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[[Player Character|Video game heroes]] face a variety of threats, from [[Goddamn Bats]] through human enemies to an [[Eldritch Abomination]] or [[Lovecraft Lite|ten]]. In order to survive these encounters, the hero is going to need something that makes him different, a special ability that justifies why ''he'' is the one saving the day. If the game boasts a radical gameplay innovation, the hero's power is likely to be closely related to it, explored and upgraded throughout the entire game.
Some games [[Powers in
In terms of [[
Compare/contrast [[Eleventh-Hour Superpower]], which involves a sudden power-up right before the climax, and [[A Taste of Power]], which lets you have a (nearly) full set of powers for a while before taking them away.
{{examples}}▼
▲{{examples}}
== Action Adventure ==▼
== Video game examples ==
▲=== Action Adventure ===
* [[HAWX]]: Off Mode, which represents disabling failsafes in your plane to let you push its limits. It changes your view and subtly alters (increases) your abilities. Not really a direct increase in power, but qualifies as it's a game-defining ability given to you a while in, after the basic tutorials.
* In ''[[Prince of Persia]]: The Sands of Time'', you shortly gain the power to control time after you retrieve the dagger.
* The monster detecting radios from the ''[[Silent Hill]]'' series.
* In ''[[Second Sight]]'', Vattic gains his basic powers as he needs them in the early levels (e.g. psyblast when he's caught by an armed guard, charm when he's about to be found, etc).
** In the tutorial level, he doesn't have any powers. He doesn't gain his healing power until he wakes up in a hospital in the first proper level.
* In ''[[
* ''[[Metroid Prime|Metroid Prime 3: Corruption]]''. You start the game with the general Samus gear, but after the assault on Norion and Samus successfully saving the planet from destruction (for once), she gains [[Super Mode|Hypermode.]]
* In the first ''[[Blood Omen]]'' game, you play for about two minutes as a human (literally as soon as you walk out of the first room, you're in a [[Hopeless Boss Fight]]), then spend the rest of the game as a super-powerful vampire.
=== Hack and Slash ===
* In ''[[Onimusha]]'', your attacks do hurt the demons, but won't kill them. You shortly later gain the Oni Gauntlet.
* In ''[[
* The ''[[Devil May Cry]]'' games have the Devil Arms, which are acquired either through flashy cutscenes or defeating bosses. The main characters are superpowered already, but this makes them even more powerful.
** There's also [[Super Mode|Devil Trigger]], which usually isn't acquired until you're a few missions into the game.
=== Platform ===
* In ''[[Viewtiful Joe]]'', you don't get the [[Transformation Trinket|V-Watch]] until shortly into the first level. Barely an example, but you do have to fight your first few enemies without it.
* ''[[
* In ''[[
** In ''[[
* ''[[Jak II Renegade|Jak II]]'' takes a while to give you your first gun, and, unlike in the Grand Theft Auto games it's mimicking, you don't have the option of finding some yourself before that point.
* ''[[Super Mario World (
=== Real Time Strategy ===
* In [[Achron]], you don't get access to the time window until the second mission of the campaign.
=== RPG -- Eastern ===
* In ''[[Kingdom Hearts (
* In ''[[
* The [[Living Shadow|Shadows]] in ''[[Blue Dragon]]''. You're pretty much powerless in fights before you get them {{spoiler|and after you lose them at the end of Disc 2}}.
* In ''[[Legend of Dragoon]]'', you don't get the Dragoon abilities until a few hours in.
* ''[[Final Fantasy]]'' does this a lot. ''[[Final Fantasy III
* In ''[[
* In ''[[
* In ''[[
* This is relatively common in the [[Paper Mario (
** Dates back to the first game as well. You start the game using basic attacks, and after visiting Shooting Star Summit for the first time, you get the Lucky Star, which gives you access to [[Action Commands]], a ''very'' important aspect of the games' battle system.
* In ''[[.hack]]'', Kite starts off as an average player, with nothing particularly special about him. After playing through a level or two like this, he gets the Twilight Bracelet, which allows him to fight hacked enemies, and thus makes him the only one able to take on [[Big Bad|Morganna]].
* ''[[White Knight Chronicles]]'': It takes about half an hour of gameplay that set off the chain of events that lead or Leonard obtaining the titular White Knight. Said chain of events includes the wine cart your party is delivering to the princess's ball being attacked by a troll, a palace guard leaving the palace's ''front doors'' open, an attack on the palace, [[First Episode Spoiler|the king getting assassinated]], and [[The Hero]] taking it upon himself to get the princess to safety, respectively.
* ''[[Wild
* The ''[[
=== RPG -- Western ===
* In the first ''[[Knights of the Old Republic (
** In ''[[Knights of the Old Republic (
** Also done in both ''[[Star Wars: Dark Forces
* In ''[[Vampire: The Masquerade Redemption]]'', you play through the first dungeon as a human, then spend the rest of the game as a super-powerful vampire.
* In ''[[Fable (
* In ''[[Deus Ex: Human Revolution
* Subverted in ''[[Dragon Age
* In ''[[The Elder Scrolls V
=== Shooter -- First-Person ===
* The HEV suit and later the Gravity Gun in ''[[Half-Life (
* In ''[[
* In the new ''[[Wolfenstein (
* In ''[[The Darkness (
* In ''[[
* In ''[[Doom|Doom 3]]'', the Soul Cube and the Artifact are second level superpowers, but never really get powerful or useful until a little bit later.
* In ''[[Project Snowblind]]'', the game seems to start out as a fairly generic shooter, but by the second level, you're rebuilt with as a supersoldier who can use Infrared Vision, has bullet time, Ballistic Shielding, Cloaking, and the power to shoot lightning out of his hands.
* In ''[[
* In ''[[Singularity]]'', you receive the Time Manipulation Device early on, which lets you control time to a certain extent.
* In ''[[Time Splitters|Timesplitters Future Perfect]]'', you get the Uplink after you get to the rebel base.
* [[Resistance]] only gives you your health regeneration after you've beaten the first level. There aren't any health packs, so any bullets you take can't be healed for the rest of the level, making this section irritatingly difficult.
* [[Player Character|Matthew Kane]] doesn't {{spoiler|become Stroggified}} until the end of the first Act of ''Quake IV.'' This process is the reason that he's able to penetrate so much deeper into Stroggos than anyone else, as well as providing him with a higher HP limit and the ability to read Strogg.
=== Shooter -- Third-Person ===
* In ''[[Dark Sector]]'' Hayden gains the power of the Glaive shortly after he gets infected.
* In ''[[Psi
* In ''[[Star Wars: Dark Forces
** Pretty much the same in ''Dark Forces II''. Kyle has no Force powers until after he visits his father's workshop.
* In ''[[Dead Space (
* ''[[Advent Rising]]'' doesn't give Gideon any of his birthright superpowers until after his [[Doomed Hometown|Doomed Homeplanet]] is destroyed.
=== Shoot 'Em Ups ===
* In ''E-Swat'', your character gets promoted after the first two level, giving you an heavily armed Power Armor.
=== Stealth-Based Game ===
* In ''[[Batman: Arkham City]]'', the player starts out as Bruce Wayne, and needs to obtain the Batman gear.
* ''[[Riddick|Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay]]'', Riddick's eyeshine treatment could be considered this.
* In ''[[Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots]]'', Snake starts out with more or less nothing. After several sneaking levels, Snake meets the Mk2 Metal Gear and is given a proper weapon and any [[New Game+]] weapons.
** Making the first part of the game somewhat more difficult than sections near the end where you can just tranquilise your enemies.
* Unlike ''[[Assassin's Creed]]'' that used [[A Taste of Power]], you start ''2'' as an Italian youth with just his fists. Ezio does not gain the Hidden Blade until some time later.
=== Puzzle Game ===
* In the ''Portal'' games, the first few test chambers have no portal gun, and the next several use a gun that only shoots blue portals, with the orange portals being generated automatically.
== Non-video game examples ==
=== [[Literature]] ===
*
=== [[Web Original]] ===
* [[
=== [[Western Animation]] ===
* ''[[
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Combat Tropes]]
[[Category:
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