Crutch Character: Difference between revisions

Thus, they are like a crutch - you can lean on them to overcome a weakness early on, but eventually, the game will kick the crutch out from under you, and your other characters must have learned to stand on your own two feet by that time, or you are doomed to fail.

 

 

 

Usually, a Crutch Character will be a protector or bodyguard of some kind. Of course, there are exceptions.

 

A specific form of [[The Ace]]. See also [[Overrated and Underleveled]] and [[Linear Warriors, Quadratic Wizards]]. Contrast with [[Magikarp Power]] and [[One Man Party]]. This character often acts as the EXP version of [[So Long and Thanks For All the Gear]].

{{examples}}

 

== First-Person Shooter ==

* Mordecai characters in ''[[Borderlands]]'' who focus on Bloodwing with leveling up. Early on during the game, Bloodwing can one hit kill enemies left and right, turn boss battles into a joke. Once you get to the higher levels though, Bloodwing barely scratches the majority of the enemies you face. Luckily, Borderlands allows you to respec your abilities on a whim, so Bloodwing-spec hunters aren't screwed once they get to the lategame.

 

 

 

 

* Prince Rurik of ''[[Guild Wars]]'' escorts the party of PCs and, if so desired, NPC henchmen on a number of missions. Given that he's level 10 and never changes that, he's quite useful when your character is level three and, well, peters off after that. {{spoiler|Then, quite naturally, he bites the dust. Who didn't see that one coming?}}

** Heroes, introduced in ''Nightfall'' and further in ''Eye of the North'', act as customisable henchmen and veritable Crutch Characters. Each hero fills out a single party slot, but have access to any skills that your ''account'', rather than character, has unlocked. For Elonan characters (characters that start in the ''Nightfall'' campaign), ''Nightfall'' heroes are generally introduced at comparative levels to yours, but ''Eye of the North'' heroes are all max level, and you can get them at a level as low as 10 (half the level [[Cap]]). Heroes are useful throughout the Prophecies campaign, as the henchmen available to you only hit the level cap near enough three-fourths of the way through the game.

== Role-Playing Games ==

* Minwu in ''[[Final Fantasy II]]'' is the [[Ur Example]] for ''[[Final Fantasy]]''. He joins with just under 200 HP and several high-level [[White Magic]] spells at a point when your characters have only begun to learn magic and have almost 100 HP, ''if'' you've been level grinding.

* Tellah in ''[[Final Fantasy IV]]'' is an old sage with both black and white magic. He is overleveled for the cave at which he is first available, being able to allow himself and his allies to live off of the enemies with ease using Cura and Osmose. He is available again later on, but at this point you'll have caught up to him in power, until he gets his memories back and remembers ''all'' the top-tier magic he forgot before. Granted, his stats suck so those spells aren't as impressive as they could be, but he still gets access to them and can get good usage out of them.

** Fusoya of the same game is in a similar boat. He might not be a pure Crutch Character in that he isn't obtained until very late in the game and your party is fine without him, but he's very similar to Tellah, ability-wise. And rather than having some stats increase while others decrease when he levels up, Fusoya's stats ''never change at all''.

** [[The After Years|The sequel's]] protagonist is, well, a particularly weak weakling at the start. The game compensates by giving you [[Red Shirt|Biggs and Wedge]] then The Hooded Man, who are much better, to assist.

*** Later in the game you get {{spoiler|Golbez}} for the final tale, who much like Tellah and Fusoya gets access to high-level magic long before your other party members do, and gets around 1500-2000 more HP than them to boot.

* ''[[Dragon Quest V]]'' has a few. In the first generation, Pankraz, the hero's father, is easily the strongest party members throughout that period of the game, though he cannot be controlled, and he is only with you in certain parts. In the second generation, when you are first able to obtain monsters, the Rotten Apple is easily the strongest available, with higher stats than even the hero, but it caps at level 20 (though it it still fairly strong for a while longer). A less extreme example is the Slime Knight; with solid stats, great equipment options, and decent healing, is like having a second hero... but by the end of the second generation, it has low stats compared to the [[Mons]] available in the area, and has learned all of its special skills... not to mentioned a better 'second hero' becomes available soon afterwards...

* The ''[[Pokémon]]'' games frequently feature a handful of common Pokemon, usually bugs (as in insects, not [[The Missingno|programming errors]]), that evolve into their final forms at relatively early levels (for example, Butterfree and Beedrill, both of which can be acquired at level 10). These Pokemon are useful in the early going, but most of them quickly become obsolete as more and better Pokemon become available (some Bug-types remain powerful ''at least'' until 1/2 or 2/3 of the way through the game). The anime episode where Ash releases his Butterfree possibly [[Lampshade Hanging|hangs a lampshade]] on this trope.

** Fortunately [[Pokémon Black and White]] [[Averted Trope|averts this]]. The two early bugs, Leavanny and Scolipede, are very good with high Attack and Speed, good move pools and okay typing (Bug/Grass and Bug/Poison). Leavanny especially is good if you chose Tepig, since it is strong against both Oshawatt and Snivy.

*** The move can be bred onto low-level Dragon-types, such as Dratini. Pokémon Crystal's Battle Tower had battle levels as far down as level 10. How many Pokémon have significantly more than 40 HP at level 10? (The Pokémon Blissey, with the highest potential for HP in the game, can have up to 80 HP at that level.)

*** Another Crutch Move comes in the form of Bullet Seed in Gen III. You could get the TM for it right before the Rock-type Gym. You could put it on Treecko or Shroomish to sweep through said Gym and some of the subsequent hikers on the next route, but its low base power means it will eventually be replaced.

** Geodude is particularly useful in early stages of the game despite being an infamous [[Com Mons|ComMon]]. It has [[Mighty Glacier|high Attack and Defense]] and learns [[Dishing Out Dirt|Rock and Ground]]-type moves, both of which are [[Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors|useful offensive types]]. Rock is especially useful early in the game due to the plentiful amount of Flying and Bug type Pokemon, as well as it's resistance to the [[Non-Elemental|Normal-Type]] Tackles and Quick Attacks thrown around. But not long into the game, it's usefulness begins to wear off. Eventually, its low HP, terrible Special Defense and Speed, and numerous weaknesses become big handicaps. Most glaring being the [[Weaksauce Weakness|Water-Types]].

** Another good example would be the elemental monkeys in [[Pokémon Black and White]]. You get the one that your starter is super effective against, because the first Gym leader uses the monkey super effective against your starter. However, they learn very little in the way of decent moves until level 22, and while you get the stones early enough to evolve them, you'll miss out on the good moves, and by that point you'll find Pokemon of the Fire/Water/Grass types that already have good moves and good stats without evolving.

** It's completely possible to turn your starter into a crutch character if you don't balance out your team. How many kids went through Pokémon Red or Blue with their awesomely powerful Charizard, got it to Level 65 or higher, and finished most of the game, only to find Victory Road ahead of them?

* ''[[Lunar 2 Eternal Blue Complete|Lunar 2: Eternal Blue]]'' has an interesting twist on this—one of the main characters, Lucia, is a temporary Crutch Character. She starts out ridiculously strong, but the villain soon depowers her to the same level as the rest of the characters.

** Luna from the first game's also this due to her multi-target healing [[Limit Break]], which make everything easier.

* The PC version (only) of the original ''The Bard's Tale'' has an undocumented cheat: pressing Z will summon a free Stone Elemental, taking up the party's NPC spot. The creature is many times the power of low-level characters, and better than those that can be summoned by even mid-level spells, but of course it never advances at all.

* The ''[[Final Fantasy|Final Fantasy Legend]]'' series (or possibly the entire ''[[SaGa]]'' series) features extra party members that join for only a short time. Unless you have been power-levelling, these characters are always a higher level than you when they join, though they've more-or-less lost their influence by the time they finally leave.

* ''[[Phantasy Star]] IV'' does this twice; first with Alys, who acts as the Jegian until {{spoiler|she makes a [[Heroic Sacrifice]] to save the main character}} (incidentally this happens around the same time where the rest of the party catches up with her level), and second with Rune, who initially debuts with spells that can wipe out anything you face with ease, and can hit most enemies for more damage with melee attacks than anyone else in your party. When Rune shows up later to re-join the party, he's still fairly powerful, but... not as much.

* Orca in ''[[.hack]]'' starts at level 50, making the first dungeon a snap. Then he gets Data Drained. {{spoiler|Eventually, you get him back, but he's still level 50, while your whole party is 90+.}}

* Ashlay in ''[[Star Ocean 1|Star Ocean: First Departure]]'' starts out relatively powerful, but will easily be surpassed by characters like [[Spell My Name with an "S"|Ratix/Roddick]] by the end of the game, and so he's considered low-tier. Conversely, Cius/Cyuss might not seem that great at first, but can become a real powerhouse. As it so happens, Ashlay and Cius are mutually-exclusive [[Optional Party Member]]s; you can't have both.

** Likewise, if you're playing ''The Second Story'' / ''Second Evolution'', Dias Flac is one hell of an invincible demon when he is first seen in battle (as enforced by the ensuing [[Hopeless Boss Fight]]). But if you're playing as Rena and he joins, most players agree he will be surpassed by Claude and maybe other characters as well, primarily due to his lack of multi-hit special moves, laggy normal attack, and the fact that the special ability granted by some weapons and accessories that gives normal attacks extra hits doesn't work on him either: this is even worse in the endgame where all special attacks fall under [[Awesome but Impractical]] and everyone will be spamming their normal attacks which take no MP to use and hit a stupid amount of times.

*** Speaking of Crutches, Claude himself starts with an energy weapon, which serves the same purpose until it gets a dose of [[Gameplay and Story Segregation]] and ''runs out of power''. Since it One-shots everything to there, and uses no MP, it's totally understandable.

* ''[[Tales of Symphonia]]'' has a borderline example in Kratos, who, [[Overrated and Underleveled|despite being the same level as the protagonists]], has excellent stat growth and skill in both damaging magic, healing and close-combat attacks (although not ''quite'' to the degree of the party specialists) that makes him invaluable. He leaves the party at the end of the Journey of Salvation and is replaced by Zelos, who has notably lower stats and knows none of the advanced attacks that Kratos did when he left.

* ''[[Kingdom Hearts]]'' has this going with most of the [[Guest Star Party Member]]s. Once you start revisiting all of the worlds, the only really useful ones are [[Final Fantasy X|Auron]] and [[The Nightmare Before Christmas|Jack Skellington]].

** [[Mulan]] is the [[Magikarp Power|exact opposite]]. When you first visit her land she's disguised as Ping. Ping has poor attacks, fumbles a lot and is generally a detriment (but required to have on your party). However, later she drops the disguise and becomes one of the better fighters.

** ''[[Golden Sun: Dark Dawn]]'' has a straight and intentional version of this; in the very first dungeon, two heroes from the first [[Golden Sun]] join your party. They're AI controlled, but practically indestructable and deal massive damage (compared to your own characters at least), though they may not attack at all against lesser enemies. After the first dungeon, they kick you out of the house to fend for yourselves.

* ''[[Dragon Age]]'' ''Origins'' has Dog, who is a potent melee damage dealer / tank in the beginning of the game. He starts off with "Dread Howl" one of the invaluable area of effect stunning talents in the game and later on can learn the ''very'' useful "Overwhelm" attack. Later though, his lack of threat management abilities, limited selection of talents, lack of bonus stats, and his somewhat lackluster unique equipment cause him to fall behind the rest of the party somewhat. However, he can be built to have high health to compensate for his lack of equipment, and one of his abilities, Overwhelm, is nearly game breakingly powerful, being able to kill high level mage enemies in one hit. Thanks to [[Leaked Experience]], your other party members won't suffer for it either.

* There are a few guest characters in ''[[SaGa|Final Fantasy Legend 3]]'', but none fit this trope better than Myron, your first fifth-slotter. Maybe it's because your stats are terrible at level 1, maybe it's because you made the mistake of changing into a monster when the monsters were meant to be destroyed by level 1's with terrible stats, or maybe it's because he's armed with a Battle Axe, but he seems like the only thing keeping you alive at first. Unfortunately, he's perpetually at ''level 5'', and you have no idea where you're going, can go anywhere after dungeon 1 and random encounters every step of the way. Poor guy never knew what hit him.

* Bleu/Deis from the first two ''[[Breath of Fire]]'' games fits this trope well. When you first get her, she boasts superior magic power and high level (and is an outright [[Game Breaker]] in the second game), but eventually levels off with the rest of your party by the end of the game. Despite this, she actually somewhat subverts this trope because while she does become less powerful relative to the rest of your party, she never becomes useless. And while she can't fuse with shamans in the second game, she remains decent enough without them.

* Jacob Taylor of ''[[Mass Effect 2]]'' essentially fills this role during the first Half of the game. Jacob automatically starts with [[Gravity Screw|Pull]] and his Ammo power unlocked, leading to him being the fastest character to gain access to Squad Ammo Powers and "[[Fan Nickname|Warpslosions]]." In the second half of the game, he gets overshadowed by [[Magikarp Power|Jack, Samara]] and Grunt.

* Early in ''[[Legend of Legaia]]'', when you take control of Noa, you are accompanied by a wolf who is indestructible and heals your wounds indefinitely during battle.

** An odd case in the sequel. Kazan joins fairly early literally 15 levels ahead of Lang and Maya, with a solid 3 more Art Blocks than Lang. He easily plows through all opponents for the next few dungeons, but levels up so slowly that Lang and Maya will quickly catch up with him. However, he remains a viable fighter for the rest of the game.

* In ''[[Dungeon Maker]]'', after the first dungeon you get a pet Mimic Slime. It's great early on because it copies the stats of enemies, but while you get steadily more powerful, the slime does not, and eventually its stats will stop growing altogether.

* In the ''[[Fallout: New Vegas]]'' DLC ''Dead Money'', Dean Domino, despite not being the strongest of the three companions, is easily the most useful. His companion perk allows you to explore the denser concentrations of poisonous clouds without taking damage (temporarily), which is essential if you want to find everything, and he's the only one with a gun. Since there are only three enemies in the DLC, only one of which can shoot back (and even then only five times), he's basically a killing machine if you're not boxed in. The only reason he isn't a total [[Game Breaker]] is because he (and the rest of your companions) disappears about halfway into the main quest.

 

== Tabletop Games ==

* The pen and paper RPG ''[[Mekton Zeta]]'' has options for Rookie and Veteran characters. Veteran characters start with higher skills, but gain experience half as fast as Rookies. The Game Master's section even includes helpful advice on how Veterans tend to die or retire halfway through a series to let the younger protagonists take the lead...

 

== Third-Person Shooter ==

 

== Turn-Based Strategy ==

** Other examples of flat out Crutch-Characters are Arran (Fire Emblem book 2/Fire Emblem 12), [[Fire Emblem Jugdral|Eveyl]], and Marcus in ''Fire Emblem 6''. In ''[[Fire Emblem]] 7'', he's actually a ''lot'' more better. [[Fridge Brilliance|And he's actually a lot younger; too, whereas in Fire Emblem 6, he was around Jagen's age]]

** Furthermore, most games give you a powerful character early on who's already undergone his class change. These characters qualify as crutches for two reasons. First of all, while they can easily slaughter the entire army on earlier stages, they'll only get one XP for killing them, leaving the rest of your party under-developed. Furthermore, their stats are relatively low for their class and level. A common tactic is to take away their weapons and just use them to take shots.

* ''[[Suikoden V]]'' gives the player character Georg Prime, a powerful bodyguard who must, for plot reasons, abandon the hero soon after the main plot kicks in. And even before that, he's only available sporadically. he then subverts the trope's usual expectations when he rejoins the cast near the end and is ''still'' ridiculously overpowered. To the point that he's again rendered unavailable for the final battle (except in [[New Game+]]).

** From the same game, Sialeeds starts out as a useful ranged fighter/mage, but since she has only one rune slot, which is permanently equipped with a relatively weak Wind Rune, she gets less useful later on. {{spoiler|(This is probably the game's way of subtly discouraging dependence on her, so that her [[Face Heel Turn]] about halfway through the game doesn't cripple your party.)}}

*** [[Super Robot Wars Advance|Axel Almer]] and [[Super Robot Wars Compact 2|Alfimi]]. They only appear in several missions, they can't be customized except for the last two levels. Axel is a decent fighter, but as said above, your pool of [[Game Breaker]] at the point he can be customized could render him just mediocre (and unlike his game of origins, you can't put him in the aforementioned Vysaga, which he COULD use in the original game). Alfimi, on the other hand, is a class of her own not due to her kickass ability in battle, but her kickass Seishin set (you'll ''need'' them).

*** [[Super Robot Wars 2|Shu Shirakawa]]. He helps you out rather early in the game and also pops in at one time when Axel-Alfimi are featured. When he does join you, his stats look really abysmal that he's often considered a dead weight if taken to the battle against Dark Brain. Then, per what he does in his origin, he betrays you in the final stage.

** Another non OG example, and probably one of the best examples in the series to date, [[Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann|Kamina]] in Z2 Hakai-Hen. He's got the best stats of any of Gurren Lagann's pilots by far, {{spoiler|but as per the series, he dies halfway through the game. And breaking away from the SRW tradition, his death is ''completely'' unavoidable.}} It's still pretty incentive to use him, though, because it also means raising Simon's stats.

** Alpha Gaiden has a really interesting example in [[Great Mazinger|Tetsuya Tsurugi]], which is possibly the most bizzare example in the series. He is simmilar to Kamina(or rather the reverse since Tetsuya is made first), being basicaly the best pilot in his own team stats-wise. Great, his personal mech is an awesome unit. It has high armor, good movement, and powerful weapons such as the one shot Post movement Great Booster, Far range expensive [[Shock and Awe|Thunder Break]], a MAP weapon Thunder Break, and the post movement 4 range free [[Rocket Punch]] that deals high damage, and its EN cheap stronger variants with 3 range all of which is enchanced by Mazinpower making it possibly one of the best unit in the entire game. Not only that, Tetsuya has Great Effort seishin that basicaly makes him far above the others in term of level advancement, making the entirety of the early to mid game a total joke just by deploying and training him. However, he lacks Alert seishin, which considering the late game bosses power in Alpha Gaiden, makes it hard for him to handle bosses and he suffers Daitarn3 Tanking problem, but not as severe thanks to his better set of weapons. The story puts him on a conflict with the entire team, and implies that he will leave the team for good. And one of the midgame stages {{spoiler|pits you against him [[Brainwashed and Crazy]] against Koji, and Getter team UNCOMBINED}}. So what makes him an interesting example ? First, while he is not as powerful in the late game, he is so far above the entire team from the start, especialy in term of firepower that you'll end up using him anyway. Second, his MAP weapon is so useful against late game bosses that abuses the support defend skill. Third, and why he is so interesting as an example is the fact that unlike any other Crutch Character example, he is so important in the storyline that you just CANT ignore upgrading him unless you want a hard time, and you actualy get the most total usage out of him(in fact, he is the first character you control after the {{spoiler|[[Time Skip]]}} and barring routes shift, {{spoiler|he almost never leaves the party from there on}}), and despite how the story implies he will leave, {{spoiler|he's not, in fact, all of the events caused by said implications makes him ends up more developed than any other character in your team}}. And thanks to his skills, no matter how you ignore him, he will easilly catch up in short amount of time without any notable problem. In short, he is a Crutch Character that seems to does everything that a Crutch Character usualy do, forces you to fall victim to this trope, and heavily implied to be a Crutch, and he is made to be as fit as possible to looks like a Crutch, yet by the endgame he ends up Subverting this trope despite having done his Crutch punishment at some point in the game.

* ''[[Disgaea]]'' has Laharl himself. If you [[One Man Party|use him and him alone]], he'll remain several levels above any enemies he faces in the game proper, allowing him to steamroller through all opposition with far less grinding than it would take to make any other character useful. Unfortunately, he is less capable than a Divine Majin, and while he can transmigrate, he can't change classes when doing so, so he's at a disadvantage when [[Level Grinding]] for the bonus content (which over half of any serious player's playtime will be devoted to).

** For the series in general, healers and defensive characters. They can be crucial for much of the game (the entire story mode for starters), but during all the post-game content Disgaea tends to turn into [[One Stat to Rule Them All|an offense only affair]]. Basically at some point both your characters and the enemies will be doing so much damage that ''everyone'' dies in one hit, meaning defense is meaningless and healing impossible to even use.

** Their predecessors, the HWP units of the first two ''X-COM'' games, have a milder version of this. They're faster, better armored, immune to mind-control shenanigans, and tougher than your rookies, but don't can't get stat increases and are 4 times the size of a person. And rookies only get to become supersoldiers by getting out and mixing it up with those xeno bastards, so one cannot rely on the HWP to do all the major work or you'll never get your troops to those [[One-Man Army]] levels of power ([[Meat Shield|Also, losing a rookie is cheaper than losing a HWP]]). However, HWPs are still the best at a particular role; their lack of an inventory and immunity to psi-powers mean they're perfect fire-support platforms. They can carry more rockets or blaster bombs than any soldier, and you never have to worry about them panicking or being controlled into shooting your own troops with those explosives. And while rookies are easy to replace, late-game highly-trained soldiers are ''not''; the HWP's large size means they can be used as mobile cover.

* The Zuul of ''[[Sword of the Stars]]'' appear to be this at first. They have several advantages: Their ships start out cheap, faster both tactically and strategically and better-armed than most races'. They can take slaves, depriving an enemy world of population while driving up their own production. Having to [[Planet Looters|overharvest]] means they can build up early money fast. '''However!''' They are a subversion who hew much closer to [[Difficult but Awesome]]. See that page for more details.

 

 

== Non Video Game Examples ==

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Video Game Characters]]