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* Level grind and combine for hours to get the best [[Mon]].
More dishonestly, you can outright [[Game Shark|cheat]] with various popular "all items" codes, as many of these items can be (patiently) used to achieve the effects of other codes that may wreck your game by screwing with [[Event Flag
Depending on the game, this may be a form of [[Sequence Breaking]], since many adventure games rely on the logical order of obtainable equipment or abilities (to reach the boss you need the grappling hook, found across the lake for which you need the flippers, found behind the boulder for which you need the bombs, etc. all the way back to you at the very beginning with nothing but your wooden stick sword and good intentions) to maintain the game's geographical and plot linearity. The "Breaking" part of the term is a deliberate cautionary word choice, since doing this in some titles can cause the game to crash entirely and necessitate a complete restart, sometimes many hours of play after the sequence is initially broken.
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== Final Fantasy ==
* ''[[
* In ''[[Final Fantasy III]]'' (at least in the NES Version) it's possible to get the very best Gear after you arrive at the first village in the game. The glitch required to abuse is rather tedious, but even getting the best gear for just one of your four characters makes the whole game incredibly easy to finish.
* ''[[Final Fantasy VI]]:''
** Gau is a character built around the concept of a Disc One Nuke. He mimics the attack of monsters, letting him use level two magic long before your other party members even begin to learn first level magic, and from there until the second half of the game can usually consistently stay one-step ahead of the abilities of the rest of the party. The only catch is [[Guide Dang It|the game doesn't tell you which monsters teach him which attacks]], and finding a specific monster to teach him a specific attack can take hours.
** Edgar joins the party with the Auto-Crossbow, which lets him attack all enemies at once, doing more damage than a normal attack and ignoring row. Once Edgar joins pretty much every random encounter up until Zozo can be ended in a single round.
*** Once you ''get'' to Zozo, you can do a sidequest to get him a friggin' [[Chainsaw Good|CHAINSAW]] that's not only more powerful than his regular melee attack but has a 1/4 chance of scoring a [[One-Hit Kill]]. This is balanced by the fact that, later in the game, pretty much every enemy is immune to Instant Death, meaning the chainsaw is just a 3/4 chance of doing extra damage with a 1/4 chance of doing no damage.
** In the very beginning, when the Moogles help Locke rescue Terra in the caves of Narshe, you can unequip Mog for some decent equipment that will last you through a fair bit of the early game. (He doesn't need the equipment for his boss battle since dancing has the potential to end it in one round.)
** The Fixed Dice are something of a Disc Two nuke. Immediately after getting the airship in the ruined world, your 3-4 person party can sprint into Kefka's tower and get this incredibly powerful weapon, assuming they don't randomly encounter any enemies that can't be run away from. Doing so makes Setzer your most powerful fighter pretty much until you decide to do Kefka's tower (the final dungeon) for real.
*** You can also get Mog from Narshe first and do the raid without any random encounter risks since you get his Moogle Charm which has the "No Encounters" power. This is still practically in the beginning of World of Ruin.
* In ''[[Final Fantasy IV:
* In ''[[Final Fantasy V]]'' there are multiple such things. First is the blue magic Death Claw, which lowers an enemy's HP to a single digit and paralyzes it. Many bosses aren't immune to it, and that spell can be learned from two fairly early bosses.
** Then there's the Barehanded ability. This Level 2 skill from the Monk class gives any class who equips it the power of a Monk when fighting unarmed. Give this to your mage, and suddenly the wizards aren't squishy no more.
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** As soon as you get the buggy, drive around in the desert until you encounter a Harpy, and learn Aqualung from them (You might have to get Mighty Guard to survive it, but that's no biggie - the Beach Plugs on the nearby beaches know it). Aqualung will kill practically every mob in a single shot from there to the end of disc one.
*** The [[Mega Manning|Enemy Skill]] materia is a disc one nuke in itself. If you know what you're doing, you can get Beta, Trine, Aqualung, Big Guard, and White Winds on one before the end of the first disc.
** The Chocobuckle skill from wild chocobos count if you're playing the original Japanese version. It's obtained when Beta is available and cost only 3 MP. The damage is equal to the number of times escaped '''multiplied''' by the caster's level. By escaping many times, you can easily do four-digit damage before you reach Junon. Being a [[Game Breaker]], later releases nerfed it by making the damage '''equal''' to the number of times escaped.
** Barret and Cloud's limit breaks can be obtained in the starting area. It is just a matter of patience. Soldiers will eventually drop potions to heal you.
** Cloud's level 3 limit break Meteorain (which getting is just a matter of killing 300 or so enemies) fires 6 shots doing 1.5x normal damage at random targets. Powerful against groups of mooks, but catastrophic when you're only fighting one enemy, such as a boss. Even the "hard" disc 1 bosses like Lost Number and Demon's Gate can go down in one hit.
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* In ''[[Final Fantasy X]]'', if you invest enough in O'aka's store, you can obtain several weapons with the "Stone Touch" ability as early as the Mi'ihen Highroad. It doesn't even matter whether the weapon in question is usable by a damage dealer (can be Lulu's doll or Yuna's staff). With a 30% chance to petrify virtually every non-boss enemy from that point onward, random encounters and grinding become ''absurdly'' easy.
** If you're patient, by the time you leave Besaid you can abuse the sphere grid to the point where you can have Lulu and Yuna's ''Ga'' level spells which basically allows you to one shot or heal completely in every standard enemy encounter until at least half way through the game. You can also get hold of Tidus's Blitz Ace Overdrive by hitting the Besaid mooks 70 times with his regular limit breaks - something that's child's play once you replace his ''stoic'' default setting (which increases the Overdrive gauge every time he takes damage) with ''Warrior'' (which increases every time he inflicts damage.)
* In ''[[Final Fantasy X
** Crossing over with [[Peninsula of Power Leveling]], there's Shell Shockers in the dry plains, accessible as soon as you get control of your [[Global Airship]] (which in this game is as soon as you finish the prologue). While their 4,700 HP is intimidating, their only attack reduces HP by a fixed percent, meaning it can't kill you, yet it still gives a ''ton'' of experience. Taking out even one of these is enough to make the first chapters noticeably easier.
* ''[[Final Fantasy XII]]'' allows many opportunities for this, through its minor aversions of the [[Sorting Algorithm of Evil]] which place certain high-level enemies in early areas of the game. By beating up on these enemies during the time at the start of the game when the player only has Vaan, one can take advantage of [[Leaked Experience]] to power up all the other characters before even getting them. This enables a determined player to raise their characters to the levels they'd normally be at game's end in just a few hours. A bit later in the game, [[Guide Dang It|provided one has a strategy guide]], one can enter the [[Bonus Dungeon|Necrohol of Nabudis]] to obtain the game's [[Infinity+1 Sword|most powerful weapon]] about a fourth of the way through the main storyline.
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* The wide-open, free-roaming ''[[Final Fantasy XIII]]-2'' has quite a few notable nukes.
** It's possible to get the Moogle Throw ability, which enables one to reach out-of-reach treasure chests, several hours before one is "supposed" to have it, which expedites sidequests significantly, gets you awesome loot, and opens up some otherwise inaccessible areas, which may be home to more nukes.
** But the real nukes are the monsters in your third party member slot. With the assistance of a FAQ or guide, you can find monsters that can last you the entire game in the ''first area'' where monsters can be
** Archylte Steppe. In its entirety. It is a treasure trove. For
** If you manage to max level the Dragoon from Augusta Tower 200AF, you will be able to use him through the rest of the game, short of Bonus Bosses. This is because it has ~600 Attack at a time you are at the 250s.
* The introductory RPG ''[[Final Fantasy]]: Mystic Quest'' has a sort of Disc 2 Nuke in the form of the Dragon Claw weapon, which causes Petrification. The nuke powers of this weapon play on the weaknesses of two [[Recurring Boss
* ''[[Final Fantasy Tactics Advance]]'' has the Cinquedea weapon which teaches Thieves Steal:Ability, enabling instant mastery of abilities by stealing them from enemy units (instead of careful job rearranging and sending them on about eight missions). It's a reward for reaching level 30 in the Negotiate skill, which normally will happen about 55-60% of the way through the game - however, grinding a series of repeatable dispatch missions can boost this stat without making significant game progress, meaning that you can reach level 30 and get the Cinquedea before the third storyline mission. One of the abilities which can be stolen from that mission's boss is Steal:Weapon (not normally available until around 80% progress) - and at that point, [[Game Breaker|things just get psychotic.]]
* In the original ''[[Final Fantasy Tactics]]'', make a character into a White Mage early on, and then use up all the Job Points you acquire to get the Holy spell. You'll generally only be able to use it once per battle because of the high MP cost, but it's pretty much guaranteed to kill whatever it hits in the early part of the game. It's great for dealing with {{spoiler|Gafgarion}} after his [[Face Heel Turn]].
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** Stealing {{spoiler|Gafgarion's}} Blood Sword the second time you fight him will make any close-quarters fight from then until Chapter IV (including the [[Duel Boss|duel]] with {{spoiler|[[That One Boss|Wiegraf]]}}) a cruel joke, as it allows your strongest physical fighter (probably Ramza) to attack AND heal the same amount of damage simultaneously. With Counter or First Strike you can make someone invincible to any attack that isn't ranged or a [[One-Hit Kill]]. The problem with that is that {{spoiler|Gafgarion}} is [[That One Boss]] in his own right, and getting a thief close enough to steal the Blood Sword without being killed ''by'' said Blood Sword (or frozen in place by the two nearby Time Mages, or riddled with arrows by the Archers, etc.) requires a bit of work on its own.
** Making a unit a Monk and giving him/her the Knight's Equip Armor ability helps well in the early game, as the considerable boost to HP (the armor) and attack (the Monk class' properties) increases their chance of survival.
* ''[[Final Fantasy Tactics
** It is also possible, by completing the right quests, to gather the trade goods needed to unlock top-end equipment for purchase, right from the get go even.
** Several of the missions themselves, which were intended for mid-to-late game parties, reward powerful equips outright and can be beaten just a couple of hours into the game, by abusing skills like Mirror Items which are obtained very early with the (ab)use of the two mentioned tricks.
*** Among these are the 'Sequencer' sword and the 'Peytral' armor, strong items on their own right that become even more powerful each time you use a [[Limit Break|Opportunity Command]] in battles. With enough 'Opportunity Command' uses, the two items are [[Magikarp Power|effectively peerless stat-wise]].
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* In [[Video Game Remake|HeartGold and SoulSilver]], by using the Pokéwalker, it's possible to catch Pokémon more powerful than what you would normally have access to.
** You can get a Kangaskhan at the very start of the game by doing so. Kangaskhan is normally an end game Pokémon, and as such has base stats comparable to fully evolved ones. Use it to breeze through the early Gyms, particularly Morty's.
*** You can get a Kangaskhan early on in the game in the Gen V versions as well, thanks to the Dream World. Likewise, you can get a Nidoqueen/Nidoking not long after the second gym through the same method.
** You can also to get powerful Pokémon like Dratini, Staryu, and Gastly this way.
** And even more Pokéwalker abuse is possible if you own two copies of the game. Supposing you have beaten the game on one copy, you have likely unlocked the National Dex, and with it, the later Pokéwalker routes that include decently high level Pokémon from Hoenn and Sinnoh. Now, supposing you start a new game on a new cartridge, you can use the gift option with the Pokéwalker from your original cartridge to gift your new game level 30+ rare Pokémon. And the kicker? They count the new game as their trainer. That's right. You can be running around the second town with level 30+ Pokémon that will always listen to you.
** A Pokéwalker can also give you access both to a Pikachu and a Light Ball as early as the beginning of the game. Considering Light Ball doubles Pikachu's Attack and Special Attack, you might be able to train an absolutely unstoppable beast before you win your first Badge.
** If you can get your hands on a Jirachi (a Disc One Nuke in and of itself) - which many players did before they even started the game, considering they were handed out for two weeks leading up to [[Heart Gold]] and [[Soul Silver]]'s launch - you can unlock a Pokéwalker course called Night Sky's Edge as early as the second town.With a lot of walking and a little luck you can get your hands on a TM for Psychic, one of the strongest Psychic-type moves and the strongest one with no real drawbacks to using it.
* Back in Generation I, you could get Dig before the second Gym, even though it had the stats of an endgame attack. Better yet, it was [[For Massive Damage|super-effective]] against several Gyms and most [[Mon
* In Platinum, as soon as the player has their first Badge, they can do a little backtracking with Rock Smash and, if they're lucky, find a Golbat. At level 10, when under normal circumstances Zubat evolves at level 22. And it evolves to the insanely fast and strong Crobat at max happiness, meaning that the player could have the final form of a three-stage family by the time they reach the second Gym. Oh, and both of Crobat's types are super effective against said Gym. Yeeeaaaahhhhh...
* It's also possible to get some of these in the ''[[Pokémon Mystery Dungeon]]'' games, thanks to the Wonder Mail codes. Once you're able to recruit party members, you can enter codes to take up missions in even the second and fourth dungeons that allow you to get strong, fully-evolved (in a game where you can't even evolve until the end) mons such as Flygon and Metagross.
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** Also harder to do in Generation IV due to more type diversity. On the other hand, in Gen III with Mudkip...
** There's also "Muscle", the Machop you can get in exchange of a Drowzee in Gold/Silver and HG/SS at Goldenrod City. To elaborate: Pokemon obtained from trades grow up faster than normally caught ones but, as a trade-off, once they reach high levels they will rarely obey you - i.e. they will attack only once in a while. As early as the third gym, you can get a Fighting-type Pokemon that will grow faster than other Pokés you can catch normally and whose typing and moves will help you against at least three of the remaining gyms in the region. Not only that, you can train Muscle up to level 30 - by which point it'll have evolved into the stronger Machoke - and it'll still obey you; and, once you get the Fog Badge from the Ecruteak gym, Muscle can reach level 50 before it starts rebelling. Not even the ''Elite 4'' have level 50 Pokemon during your first playthrough.
*** Then trade it to another game and back for Machamp, who's both extremely powerful (especially for the early game) and top non uber tier in competitive play.
* Dream World adds a whole new arsenal of nukes to the fifth generation. To elaborate: right after defeating the first gym and retrieving a [[Plot Coupon]] (all of which can be done in less than two hours from the beginning of a new game) you have access to the DW. Through the website you're allowed to catch Pokemon not ordinarily available in the games themselves and who also carry very good abilities. This way you can obtain such things as Bidoof with the incredible ability Moody - making him [[Lethal Joke Character|a lethal threat even in the advanced metagame]]-, Nidoran male or female with Hustle - which, upon evolving into Nidoking, acquire the brutally abusable ability Sheer Force, especially now that TM's can be used multiple times -, Tangela with Regenerator, Taillow with Scrappy, among many others. All this after, again, a mere
** In fairness, the entire concept of Pokémon is that you can catch a weak one and it will eventually evolve into a strong one. Nidoran in itself being able to evolve into Nidoking over the course of normal gameplay isn't itself a disc one nuke in any shape or form. However! Most of the fifth gen natives don't evolve until much later levels than their siblings from bygone ages. Basic-form gameplay lasts a lot longer in Generation V, with Scraggy, for instance, not evolving until level 39. Being able to get a twice-evolved Pokémon as early as level sixteen - as in, before your ''starters'' have evolved - is absolutely astonishing. Nidoking, then, is very much a disc one nuke.
* By exploiting the Event Mon Arceus in Heart Gold/Soul Silver, you can get one of the Sinnoh cover art legendaries at level 1. While Arceus won't likely obey you, the legendary you get will. Needless to say, this requires likely two games, one of Diamond, pearl or Platnium, the event Arceus (or the Arceus at Spear Pillar only accessible through hacking), and the ability to trade in Heart Gold/Soul Silver.
* In Heart Gold/Soul Silver, there's the addition of the Voltorb Flip game as early as Goldenrod City. If you're good at the game, you can be pretty well off. They have some of the strongest technical machines, though they're more expensive, and a Dratini happens to be available for an amount pretty cheap to those who are good at the game. The Dratini has Dragon Rage, too, an attack that does 40
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* ''[[Fallout 3]]'' offers incredible chances at getting powerful equipment early, especially of you're willing to explore the world before embarking on the main quests.
** For the melee player in ''[[Fallout 3]]'', there's a readily available equivalent to the Disc One Nuke which will see you through the entire game. The Shishkebab, the game's most powerful melee weapon, is crafted from items laying in close proximity of each other in your warm up dungeon (Springvale School), and a schematic obtained from a merchant in easy reach of your first base town. The price may be high, but far from unobtainable at that level of the game. Although the final upgrade to the weapon's schematic comes late in the game, even at suboptimal power it's still the superior weapon.
*** Averted when it comes to powered armor, though. You can get it at any
**** If you have ''Operation Anchorage'' installed, you can complete it straight out of the Vault and are awarded Power Armor Training, as well as a suit of Power Armor that never degrades. Alternatively, if you don't like power armor, there is also Chinese Stealth Armor in there, and among the stashed weapons is a Gauss Rifle and Jingwei's Shocksword. Oh, and please put the armor on immediately as [[Unfriendly Fire|Defender Sibley]] [[Boss Battle|and his mooks will turn on you]] shortly after.
*** Most [[Min-Maxing|minmaxers]] will leave Vault 101 with 9 INT and then beeline straight to Rivet City for the Bobblehead before reaching Level 3 in order to obtain the maximum amount of skill points possible. They also max out Big Guns without ever putting a point into it by abusing the respawning Flamethrower Recipies book in Bethesda Ruins.
** ''Operation Anchorage'' itself is a [[Disk One Nuke]]
** Lincoln's Repeater can be found in a museum, but can be easy to miss if you are not reading a guide.
** The Xuanlong Assualt Rifle is a unique Chinese Assault Rifle with boosted damage and an increased clip size. It can destroy most low-level enemies and remains useful throughout the game. All it takes is completing a rather [[Guide Dang It]] unmarked quest to spawn it.
** With the DLC Broken Steel installed the companion Dogmeat which without the DLC has health around 500, levels with you and starts at 2,500
** The "Alien Blaster". Although the gun is very powerful, its ammo is very limited and it's impossible to obtain more (since it's of extra-terrestrial origin).
*** There are more alien weapons if you download the "Mothership Zeta" expansion. And more power cells, too.
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** Smalltime. With judicious tailoring of your character, use of stuff given or found in the first town and the right perks {{spoiler|to max out your Lockpick}}, you can obtain the Gobi Campaign Rifle at level 4. 'Course, you'll be at least level 7 before you can fire it well.
* Ditto ''[[Fallout Tactics Brotherhood of Steel|Fallout Tactics]]'', it is possible to get some weapons early. You just need some poisons or drugs. You can try to get the brotherhood bunker encounter and kill the 2 guards using poison or drug overdose and get their miniguns, or poison the merchant and his guards to get Pancor Jackhammers and the Browning machine gun (though good chance you are not strong enough to use it yet, and ammo is rather scarce early game). If you get one of the merchant encounter, you can get EMP shotgun shells as well which let you easily bust the turrets in Preoria mission, along with a FN FAL rifle. If you get the Radscorpions fighting civilians encounter early enough and let the civilians die (which is easy, because they're fighting the Radscorpions with their bare hands) and loot the corpses, you'll find out that at least one of the civilians was carrying a Combat Shotgun.
** You can also use the gambling bug. Bet nothing for the merchant's entire inventory, click on gamble repeatedly, and after
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* In the NES version of ''[[Double Dragon]]'', the player can level-grind his way through the first few fight scenes alone by simply spamming the same basic punches and kicks on enemies. This is due the fact that the player gains experience points, not by defeating enemies, but by landing attacks. Since enemies aren't killed until they're knocked down to the ground, it's possible to attack an enemy as long as possible while they're still standing up.
* In ''Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King'' from EA, a smart player will focus their skill points towards the purchase of the counter-kill "Bane" abilities, which is ridiculously easy to pull off and puts the character into Perfect Mode on a successful execution, making all resulting kills in that brief period "Perfect" kills, earning the player far more experience points.
* The Enchanted Falchion +1 in ''[[Demon's Souls]]'' can be obtained with some tricky jumping long before you would normally be able to get a solid weapon, particularlly for a magic based character as it scales based on intelligence. Certain builds can kill the Red Dragon early on and gain large rewards for doing so.
* The Drake Sword in ''[[Dark Souls]]''. You can obtain the sword very early in the game if you have a bow and a lot of arrows to shoot the Hellkite Dragon's tail off. The sword boasts 200 attack power, which is way stronger than anything else you're likely to have at that point. It will eventually become obsolete since it doesn't scale with your stats.
** While it isn't a weapon, being able to nab Havel's Ring (which boosts your equip load by a staggering 50%) before you fight any of the first bosses is a solid way to keep yourself in good equipment, and remain agile enough to dodge attacks, throughout the game. All it takes is either a lot of rolling and backstabbing, or a lot of arrows, to bring Havel the Rock down. And, unlike most of the game's dragon weapons, it never becomes useless.
** The Black Knight Sword, especially post Patch 1.5 where the drop rate was significantly increased, meaning players will most likely get the weapon from one of the three early nonrespawning Black Knights. Though the stat requirements are comparatively high (20 Strength, 18 Dexterity), but easily attainable. The weapon has extremely high damage throughout the entirety of the first playthrough and New Game Plus, scales very well with stats and is extremely easy to fully upgrade (Easily possible to do so before ringing the Second Bell of Awakening). It also has a very good, versatile move set with both wide sweeping attacks for attacking multiple enemies and a nice vertical combo when fighting a single opponent/tight areas.
** Evading enemies and lotting New Londo early can net an early Fire Keeper's soul (boosting your main source of healing) and some other stuff as soon as you leave the tutorial area.
** The massive skips the Master Key makes possible allow for several items to be obtained early
* In ''[[Dark Souls III]]'' a giant crystal lizard can be found in the starting area. Normally impossible for a low level and under equipped character to defeat, its favorite method of attack in a leaping attack that, with effort, can get it jump off a ledge a short ways away. This nets 4800 souls, enough for several early levels.
== Driving Game ==
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== Fighting Game ==
* In ''DBZ Budokai Tenkaichi 2'' for both Wii and [[
** Unfortunately (or not?) averted in ''Tenkaichi 3''. Dragon Balls are now randomly found among the rubble in the Story Mode fights, as there is no world map anymore. Then again, they won't be of much use as Story Mode characters have preescripted equipment, all the Potara system was reworked so that you couldn't max more than 2 stats out of four total, health not included, the high-level Tournaments are difficult for the wrong reasons (damage carries over to the next fight) and your skills matter way more than stats when playing online.
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** Both of you are overlooking the greatest Disk One Nuke of all time: At the very start of the game you have about a 5% chance of being able to buy a unique, extremely powerful assault rifle that uses the same ammo as the patrols outside. And there's usually a silencer available within 5 minutes of leaving the shop. Only problem is that you have to search most of the map for supplies and pistols to get the funds you need.
*** You're referring to the OC-14 Groza (called "Thunder" in an unmodded game) chambered for 5.45x39 ammo. The problem is that it's behind a nontrivial [[Beef Gate|Cash Gate]], and no longer has a chance of appearing after you complete the intro mission, so you pretty much have to ignore the plot and spend a few hours lugging crap back to the trader to sell. Plus, the same weapon is carried by one of the Duty soldiers at the Bar, and he often wanders out and gets eaten by dogs.
** The subsequent games are even worse about this. In ''Clear Sky'' you can find your character's old Vintorez near the top of the first map where he dropped it, and while ammo is scarce for a while you can repair it for 9000
*** From the exact beginning of Call of Pripyat, a player can find; the second-best shotgun in the game, a nice mid-tier assault rifle, the best scoped rifle in the game, the second-best pistol and an upgraded version of the beginner armour set for free, without even talking to anybody. Or firing a single bullet. Through Nimble, however, a perspective player with some extensive artifact moneymaking can outfit himself with some of the best equipment in the game before he even begins the plot.
* ''[[System Shock]] 2'' has a somewhat mild form of this. By abusing an exploit in the training rooms in the tutorial level, you can start the game proper with- among other things- a Laser Pistol in perfect condition, maintenance tools, an assortment of healing items, a Standard Pistol, and a [[Psi Amp]]. The weapons in perfect condition are the biggest boon, since it takes a while to fully upgrade the maintenance stat.
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* To an extent ''[[Borderlands]]'', because of a [http://kotaku.com/5388050/borderlands-creative-boss-lives-up-to-his-loot-promises promise] to play with and give loot to anyone who proved they preordered the game. This resulted in many low level people getting guns they couldn't even ''use'' yet, though they could sell them for plenty of money.
* ''[[Metroid Prime]]'', at least the original, non-Players' Choice version, allows you to cheat the system and get the Space Jump Boots right as you land on Tallon IV. As a result, you can skip every single boss in the initial run of the Chozo Ruins except for the Incinerator Drone. It also allows skilled players to skip right through the Magmoor Caverns without the Varia Suit, a feat considered impossible otherwise. Basically, once you land on Tallon IV, you can snag the SJBs, speedily grab the weapons and Energy Tanks, and be in the Magmoor Caverns faster than you can say "Metroid".
* In ''[[Doom]] II: Hell on Earth'' if the player went backwards from where they started in the first level, they would find a [[Chainsaw Good|Chainsaw]], which is superior to both the fist and the pistol the player starts with. It is also possible to get the super shotgun in roughly the second level, lasting well throughout the game. It is even possible to find the [[
== Four X ==
* ''[[Master of Orion]] 2''. There are a number of "special" systems which generally have some kind of reward for reaching them and a top quality planet to colonise. The catch is, they have a big space monster who will kill any interlopers. It seems expected that you need to build up a strongly armed ship or two in order to kill the monster. However, generally a fleet of about 10 scout sized ships armed with MIRV nuclear missiles can take them out - even if you lose most of your fleet in the process. This trick works because most of the monsters have only 1 or 2 extremely powerful attacks - each will easily kill a ship, but only one at a time. Doesn't work on hydras, the Guardian, or Antarans though, they have too many attacks.
* ''Civilization4'': Emphasize science and tech straight to Feudalism to get Longbowmen, a vicious defensive unit that can protect your cities well up until you unlock riflemen. This is doubly true of any cities you founded on hill tiles.
* ''[[Ascendancy]]'': Find a planet with xenoarcheological ruins? Drop a colony module right down next to the ruins, start digging them out, and on the day before the dig is complete, [[Save Scumming|save. Advance a day, and if you discovered tech you don't like, reload and let the RNG give you something else.]] Doing this can net you the various nano-level technologies, maxing out your civilization's propulsion, weapons, energy generation and shielding systems, potentially before leaving your home star system.
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== [[Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game|MMORPGs]] ==
* Heirloom items in ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' can make leveling [[Alt-Itis|alts]] ridiculously easy, as they scale with character level and have stats appropriate to rare items. This is intentional, as you have to already have a level 80 character and spend a fair number of emblems to acquire them.
** In the [[Good Bad Bugs]] camp, there have been a few instances where Blizzard forgot to make quest reward gear Bind on Pickup, meaning that, since they have no level restriction, players could equip them on their low level alts. These bugs were quickly squashed, however.
** Another of those bugs involved Entei's Quenched Sword, a grey (lowest level quality) sword, basicly intended as vendor trash for high level players, but it had no minimum level to equip and so could be sent to a low level alt. While it's base damage was ridiculously low even compared to the weapons you started with, it still counted as a high Item level item, and could therefore have the high end weapon enchants applied to it, which when sent to a low level alt, gave him a VERY powerful weapon. Sadly the lack of a minimum level to equip was fixed in the next patch.
* In the original [[Guild Wars]] campaign, there was a lively economy of high level players who would party up, for a price, with low level players and run their party from the first non-tutorial town (or, more commonly from the last outpost before the high level enemies show up) to the [[Sequence Breaking|last large town]] where they could get the best armor in the game. Both the running service and the armor would cost much more money than a beginning character has, but since you can freely transfer money from all other characters on your account this was not much of a problem.
* In ''[[
* Formerly possible in ''zOMG!''
== Platform Game ==
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** In ''Super Metroid'', this was practically encouraged by the inclusion of the obvious but difficult-to-master Wall Jump technique, which lets Samus climb walls and jump way higher than intended very early on in the game.
** And in ''Metroid: Zero Mission'' this actually was encouraged, as there are pictures obtainable only by completing the game with a minimum percentage.
** By the time ''Metroid Fusion'' came out, Nintendo was well aware of the sequence breaking that had occurred in earlier
* ''[[Lego Harry Potter]]'' contains a nice little gem. After the second level in the whole game (the first one at Hogwarts) you have the ability to get to the "Collect Ghost Studs" Red Brick powerup, before the plot would normally allow you to. It only costs 50,000 studs, which can easily be obtained by this point, but it allows you to collect the "Ghost Studs" dropped by Nearly Headless Nick as he leads you to the next level/lesson/cutscene, which are worth 1,000 studs each. You can easily get the 4 million needed to get Accio (which makes a lot of the puzzles moot by just giving you potion items) as well as other spells in just an hour or so of grinding. Makes [[One Hundred Percent Completion]] extremely easy. Add to this a glitch that sometimes allows you to collect ghost studs after you finish year 4 (when you shouldn't be able to) and this really edges into the territory of [[Game Breaker]].
* ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog 2]]'' had a way for determined players to get hold of all seven Chaos Emeralds - and therefore, gain the Super Sonic ability - in the very first Act of the very first Zone through judicious use of the reset button.
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== Puzzle Game ==
* ''[[Puzzle Quest]]:Challenge Of The Warlords'' has the Knight class. Abusing the Divine Right spell (which collects every Purple Star on the board for + 1 EXP each) and putting all the upgrade points into Battle (Attack power) and Morale (HP and spell resistance) allows you to easily create a [[Cap|Level 50]] death dealer, before even reaching the Dragon Realms, the game's halfway point. And that's even if you don't get lucky with which Runes are being offered in the shops (in the PC version, at least).
** The game's [[Item Crafting|crafting]] and [[Mega Manning|spell research]] and skill buying systems also allow for severe [[Game Breaker
** Another skill combo that can be a [[Game Breaker]] is the ''Warrior'' skill ''Berserker Rage'' combined with ''Conflagration''. The former converts all red gems into skulls, and the latter changes all gems of a particular colour into red gems. With proper items it's possible to achieve turn one kills from level 20 onward, making for very disappointing boss and multiplayer battles.
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== Real Time Strategy ==
* Unusual for a strategy game, completing the second mission of James in ''[[Sacrifice]]'' in the 'good' (and most obvious) way gets you the support of [[Our Dragons Are Different|Siroco]], a hero-version of Persephone's strongest unit, in further missions. The fact that the player's avatar is needed to [[Keystone Army|permanently beat enemy wizards]] is pretty much the only reason why you can't point Siroco in the general direction of the enemy and win the next 3 missions while you go and get a drink.
* In ''[[Mech Commander]] 1'', the game allows you to salvage fallen enemy mechs, provided they aren't written off (i.e.: power core explodes) It's possible to salvage a Mad Cat mech in the 3rd mission of the game. The Mad Cat is one of the best mechs available - in the Heavy class, but with a speed of 24
** The developers did release a patch that gave you a Mad Cat at the start to reflect the opening cinematic (though that looked like a power core breach). Getting the second Mad Cat through sheer persistence (20th time lucky...no, 21st time lucky...no...) was still important though to split the enemy fire between two targets.
* In the sixth mission of ''[[Homeworld]]: Cataclysm'', it was possible to capture a Taidani Battlecruiser when the most advanced vessel you could build yourself was a frigate. This ship would then be able to carry you through the next 8 or so missions, only becoming vulnerable to destruction when you gain the ability to build your own big ships. Really takes the fear out of those [[Escort Mission
* In ''[[Dawn of War]] 2: Chaos Rising'' your Space Marines start at level 20 of 30. After the first mission you can reset and reassign their skill points and thus, through min-maxing, aquire the high-level abilities, such as infinite, stamina-based mines and frag grenades in bundles and artillery strikes. All of them are easy and safe to use and ''ridiculously'' powerfull. Except for some particularly nasty bosess, the game will become a walk in the park.
* For that matter, Dawn of War: Dark Crusade's Space Marines have a disc one nuke of sorts in multiplayer gameplay. By going straight for T2 and immediately purchasing Grey Knights and a Chaplain, you'll cripple your economy but gain a small squad that deals substantial damage and is extremely difficult to kill, plus possessing a snare (thanks to the Chaplain) and a high-damage, morale-breaking [[Ao E]] spell (thanks to the Grey Knights. The Chaplain's cost was intended to discourage players from purchasing him so early in a match, but it can be done and is very effective, often requiring the entire enemy team to coordinate to take out the squad.
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** If you get your pickpocketing skill high enough in Disc One, you can pickpocket an item called the Treasure Chest from a guy in Mars Village. The Treasure Chest produces three items at random when used. It can potentially give you the Marvel Sword, which Claude won't have to replace for a stronger sword until halfway through Disc Two. It raises your offense ''and'' defense to extreme levels, effectively turning one character into a super tank.
** And on the subject of skills, a lot of other ones can fall under this trope on their own, even before they combine into abilities. Some of the best examples would be Biology (A boost of (skill level squared times 10) to your HP, meaning a 1000 HP boost at maxed level), Herbal Medicine (+ 3% to the effect of Blue/Blackberries per level, which start off restoring 22% of your max HP and MP respectively, but at max level will recover a much more useful 52%), Danger Sense (+ 3 Stamina per level, Stamina will recover HP and MP after battles, which is INSANELY helpful), and Playfulness (gives some cash upon gaining a level in the skill, giving HUGE amounts at the higher levels; maxing out this skill for ONE character will take care of your money problems for the entire first disc). The better ones are balanced out by extremely high SP costs, but by leveling the Perseverance skill and doing a bit of grinding, they can be easily be bought before leaving the first continent.
* The tradition continues in the Playstation 2 RPG ''[[Star Ocean: Till the End of Time]]''. It might be considered a [[Guide Dang It]], but some stumble upon it on their own. In ''Star Ocean 3'', you get bonuses for [[Cartography Sidequest|"completing" a map]] (walking every single portion of it), which is a rather tedious process. The rewards range from ostensibly lame to quite good. Early on, the rewards err on the side of lame. However, even the ones that suck sell for quite a bit of currency. If you complete all of the areas which can be completed up until a certain town not particularly far into the game, and fight the encounters that result from wandering around the map to complete it, you will have enough money to purchase one or two items that would otherwise be teaser gear in an improbably powerful shop. Normally, you would have to wait until later in the game to come back and buy the high-powered items. Needless to say, the difficulty takes a rather sharp dive at that point, and it could even be considered a sequence error due to sloppy programming under a liberal definition.
** In the middle of the first disk, after obtaining the second best alchemist in the game, you can obtain some Orichalcum. It looks useless, until you forge it into a weapon. It adds 500+ attack and gives you a 50% chance of surviving a fatal blow if you have Fury. They're also not that expensive to make (10,000 Fol)... Well you can probably afford four-five at most, but still, 2000+ attack to go around in that point is pretty darn impressive. They were likely put in for the sake of playing on Universe and 4D difficulty, where things like abusing selling the model bunnies and Orichalcum become rather necessary. Though one has to wonder if that is the case, why didn't they just lock them out in Galaxy mode...?
*** Said Orichalcum is available behind a hill you can access incredibly early. The theory is that you'll die a horrible death if you go there before the game expects you to. In reality, one of the random encounters there is a ball type enemy that does nothing but damage your MP. By rushing in and killing that enemy, you can gain dozens of levels in no time at all, then move on to beating up the enemies for the Orichalcum and other rare ores in the area behind the hill. And all of this is absolutely required on the [[Nintendo Hard]] higher difficulty levels.
* In ''[[Tales of the Abyss]]'', near endgame weapons are sold early on at shops for ridiculously high amounts of Gald, but become cheaper and affordable as the plot progresses and your characters actually build up to that level. However, the ability to transfer Gald to a new record once you complete the game allows you to afford the weapons at that point, which is very useful if one chooses to play the game using a [[Nintendo Hard]] difficulty level.
* In the first ''[[Xenosaga]]'' game, the player can finish the tutorial for the game's [[Humongous Mecha]] system without actually using the AGWS mecha to gain the rare points used to level up [[Limit Break
* Also present in its spiritual predecessor ''[[Xenogears]]''. If you grind up enough cash early in the game, you can purchase an Ether Doubler from Nisan, which powers up your magic attacks in exchange for increased [[Mana]] cost. Once [[Black Magician Girl|Elly]] joins your party with her [[Humongous Mecha|Gear]], she can use [[Reverse Shrapnel|Aerods]], which are basically a multi-target magic attack that costs fuel instead of ether but still counts as an ether attack. With an Ether Doubler, Elly goes from mediocre [[Squishy Wizard]] to [[Game Breaker|Goddess of MT Death]], and can tear through most enemies in the early-mid game (including bosses) with only one or two rounds of aerod abuse.
* ''[[Valkyrie Profile]]'' gives the player a number of staves that allow mages to use Great Magic early in the game, though they have a high chance of breaking after each use.
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* A little grinding on the tutorial of ''[[Kingdom Hearts II]]'' will increase your stats enough to make the initial gameplay ridiculously easy - even though you don't ''have'' stats during the tutorial.
** Additionally, stepping on to a save point and going to the world map while in a Drive Form will reset you to normal with a maxed out Drive Gauge(even if it was nearly empty), making it possible to stay in Drive Form nearly continuously and level up much more quickly than is intended.
* ''[[Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days
* The first special attack you have access to in ''[[Super Mario RPG]]'' can potentially be a Disc One Nuke. Mario's standard Jump attack actually makes a slight gain in power every time it is used. This can be done up to 255 times, and by that time, Jump will be the most powerful skill in the game by far (with the possible exception of 100 Super Jumps, and this is much easier). Of course the very first dungeon contains Spinies, which are immune to Jump attacks, which make them the perfect candidates to practice the move on. Unsurprisingly, this strategy is one of the major keys to a Low Level challenge in SMRPG.
* The very first level of ''[[Super Paper Mario]]'' contains a creature that spits out infinite numbers of projectiles that the player can jump on to gain points. Because the points earned increase with each successive jump, with the only limit being the end of the screen (at which point you have to start all over, but you can easily make several thousand jumps before then), it's possible to level the character up far past what it would take to beat the game's toughest [[Bonus Boss]]... in less than an hour. Did I mention you can do this on the very first level?
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** In the [[Mons]] spinoff games, there are often several examples of powerful early or mid game monsters that are available if you understand the breeding system.
*** For example, in ''[[Dragon Quest Monsters]] Joker'', capturing the first enemy you see, the humble Rank F [[Mascot Mons|Slime]], opens up the option to breed 4 of them together across two generations. ([[Guide Dang It|not that it mentions this in game, mind you.]]) 2 Slimes bred together that both have 2 Slime parents results in a Rank C King Slime, a reference to how they appear in ''[[Dragon Quest IV]]'' (8 slimes all jump together and merge into a King Slime). The King Slime will dominate the early game due to it's "Cleric" skillset (which is a mistranslation of "Hero", aka the ''[[Dragon Quest]]'' hero's skillset of Cure spells, Lightning spells, and outrageous sword techniques).
*** Even better, if you do the same thing with 4 King Slimes, you get a Rank B King Cureslime, which will inherit the Cleric skillset, as well as the most powerful healing skillset in the game. Taking a Rank B King Cureslime and breeding it with a Rank F Bubble Slime (easily available early in the game, or breed-able using a slime and a platypunk, which is available right next to the slimes) will lead a Rank ''A'' King Bubble Slime, which gets Bad Breath, one of the best debuff skillsets in the
*** Not to mention that it's pretty easy as it is to synthesize a Rank A monster by the third island if you've scouted a good amount and already synthesized a couple times. I managed to get a King Bubble Slime early on without even needing four King Slimes. Once you really dig into the mechanics of the game it's possible to have a team of Rank A/B monsters by the time you hit Infern Isle, which is mostly comprised of C/D monsters.
* In ''[[Sword of Mana]]'' on the Gameboy Advance, playing as the girl gives you Light magic at the start of the game, bats are weak against Light magic and are found in the first cave area you come across. Grinding until you kill 1000 bats transforms them into Doomy Bats of Doom which can be hit with Light magic, which in turn grinds up your Light skill until it's powerful enough to kill them, thereby allowing you to level up really easily and quickly, making the rest of the game a breeze.
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* You can do a similar trick in ''[[Persona 4]]''. [[New Game+]] lets you carry over your money and any registered personas. As soon as the compendium is available, you can just buy a high-powered persona such as Ardha, Lucifer, Satan, Metatron, Yoshitsune, etc. and bulldoze through dungeons in at least one day.
** There's also the "Victory Cry Kaiwan" trick. Kaiwan is a Lv. 24 Star arcana persona who starts with Tetrakarn. While it is a useful spell because it will reflect any Phys-based attack (except almighty) once, the true beauty of it comes when you fuse the persona on a day where the Fusion Forecast gives the "skill change" bonus. When it is fused with the least amount of passed-on skills, there's a random chance of Tetrakarn morphing into Victory Cry (full HP/SP restore after winning a battle). If Kaiwan gets Victory Cry, he makes great fusion fodder for passing the skill to other personas.
* ''[[Raidou Kuzunoha VS King Abaddon]]'' features Fiend battles. They are quite tough as per usual for the series as they start hounding you as early as Episode Three. However, with a little patience and demon setup, you can kill the White Rider (and Red Rider if you're lucky) and unlock it for fusion. What makes this so great is that Fiends do not have the level restriction as most other
* In later ''[[Mega Man Battle Network]]'' games, you gained fairly early access to a thing called the Number Trader, which you input a set code into to gain items, including ridiculously powerful chips and Navi Customizer parts you shouldn't have yet. [[Mega Man Star Force]] does this too, with Cipher Codes. The Chip Traders in Battle Network can be used for this too, although those are fairly random and luck-based.
** In Battle Network 1, simply acquiring the Pop Up chip can make you nigh unbeatable to most enemies and bosses because you remain invisible for the duration fo the turn. As long as you just use a charged buster attack (which deals a fair amount of damage), you can attack without being hit back unless you get careless. This tactic works best on the final boss when your effort is not timed.
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* Savvy players of ''[[Mega Man X]] 5'' can get X's Ultimate Armor and/or Zero's Black Armor early; they simply need to {{spoiler|fire the Enigma cannon and/or launch the shuttle at the space colony}} before striking out on any of the eight Maverick levels, then {{spoiler|go through the first three Sigma levels and slide down to where the armors are being held}}.
** Of course, doing this is pretty much a one-way ticket to the bad ending, and usually makes it impossible to get Zero's upgrade unless you're '''insanely''' lucky.
** [[Take a Third Option|I'll just input the]] [[
** A better, more "legal" example would be Zero's C-Sword skill, [[Mega Manning|obtained from Grizzly Slash]]. It has good range, and can strike multiple hits. To top it all off, defeating Slash also rewards you with the [[Double Jump]] ability, which, as many fans would know, is ''very'' useful. What makes it a Disc One Nuke is that Grizzly Slash is the easiest boss (and level) in the game, and a good choice to start on the 8 bosses.
* In ''Mega Man: Maverick Hunter X'', Storm Tornado is the most powerful weapon in the game, able to destroy nearly every enemy that gets hit with it. You can easily obtain this if you destroy Storm Eagle first.
* ''Contact'' features Blue Pillbugs, which show up in one room on the second island and are definitely something you'll want to avoid engaging normally until you're strong enough to kill them so that you can grab the Armor Breaker weapon, which increases the odds of triggering the Armor Break ability (if you have it) by twenty percent. However, thanks to [[Game Breaker|a trick involving
* ''[[Infinite Undiscovery]]'' released a few DLC (downloadable content, from Xbox Live's Marketplace) "vouchers" that allow you to purchase exceptionally rare materials from merchants anywhere in the world. Coupled with several profitable alchemy recipes to choose from, a player could raise the money for expensive components and craft themselves some of the best armors and weapons in the game before even finishing Castle Prevant (the third dungeon).
** Understatement. With Edward in your party, buy as many Sheep Hides as you possibly can, and turn them into Smiley Charms. Sheep Hides cost 120 fol apiece, and Smiley Charms sell for 1500, do the math. It gets even more ridiculous if you can download the ''free'' vouchers that let you buy practically every single material needed for item creation, from every merchant in the game, hrmm... Well, if you are stocking up on materials and feel as if the Smiley Charms aren't going fast enough, never fear, most likely during the process Edward will have become a level 6(max)smith, while you only have to be level 3 to make Horseshoes. They sell for 2600 fol, while you need one granite and 2 iron metal to make(which you can buy ANYWHERE after you download the vouchers)which collectively costs 750 fol. So, with the vouchers, you can legitametaly get pretty damn near getting the last equipment for all of your characters, in the first or second town. So while the ''vouchers'' help, you don't even need them if you want ridiculous amounts of money, all you need is a TV and some extra batteries.
* Obscure Game Boy Color RPG ''[[Lil' Monster|Li'l Monster]]'' has a Disc One Nuke from the first boss, Gyro. You don't have to beat him to advance the game, but if you do, he drops the one-of-a-kind Dowser gem. Dowser's power isn't that impressive, but it can be used to summon a different monster, who, while difficult to beat at an early stage, is still defeatable with [[Save Scumming]]... and the gem ''he'' drops ''doubles your damage delt.'' Plus, the Dowser gem itself can be used to make Gyro your [[Mon]], and his power is decent for that early game stage.
* ''[[
* In ''[[Legend of Dragoon]]'', it is possible to level up Dart's additions to max early on. This gives a huge heads up. Early disc 2 you have a chance to fight 00Parts, a high level minion that can insta kill, but also gives absurd cash on defeat, which can be used to buy the best armor and helmet in the game, and an accesory which makes the Additions automatic.
* ''[[Oracle of Tao]]'' has a way two ways to level to 20 in the first town. The first is beating a certain type of ghost near the graveyards, and the second is a random room which has a priestess that gives levelups to the party (up to level 20).
** Stealing from the second boss in the game yields a Dark Sword which is much more powerful than any of the current weapons before this point. Also, multiple copies can be stolen, giving a great deal of money for other items.
* ''[[
* ''[[SaGa 2|SaGa II]]'' (known in the states as ''Final Fantasy Legend II'') randomly awared new mutant powers at the end of battles based on the level of the monsters fought. One particular boss encountered relatively early in the was a class "9", more or less meaning that a little bit of [[Save Scumming]] would net you a power far more advanced than you were meant to have at that point in the game.
* The second and third parts of the ''[[Lufia]]'' series have those, in the second you need a bit of grinding to beat [[Bonus Boss|Gades]], but his blade [[One-Hit Kill|onehits]] every critter for some time, and it's special ability is among the very best in the entire game. The third game needs a bit more grinding, and [[Guide Dang It|a certain strategy]], but you can get a few very nice items by beating a few [[Bonus Boss
* In ''[[Suikoden I]]'', if you enter the forest beside Seika early you will meet Kobolds, monsters FAR stronger then what you should be facing. However you can wipe them out in one fire spell. Because you get more experience the bigger the difference in levels between you and the enemy, ten minutes of fighting can set you FAR ahead of the curve before you even have your fortress, which just happens to be where one of the hardest fights in the game is.
** In ''[[Suikoden II]]'', you have the opportunity to get through a gate into one of the later areas, Matilda, and pick up two characters that import from the first game. Your levels will jump significantly, making much of the rest of the game, at least until well beyond that area, nearly trivial.
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* The Mega Drive/Genesis game ''[[Light Crusader]]'' has two examples. First, you can get the best armour in the game from the Lily pad enemies, which are all over the place in the first two levels of the dungeon. Second, you can fill up your magic completely if you find the hidden green potion in the second level.
* In ''[[Tales of Innocence]]'' Guild Dungeons' chests give randomly generated loot. However, some of the items in the tables are very, very good. Therefore, it is possible, in a rank 2 dungeon, to obtain a "Mythril" Sword with 110 attack and a casting speed bonus at a time where the normal swords you can buy in shops and/or loot in dungeons have maybe 18 attack.
* ''[[
* ''[[Magna Carta 2]]'' allows you to [[Bribing Your Way to Victory|buy a complete collection of gag weapons for the small price of 400MS]]. Not only are these weapons given to you (almost) straight away, but they're the most powerful weapons in the game and will destroy any semblance of challenge right up until the final boss.
* In ''[[Grandia (video game)|Grandia]]'' using healing magic in the field generates water magic experience points. Since the game features both MP restore at save points and damage-dealing traps in the field, all it takes is one near the other to level water magic as high as you want (and since levelling magic improves stats, this is nothing to shake a stick at). This can also be done with earth magic and a poison trap, though this is so slow as to be useless to any but the most persistent munchkin.
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** In terms of characters, there's the [[Decoy Protagonist|first generation protagonist]] Leonhardt Raglen. Once you get him to level 10, he gets his first Willpower: Unleash All. What this does is that by having him at 25% HP or less, he gets a ''massive'' boost to his attack, defense, magic, and magic defense. Needless to say, any boss battle consists of having Leo killed (or at 25% HP), have an [[Limit Break|EX Skill]] handy and watch the fireworks. After his generation though, you lose him and you get his replacement, his son Ladius until you can find a Forbidden Tome to revive Leo.
* This is a later example, but ''[[Strange Journey]]'' has Black Frost and Frost Ace, both of which have no weakness and spells that demons of their level shouldn't have; namely, ''third-tier ice attacks and a [[Total Party Kill]]''. You can get them both as early as Delphinus if your level's high enough; having both of them only requires you to be at level 34 and having 5 specific demons in your party, which the game is generous enough to tell you.
** Unlocking the fusion for Frost Ace, which can be done a little earlier, gives you an extra
* In ''[[Touhou|The Genius Of Sappheiros]]'', it is possible to recruit Byakuren and Mokou, normally the last two characters unlocked, before starting Chapter One. Head to the Myouren Shrine and wait for an hour (of real time) to get Byakuren, and go to the Bamboo Forest Of The Lost and enter the [[Konami Code]] to trigger Mokou's arrival. Having five characters plus a commander makes the first handful of chapters much easier.
* ''[[Phantasy Star IV]]'' has this in the form of its [[Combination Attack|combo system]]. Set up a macro to use the techniques [[Kill It with Fire|FOI]], [[Kill It with Water|WAT]] and [[Thunderbolts and Lightning|TSU]]. TRIBLASTER can carry you through most of Motavia although it's inefficient against later bosses.
* ''[[Hyperdimension Neptunia]]'' has dungeons ranging from level 1 to up to level 1000. There's nothing stopping you from going into a high level dungeon with a lot of care and grabbing a powerful weapon very early. There's also no level system with equipment so there's no reason not to equip it.
* In ''[[Golden Sun]]: The Lost Age'', if you held on to those Lucky Medals, you can win the powerful Water/Wind summon Eclipse from Lemuria's Lucky Fountain as soon as you arrive. Most of the significant boss enemies in ''The Lost Age'' are Fire/Earth-aligned, including two of the [[Bonus Boss
** By using glitches to skip recruiting Mia and her Djinni and acquire the rest of the Djinn normally, you can use nine-Djinn classes (normally unattainable until TLA's endgame) in the first game. [[Curb Stomp Battle|Fusion Dragon didn't know what hit it/them.]]
** In ''[[Golden Sun: Dark Dawn]]'', there's an item acquired about a third of the way through the game called the Ice Queen Gem, which enables all stages of the Cold Snap Psynergy, including its pricy-but-powerful final form, Frostbite. Rief, otherwise despised for his [[Crippling Overspecialization]], has a large enough Psy pool even at low levels to just ''spam'' Frostbite on everything, up until darned near the end of the game when weapons outclass Psynergy altogether.
* ''[[Might and Magic]] VI'' actually has one as an intended feature. In the starting town of the game, you can find a hidden fly spell scroll, in the wall of one of the town's buildings, which you can use to fly atop another building, which, in turn, features a hidden portal to another map (Dragonsand), which is filled with the toughest foes of the entire game: dragons. This portal places you near the shrine of the gods, which greatly ups your stats (you can normally access the area, with extensive travelling through dangerous territories). It's not gamebreaking but it gives you a fair advantage to make things much easier, at least at the very beginning.
** ''Might and Magic VII'' gives you the opportunity to kill a dragon, in the first map of the game. You can either do it with a spell staff, which you can conveniently accept from one of the peasants (although this has implications, later on) or you can go by the process of exploiting the AI and employ the tactic of shoot and hide. This is a freakishly time-consuming process but dragons give of the best loot. Given the fact that you can multiloot the dragon, you can outfit your entire party with the best gear in the land!
* ''[[The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall]]'' allows you to generate your character with an ebony dagger (second-best material in the game). It is very difficult to find, requiring the player to generate their character via questionnaire and hinges upon one of the twenty or so questions.
* In ''[[The Elder Scrolls]] III: [[Morrowind]]'' it is possible to get one of the most powerful swords in the game with a little swimming, a little gold and a lot of waiting.
** In the town Balmora, you can easily steal a magical ebony broadsword by jumping * just* out of line of sight of a nearby guard. So, you can have a very powerful weapon only minutes after character creation!
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** ''Morrowind'', featured a very easily stolen Grand Soul Gem with the soul of a daedra in it in the Mages Guild of the second town. It could be used to either create a perma-enchanted item (provided you also had piles of cash), or alternatively was worth 50.000 gold by itself. Two catches however : no merchant in the world had that much cash on him (but that could be circumvented through outside-the-box bartering) and, more importantly, because of the way the "stolen" flag worked in that game, stealing that gem flagged ALL Grand Soul Gems as stolen, meaning you could later lose all of those you earned honestly just by talking to a guard.
** In ''Morrowind'' the amount of easily obtainable magic rings you can pick up just after the start of the game can also help make early levels a breeze. Denstagmer's Ring gives you 30% resistance to Fire, Ice and Shock. Mentor's Ring boosts your Intellegence and Willpower by 10 and the Ring of Phynaster grants 20% resistance to Poison, Magicka and Shock. All of them can be found in caves just outside of towns and are not too badly guarded.
** And of course, there are wonders of [[Game Breaker|Alchemy]], being able to cyclically boost your ability to make better and better potions right at the start of the game, culminating in utter unstoppability
* Spellcrafting and object-enchanting abilities in ''[[The Elder Scrolls]] IV: [[Oblivion]]'' can be exploited by low-level characters to craft [[One-Hit Kill]] weapons and highly unbalancing spells.
** In ''Oblivion'' it's possible to get one of the strongest swords (if not the strongest) in the game very early. It's held by a very strong NPC and it would normally require an intense battle with her to get it, but all one really has to do is attack her, and then hop on a horse and lure her to the nearest city and let the guards kill her for you.
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** Also, by completing an early Main Storyline quest, you are made Thane of Whiterun and given Lydia as a Housecarl. She serves rather impressively as a melee tank and can be relied on to deal with troublesome foes.
** The Mace Of Molag Baal is the only Daedric item who's quest you can literally initiate at level one and have an expectation of completing before level 5. It's enchantments aren't very notable, barring the ever useful soul trap, but that's not what makes it a nuke. It's raw physical attack with no upgrades is on par with a base Ebony weapon, and while you won't be able to improve it's base attack until you have smithing at level 60, it's still plenty powerful, and armor enchants to boost attack damage will still work to boost it. Plus, with the perks that allow maces to ignore enemy defenses, this makes it an incredibly useful weapon until you can make your own ebony and daedric weapons.
** The Oghma Infinitum can be [[Good Bad Bugs|exploited]] into an unintentional
* ''[[Baldur's Gate]]'' has a tutorial section in which you learn how to control party members. Many players found they could loot the inventory of party members of valuable items (such as a ''+ 1 shield'', a ''wand of heavens'', and ''healing potion''s, and nonmagical plate mail), and then export their characters, and simply start a new game with said
** Also, in the section just outside Candlekeep, to the north, you usually will "randomly" meet Drizzt and a party of his friends. By saving the game here and having Imoen attempt to pickpocket him successfully before he exits the screen you could end up with BOTH of Drizzt's +5 named artifact scimitars!
** ''Baldur's Gate'' also featured Ankheg-infested farmland in the map just north of the first real haven of the game. Ankhegs being worth quite a chunk of XP, but being correspondingly deadly, a patient and/or lucky player could gain a few levels in short order. You can also sell the ankheg shells for gobs of cash and have good armor crafted from them. though you would need gobs of cash for the latter. All you have to do is avoid the ankheg attacks, which are slow but virtually [[One-Hit Kill|One Hit Kills]] at low
*** A better way to get a ton of XP early was to buy a Scroll of Protection From Petrification and then go kill the basilisks near one of the early towns. They gave about 7000 XP each and were fairly trivial as long as you couldn't be turned to stone. If you wanted to solo the game, you could gain a number of levels very quickly this way.
** Algernon's Cape grants the use of an at-will, instant-cast, virtually-unlimited-ammo Charm spell to a first or second level PC five minutes into the game through a ridiculously easy pickpocket or NPC kill (approximately 4 HP) - yeah, that's a game nuker. An easter egg, to be sure, and serious players who wanted to enjoy the game wouldn't use it, but still. There's nothing quite like turning an enemy party against itself. You could win the whole game with one character, never having to raise a fist. Of course, no kill XP, but then that's what quest completion XP is for.
** A bit less extreme, but there are a few [[Pixel Hunt|really well hidden]] secret containers in early maps. The first map after out from Candlekeep has a diamond, worth a good 500 gold; the Lion's Road map has a ''+ 1 ring of protection''; the Friendly Arm inn has a ring which doubles the wearer's first-level spell slots if they're a wizard; and though not precisely early, Nashkel still takes place in the first act and has half-weight ''+ 2 plate mail''.
* In ''[[Baldur's Gate]] II: Shadows of Amn'', after importing a character from the first game, if you quickly paused after hearing the character gasp at the start of the game, you could drop their inventory, and thus prevent it from being swiped by a
** With a little luck you can get the lich in the Dancing Crane to waste its spells. Send a single character with a Cloak of Non-Detection and some invisibility item in first. Wait until the lich cast Time Stop and Meteor Swarm then go invisible and exit the room. Wait around for awhile and the lich's protective spells will expire making him killable even for an unleveled party.
*** Aside from the nice XP (no lich in the game gives less than 22,000) ,the lich's loot includes Daystar a sword with that lets you cast Sunbeam, a high level spell which nukes Undead ''en masse''...and Undead are among the most common enemies in the game.
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* In ''[[Sudeki]]'', a sufficiently savvy or even just sufficiently ''nosy'' player can find all four characters' ultimate weapons well before the halfway point of the game. (They also tend to end up overleveled, thanks to one weapon requiring completion of [[That One Sidequest]] which requires 21 of a rare [[Randomly Drops|randomly dropped piece of loot]].)
* ''[[Secret of Evermore]]'' features a glitch which can be exploited for Disc One Nukedom-if you save the game while a character is buffed and quit, when you start the game again you'll still be buffed, but your actual stats will be at their unbuffed level. Since the game still thinks you're buffed, when the buff wears off it'll reduce your stat...and if it's low enough, it'll wrap around to be super high, and you'll be able to one-shot almost anything. Balancing this is the fact that if you level up your stats will increase as normal, meaning if you're not careful you could wind up with stats even ''lower'' than your starting baseline.
* There happens to be a fellow running a shop in a secret underground passage in the Docks district of Kirkwall in ''[[Dragon Age II]]'' who sells a ridiculously powerful bow for a reasonable price in the second chapter. Makes the game a lot easier, actually. Also, all you have to do to receive Hanlon's Razor, easily the best greatsword until Act II, is to beat the demo. Most of the DLC equipment and unlockable Extra equipment is this as well. Items such as the Staff of Parlathan, which can be obtained by registering for the newsletter, are powerful in Act I but are eventually outclassed in Act II. One exception is
* ''[[Dragon Age Origins]]'' has similar items. Completing (or simply having, in some cases) the various DLC packs gives you one of the better two-handed weapons, a pretty-good massive chestpiece, the best longbow, the best mace, a decent longsword, the second-best amulet, the best light armor, the best mage robes, and two great belts. The best mace can also be sold for 339 gold (or even more, if you're a Dwarf Noble) - enough to buy any two Cash Gated items. You get these items in your inventory right at the start of the game.
** Not to mention the two new Talents you can gain by drinking the diablery potion in the ''Warden's Keep'' DLC. The Mage's are particularly
* Lord of the Rings: The Third Age makes it possible, if insanely tedious, to grind ability points in single battles, purely by focusing on defensive abilities throughout combat, and healing whenever necessary- or not, since Berethor's awesome Leadership party buffs can regenerate health and power points. What follows is Berethor using a speed buff for more turns before enemy turns, followed by an action point regeneration buff, followed by a hit point regeneration buff- rinse and repeat until you have everything you need.
* In ''[[Mass Effect 1]]'', on Eden Prime, you can encounter some colonists hiding from the geth. If you talk to them, they reveal they have some smuggled weapons. You can confiscate a pistol from them, which turns out to be powerful enough to last you for quite a while.
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*** Similarly, the N7 Eagle combines the high fire rate and light weight of a burst fire SMG with the accuracy of a pistol.
* In ''[[Task Maker]]'' for the Mac, you're given an Ethereal Potion in the (optional) Tutorial level. It can either be sold for a high price to a shop, or used to phase through a wall and access a passageway with ''three'' of the most powerful weapons in the game — and while one of the three is in the same chamber as some highly powerful monsters, they will spawn far enough away for you to grab it without being hit.
* ''[[Lust Grimm]]'':
** The Paralyze skill, which normally has a medium probability of paralyzing an enemy for a few turns. The enemies in Hades Coast are ten to twenty levels higher than you when you first get access to the area, but they are all weak to paralysis and will be hit 100% of the time. This allows you to defeat them at no risk, gaining levels at an incredible rate.
** The Embrace skill is less powerful but obtained earlier than Paralyze. When used, it has a 100% chance of debuffing the opponent's stats and a low chance of inflicting other status effects (including ecstasy, which is functionally equivalent to paralysis). However, if you use it on an enemy twice the debuffs ''stack''. This similarly allows you to fight powerful enemies early on, though it requires more strategy since you can't completely shut them down like you can do with Paralyze.
* [[The Spiffing Brit]] has demonstrated on his [[YouTube]] channel how a player can vastly overpower a starting character in games like ''[[The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim]]'' and ''[[Elden Ring]]'' simply by knowing [[Sequence Breaking|the right places in the game to visit early on]].
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* ''[[Mechwarrior]] 3'' had a salvage system which allowed you to get just about any enemy mech, provided you shot one of it's leg off (and anything could be equipped on any mech). As a result, you could end up with a 75 ton mech after mission 4 (that one is canonic, according to the novelization), and '''2''' 100 ton mechs after mission 8.
* ''[[Mechwarrior]] 4 Mercenaries'' features a gladiator arena, where you can play 24 missions very early on. When you get out, you have enough money to buy a few of the best mechs on the market, and the in-game time has advanced enough for them to be available.
* ''[[
** In the original ''[[
* In the first two ''[[Naval Ops]]'' games, blueprints for advanced ships (as in guided missile destroyers when the enemies are still using WWII tech) can be obtained fairly early on with the right research and come with weapons and auxiliary systems that would not be normally obtained until much later. Advanced anti-sub missiles for your battleship are especially welcome.
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== Tabletop Games ==
* In [[White Wolf]]'s ''[[Exalted]]'' RPG, it is entirely possible to create a character capable of hitting anyone, aywhere, with the spell "Total Annihilation". Or how about being able to create a curse that kills off everyone who falls within a broad category - say, humans? Or any number of combinations of spells, charms, artefacts and/or backgrounds that will make your character able to do one thing, and one thing only - but that thing will most likely involve a LOT of pain for whoever gets hit. In fact, most of the effort when creating a character goes into resisting the urge to crank up your favourite attack before you even begin playing.
* [[
** The game has plenty of more mundane examples and in fact a number of mechanics have been used at various times with low level survivability in mind. But third edition had some doozies, not the least of which was Haste, which was a result of the dev team not understanding the change in action economy from 2nd edition to 3rd, allowing wizards to cast two spells per round without suffering the second edition drawback of aging more rapidly (which itself could be mitigated somewhat by playing an elf but 3rd edition made that part unnecessary.) Of course the trade off is you blow through your spells that much faster but you can usually talk your party into letting you recoup after an intense battle.
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* In ''[[SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs|SOCOM Fireteam Bravo 3]]'' on PSP, the OC-14 or [[AKA-47|RA-14]] mentioned above is also a relatively easy to get and useful gun. Although to get it you have to score 750 kills, but you can just bang away in the first mission or custom missions with the lowest difficulty. It uses 7.62x39 rounds which is abundant in the 3rd and last mission, kills with 3 body shots at most, and had better overall stats than the AK103 used by [[Elite Mooks]]. Plus, it also can be fitted with a silencer which the AK103 can't.
* An intrepid player can get a distressing amount of equipment within the first missions of the ''[[Crusader: No Remorse|Crusader]]'' games; notably, can usually acquire the shotgun and rocket launcher in the first mission of each with relative ease, while finding secret areas later in the game can result in the character being fully-armed and armored by halfway through the game.
* ''[[Gotcha Force]]'' has the Barrier Girl. She has a fairly quickly charging normal attack, a melee attack that drills opponents (so it does several rapid hits, good for juggling), and a fairly quick charged shot that she can use if the situation warrants. All of that would make her decent if not spectacular, except for the "barrier" part of her name. Said barrier is a shield that will simply absorb a decent amount of damage, and can be redeployed. Granted, it takes a while (unless [[Super Mode|Power Burst]] is active) for said barrier to recharge, but Barrier Girl is one of the more agile combatants - she's quick enough that she can strafe opponents without taking damage even without the shield. Even the wonky AI can abuse her ability to tank unless the player abuses the only early attacks that can chip the shield quickly (drilling attacks... like the one a Barrier Girl does in melee), and the computer can't handle them without breaking out the very powerful opponents using a [[Wave Motion Gun]] or a [[
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** Pleinair, in the [[Updated Rerelease|DS version]], is a [[Double Subversion]], as she can only be persuaded to join you upon starting up a [[New Game+]], but since losing to the boss in chapter one [[Nonstandard Game Over|counts as finishing the game]], you can still get her within about half an hour.
*** In the PSP version of Disgaea 2, the game just gives you a level 100 Pleinair at the start of a new game if you've downloaded the free DLC pack she comes in. You can then use Pleinair to easily beat level 100 Sapphire (also a free DLC download) and have her join as well. Presumably this could be done with paid DLC characters as well.
*** The PC version nerfs Pleinar, but still game breaks in a different way, because you get her and all the other DLC characters from the PSP version at level 1 for free without needing to fight them, as well as some extra characters. Many still have obscenely powerful special skills even at Level 1, and with some clever grinding early on you can still turn them into this trope, it just takes longer since they start at Level 1.
** ''Disgaea'' has yet another easily abuseable method of game breaking. Go to the item world until you find one with an invincible geo panel. Level up Laharl's spear mastery to
** The second one has a more blatant example. One of the levels about a third of the way through pits you against a squad of enemies sitting on effect panels that level them up by 10% of their current level every turn. It takes a little mindless, repetitive turn ending, but after a while they get all the way up to the max level of 9999, starting at about 10. Because you can capture any monster that's at most 2-3x the level of your highest level character, this allows you to quickly build up to having a team of these 9999 level monsters within five hours of starting the game. By comparison, the final boss of the main story is level 90. The PSP version patched out this exploit in 2 ways. The first by not allowing you capture any monsters that you can't create, the second by not allowing you to capture anything whose level is higher than your highest
*** But wait, there's more. At the end of the third chapter, you are thrown into a [[Hopeless Boss Fight]] against an enemy who is on average one hundred times your current level, with the gear to show for it. Typically, you would now be resigning yourself to getting mercilessly ground into pixellated paste or trying to line up the odd [[Fastball Special]] maneuver to nab a few treasure chests. However, due to the way the item stealing probabilities are calculated, even the most basic stealing item used by the most recently-generated thief will always, always, always have a 1% chance to steal one (and only one) item from said opponent. Now, the item to go for here is something called a Testament. It gives any character equipped with it a whopping 200 points in every single stat, apart from health, which gets twice that bonus. At a time when your average attack stat is roughly 100. Add to that the fact that character equip multipliers add another ten percent at least on top of that, and you have yourself a character whose
*** And then, coming off that honking stat jack, we have the Item World.
* Speaking of ''[[Phantom Brave]]'', it's possible to get a Bottle Mail (a phantom that easily "steals" items it is confined into) as soon as you start a new game and create enough characters to make a human pyramid so that Ash can reach the highest point on the map (this also earns his first Changebook that allows for Phantom Brave's spin on the Reincarnation ability that resets a character level to 1 with stat bonuses equal to the number of levels he gained before). It takes only a little bit of grinding after that to start exploiting random dungeons to farm items, mana, money, and titles.
** Then there's the
* In ''[[Fire Emblem:
** Joshua can also be leveled up in the arena fairly easily. However, the usefulness of this is tempered by the fact that you have no class-changing items at this time and won't be getting a Hero Crest until Chapter 9. Of course, you're about to get a Guiding Ring, and sending Seth and Joshua into the arena so many times is bound to provide plenty of healing opportunities...and you can certainly afford to continually restock your healers with more staves...yeah, that's right, you can have a Bishop by the start of Chapter 6. As in, the class that absolutely ''pwns'' all of the monster enemies. This is totally broken.
** You can pull the exact same stunt in Fire Emblem 7, but thanks to a ''good bad bug'' involving Ninian, you can also have your character possess a godly defense boost virtually assuring they will never actually die in the arena.
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*** Why bother paying attention to the price? If you pay the gatekeeper, and don't like your chances against the opponent they put you with, hard reset the game. When you turn it back on, you're taken to the last thing that happened before you went into the arena. Enter the aren and you'll receive the same offer; turn it down and enter the arena again. You'll be presented with a new enemy to fight, probably one preferable to the one you just turned down (though not always). Repeat as many times as necessary to get a favorable opponent (but remember, if you didn't like the enemy you got after turning down the first offer, you'll have to turn down two offers next time, and so on). The gamble of the arena almost completely disappears.
** The "split story" nature of ''[[Fire Emblem Jugdral|Fire Emblem 4]]'' makes for an interesting one. The second half of the game begins at Chapter 6 featuring the children of the characters from the first half, and their equipment will be determined by what their same-gender parent had in their inventory at the end of Chapter 5 (except for Briggid's kids, who inherit from their opposite-gender parent instead). If Levn's son is a magic-user like his father, he'll inherit the ultimate wind magic, Holsety, as long as Levn received it near the end of Chapter 4. Tiltyu's son Arthur is a mage who arrives in Chapter ''6'', so if she was paired with Levn... On another note, [[Future Badass|Shanan]] gets the Balmung almost as soon as he joins up at the start of Chapter 7 and will be able to dodge pretty much everything due to the massive speed boost it grants, making him your premiere boss-killer until other legendary weapons are obtained.
*** Aless's Mistletain is somewhat of a [[Double Subversion]]. He arrives midway through Chapter 7, and he already has his legendary weapon, so it'll be one of your first and should kill just about anything. However, when he first arrives, it's almost a liability as it provides no bonuses to dodging or physical defense, it can't attack at range, and the AI seems to love to target Aless, not to mention the fact that since it ''will'' kill almost any enemy on the counterattack and enemies tend to come in large groups in this game, he's going to get mobbed and can easily be attacked 10-15 times in a single enemy phase. However, the final two chapters are filled to the brim with enemies that wield long-distance magic and/or Sleep staves (which in this game automatically hit if the target's magic resistance is lower than the wielder's magic), and many of the bosses are also magic-wielders, making Aless one of the most useful units in the
* In [[Super Robot Wars]] Z save your money until stage 10. Full upgrade [[Super Dimension Century Orguss|Kei's Bronco II weapons after this stage.]](upgradeing his Bronco is cheaper) When you get him back in his Orguss a few stages later, congratulations! [[Game Breaker|You now have the most powerful character in the entire game.]]
** Rand is debatably one too, and HE'S YOUR MAIN CHARACTER!
** Setsuko's route lets you get the [[Zeta Gundam|Mega Bazooka Launcher]] and [[Great Mazinger|Great Booster]] attacks MUCH earler, as well as most her early stages giving you [[Ace Pilot]] [[Zeta Gundam|Kamille]] [[Psychic Powers|Bidan]].
** In ''[[Super Robot Wars J]]'', the [[Original Generation]] are ''insanely'' powerful, especially [[Mighty Glacier|Granteed]]; you get them on the first (Toya's route) or second (Calvina's route) stage and never lose them.
* In ''[[Sengoku Rance]]'' two early characters stand out as
** [[Rance]] himself can be one in the lower difficulty levels once you get the Satisfication bonuses.
* ''[[Age of Wonders]] II'', courtesy of the [[Design
* ''The Crescent Hawk's Inception'' starts you off in a Chameleon training Battlemech. If you play out the story as intended, you're jumped by four Jenners and lose the 'mech, but escape with your life to begin seeking your revenge. Except that it's possible to simply run away as soon as the Jenners appear, letting you begin the game in a 50 ton Chameleon. Considering that the largest enemy 'mech you'll ever face in this game is only 35 tons, it makes you the biggest badass on the planet from the very start of the game!
* Completing the "Kurt Irving's First Mission" sidequest in ''[[Valkyria Chronicles|Valkyria Chronicles 3]]'' nets the SMG "Hilde". This mission uses its own units and is a prequel, rendering it trivial to clear regardless of game completion, but the Hidle it nets has stats appropriate for mid-game and exceptionally high range allowing the player to turn one Shocktrooper into a total powerhouse that also has the longest range of anyone that isn't a sniper. This mission was originally a pre-order bonus but is included in all copies of ''[[Updated Rerelease|Valkyria Chronicles 3 Extra Edition]]'' (the version the [[Fan Translation]] patch is for) by default and, unlike the other DLC missions in that re-release, is actually playable from the start.
== Turn Based Tactics ==
* In ''[[Jagged Alliance]]'' 2 right from the get-go you can hire the best mercs in the rooster armed with hig-end weapons. Sure, with your starting funds you can only afford a couple of days of their service, but that's enough. They'll curb stomp through the first several missions, and then you can strip them of all their fancy gear, hire some more available mercs and carry on with a substantial edge.
* In ''[[7.62: High Caliber]]'' mod ''Hard Life'' the government soldiers who attack you in the first two opening missions carry FAL rifles in poor condition with their selector switch removed and shoot underpowered ammo that can't cycle the action reliably or do the harm a battle rifle should. Nine "[[Fan Nickname|shitFAL]]" (the first two quests give more than enough) can be merged into a good version of the FAL by obtaining a FAL manual (the base quartermaster will give one for free if you ask what the hell is with the rifle you found) and cleaning kit (one of your first allies comes with one) while the ammo can be restored to good condition by cannibalizing cartridges at a 3 to 1 rate. A GudFAL will be a very solid weapon for the first leg of the game when everyone carries rusty lowest bidder AKs, hunting shotguns and broken WW2 submachineguns.
== Wide Open Sandbox ==
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** Or, for the more feeble among you, simply head to the top of the Police Station and nick one. They don't always spawn though.
** Side quests that gives you infinite ammo perks. Doesn't really matter which one. Pick one that's the easiest.
* ''[[Saints Row]]'' 3 follows similar suit. Once you gain a garage, and access back to the National Guard Depot, you can enter the depot, and hang around until you gain enough wanted stars to spawn tanks, you can then steal the tank and take it to a garage. In Saints Row 3, you also have the option of using your own vehicle on some of the side-missions, which means you can do Drug Runs in tanks, operating the mounted machine gun (or laser gun, at later tanks) while the dealer drives around the city in the tank.
** Likewise, once you gain access to a HQ with a helipad, you can raid the National Guard depot again for armed helicopters.
* Because of random enemy equipment generation and a complete aversion of [[Unusable Enemy Equipment]], ''[[Mount
* ''[[Terraria]]'' has loads of them. Depending on world size, you could find iron, silver, maybe even gold as soon as you spawn. There's also a small amount of demonite that can be found throughout the world. Another way to nuke is to join any multiplayer server. Someone in the server WILL be either fighting a boss (who usually drop loads of items used in the making of the third best metal armor, or some better weapons/tools) or just giving out random things. One other way to nuke is to head to the dungeon. You usually have to drop down a few feet before you're really in trouble, so stay up in the lobby. You might find anything between a water candle (which are common), a water bolt (a pretty cool spell), or even a chest with dungeon loot.
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