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One Man Party: Difference between revisions
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In recent years, this trope has been intentionally invoked by [[Fighting Game]] makers as a form of balance -- by placing a character that is intentionally overpowered in a team-based game, but balancing this by making the overpowered character take up multiple character slots, the equilibrium is maintained. The overpowered character may be very strong, but any opponents will have multiple tries at defeating him. Interestingly, this is the typical way ''bosses'' are balanced in these types of fighting games.
A subtrope of [[Game Breaker]]. For the storyline version of this, see [[Can't Catch Up]], [[One-Man Army]]. For a character that appears to be a [[One Man Party]] but is later [[Put
{{examples}}
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* ''Skullgirls'' has a variation in the form of the Ratio System. Each player, instead of being forced to select three characters for a full team, can either select one, two, or three, and the game adjusts damage and health accordingly. So if Player A chooses only one character while Player B uses three, Player A will have much more health and damage, but won't have access to assists or extra characters.
** ''[[Video Game/Capcom Vs SNK|Capcom Vs SNK]] 2'' previously used a Ratio System to govern its battles; players had access to a total of four points, with a maximum team size of three, and characters were handicapped in terms of offense and defense in accordance to the Ratio assigned them. Thus you could have a split of 2-1-1, 2-2, 3-1, or 4. Boss fights were always against one opponent at Ratio 4.
* In ''[[
** This continues in ''[[
* In ''[[Capcom vs. SNK 2 Mark of the Millennium
== [[Real Time Strategy]] ==
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** There's something to be said about ''[[Persona 2]]'' when the favored strategy for beating ''Innocent Sin's'' final boss is to have Tatsuya solo it until it's weakened to a point where you can have Maya use Recarm-Dora on the rest of the party to finish him off...
* ''[[Neverwinter Nights]]'' allows you to custom build your main character, which opens up some very interesting possibilities. So called "Epic Builds" tweak the rules in such a way that your main character will maximize whatever power he can possibly use (often with loopholes and weird combinations of skills). NPC Party Members, mere single or duo classed slobs, will be left far, far in the dust, essentially delegated to support roles.
* ''[[Wasteland (
* In ''[[Valkyrie Profile]]'', Lenneth is required to be in every single battle you fight (except one in the [[Guide Dang It|best ending]]), and there's [[Loads and Loads of Characters]]. By the end of the game, Lenneth will invariably be at least a dozen or so levels ahead of anyone else in her party.
** Probably justified, since she's a goddess, and most of the rest of the party are heroic ghosts.
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** Companions can actually make you less effective in combat, usually by getting themselves detected while the player tries to sneak around, and forcing the player to be much more careful with splash damage weapons. Of course, lower level, or less skilled players may still get some mileage out of them--until either the player or his character get their acts together, at least.
*** The companion control interface in ''Fallout 2'' actually lampshades the party members' tendency to shoot the player in the back in the previous game. When giving the NPC instructions on when to use burst fire, the safest option is "Be Absolutely Sure You Won't Hit Me."
** [[Fallout: New Vegas]] rewards the player for having a follower or two (the [[Arbitrary Headcount Limit]] restricts you to 1 humanoid and 1 non-humanoid, however), which each follower bestowing a "Companion Perk" that helps you in some way (for example, letting you target cloaked enemies in V.A.T.S., slowing the rate of item degradation, or increasing the effectiveness of healing items). The ''Lonesome Road'' DLC adds the "[[Title Drop|Lonesome Road]]" Perk, which increases damage and V.A.T.S. accuracy, but only appears when you have no Companion Perks.
* ''[[Suikoden]]'' tends to make sure this doesn't happen too badly. Your protagonist is always in battle and stays a few levels above the rest of the party, but the way the experience scales tends to make sure new additions, latecomers, and those who were gone for a while get up to speed soon enough, often gaining multiple levels per battle until they reach the appropriate ballpark. Given the series' propensity toward [[Loads and Loads of Characters]], this is pretty much the only way they could have pulled it off.
* Due to the party make-up mechanics in ''[[Final Fantasy IV]]'', [[The Hero|Cecil's]] transformation (and accompanying level reset) [[Heel Face Turn|into a paladin]] was likely an attempt to avert this, as otherwise he'd likely get a dozen or so levels above the rest of the party without trying hard and stay there.
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* In ''[[Shadow Hearts]]'' the main character so dwarfs everyone else that the main discussion about what groups to use to fight the endgame bosses is limited to "Who is the best item caddy for Yuri?"
* It's entirely possible to pull this off in ''[[Dragon Age]]'' ''Origins'' w/ the right character build. There's no real benefit though since you don't get any more exp this way -- the only real reason to do this is for the challenge. At least your other party members don't suffer for it thanks to [[Leaked Experience]].
* Crono of ''[[
** Of course, once he leaves the party ''involuntarily'' {{spoiler|(via eradication by [[Big Bad]])}}, it's pretty much anything goes. You can have him on the bench for the rest of the game and still make it through.
* Generally averted in the ''[[Wild Arms]]'' series, as most of the time you don't pick your party members, though the Luck rune in ''[[
** Raquel in ''[[
* ''[[
** ''[[
* Taken to its logical conclusion in ''[[
* Averted in ''[[.hack GU Games|.hack//G.U]]'' where characters that aren't in your party can still gain levels after certain events have passed.
* Actually averted for the most part in ''[[
** Qualstio becomes this [[Eleventh-Hour Superpower|late in the game]] once you get his semifinal passive ability, Stifling Heat. It raises the chance of one of his spells inflicting Disable to almost 100%. If he uses it every single turn, his victim will never be able to hurt him.
== [[Strategy RPG]] ==
* Zeorymer of ''[[Hades Project Zeorymer]]''. In ANY ''[[Super Robot Wars]]'' game it appeared in, no matter the situation, the player could toss Zeorymer to the enemy's [[Zerg Rush]] and [[Evil Laugh|laugh]]. This is a game franchise [[Loads and Loads of Characters|filled to the brim with]] [[Super Robot|Godlike / Magical / Uber-powerful Robots]] including ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion|Evangelion]]'', ''[[
** We haven't even gotten into the fact that Zeorymer in [[Super Robot Wars Judgment]] gets '''UPGRADED''' to Great Zeorymer, taking its [[Game Breaker|game-breaking]] abilities [[Up to Eleven]]. To illustrate, its weakest two attacks are the ultimate attacks of three of the bosses it faced...
* Many games by [[Nippon Ichi]] have a tendency towards this; only the character that strikes the final blow on an enemy will get experience points for killing it, so there's a tendency for strong characters to get stronger and for weaker characters to fall behind unless the player is deliberately trying to keep power levels balanced.
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** No, really. In campaign your leader (and as many heroes as you can squeeze in) appears in every mission, ''and'' retains the XP he's already amassed, so by later missions he's a powerhouse of a fourth-tier-unit level, if not stronger.
* ''[[Shining Force]]'' plays this trope straight, with healers being maybe an exception, as they gain EXP when healing allies. Though they have pretty slow movement which can leave them too behind if you rush with all your damage dealers.
* In ''[[
* Similarly, ''[[X-COM]]'' avoids this due to the fact that even your Captains and other powerful characters are still liable to die to the [[We Have Reserves|first high-powered explosive to come along.]]
** At least until later in UFO and Terror from the Deep, when a guy with a big gun, flying [[Powered Armor]] and game-breakingly powerful mind-control powers can take on everything, more or less. TFTD is a little harder in this respect, but you're pretty much [[Colonel Badass]].
*** Although even the best of the best (non-cheating maximum was just a bit over 100 hps)... could be killed by few stray shots from a plasma pistol (and friendly fire... damn those squaddies!) or a single shot with plasma/sonic rifle. TFTD upped the difficulty, so even a sonic pistol can down your best-equipped, superhealthed soldiers with one shot - the chance is little, but it happens. This was due to the way damage was calculated - there was a random damage from 0% to IIRC 200% damage - 200% damage of sonic pistol is quite capable of penetrating even the heaviest armour. Not to mention alien grenades and blaster bombs/DPTs. People die in ''[[X-COM]]''.
** In Apocalypse, even the starting armour your soldiers have is pretty awesome. However, the final disruptor armor is nearly impenetrable and it weighs almost nothing, so you can bring a lot of weapons with you. Then there is the entropy launcher though - which pretty much eats through your equipment - whether it does or doesn't do damage to living tissue, there is a "funny" feature - as it eats through your equipment, say... grenades... funny things happen. However, add a transporter and they're back in the invulnerable territory - you can even get hit by a missile launcher and teleport away before the damage actually gets to you. A popular tactic in the endgame is to transport in, drop your bombs and transport right out with a second transporter. There is no stopping you in realtime mode :) (except for psi, damn)
* ''[[
** ''Arc 2'' has optional character Choko, a walking, talking [[Game Breaker
* In a SPRG that's relatively unknown to the English-speaking masses called ''Sangokushi Sousouden'', which is based on the Three Kingdoms period and has Cao Cao as its protagonist, the enemies' level are based around the average level of everyone who you have sent out in that battle (and there can be up to 15 participants in bigger fights). Can you imagine what it would be like if you send out Cao Cao at max level (50) and everyone else at a very low level (like 3-5 or so)?
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