Power Creep, Power Seep: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

A character who is designed in their own universe basically needs to be written to be effective against other characters featured in that universe. Generally, your main conflict won't be an eternal war between [[Crystal Dragon Jesus|Super Jesus]] and his nemesis [[Ridiculously Average Guy|Bob]].

 

{{examples}}

* From ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog The Movie]]'', Knuckles the Echidna. In his [[Sonic 3 and Knuckles|first game appearance]], Knuckles had pretty weak jump height, but could glide through the air. In this OVA, he can jump ridiculously high and hover in mid-air; at times he appears to be flying outright.

** Still not as hard to believe it as what he did in Sonic 3, in the game's intro Knuckles punched Super Sonic in the face, not only Sonic lost his Super form in just one hit, but the way it was presented made it look like Super Sonic is nothing against Knuckles. We can only take in mind that at the time SEGA didn't intended to make Super Sonic the Cosmic Being that he turned out to be after the franchise went 3D.

* A crossover between ''[[Fairy Tail]]'' and ''[[Rave Master]]'' handles this by setting up the characters to imply that it's taking place fairly early in both stories, meaning none of the characters are too particularly powerful when they start to fight.

 

 

 

 

* ''[[That Mitchell and Webb Look]]'' parodies this with Angel Summoner and BMX Bandit. Angel Summoner can summon hordes of invisible, superhuman angels at will. BMX Bandit is very good at BMXing.

 

 

== Professional Wrestling ==

** It's even more funny when the "C-show" ECW was still on. The ECW champion can be treated as a worthy opponent to the other champions or as effective as a jobber, depending on the storyline needs.

 

** Initially Wizards' magic was unable to protect them from as much as a kitten chewing on one's ear, unless the spellcaster is prepared. Leading to magic-users being treated as [[Glass Cannon]] that must be protected by others at all times. In AD&D2 this was "solved" for high levels by buffing ''Stoneskin'' from "stop one attack" to "stay put indefinitely until an attack comes, then stop certain number of attacks". While by the letter of DMG [[Shooting Superman|being unable to harm the opponent]] calls for a Morale check. Still, let's weaken spellcasting disruption, right? 3e comes along, everyone who was complaining about [[Linear Warriors, Quadratic Wizards]] before just bursts in mad laughter, because now it's in fourth power or so. And the spellcasting disruption by attack is a min-max friendly skills check. Priests get the same, on top of having no problems with armor and generally not sucking in melee. Guess where this leads?

** Warriors used to employ the devious tactics of "hit it again, repeat untill one of you falls over", because... [[Padded Sumo Gameplay|there are no other variants]]. AD&D2 sourcebooks introduced styles and other tweaks, but mostly this boils down to flavours/permanent choice of [[Tactical Rock-Paper-Scissors]], so with a few exclusions almost any combat still can be described as: "shoot it with a bow until it comes close, then hit the nearest enemy with a melee weapon while trying to stand between it and the wizard" - and when not, it's thanks to spellcasters. ''Player's Option: Combat and Tactics'' got options that get rid of [[Padded Sumo Gameplay]], up to gain/give ground rules, but PO was rushed and didn't stick. 3e arrives and it's mostly back to square 1. Because feat mechanics mostly turned options into "choose your gimmick" permanent flavours. For some reason this doesn't work too well, so along comes the bright idea: "we don't know how to ''solve'' the problem, so let's ''circumvent'' it: give them a slice of those Quadratic Wizards' pie - [[Magic Knight|Weaboo Fightan Magic]](TM)!" Don't mind "boo! hiss!" sounds. Fast forward to 4e: "wizards are now unlimited, so... let's give W.F.M. to ''everyone''! And use nonsensical 'X times per day' limitations to fence off the obvious problem of spamming it. That's what called 'balance', right?". Well, no. It's the same "give those broken steroids to everyone so they will be equal" idea, only renamed and with extra [[What Do You Mean It Wasn't Made on Drugs?|mushroom]] or ten.

 

== Video Games ==

* ''[[LittleBigPlanet]]'' got ''[[Metal Gear]] Solid'' themed expansion pack, where Liquid Ocelot's plan is to {{spoiler|flood LBP with pointless trophy levels so that he can be loved}}, and the Metal Gear itself is essentially beaten by a Sackboy with a paintball gun.

* [[Danny Phantom]] always gets the short end of the stick in in the ''[[Nicktoons Unite!]]'' series. ''Nicktoons Unite'' gets around this with a game-long [[Plot Tailored to the Party]] (and even then he had to gain his abilities back), but then came ''Battle for Volcano Island'', where he's stuck to throwing punches and shooting energy blasts. This got even worse in ''Attack of the Toybots'' which, outside of his Master Model areas, limits him to punching and using a goo gun (but so does everyone else) to the point that freaking ''[[Rocko's Modern Life|Rocko]]'' can do as much damage as him. (Though at least that game justifies his weakness: [[Jimmy Neutron|Calamitous]] somehow managed to neutralise his ghost powers while leeching energy off the Ghost Zone to power his game-long [[Eternal Engine]].) And then in ''Globs of Doom'', he can generate temporary duplicates of himself... via gadgetry from the [[Hub Level]], which is in the universe of Volcano Island. (Meanwhile, [[Invader Zim|Dib]] developed implausible punching skills.)

** At the same time though, it also averts power creeping with three plot characters: Index, [[Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu|Haruka]] and [[Asura Cryin|Misao]] aren't fighters in their canon and so they are not playable characters despite being in your party; instead, they are support characters who hold the cards usable in battle. They don't even have any in-battle sprites. (And hey, it fits Index's canon role.)

* ''[[The Force Unleashed]]'' done due to the affected person being an [[Early-Bird Cameo]] [[Guest Fighter]]: Just from playing ''[[Soul Series|Soulcalibur IV]]'' back at its time of release, few would have guessed that Galen Marek is a [[Person of Mass Destruction]] in his own universe.