss battle actually pits Conker against her.
 * Halfway through playing in single-player in Digimon Battle Spirit, one of your next opponents may be blasted off the stage by Impmon before the battle can start. If you manage to defeat him and collect 300 D-Spirit in total by the end of the playthrough, you can then unlock Impmon as a playable character.
 * In Dead Space 2, it looks like the majority of the game is leading up to a dramatic final confrontation with Tiedemann before you . Then you get there Game over right?  And THEN the credits roll.
 * In Vagrant Story, Ashley interrupts a scene where.
 * Near the end of Diablo III's Act IV, one of the "boss preview/warning" of sorts shows what seems to be as the next boss, with earlier scenes highlighting a conflict between him and the Nephalem. Unfortunately,.
 * Rock Man 4 Minus Infinity
 * Reaching the third Chimerabot in Wily Stage 4 without taking damage for the entire game has destroying it.
 * Reaching the third Chimerabot in Wily Stage 4 without taking damage for the entire game has destroying it.
 * Reaching the third Chimerabot in Wily Stage 4 without taking damage for the entire game has destroying it.

Webcomics

 * In Eight Bit Theater  does this to , when his Phlebotinum Overload.

Western Animation

 * In Wolverine and the X-Men, a little mutant girl is released from a stasis box by Juggernaut. The first (apart from the manner of keeping her in stasis) way of demonstrating her powers? She flings said Totally Unstoppable Juggernaut a few miles away, knocking him out completely.
 * Justice League Unlimited pulls this twice in consecutive season finales. First sets himself up as the ultimate villain of the Cadmus arc, only for, of all people, to come in from nowhere in a plot twist tied to an episode of Superman that aired eight years before. Then in season five, after an entire arc , it looks like he's finally succeeded...until it resurrects
 * The Spectacular Spider-Man builds up Tombstone through the first season and most of the second as New York's resident Magnificent Bastard crime-king Big Bad, with it seeming that the series will come to a head with him against Spidey,
 * Happens twice in succession during the climactic episodes of WITCH. Knight Templar Chessmaster Nerissa was Big Bad for most of the season, but near the end former Big Bad Phobos returns, steals her Amplifier Artifact and seals her inside it, resuming his Evil Overlord throne..
 * In Ben 10: Ultimate Alien, Aggregor is the Big Bad for most of the first season, and later,
 * from Monster Truck Mater.