In many games across many genres, it’s somewhat customary to give you some manner of grand reward upon beating the final boss or otherwise finishing the game. You put all that work in, after all, so it’s really the least they can do. These rewards can include both weapons and power-ups, often with high stats and/or cheat-like abilities.
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These challenges were rightly left to the end.
However, there’s a bit of a problem that comes with these rewards: more often than not, there’s nothing left for you to actually use them on. Sometimes, the intent is to carry them over to a New Game Plus, but not everyone is into having subsequent runs trivialized. Other times, they’re meant to be used in a post-game or free-roam mode, in which case there’s basically nothing left to actually use them on.
Whatever the precise problem, these endgame rewards are either too little, too late, or far too powerful for their own good.
To diversify this list a bit, we’re including some rewards with additional unlock conditions like 100% completion or special sidequests. So long as at least one of those requirements is beating the game, it still counts.
Spoilers for some of the following games.
8Sword Of Aeons
At the end ofFable, our hero goes toe-to-toe with the evil Jack of Blades, having shed his human host and transformed into his full horrific splendor as a gigantic dragon. Unfortunately for him, he gets dunked on by the Hero, leaving nothing behind but his personal sword.
That sword happens to be the Sword of Aeons. With a base damage of 550 and Sharpening Augmentation, it is objectively the strongest weapon in the game.
to claim the sword for yourself, you have to make the ultimate evil choice: sacrificing your sister to empower it. It’d be pretty lame to do that if you’ve spent the whole game being a good guy, but hey, don’t let me tell you how to live your life. You might want to stop and consider, though, that you’ve just beaten the game’s last boss, and there’s not much of anything to actually use that sword on.
The Sword of Aeons is mostly just for those who really want tocommit to being huge jerks. In fact, in the Lost Chapters version of Fable, not only was it significantly nerfed, but it received a counterpart sword, Avo’s Tear, which you can get by being a good guy.
In the climax ofPersona 5, Joker and the Phantom Thieves rise up against the God of Control, Yaldabaoth, backed by the cheers of the Tokyo populace beneath. With their combined strength, Joker awakens his ultimate Persona, Satanael, and gives Yaldabaoth a shiny new ventilation hole.
In traditional Persona fashion, beating the game unlocks the ability to fuse and summon your ultimate Persona in a New Game Plus. However, Satanael’s overpowered problem is less that he’s useless, and more that he’s a little too strong for his own good.
Satanael is level 95, and your level doesn’t carry over into New Game Plus, so you can’t fuse him. Even if you could, he requires a six-way fusion between Arsene, Anzu, Ishtar, Satan, Lucifer, and Michael. That also means you need to have completed the Strength, Lovers, Star, Moon, and Justice Confidants in either the original playthrough or the New Game Plus.
Given all these requirements, you probably won’t be able to even think of using Satanael until the very end of your second run, which kind of takes the fun out of it.
6P.R.L. 412
Resident Evil 4 (2005)
Resident Evil 4
It’s a common mechanic throughout the Resident Evil series to receive some manner of super-cool weapon after you beat the game, specifically for use in subsequent playthroughs. The originalResident Evil 4, beinga more action-focused affairthan its predecessors, goes all in on this, giving you rewards out the wazoo for clearing the game on its various difficulty settings.
The biggest and shiniest reward you may receive, specifically for beating the game on Professional Difficulty, is the P.R.L. 412, or “Plaga Removal Laser.” This anachronistically high-tech weapon is, apparently, specially formulated to be a silver bullet against all Plaga and Plaga-derived monsters, i.e. literally every enemy in the game.
A quick press of the trigger deploys a wide flash, several of which will cook your average Ganado, while a long press charges up a massive, penetrating light beam that can kill both enemies and bosses in one shot.
Perhaps this is me being a purist, but I don’t really like using this weapon. As fun as it is to get a busted superweapon for beating the game on a high difficulty, RE4 is at its most fun when you’re plugging heads with the Red9. It loses some of its impact when you’re just shining a giant flashlight at everyone.
5Green Hyper Spray
Silent Hill 2 (2001)
Silent Hill 2
A game likeSilent Hill 2isn’t really something you play with the expectation of being rewarded. You play it to experience it, not to unlock stuff. Even so, Silent Hill 2 does have some unlockable stuff, doled out based on the star rating you receive upon surviving your final encounter with Pyramid Head and finishing the game.
The best reward you can get in the game is the Green Hyper Spray, awarded for subsequent playthroughs after finishing the game with a 10-star rating. That means, incidentally, getting any ending on the highest difficulty in the shortest possible time with no more than two saves, while also killing at least 75 enemies.
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In exchange for that undertaking, the Green Hyper Spray will instantly kill any enemy or boss you spritz it on, or otherwise instantly end fights against bosses you can’t actually kill, like in your first run-in with Pyramid Head.
It’s neat, I guess, but in a similar vein to Resident Evil 4, the combat in Silent Hill 2 isn’t really supposed to be that easy. It’s supposed to be unwieldy, difficult and claustrophobic, because that’s what gives the game its unsettling tone. Even if it is just for bragging rights, it goes against the game’s spirit.
4Climax Brace
In the originalBayonetta, whenever our favorite witch needs to go toe-to-toe with a powerful angel like Fortitudo or Temperantia, she enters what’s unofficially known as “serious mode.” In this state, every one of Bayo’s attacks produces a compliment Wicked Weave, drastically increasing her strength and attack range.
Normally, this state is exclusive to boss fights, but with the unlockable Climax Brace accessory, Bayo can be in serious mode 24/7, even against the most squishy rank and file angels. This sounds awesome on paper, and honestly, it is, but there are a couple of problems.
First, to unlock the Climax Brace, you need to collect all of the Umbran Tears of Blood, one of which necessitates beating the game on Nonstop Infinite Climax difficulty.
Technically, this can be circumvented with a cheat code and a metric whoa-ton of Halos. The other problem is that using the Climax Brace disables score recording, which means no Platinum trophies. Assuming you get it the proper way, it’s a superpowered enhancement obtained at a point in the game when you have basically nothing left to do. It’s just there for the fun of it.
3Permanent Superflame
Spyro 2: Ripto’s Rage
Spyro Reignited Trilogy
On several levels through the secondSpyrogame, there are upgrade gates that temporarily power Spyro’s fire breath into a Superflame, a far-reaching solid fireball. These upgrades usually only last for around ten seconds, though, mostly just for solving puzzles or defeating one powerful enemy.
After you defeat Ripto at the end of the game, you unlock the final world, Dragon Shores, within which is a gate with a 100% completion lock. That means 10,000 Gems and all 64 Orbs. Once you successfully crack that gate, you’ll find one last Superflame upgrade gate. The difference is that, after you pass through this gate, the effect is permanent; you now have Superflame, in perpetuity, to do with as you please.
What can you do with it? Honestly, a whole lot of nothing. The game has already been 100% completed, and unlike some other games on this list, there’s no particular postgame content. You could go fight the bosses again if you really felt like it, but I can’t think of anything else of note that Superflame would make more interesting.
2Infinity Bandana
Metal Gear Solid V
Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain
It’s a well-known scientific fact that Solid Snake, as well as his many relatives, offshoots, and contemporaries, looks really good in a bandana. InMetal Gear Solid V, you candress up Venom Snake in a bandana fairly easily, though all it does is make him a little harder to severely injure. We’re not talking about that bandana, though. We’re talking about the Infinity Bandana.
After you’ve cleared all 46 of the game’s main story missions, as well as completed all of the highlighted side ops and upgraded Mother Base to near its max potential, you’ll be able to craft the Infinity Bandana. It costs a Star of Bethlehem, which you get from finishing Mission 46, plus an R&D level of 48 and a whopping 1,000,000 GMP.
With the Infinity Bandana equipped, Snake will have infinite ammo, infinite explosives, and infinite durability on his weapons’ suppressors. Basically, you could pump as many tranq rounds into a soldier as you like without ever running out of ammo or breaking your suppressor. Since you only have to complete the vital Side Ops to get to this point, there might still be some content you can use this for, though it wouldn’t be particularly challenging.
1Unsealed Fell Arms
Tales Of Vesperia
Tales of Vesperia: Definitive Edition
Many games in the Tales serieshave their own spin on the recurring concept of the “Devil Arms,” a set of cursed, evil weapons conveniently for every character in your party. Once these weapons are unsealed, usually through some manner of sidequest, they become supremely busted.Tales of Vesperiahas its own evil weapons, the Fell Arms, though their means of unsealing is slightly different from the norm.
After obtaining your first Fell Arm, Yuri’s sword Abyssion, the rest of them will become available to find throughout the game’s dungeons. In their sealed state, the Fell Arms are pretty much useless. Once you collect all of them, though, the final boss fight against Duke changes: he picks up an entire third phase in his battle, unsealing the weapons in the process.
Once unsealed, the Fell Arms receive increased attack for every enemy killed by their counterpart character. Since you’ve got a game’s worth of bodies stacked up by this point, that’s quite a bit. Unfortunately, the game’s already over, notwithstanding post-game superbosses and such, so there’s not really a whole lot you can do with them. You could carry them to a New Game Plus via the Grade shop, but then their enemy kill counters would reset.
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JRPGs have some of the most iconic fights in gaming and while most are manageable, there are always a few in each game that give gamers chills.
