A Taste of Power: Difference between revisions

When starting a game, often the player starts out with an extremely powerful party, character, weapon or ability, which can easily slaughter anything it comes across, playing through a short battle or dungeon. The player is in no real danger of losing at this point, but this incredible power never lasts long. Once the introductory segment is complete, the player switches to the ''real'' party, usually at [[Starter Equipment|level 1 with basic starter gear]].

 

 

 

Frequently used in RTS games to allow the player to be given a tutorial of all the game elements in one sitting.

 

Compare [[Bag of Spilling]], where a player character's hard-won power is [[Hand Wave|somehow]] lost between the end of one game and the beginning of its sequel. If you wind up having to fight the [[Crutch Character]] later, you've been walking in [[Villain Shoes]]. May coincide with [[And Now for Someone Completely Different]]. The inversion is [[Eleventh-Hour Superpower]], where you get special abilities at the ''end'' of the game. Also contrast [[Second-Hour Superpower]], where the player character starts generically and gets his/her defining ability only partway through. May be [[Purposefully Overpowered]].

 

* ''[[Onimusha]] 3'' starts Samonosuke off with the fully-powered versions of his three primary magic swords from the first game (Raizen, Enryuu, and Shippuu) only to rob him of all three by the second level, leaving him with naught but his regular, non-magical katana once again until he can find three new magical weapons. If you manage to find the special orbs in the [[Bonus Dungeon|Dark Realm]] you can start a [[New Game+]] using the above-mentioned magical swords.

** Humorously, it is possible to [[Good Bad Bugs|skip past]] the room with Death, making the rest of the game [[Game Breaker|absurdly easy]] due to your crazy armor that reduces most attacks in the first half of the game to [[Scratch Damage]].

* ''[[Kameo: Elements of Power]]'' begins with the titular character infiltrating the fortress of Thorn, the troll king, with three Elemental Warrior transformations intact. Instructions are given on how to transform and use the Warriors' abilities. The attack on the castle fails; Kameo loses her Elemental Warriors, and must retrieve them, along with several other transformations.

* ''[[Ecco the Dolphin]]: The Tides of Time'': {{spoiler|Ecco begins the game not having to breathe, as a token of the Asterite's power granted him in the first game. Once something wipes out the Asterite offscreen in one of the first levels, though, be prepared to see that oxygen bar start going down...}}

* ''[[Shadow Complex]]'' starts with you controlling a different character who has the (mostly) assembled suit of [[Powered Armor]] you find the pieces of once you start the game proper. For this one shootout with a boss fight afterwards, you have plenty of armor, an assault rifle, grenades and missiles, and a double-jump.

 

* ''Alter Echo'' grants the player all three forms in quick succession during the opening chapter, allowing the player to get used to the shapeshifting mechanics and using all three forms in tandem effectively. At the end of the first chapter, the resident super-villain steals all but your basic form until your ally restores your other forms after beating the second and third chapters.

* ''[[Danny Phantom|Danny Phantom: The Ultimate Enemy]]'' [[Video Game]] lets you play as [[Future Me Scares Me|Evil Future Danny]] for the first level and boss fight and in the [[Boss Rush]] mode. After that, you play the rest of the game as regular Danny.

 

* ''[[Forza Motorsport]]'' 3 starts out with the player racing in a nice red Audi R8. After the race, you have to choose between a few cheap hatchbacks (like the Ford Fiesta) for the next races until you buy another car.

** The forth game has a similar beginning, only now you are in a Ferrari 458 Italia.

* ''[[Need for Speed]]: Most Wanted'' begins with a flash-forward featuring the player racing in a high-performance BMW which becomes disabled partway through the race. The game then flashes back six days to show how the player got to the race at the beginning before coming full circle and having the player lose the car in the opening race. Then the player must start the actual game by purchasing a more modest vehicle and working back up to overpowered racing machine.

** Similarly, in ''[[Need for Speed]]: Underground'', when you begin a new career, you immediately start a circuit race with modded cars. After you win the circuit, it turns out the whole race was just your daydream, and your own car is completely unmodded.

*** The ending cutscene potentially (and eerily) makes this a dream-within-a-dream.

** Strangely, ''[[Need for Speed]]: Undercover'' completely averts the trope when it'd be ''entirely logical'' to have it in full force. You're not some out of luck wanna be racer, you're ''undercover for the FBI''. You think they'd give you more than a barely decent car...

 

* Two of the ''[[Metroid Prime]]'' games begin with a fully suited-up Samus playing through a short level, after which she loses her extra abilities and the real game begins. This is now a [[Beam Me Up, Scotty]] joke for the franchise; "Samus ''always'' loses her powers near the start of the game."

** ''Metroid Prime 3'' just uses the [[Bag of Spilling]], but starts Samus off with the Space Jump Boots, Morph Ball and its bombs, and the Charge Beam. [[Word of God]] says that it was fun to make Samus lose her gear, but by the 3rd Prime game, they stopped doing it as a plot point because it wasn't fresh anymore. Also, after obtaining Phazon weapon, until you pass corruption threshold on Bryyo, you could shoot anything to death harmlessly, but walk an inch past that cutscene with the Phazon pool and even if you fly back to Norion and go to the generator, you can just overload and lose.

*** Later becomes a [[Crowning Moment of Awesome]] when Samus engages two of her more powerful upgrades without explicit permission and bemusedly asks, "Any objections, Adam?"

** Recently, in one of the most amazing [[Sequence Breaking|sequence breaks]] to date, a way was found to [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIH76tIwlDo&feature=player_embedded skip the Bag of Spilling] in ''Prime 2''. With out-of-bounds glitching, you can avoid triggering the cutscene where Dark Samus leaves you on Dark Aether and your stuff is stolen.

* ''[[Modern Warfare]] 2'' multiplayer has something like this. The default classes that can be chosen have stuff, like the <s>noobtube</s> [[Grenade Launcher]] for the FAMAS or red dot sight for the UMP45, that will not be available immediately after you gain the ability to customize your own classes.

** ''Modern Warfare 3'' continues this; only two of the five default classes give you primary weapons you'll immediately have once you unlock Create-A-Class, the other three equipping you with weapons you won't be seeing until level 28 at minimum. Survival Mode does this on occasion as well - for instance, the last unlocked shotgun in multiplayer is available ''from the beginning'' in Survival.

* ''Mysteries of the Sith'', the expansion pack for ''[[Star Wars: Dark Forces|Jedi Knight]]'', had you play as Kyle Katarn, the full-powered Jedi Knight from the main game, for the first few levels. Then your point of view switched to Mara Jade, who was still in training.

 

* ''[[Chaos Legion]]'' starts the main character off with {{spoiler|Thanatos}} as his legion, whose powers include wiping out everything and anything that happens to so much as look at you. You lose it once you meet the [[Big Bad]] at the end of the tutorial stage, and have to reassemble it.

* In ''[[Guardian Heroes]]'', Han starts off with the powerful Sword of Legend. He loses it to the Golden Hero after the first stage, but may gain another, equally powerful sword if he follows the right path.

 

* In some MMORPGs, when creating your character, it is depicted wearing very impressive looking, high level equipment. Once your character is actually created though, you only have basic, dull gear.

* ''[[Aion]]'' has a version of this around level 5-6, with a couple of {{spoiler|flashback}} quests that take place in The Abyss, a much-higher-level PVP area. You're in impressive-looking armor, can fly, and characters around you are calling you their hero. In the second quest you'll also be facing off against some really tough-looking enemies who nonetheless go down easily before your "might", {{spoiler|plus a "legendary" hero from the other faction, who ultimately kicks your butt in a cutscene}}.

* In the 2D MMORPG ''[[Maple Story]]'', making an [[Blade on a Stick|Aran]] places you through a tutorial in the form of a flashback. It introduces you to the Aran's basic playstyle by allowing you to use a maxed out Triple Swing/Final Blow, a 4th job skill combination.

* ''[[Fallen Earth]]'' starts with a max-level character, but your DNA data [[Restart At Level One|gets corrupted]] when the cloning equipment is damaged.

* Two missions added in the August 9th patch of [[Lego Universe]] temporarily give new players special armour that has roughly the power of level 2 faction equipment and 4 extra hearts in order to fight the [[Spider Queen]].

* In ''[[Battlestar Galactica Online]]'', one plotline mission gives you a chance to take an Escort-type starship for a spin. If you accept that mission as soon as it's available, it'll probably be the first time you're going to get to use an Escort if you haven't been [[Bribing Your Way to Victory]].

 

* The Sega classic ''[[Wonder Boy III the Dragons Trap]]'' starts you off in the labyrinth lair of [[Big Bad|Meka, the Dragon]], equipped with [[Infinity+1 Sword|Legendary Sword]], Shield and Armor, bunches of Heart Containers, and mooks that drop heart refills nearly all the time, making it practically impossible to die at this point unless you do it on purpose. Then you reach and defeat Meka, and he leaves behind a Wisp that curses you, turning you into a lizard-man with a wimpy fire breath.

* In ''[[Captain Comic|Captain Comic 2]]'', you get unlimited fuel for your jetpack in the second to last level. The last level prevents you from using your jetpack at all.

* The new ''[[Bionic Commando]]'' game has a tutorial shortly after the beginning with several powers available to you. Although you get to practice them all, don't expect to use ''any'' of them until the game tells you it's okay (except zip line kicks, those you can do right away).

 

** Also an example of [[Cutscene Power to the Max]]. While being highly devastating, Ion Cannon does not, normally, evaporate entire enemy bases in one shot. The NOD buildings are just rigged to all die no matter what via map scripting - try firing the ion cannon at the outskirt of the base rather than the center.

* The tutorial of ''UFO: Aftershock'' consists of 3 missions during which you control characters (1 in first mission, 2 in second and 3 in last part) with early game weapons but with armour (at true beginning you have no armour for your soldiers) and mid/late game skills and abilities (probably most notable is Ranger wielding double laser pistols).

* During the Orc campaign of ''[[Warcraft]] III: Reign of Chaos'', in one level the player has to kill a demigod named Cenarious, which is nearly impossible under normal circumstances since, in addition to him having a decent sized base , he has the highest HP of anything you fight in any of the campaigns and divine type armor which means most attacks only do 1 point of damage to him. The way to beat him is completing the main quest in the level which leads you to a fountain of life that's been corrupted by a demon named Mannorath, and the [[Genre Blindness|genre blind]] orc leader Grom Hellscream and his warriors drink the blood. [[Evil Is Not a Toy|This comes back to bite them after the level is over]], but until then, the player gets Chaos orcs, which deal chaos-type damage, meaning max damage to all armor types, including Cenarious', new [[Black Mage]]-type spellcasters called Warlocks, and Hellscream's stats skyrocket.

 

* ''[[Lufia]] and the Fortress of Doom'' starts the player off with a party of very high-level characters, taking on one of the most powerful beings in the game's universe. This turns out to be a flashback that sets up the story for the rest of the game.

* In ''Spectrobes'', you begin the second game by having everything you obtained in the first game stolen. You technically get it back.

* ''[[Chrono Cross]]'' begins with a dream sequence with Serge, Kid and one randomly selected character, at a somewhat elevated level and powers. Perhaps uniquely, it's a premonition, and the party goes through the very same events later in the game.

* ''[[Final Fantasy VII]]'' does this about six hours after the game begins, when Cloud is telling the story of his trip to Nibelheim with Sephiroth. Sephiroth has a six slot linked weapon, and a six slot linked armor piece, along with mastered materia coupled with All materia, in addition to a ridiculously high strength rating and the inability to be touched by enemies (all attacks default to 0 damage). Needless to say, if and when you find yourself in battle, he kills everything before you can even act. And then we all know what happens next...

** Think you can let Cloud have a piece of that mastered materia action? Tough luck, because Sephiroth won't let you unequip anything from himself.

* In ''[[Final Fantasy X]]'', in the rematch against Sinspawn Gui, himself being a fairly challenging boss, especially for new players, the game gives you a party of [[White Magician Girl]]/[[Healing Hands]] Yuna, [[Badass Longcoat]]/...just badass in general Auron...and [[Guest Star Party Member|Seymour]]. Seymour is perfectly capable of [[Curb Stomp Battle|winning this fight]] singlehandedly without a scratch on him, and everything he does (asides from his character-specific [[Limit Break|Overdrive]], naturally) is something the player will be capable of doing. It's very impressive.

* ''[[Final Fantasy XIII]]'' inverts this trope to drill the combat basics into the player. See [[Second-Hour Superpower]].

** [[Final Fantasy XIII-2]], on the other hand, plays this straight, starting you off as a very powerful Lightning before you switch back to Serah. To put it in perspective, Lightning has roughly ten times as much HP as Serah does at that point.

* ''[[Baldur's Gate]]'' had an illusionist at the very start of the game teach you group tactics along with several midlevel NPC friends (who weren't illusory) against swarms of illusory monsters that would have overwhelmed your character normally but which didn't deal any damage.

** And, just to be clear, there was a way to glitch their equipment so it could continue existing well-beyond the tutorial. As many times as you could fit it in your inventory and carry.

* The Hentai RPG ''[[Knights of Xentar]]'' starts your character at the lower-mid levels, with decent stats. However, the moment we're done with the introductory area, the plot depowers you and strips you nude.

* In ''[[Star Wars]]: [[The Force Unleashed]]'', the prologue level is played as Darth Vader. He plays like the normal player character would after being powered up to the max, with all the combos and powers available, except [[Mighty Glacier|he does not have the dash powers]].

* ''[[Star Ocean the Second Story]]'' has one of the two primary characters start out with a futuristic (and powerful) energy beam weapon. It doesn't take long for it to run out of energy, and the game doesn't provide a way to recharge it.

** During the battle tutorial in ''[[Star Ocean: Till the End of Time]]'', the main character has a ridiculous amount of HP and MP, but has only about a tenth of that in the first real battle. This is explained in-game by the tutorial being a video game within the game's world. (This is also foreshadowing.)

* In the first dungeon of ''[[Lunar]] 2'', Lucia has incredibly strong magic until you leave the dungeon (at which point plot/the [[Big Bad]] strips them from her), which she'll eventually get back later in the game.

** This is actually very useful, since you can use her to level up your other characters to make the upcoming boss fight much easier.

* ''[[Fallout 3]]'', as well as the first two games to a lesser extent, occasionally allow the player to come into possession of a powerful late game weapon early on. However, ammo for it is often limited to a point it cannot be used regularly until much later. For example, A3-21's plasma rifle, one of the most powerful weapons in the game, can be acquired as early as level 3, but the microfusion cells it fires are highly uncommon early in the game (unless you know exactly where to look), and the repair parts in the form of other plasma rifles to cannibalize on are practically non-existent until around halfway around the main quest.

** However, if this isn't the player's first playthrough, he may be able to utilize the game's non-linear nature to turn an early taste of power into a [[Disc One Nuke]].

* ''[[.hack GU Games|.hack//INFECTION]]'' has Orca, Kite's first Party Member. [[Futurama|Good news, everyone!]] He's [[Shrouded in Myth|one of the strongest players around]]! [[Tempting Fate|Nothing can stop us now!]] Wait, who's this [[Woman in White|white-clad]] [[Mysterious Waif|girl]]? What's with that [[MacGuffin|book]] she gave him? And now we've got a [[The Grim Reaper|new monster]] carrying a <s> [[What Do You Mean Its Not Symbolic|Cross]]</s> [[Bowdlerization|Q-Stick]] who's [[Nigh Invulnerable|immune to Orca's attacks]]. [[Oh Crap|Uh oh...]]

* Before your first boss fight in ''[[Shin Megami Tensei]]'' you can fuse your dog with a demon and get the very powerful demon Kerberos, who will obey you even though you're far below his level 43. (Usually demons won't obey someone who's lower level than them.) After the fight, he unwisely attacks a teleporter station and vanishes, not to be seen for a looong time (specifically, thirty years). The trick is revisited in the sequel, although more justified: The Madame lends him to you to track down a rogue scientist, and returns to her when you're done. After Valhalla District is devoured by Abaddon, he'll join you again permanently, even if you're still underleveled - he recognizes your strength and potential, and he wants revenge on the people responsible for killing his master.

* ''[[Agarest Senki 2]]'' has Weiss facing off against Summerill, servant of the dark god Chaos. He at this point is level 99 and equipped with Veldafard, a very powerful sword. You get to own Summerill in your first fight. After which, a cutscene happens and you get flung over to who knows where at that point. When Weiss recovers, he gets reduced to level one, and you can't equip his sword anymore for some weird reason, not to mention he now has amnesia. {{spoiler|Turns out, there's a lot more to that story later on.}}

* ''[[Dragon Age]] 2'' begins with Varric telling a [[Framing Device|somewhat exaggerated story about Hawke.]] During the first ten minutes or so of the game you play as a veritable god with [[Regenerating Health]], extremely quick [[Cooldown]] times on all your powers, [[Infinity+1 Sword|Infinity Plus One Swords]], and the ability to vaporize darkspawn by looking at them funny. Eventually Cassandra, Varric's audience calls BS, whereupon Varric rewinds a bit and tells her the real story...

** Subverted for a first few matches. Your character do have evolved skills and game breaking abilities, however, these players have horrible stemina, and get tired after a few uses of specials, usually even before the first half ends.

* The opening section of ''[[Infinite Space]]'', which also doubles as the tutorial, has you fighting a couple of easy battles as the dread space pirate Valantin, at the helm of his awesomely powerful battleship ''[[Names to Run Away From Really Fast|Corsair]],'' capable of basically annihilating anything you point it at. After this sequence is over and the rest of the introduction has played out, you're left as a teenage boy at the helm of the good ship ''[[Fail O'Suckyname|Daisy]]'', a converted civilian vessel.

* [[Tales of the Drunken Paladin|Anebriate]] starts off with the maximum amount of gold, experience, etc. After a [[Curb Stomp Battle]], you lose everything and get to stare at your old items when they pop up from time to time in NPC shops.

* Dunban in ''[[Xenoblade Chronicles]]'' provides this, with you controlling him in the opening whilst he wields the Monado, the game's titular weapon. He later temporarily rejoins the party for an early segment of the game, still wielding the weapon, and while he relinquishes it to [[The Hero|Shulk]] before the end of that segment, he's still likely to be around 10 levels higher then the rest of the group and far stronger then them even without it. He rejoins for good at a point where everyone is likely to have caught up to him in level.

 

* Super Nashwan Power (http://www.nashwan.org/), from ''[[Xenon]] 2''. Oh Oh, Oh Yeah!

* ''[[Wingnuts]] 2'' starts you out with the best plane in the game (fast, strong, a ton of missiles, etc.) as you shoot down training blimps. Then, when the action starts and the Baron busts loose of the Temporal Prison, you have to fight a boss... which steals your plane right as you defeat it. Your next selection of planes is... not as good.

 

* ''[[Ace Combat]] 5'' Arcade Mode, Operation Katina, gives the player an F-22 Raptor to toy with, which is far more capable than the F-5 Tiger that the player is made to start off with in campaign mode. The Raptor doesn't become available again for quite some time (even if the player unlocks it for purchase from the start by beating Operation Katina, being a high-tier plane it's hideously expensive).

 

* In ''[[Assassin's Creed (video game)|Assassin's Creed I]]'' you start off with all equipment and a great deal of health. Sadly none of this is enough to stop you from failing the first mission (albeit by the fault of the protagonist), and being stripped of everything - including, rather confusingly, abilities that shouldn't be possible to take away, like dodging and being able to grab ledges while falling.

** While the [[Infinity+1 Sword|Armor of Altaïr]] that he wears in the beginning was lost in the villa attack, the player may also unlock an Armor of Brutus that's statistically identical, and/or download an Armor of Altaïr outfit through the Uplay service so that Ezio will appear to be wearing those robes and armor irrespective of what he's equipped with.

* Justified in the ''[[Splinter Cell]]: Double Agent''. In the first mission, you're flouncing through the fjords weighed down with a plethora of high tech gadgets. In the second, you're locked up in prison and have to crawl through an air duct to snag a lockpicking kit. Ouch.

 

** Another example from in the game is when Alexander tries to kill Zetta, Salome, whose level 1200, interferes and allows you to take him down easily. This is actually necessary since Alexander is level 1000 and unless you're leveling up the [[Bonus Boss|BonusBosses]], you have no chance of beating him.

* ''[[Soul Nomad and The World Eaters]]'' has moment of this in both its normal and demon paths. In the normal path, the player can get boasted to level 2000 if they [[A Deal With The Devil|accept Gig's power during]] during the [[Hopeless Boss Battle|first fight with Fienne]], allowing for an easy win, but resulting in a [[Nonstandard Game Over]] afterwords since accepting Gig's deal leads to him taking over your body. Later there's an automatic occurrence of the player getting the same level boast during the 2nd fight with Fienne for no reason apart from the fact that she, like Alexander in ''[[Makai Kingdom]]'', is far too strong for the player if they been leveling up normally. In the demon path, the player briefly [[Guest Party Member]] in the form of Blazing Ghestal/ {{spoiler|zombie Median the Conqueror}}, who is by far the most powerful unit/character in the game.

* In ''[[Super Robot Wars]] Alpha 3'', especially in Kusuha and Bullet's route, you get [[Mazinkaiser]] and [[Shin Getter Robo]] right off the bat, with everything from Alpha 2. A few stages later and a lot of [[GaoGaiGar]] ass-kicking, and they're right back to [[Mazinger Z]] and [[Getter Robo G]] (granted, it's plot related - Mazinkaiser's getting its Scrander back and Professor Saotome's gotta fix Shin Getter's power imbalance)

* Ramza's first battle in ''[[Final Fantasy Tactics]]'' is fought at the courtyard of Orbonne Monastery, defending it from brigands with the help of two Knights, a Squire, Holy Swordswoman Agrias, and Dark Knight Gaffgarion. The party is monumentally overqualified for engaging the brigands, it's nigh-impossible to get a [[Game Over]], and Agrias and Gaffgarion make short work of them with their skills. Upon the end of the battle, the game flashes back to several months ago, where Ramza is allowed only a few other Level 1 Squires and Chemists to accompany him on his mission.

** Interestingly, if you take the time during the flashback to level Ramza up to a higher level than he was in this scene, it will carry over to the rest of the game. Meaning that Ramza could, in theory, go from being a fair match for the brigands to curb-stomping them within one in-game day.

* In two ''[[Tactics Ogre]]'' releases: Let us Cling Together and The Knight of Lodis, you play the first few levels with the support of very powerful, experienced units (the Zenobians in LuCT, and Rictor + Orsen in KoL.) You're separated from these powerhouses quickly, and left commanding nothing but a bunch of poorly-armed rookies.

** Hilariously, his aide doesn't tell him about the price until ''after'' he moves the city.

 

* ''[[Grand Theft Auto Vice City Stories]]'' sorta does this. Vic is in the army and guess what he gets? Military hardware. That means while the Cholos and average thug is limited to baseball bats and pistols, you are cutting them down with your handy rifle received from unsuspecting patrols in your base (they will retaliate after the first patrol dies though.)

* The start of ''[[Scarface the World Is Yours]]'' has the player take Tony through the film-ending mansion shootout and play around with an [[Bottomless Magazines|unlimited-ammo]] M16+ M203. After the mission ends, Tony loses everything and is somehow made to lose the rifle too, forcing him to rebuild his reputation. The M16 does not become available again until much later in the game and it is no longer unlimited-ammo out of [[Super Mode|Blind Rage]].

** The thematically similiar ''Spider-Man: Web of Shadows'' also pulls the same [[In Medias Res]] variant of this trope.

 

* ''[[Digimon Xros Wars]]'': In the first episode, Taiki somehow manages to create a strange spectral incomplete variation of [[Combining Mecha|Shoutmon X3]] from just Shoutmon and Ballistamon, which is powerful enough to cause severe damage to MadLeomon's forces. They wouldn't be able to properly form Shoutmon X3 until numerous episodes later, when Dorulumon finally joined Xros Heart.

 

{{quote|'''Torg:''' "Well that didn't take long!"}}

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Video Game Tropes]]

[[Category:Power]]