Badass Normal/Video Games

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • In the SNES RPG EarthBound, all of your party has access to powerful psychic attacks except for Jeff. However, he is the only party member who thinks to use a bazooka.
    • Likewise, most of the cast in the sequel, Mother 3. Both Flint and Duster posses no PSI like Lucas and Kumatora, but are still able to take on the same powerful enemies as them. If it counts, even two of the oldest men on Nowhere Island - Alec and Old Man Wess - are able to provide plenty of backup for fighting against mechanized dinosaurs, giant water snakes, and fortified army tanks; at least until the new society deems them useless and throws them in a retirement home.
    • The first game in the series had the prototype for Jeff, Roid/Lloyd, who similar could not use PSI but could use a flamethrower. Then there's Teddy, who is the leader of a gang and has a katana as his ultimate weapon.
      • Also from the first game, Pippi. Yes, she's a little girl, but she boasts insane stat boosts with each level up that are about on par with Teddy's. It's pretty funny to watch her do near double the damage Ninten can do... until, tragically, you have to return her home to advance the plot.
  • Bloodline Champions has the Vanguard, Gunner, Engineer, Ranid Assasin, Alchemist, Astronomer, Spear Master, Nomad and Ravener bloodlines seem to be this from their backgrounds, but the last three are a bit unclear considering their in-game capabilities and the naming of some of those abilities.
  • Kain Highwind of Final Fantasy IV was a Badass Normal for much of his existence. Heck, he's a Memetic Badass at that despite having no magical powers and just being really, really good at abusing Jump Physics. The sequel The After Years upgraded him into a Holy Dragoon, so his status as a normal has been removed. However, that was more than a decade after his original game and his badassery was famous well before The After Years came out.
    • The game also gives us Cid, who's just an old engineer with a hammer that jumps out of an airship riding a bomb, falls into the underworld and survives. Less than a week later he's tuning up your new ship.
    • Yang also has nothing but training.
  • In Final Fantasy VII and the rest of the compilation, there's more than a few badasses with no powers. Tifa and Rude get by on martial arts training, Yuffie with ninja skills, Red XIII with natural prowess, Cid with a spear and dynamite, Tseng and Eleni with handguns, Cissnei with an oversized shuriken and Reno with a big ol' stun baton.
  • Although he spends half of Final Fantasy IX portrayed as the Butt Monkey, Steiner is the only character in the game (if not the entire planet) who isn't either a Super Prototype creature, a Half-Human Hybrid that can call destruction from the heavens, a petting zoo person with natural gifts, or some chi master who can jump 100 feet in the air and throw fireballs at people. He just hits people really hard with swords, and is the only party member who can hit for max damage unaugmented.
  • Given the huge prevelence of Magitek in Final Fantasy XII, it's hard to tell who's fighting without some sort of magic/technology backing them up. Most of the Arcadian Judges, though, fight using only their swords and various physical attacks, while Mad Scientist Cid battles with assorted BFGs, and all of them are bosses and are much more dangerous than the abyssal demons and behemoths you've seen on the way up to them. Vayne then shows them up in the final battle - after spending the game battling through armored soldiers wielding BFSes, Vayne takes the party on in his day-to-day wear and fights using nothing but his bare hands. Well, the cinematic attacks show him sending energy bursts at the party, but if the name of one such attack ("Force of Will") is an indicator, Vayne is such a Badass Normal he can bend the laws of physics through sheer willpower. Then of course as is par for the series, he goes One-Winged Angel and uses nothing but magic.
  • Ramza shows qualities of this in the very first battle of Final Fantasy Tactics, in attitude if nothing else.

Ramza: Silence! Surrender or die in obscurity!

  • In the sequel to Dissidia Final Fantasy, Dissidia 012, Laguna Loire of Final Fantasy VIII definitely qualifies. Unlike every other character in the game who all at least minor magical skills, Laguna uses no magic or any other supernatural powers at all. Instead he's a Multi Ranged Master with a Hyperspace Arsenal of shotguns, machine guns, rocket launchers, and a BFG based on an airship. Even his Limit Break is nothing more than a Combination Attack of all his weapons at once.
  • Kai Kitamura (and arguably Katina Tarask and Russel Bagman) in Super Robot Wars Original Generation, who are implied to fight through several major battles against rebels and alien invaders in grunt-level mecha, as opposed to the many Super Prototypes and Super Robots used by the other heroes. When Kai can get a badass Humongous Mecha of his own in the second game, even that drives the point home, as it looks exactly like his old grunt unit (in OG Gaiden, he officially gets another mecha, which is literally just a customized version of his grunt mech). One of his battle quotes handily sums up the role of a badass normal: "One fist may not be able to destroy the world... but it can certainly destroy you!"
    • In a way, Elzam von Branstein (also known as Ratsel Feinschmecker) also applies. Most of the more skilled Real Robot pilots generally have some variety of psychic powers, and characters who don't generally balance this out by piloting the more powerful but generally less maneuverable Super Robots. Elzam, however, pilots the Huckebein Mk-II and Mk-III—both Real Robots designed for use by psychics—far better than any of the psychic characters ever could. He's just that good. When he finally does receive a Super Robot, he loses some of what makes him "normal", but gains the equivalent in pure Badass. And he still dodges better than the psychics.
      • He introduced himself to America as this in typical mind-blowing fashion: In the very first mission of Original Generation 1 for the Gameboy Advance, he takes out a squad of alien beings humanity has never seen before A) all by himself, B) with the weakest mech available in the game, the basic Gespenst, and C) while that Gespenst has absolutely NO weapons on it whatsoever. He solidifies himself as a Badass Normal from the start.
      • Oh, and let's not forget that he survived one of Kusuha's health drinks with zero ill effects.
    • Kyosuke Nanbu also fits here. Unlike his colleagues he doesn't have any psychic powers and he isn't chosen by any guardians or anything like that. He manages to fight and win his battles by pure skill and a little luck. Want proof of this? How about the fact that his mech, the Alteisen Riese is considered to be an impractical mech, is so top-heavy that it requires a tesla drive (which normally enables flight on a mech) just to stand without falling over and has no special weapons (just guns and pellets). Yet he still manages to kick plenty of ass with it.
      • The only thing that's really abnormal about him is unusual luck that has allowed him to survive (with minor injuries) attacks/accidents that should have killed him. In the past, he was the only survivor of a shuttle crash full of cadets; In OG he walks away from a utterly destroyed prototype after a traitor sabotaged it and caused it to crash; and in OG 2 he survives having his mech literally ripped apart by Axel.
    • Outside the OG Series, there's also Judgment's Calvina Coulange. While most of the originals here (friends or enemies) are of the Fury race in general (including Touya, who is Half Fury), she just happens to be a normal human, who used to be a genius Ace Pilot. And when presented with a mecha designed to be ridden by Furies... all she needs is just a little adjustment and then she resumes her old days of metal ass-kicking, piloting something she's supposedly not be able to drive.
  • Given the...nature...of the other two primary combatant species, the marine character from the Alien vs. Predator PC games qualifies
  • Lady from Devil May Cry 3 has no demonic powers to call her own but slaughters lower demons easily, has sufficient agility to dodge and survives brief clashes with the Sons of Sparda.
  • Amagi Saeko in the H-game Pretty Soldier Wars A.D. 2048, whose Charles Atlas Superpower brings her into the ranks of Extraordinarily Empowered Robot Girls.
  • In the Fire Emblem series some of the best units are from classes that are "grunts" (Soldiers and Mercenaries). In addition, Leaf in the 4th game doesn't get one of the game's Game Breaker legendary weapons, but is still one of the better characters in the game, although the fact that he promotes into a Master Knight (one of if not the most broken classes in the series) might void him from qualifying as a Badass Normal.
    • Leaf definitely qualifies for this trope in Thracia 776. He's exactly the same after promotion as he was before. Even story-wise, Leaf feels inadequate next to other resistance leaders, like Celice, Shanan, and Sety, who carry legendary weapons. Sety, Leaf's Obi-wan, tells him his struggles are what makes him a Holy Warrior.
    • Ike, from the Radiance arc, may count. He first appears as nothing more than an honest, if blunt, young man who happens to be rather skilled with the sword. So skilled, actually, that not only does he grow into one of the best characters in both games, mobilize the Crimean Liberation Army to victory over Big Bad Ashnard, and take command of one of the greatest mercenary companies in history, but eventually ends up slaying a goddess. That's pretty badass for the first main Fire Emblem character to not be a royal.
    • If we're talking about Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War, Jamuka can't be left out. He's one of the few main characters from the first part of the game who has no Holy Blood, but he's still a very solid unit with or without his Killer Bow.
    • If we go for normal, it's hard to get any more normal amongst the main characters than Sothe in Radiant Dawn. A number of endgame bosses expresses their surprise at seeing "a shabby little burglar" amongst the heroes.

Sephiran: Hello, child... I'm a little surprised to see an ordinary boy like you, fighting for the world. This day is full of surprises!
Sothe: No one's more surprised than me. I can't read people's feelings like Micaiah... I'm not invincible in battle like Ike... Between all these laguz kings and great beorc heroes, I don't really belong here.

  • Ayla from Chrono Trigger. Most of the party has powerful magic granted to them by the God of War. Ayla beats the crap out of things with her fists. And yet, she's a strong contender for the best party member.
    • At higher levels, her fists upgrade to the point where she deals the damage cap on a critical. And by most of the party getting magic, we mean all but her, the laser-spewing robot, and the guy who already had magic to begin with.
  • Even though it's primarily a spy series starting in the late Cold War, the Metal Gear Solid is full with superhuman character who possess incredible psionic powers, genetic modifications, and technical gadgets. However, some of the most badass characters don't have any of those:
    • The prime example is the series Big Bad Revolver Ocelot. Starting with MGS2 he also leaves the normal territory, but in MGS1 and the prequel MGS3 he's just an extraordinary normal and has many of his greatest moments.
    • In MGS3 there's the Boss, the leader of the Cobras and the only member of the team without any supernatural powers. Yet, she's by far the most powerful fighter in the whole series. Though she has an incredibly powerful gun with infinite ammo, she barely uses it and instead beats up many of the worlds deadliest soldiers with her bare hands.
      • The same goes for her apprentice Naked Snake, the only man who ever manged to defeat her though it's possible the Boss let him. In fact he was so Badass that his natural DNA was used in several programs to create genetically modified super soldiers. His soviet partner EVA also puts most people to shame without any powers or gadgets, and continues to do so at the age of 78.
    • And a very unexpected and unusual case appears at the end of MGS4 with Johnny. For most of the game he seems to be a huge failure of a super soldier enhanced by cybernetic augmentations and with quite a collection of gadgets of his own. However, he admits he successfully chickened out of having the augmentations done, making him about the only normal human in any combat unit anywhere. His performance still is lacking way behind, but the fact that he was able to almost keep up with an elite team of super soldiers and even saved the others single handedly on several occasions is treated as being damn impressive.
  • Urban Chaos: Riot Response. The player character served in the marines for three years and joined T-Zero because his father was killed by the "Burners". Halfway through the game he has arrested over three hundred gang members (not including the ones you do on screen), saved thousands of civilians, and at one point shoots a burner through the neck to save a firefighter. With a pistol, over fifty feet away.
  • In City of Heroes, you begin your early career fighting demonically powered street gangs, work your way up through fighting psychic robots, hordes of demons, eight-feet-tall genetically altered supersoldiers, cyborg criminals, and lab grown supervillains. The final, and most difficult enemy faction of the game however, is a group of normal humans armed with tasers and six-shooters.
    • And their allies, basically Ninjas to the max. Not to mention the "Natural" origin for heroes or villains was originally intended for, and is still used by, player characters whose concept is a Badass Normal.
      • However, Natural simply means "nothing my species can't normally do"—if the player character is an alien, those "natural" abilities can go a long way. Like, say, if you're Kryptonian.
    • Within the lore of the game itself, there's one of the iconic heroes, Justice Leag- I mean, Freedom Phalanx member Manticore. Similarly to Batman, he is the only member on the aforementioned team who has no supernatural power granted to him by the gods, was not experimented on by evil scientists, and was not born with any great psychic ability. His real claim to fame? Really, really good aim with a bow and arrow. Although having more money than God probably helped. Also, the first arc of the Top Cow comic series gave him teleportation ability, which he can use with clever results such as shooting explosive arrows into a room half a mile away. Despite this new ability, however, he's still perceived as nothing special in terms of power compared to his teammates, and yet he's often the one they turn to when their leader is out of commission. Not bad.
      • Word of God reveals that Manticore can teleport because he has hacked into the city-wide Emergency Teleportation Network.
  • B.B.Hood (Bulleta) in Darkstalkers is the only one who doesn't use supernatural abilities, but she still manages to take down monsters with nothing more than heavy weaponry despite being a young human girl.
    • She does basically the same thing as one of the Darkstalkers representatives on the Capcom side in the Marvel vs. Capcom series.
  • Luca Blight from Suikoden II fights with only a single sword and heavy armor in a world where magic is pretty commonplace. He ends up tearing through the protagonist's army when they try to target him in a battle. He is nearly undefeatable, only dying when he is ambushed by the 18 strongest members of the opposing army (protagonist included) plus some archers. He's riddled with cutscene arrows, fights six party members, riddled with some more cutscene arrows, fights six more party members, fights six MORE party members, gets riddled with more cutscene arrows, then finally dies in a duel against the protagonist. This is generally considered his best CMOA, although there are several more.
  • Almost the entire Nanaya clan of demon hunting assassins in Tsukihime. They're supposed to have some psychic abilities, but otherwise fight demons and half-demons with pure physical talent. Shown very well in a Kagetsu Tohya side story with Nanaya Kiri (Shiki's real father) and his hit on a certain demon-blooded family, kicking much ass, up to and including disassembling his primary target when backed into a corner... wielding nothing but a pointed stick (metal, granted, but still).
    • Shiki, the main game's protagonist, comes close to this trope. His ability to keep up physically with supernatural opponents (mostly vampires) is the result of ingrained training... but his ability to kill literally anything he can reach is decidedly abnormal (not just supernatural, though unique).
  • The playable characters in Xenosaga include a cyborg, a robot, a Realian, a URTV, the handmaiden of Mary, the universe's fail-safe, and Jin. Though he is a thoroughly ordinary human, Jin manages to slice Humongous Mecha in two, stop a blade with his bare hands, hold off waves of gnosis before his Heroic Sacrifice, finish off one of these gnosis after being impaled with a BFS, and be an all-around badass.
    • Allen of all people gains elements of this in the third episode. When confronting Kevin Winnicot, he takes several lightning blasts that would kill any normal person, then gets back up, all while telling Kevin--who is a supernaturally powerful Testament--how pathetic he really is. Also, in a scene after that, he pounces on an end-game level Gnosis, bludgeons it with his gun, and shoots it point-blank in the face. It's safe to say he would have made a full transition into a Badass Normal if there had been a fourth episode.
  • Two characters from Raidou Kuzunoha vs. the Soulless Army. First, the obvious: Satake, leader of the local Yakuza gang. He beat up one of the game's heavily-armored Super Soldiers with his bare hands, only suffering some broken ribs. Second, the not-so-obvious: Raidou's perfectly un-supernatural employer, Shouhei Narumi. He somehow got to the end of a dungeon crawling with demons he can't see, and Super Soldiers that, while he could see them to fight, are heavily armored. And by the end, he was injured, but still standing and able to walk.
  • Kyle from Lunar: The Silver Star. He can't use the legendary Dragon Magic like The Hero Alex, use healing powers like his girlfriend Jessica, or rain down destructive magic like Mia or Nash, but give the man a sword, and he could singlehandedly cut down a thousand bandits/monsters/whoever forgot to pay their "protection fee" that day.
  • Miles Edgeworth counts, in the Ace Attorney protagonist department. Phoenix Wright becomes a Living Lie Detector with the help of his magatama. Apollo Justice has superhuman perception augmented by his bracelet. Miles Edgeworth has … logic enhanced by his brain.
    • Demonstrated in this comic strip.
  • While in most Tales Games, magic is hinted at being quite normal and can be matched by the physical arte users, the only game in which this trope can exist is Tales of Phantasia, and it counts for Cless, Chester, and to some extent Suzu. Magic is needed to defeat Dhaos, and Mint's magic is only healing so obviously, they have to get Arche and Klarth, who are rarities outside of elves in that they are able to use magic. (Klarth is one of the few humans who can use magic because he makes pacts with spirits, Arche is half-elf.) Cless, Chester, and Suzu are left to their own weapons and their own strengths, not being blessed with such power, but they do compensate for their powerful techniques, some of which border on magic. (As for Suzu, she learns her techniques through ninja scrolls which may be counted as magic).
    • Special mention on Chester - in the original game, he takes things out simply with his bow and arrow. He needs no technique.
    • In the game's prequel where magic is limited to those with elven blood, angels, or the chosen, Sheena has hinted that she, Regal (And maybe Zelos despite being a chosen) have elven blood distantly because they use magic. But meanwhile Presea (despite being modded with expheres) is able to pull extremely heavy stuff with one hand despite being smaller than Genis and she and Lloyd are the only ones with no magic skills whatsoever.
      • Note: She's wrong. There's more than one type of magic: Standard magic (I.E. like Fire Ball), the Healing Artes (Encompasses most Light Magic as well- E.G. Photon, Ray, and oddly Divine Saber), Angel Skills (Angel Feathers, Holy Song, Judgment, etc.), and lastly, Summoning. Of those, only the first is true magic- and ONLY those with Elven Blood or have ingested the special ore Aionis can use it. Healing Artes use a different type of energy (the Chi that Regal uses is a subset of Healing Artes). Angel Skills are directly caused by use of a Cruxis Crystal. And summoning is something else entirely.
    • Also worth noting is Tales of Rebirth's Milhaust Selkirk. He is the only Huma who doesn't have a Force, but he is still the highest ranking character amongst the Karegia Kingdom and makes other Force users bend to his will and order. That being said, he is also powerful enough to beat the crap out of Veigue (although he was mentally distraught that time). And when both duke it out in full force, Milhaust was beaten... but even Veigue admitted Milhaust held back and there's no telling what the outcome will be if Milhaust was serious.
  • Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter has three main party members. One of which is an extreme rarity in that he bonded with a dragon, another of which was a girl with wings modded by surgery to make her into a walking air purifier, with magic. The third...is the leader of a rebellion with only her guns. Badass Normal Award of this game goes to Lin.
  • The short-lived series Loom implies Rusty being the most badass normal out of all the characters who were intended to be playable. (Bobbin is a weaver and thus able to use magic, Fleece is a shepherd who can sing magic like Bobbin's.) But since They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot, we'll never know if he could have found a way to use magic or was just able to compensate by being a smith or able to make things to fight off the Dead and Chaos.
  • Carth Onasi from Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, being a damn good soldier if chosen instead of Canderous or HK-47. Give him a double sided sword and the appropriate feats, and he kicks Dark Jedi ass!
      • While it may or may not be accidental, there are several hints in-game (being able to see/understand Ajunta Pall, incredibly strange luck, uncanny intuition) that Carth might be a closet-case Force Sensitive.
    • Jolee Lampshades the usefulness of the soldiers in his banter with Bastila.

Jolee: I want to stop Malak as much as anyone. But I don't have to join the Order to do it. Look at Carth, or Canderous. They're with us in this quest, but they aren't Jedi.

  • A must in Star Wars: The Old Republic, because precisely half the player classes are Jedi or Sith, and the others can't just be inferior to them. There is the Bounty Hunter class, sure, but the Republic Trooper can go toe-to-toe with a Sith with melee weapons, and sometimes just his bare fists and a single grenade. Meanwhile, the Smuggler has even less' firepower, and even resorts to such things as kicking his opponent in the nuts.
  • Orgrim Doomhammer and Anduin Lothar, the leaders of the Horde and Alliance respectively in Warcraft II: the Tides of Darkness (and later retellings of the Second War). In a world war with dragons, undead sorcerer knights, paladins, ogres, magi, ogre-magi, submarines and countless other magical and technological weapons and persons of mass destruction, the Warchief and Grand Marshal still stand out as the two most dangerous beings present. Doomhammer gets additional props for being one of the few orc leaders who did not drink demon blood to gain super strength and Lothar gains extra props for being sixty.
    • In the following games, there's also Varian Wrynn, king of Stormwind, as well as rogues, warriors and hunters in general.
      • Among the playable classes in World of Warcraft, the warrior class certainly qualifies as they fight exclusively with physical weapons and have no notable magical abilities. Although rogues and hunters also fight exclusively with physical weapons, unlike warriors, they do possess other "magical" skills. Rogues are able to turn invisible at will, even mid-battle. Meanwhile, hunters can befriend and permanently tame a suprisingly wide variety of wild animals within a matter of seconds and are able to magically heal (and even resurrect from the dead) their animal companions from several feet away.
    • Some other characters that qualify would be both Saurfangs (and Brox, a relative, from the novels), Muradin Bronzebeard and pretty much every notable Nightelf character that neither used magic nor druidic/divine powers.
  • Action Girl Ashelin in the later Jak and Daxter games.
    • Also, Sig the Wastelander mercenary. When you can survive being taken down by a giant Metal Head centipede monster and appear in all future games, you qualify as a Badass Normal.
  • In SaGa Frontier 2, one of the two main characters, Gustav XIII, is an exiled prince who is incapable of channeling and using magic. This is significant because, in a world where people are so dependent on magic that they have to use wooden swords and armor to channel their energy for combative use, he conquers the known world by simply using iron equipment (which negate magic powers).
  • Resident Evil is packed with these. None of the protagonists have any special powers besides army training, and one (Claire) is just a college student. They bring Action Survivor to a whole new level.
    • Claire's badassness grows in CVX where she single-handedly breaks into an Umbrella base, outruns a chopper that's shooting up the hallway with a chaingun, and uses clever thinking to destroy an entire firing squad. The only reason she got captured was because she ran out of bullets. And this is from a 19 year old college girl.
    • Most of the villains tend to go One-Winged Angel; however, Nicholai from 3 is quite possibly the most badass Badass Normal in the series, walking through Raccoon City with just a hangun and knife, and surviving.
      • He's also the only human antagonist to survive the game he's in.
    • Hunk also counts, being badass in mook clothing and all.
    • Leon S. Kennedy. We meet Leon as a beat cop on his first day of work, presumably with the most minimal of police training, if that. He drives right into a Zombie Apocalypse, in which he manages to survive with the assistance of a woman with the most minimal of survival training, a little girl and the on and off help of a secret agent. He manages to get said ice queen secret agent to fall for him after taking a bullet for her. Then he ends up working for the government, where he takes on entire towns, castles, heavily militarized islands and fortified dam full of mutants and monsters in not one, but two countries, one being a long Escort Mission with the President's daughter in tow. Largely on his own. Most of the other characters have had military training, on par with Special Forces, and even Claire had the benefit of learning from one of these people. Leon? He got by on training that taught him to chase down drug dealers and cordon off crime scenes, which for all we know consisted entirely of reading how to do it in a textbook.
  • In keeping with the above, the survivors of Left 4 Dead count. 4 regular humans against a horde of zombies backed up by superp-powered sub-boss zombies.
  • While every person in Shadow Hearts has their own unique skills such as being trained in a specific art or being in possession of a magical camera that reveals enemy's stats, the first Shadow Hearts game gives Margarete, who is nothing more than a spy armed with a pistol and got a few weapons... even though quite a bit of them are "Given" to her as every time she uses a skill, she presses a button and says "Yeah I can use some help here".
  • STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl has the eponymous stalkers, all of whom survive (and thrive) in a radioactive wasteland covered in patches of land where the laws of physics have gone bananas, all of which is ruled by psychotics with various levels of firearms. All of whom will kill you just as soon as they will trade with you. Anyone who can thrive in that environment is a badass normal.
  • Despite setting out to skewer every Silver Age trope going, it took until the sequel for the Freedom Force series to roll out some Badass Normals with the Wartime Heroes, capable of standing toe-to-toe with the worst Energy-X powered monstrosities Blitzkreig can devise.
    • Though Sky King uses a jetpack, body armour and chain guns, Blackjack gets by with a pistol and homemade bombs, and Tricolour has just a rapier. Not even body armour.
  • In Nexus War the Eternal Soldier's power come from being a Badass; he compares favorably with angels, demons and powerful wizards.
  • Final Fantasy VI's General Leo is a highly accomplished swordsman, has the sweet "shock" ability, and he holds the same high position in the Empire that Kefka and Celes once did. And guess what, not only does he not have magical powers, but he refused the magitek infusion that would have given them to him!
    • Final Fantasy VI abolishes this trope with Leo, however. Leo is killed off, and after this everyone that's not a minor NPC can learn magic except sasquatches (and sasquatches are hardly normal!)
  • Viking: Battle for Asgard has the main character leading one of these. Against whom you ask? The Queen of the Underworld and her Undead army, and they win.
  • Jason Flemming in the Xbox Live Arcade game Super Metroid styled game, Shadow Complex.
  • In the Disgaea series, pick a human, any human (game play). The strongest example is Sapphire (both in and out of game play). Subverted with Adell, who thinks he's human (he's not).
  • In StarCraft, being Badass Normal is the hat of the Terrans.
  • Leliana of Dragon Age is the resident Badass Normal. The rest of the party consists of two Grey Wardens, two mages, a warhound, a Proud Warrior Race Guy explicitly stated to be stronger and tougher than any human, a dwarf (same qualifications), an elf trained from childhood by the deadliest order of assassins in the land, and a war golem. Leliana is an ordinary young woman whose training was about seduction and espionage rather than combat, and she can hold her own against any of her fellow party members.
    • Not to mention Shianni, one of the only elven alienage-dwellers aside from possibly the City Elf Warden who's completely unafraid of sticking up for her community. Her first Crowning Moment of Awesome is potentially bashing Bann Vaughan over the head with a bottle in one of the origins, and she gets another even bigger one if you let her fight alongside you when the darkspawn invade Denerim. She's definitely no Grey Warden, but man can she hold her own. She goes on to become the alienage elder, according to the game's epilogue.
    • The player character before undergoing the joining, is always an absolute badass, especially if their origin involves a Roaring Rampage of Revenge.
    • Nathanial Howe. Even before the joining it took four Grey Wardens to subdue him.
  • Rogue or Warrior Hawke, Aveline, and Carver in Dragon Age 2 are survivors of Ferelden's Redshirt Army, with relatively little military training. Aveline becomes Captain of the Kirkwall Guard, Carver either dies, becomes a Grey Warden, or rises to high rank among the Templars, and Hawke is Hawke.
  • Kairu from Black Sigil was born without magic in a land where everyone has magic. The entire party are also all Magic Knights. Despite all that, he still manages to be the most useful and the most powerful member of his group.
  • Invoked in the endings to Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Ultimate All-Stars. Several of the Tatsunoko heroes are downright inspired by the Street Fighter characters and Batsu, for being able to hang with them in a fight through nothing but their training, and resolve to grow stronger themselves.
    • Let's not forget Frank West, a freelance journalist who is able to kick thousands of zombies' asses with only a camera (which is not even a weapon) in his hand from the start in Deadrising, and is able to swing things around crazy from the mart. Now that he is put into Tatsunoko vs. Capcom which is full of heroes with special martial arts or superpowers, hell, big credit for Frankie!!
  • Chris Redfield counts as one in Marvel vs. Capcom 3, He's able to hold his own against super mutants, robots, demons, and even gods with nothing more then military training, a bunch of time in the gym, and his own personal arsenal of weapons.
    • Haggar could qualify, too, since he can do all of the above through wrestling prowess alone.
    • And then there's Phoenix. No, not that Phoenix. The other Phoenix. Of the Wright variety. He doesn't have any training to rival the above, he's just the resident Iron Butt Monkey of his world, who happens to take whatever punishment he's delivered.
  • InSystem Shock 2, the player has military grade cybernetic augmenations (and is acctually in the military), but Dr. Marie Delacroix, whoes logs showing her one step ahead of the player with similar objectives can be found in various locations, lacks such implants or even military training, but seems to do rather well from said logs at least untill SHODAN feels she is no longer needed and leaves her to die.
  • F-Zero's Captain Falcon. Maybe.
  • A rival of Maple Story called Wonder King has the Gunner/Gunslinger class. In a game where even warriors and ninjas call upon magical powers, a Gunner's skills consist of acrobatic maneuvers and using a variety of different weapons. Examples include a gatling gun, a bazooka, and a missile launcher.
  • Leather Goddesses of Phobos parodied this with plucky sidekick Trent (or Tiffany, depending on the path chosen by the player at the beginning) who wrestles alien threats on a hostile planet. Though his/her tragic demise is a Running Gag, he/she keeps returning due to toughness, persistence and bizarre luck.
  • The world of BlazBlue has precisely four groups of people amongst the playable cast. Group A are the people who use sorcerous powers, Nox Nyctores, or major Armagus in combat, whether natural (most of the cast) or artificial (like Tager). Group B consists of the Six Heroes (Valkenhayn, Platinum, and Hakumen) and their genetic offshoots (Taokaka). Group C is the group that directly harnesses the power of the Boundary (Litchi and Arakune). Group D are the "normals" of the setting, and there are exactly two - while they lack the powers and hardware of their peers, their achievements in endurance and determination simply cannot be ignored.
    • Bang Shishigami, a refugee from the Ikaruga federation, is the first of the two, and while he possesses the Nox Nyctores Houyoku: Rettenjou, he has absolutely no knowledge on its activation or function to date. All of Bang's prowess - from throwing kunai and nails to fire-based attacks to even Fu-Rin-Ka-Zan - are entirely the result of hard work and training. Such ability stands out compared to his peers, as he triggers a catastrophe in the upper levels of Kagutsuchi, restoring the light to the Kaka village below, and survived being at the 'epicenter of that incident. He also endures the worst the rest of the cast throws at him, continues giving his all in what he does, and manages to slip Carl and Taokaka out from under Hazama's nose despite his injuries. You know it's a feat when the lowest-powered individual is praised for pulling this off if the guy giving the praise is notorious for trolling and mentally ruining anything and anyone else he can possibly reach. Let me rephrase that for you in case you lost track: Hazama. Genuinely. PRAISED. BANG.
    • Makoto Nanaya, a squirrel beastkin hailing from Shinatsu, is the other member of this group, and unlike Bang above, is utterly void of a known causality weapon, getting by entirely on her exceptional physical strength and reflexes. What makes her Bang's equal in this department is what she does with her gifts - the aforementioned Hazama is notorious for breaking everyone before him in a physical and mental sense, and yet where every other woman would fall to the onslaught, she stood once more and pressed on. Her physical endurance, impressive though it is, is rivaled only by her mental and emotional fortitude - her "moxie", as Rachel so eloquently said, coupled with her dedication to her friends, especially Noel Vermillion and Tsubaki Yayoi, allowed her to survive, with all faculties untouched, a round trip through the Boundary! To put it in scope, Lotte Carmine was transformed into the aberration known as Arakune within moments, and the only other being to match or surpass this feat is goddamn Hakumen. One's potential is immense when they can be reliably compared in any aspect to one of the aforementioned Six Heroes.
  • Who is Travis Touchdown? Just some loser Otaku from Cali who's into masked wrestling and sword fighting who doesn't get the Infinity+1 Sword or Chosen One status: he just buys a Beam Katana off the internet. Not only that, he's broke and jobless. What's the first thing this stain on society's panties does? Kills the 11th highest ranking assassin for walking-around-money. What follows is a legendary slaughter of thousands of Mooks, along with such merits as; out-maneuvering Desert Eagles; fighting Superheroes; fighting up-hill against Special Ops; charging an earthquake generator; charging a Wave Motion Gun; fighting a couple Eldritch Abomination; piloting a Giant Mecha; charging another earthquake generator; flanking giant energy dragons; dodging .50 caliber sniper shots; taking down a Kill Sat; and jumping on top of a so-called "Travesty". All this and more from an Otaku who lives in a shoddy motel with nothing but a sword.
  • Touhou contains some of the most horrifically powerful beings imaginable, including-but-not-limited-to the creator and ruler of an entire demon world, a ghost that can kill anyone, a vampire that can annihilate anything, an oni that can create black holes and tear apart mountains with her bare hands, an ancient Reality Warper, a Judge of the Dead, two absolute immortals, a crow that wields nuclear fusion, and even a character with literal, actual, impervious Plot Armor. Then there is Marisa Kirisame, a young girl without any inherent skills or abilities and only managed to use magic after studying really hard (and stealing various magical books and artifacts), who has not only fought all of the above but commonly wins.
    • And in the PC-98 exclusive Phantasmagoria of Dim.Dream, we have Yumemi Okazaki, who doesn't even have that going for her; she comes from a world without magic, and relies on a scientific imitation. She's also the series's only human endboss, as of 13.
  • In Mortal Kombat, most of the characters have superpowers or cybernetic enhancements of some kind. The most glaring exception is Kurtis Striker, a cop whose fights demons and cyborgs with a billy club, a taser, some grenades, and a gun.
  • Katarina is one of the two manaless champions in the game who lacks any sort of magical weapon given to her, all of her abilities come from pure bloodthirsty violence which only grows when she takes down more enemy champions.
  • While almost every character in the Super Mario Bros. series has some superhuman abilities, it is worth noting that a lot of these are acknowledged to be species traits. Toad is no different from any other Toad in terms of abilities, but he is MUCH more Badass.
  • Armored Core is a universe where giant robots are commonplace, but a notable thing about the gifted pilots known as Ravens is they are mostly cybernetically upgraded. Of all of the pilots, only you were not a Human Plus and in the end wind up as the Last Raven standing in the plot of Armored Core 3
  • Many NPCs in Rift, especially Defiant-side. Dacia Ultan especially stands out.
  • Dwarf Fortress features dragons, rocs, giants, minotaurs, undead animals (such as elephants), procedurally-generated Eldritch Abominations, and even The Legions of Hell themselves. Yet even a single dwarf, if his skills are high enough, can kill one of those things with ease. Hell, even an untrained dwarf can kill an opponent much more powerful than him by just being lucky. (or by being equipped with a pick)
  • Briggs the pirate leader in the Golden Sun series comes from a family prone to Fire Adepts, but doesn't have any powers himself. He's still notorious for being a relatively difficult boss in the early parts of The Lost Age. It doesn't help that it's easy to accidentally get to his fight well before you should, but he's dangerous even to a properly leveled and equipped party because of his excellent enemy AI and generally being able to hit like a cannon.
    • Not to mention Kraden, a recurring fan favorite. Even if he has no combat capability or powers whatsoever, he will walk across monster-infested war zones and through trap-filled, monster-infested dungeons if there are some Adepts in need of plot exposition, and somehow he always makes it to his destination unscathed. In the fandom and to a lesser degree in-universe, he is a Memetic Badass for this.
  • Septerra Core has Maya and Corgan as these, oh so very much.
  • Two of Dead Rising protagonists Frank West and Chuck Greene.
  • There are countless hazards, many magical in Lordran in Dark Souls. One of your most effective allies, among sorcerers and clerics, is Solaire of Astoria, who has no magic, he's just very good at fighting.
  • Souichirou Kuzuki from Fate/stay night is a normal man with no knowledge of the supernatural world and no magical abilities whatsoever, who still participates in the Holy Grail War. His position with his Servant is reversed, in that he fights while his Servant supports him with spells. With an enchantment on his fists and his own unconventional martial arts style, he manages to temporarily overwhelm Saber, the best close-range fighter, and rips out Rider's throat during his most prominent route.
    • Servant Assassin is a Badass Normal by the standards of the Servants. He has no famous name or legend and no Noble Phantasm. He never defeated armies or monsters (his 'legend' only consists of him losing to Miyamoto Musashi), knows no magic and has no beasts, armies or anything apart from his trusty no-dachi and his own finely-honed skill to call upon. Furthermore he turns out to be the result of a forbidden summon; he isn't a true heroic spirit at all, just the spirit of some nameless samurai called upon to fill the role of Sasaki Kojirou, who never existed here. He still manages to repel and almost defeat Saber twice and is sufficiently skilled to unnerve Lancer, and knows a sword technique on the level of an anti-personal Noble Phantasm.
  • The Trader Emergency Coalition of Sins of a Solar Empire. They didn't even have a proper military before the war, yet they can go toe to toe with The Advent and The Vasari with nothing more than converted civilian spacecraft, amongst which are a bulk Freighter and a cruise ship, by virtue of excessive armor plating, More Dakka, Macross Missile Massacres and sheer numbers.
    • Not to mention that their battleship, the Kol, which is explicitely the first true military ship in over 700 years. It is probably the best battleship amongst the three factions by virtue of sheer durablility.
  • In a world where various fireball-throwing, flying, mook-spawning, mook-reincarnating, rocket launcher- or minigun-enfused hellspawn are out to viciously murder you and all you hold dear, while fighting you in only the most Malevolent Architecture and Alien Geometries locales, it goes without saying that the hero from Doom, comparatively just a man with a lot of guns (disregarding that some of them are very large), would be this.
  • Magnus from Kid Icarus: Uprising is said to be the strongest human of all. Gaol would probably qualify as well.
  • Mark Meltzer from Bioshock counts. He's the only person in the world to figure out Rapture exists. Upon doing so, he travels there and proceeds to go through it. He's armed with only his wits and a pistol. Did we mention that this is in Bioshock 2 where the developers promised that Jack from Bioshock 1 (who gets at least 1 canon offensive splicing) would have trouble making it through? He probably would have made his way completely through Rapture if he hadn't been distracted, captured, and turned into a Big Daddy
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