A Taste of Power: Difference between revisions

== [[Action Adventure]] ==

* ''[[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.

* ''[[Nie R]]'' starts off with Nier accepting power from Grimoire Noir {{spoiler|and becoming the Shadowlord}} in order to protect Yonah. He levels up like crazy and quickly gets access to the Sealed Verses that you have to quest for in the real game.

 

** 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.

== [[Role Playing Game]] ==

* ''[[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 XII]]'' had you play as Reks who, while still only Level 1, travels with a small squad of Dalmascan soldiers, most notably Captain Basch, who will kill everything that isn't boss-strength in one hit, and one soldier that throws around healing potions to anyone who ever needs them, and never runs out. Then you change to his little brother Vaan. To put in perspective, you have to grind to at least level three in the ''first area'' to survive the sub-boss you have to face upon taking control of him. Also, you are introduced to the wonder and glory of the greatsword weapon class through the guest party character Vossler--you won't have effective greatswords of your own for quite some time. Another example is Lamont/Larsa, who has unlimited Hi and X-Potions, and isn't afraid to use them. During your first trip with him, dying isn't much of a concern.

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

* 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.

* 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.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Video Game Tropes]]

[[Category:A Taste of Power]]

[[Category:Power]]