History Main / CutscenePowerToTheMax

* Played straight most of the time in ''VideoGame/{{Bayonetta}}'' where both Bayonetta and Jeanne perform outstanding jumps, attacks, counters, and dodges that are not possible in the game, display [[KungShui building-tossing]] SuperStrength, and consistently OneHitKill enemies with the default guns that are nowhere near that powerful during gameplay.

Granted, being this powerful during the gameplay would make the game [[ItsEasySoItSucks extremely]] [[RuleOfFun easy]]. On the other hand, some degree of consistency is expected between the rules of the gameplay and the rules of the story, and when cutscene spectacle overrides that, the game has a serious problem. Then again, an explanation for a number of cases may have to do with spec limitations.

** In "Meet the Heavy", the Heavy exaggerates the firing rate of his minigun (he claims it fire 10,000 rounds per minute, but in actual gameplay the rate is 2,284 rounds per minute), and in the "gameplay" scene, nobody seems to be shooting at him while he rains bullety death on everyone. (And in "Meet the Sandvich", the exact scene is replicated, except this time the Heavy is munching on said Sandvich, and yet [=BLUs=] can be heard dropping dead left and right.)

** The most extreme has to go to the Spy who saps a sentry from a distance, disguises himself in plain view, and wins in direct melee combat against the Sniper and the Medic (in the latter case, he's shown fighting with his bare hands, something he can't do in-game). The crux of the short is the BLU team being unable to determine who's the RED Spy amongst them, but in-game it would be easy to tell due to lack of friendly fire: [[ViolationOfCommonSense just shoot each other]], as only the disguised enemy Spy will take damage. Also because in-game the Spy's disguise will fail momentarily if he even ''touches'' a member of the other team (something that happens repeatedly in the short). The undisguised Spy killing both a Soldier and Heavy together at the end would also be extremely difficult to pull off in-game, due to them both being damage-heavy and tanky classes, while the Spy has very low health.

** In "Meet the Heavy", the Heavy exaggerates the firing rate of his minigun and in the "gameplay" scene, nobody seems to be shooting at him while he rains bullety death on everyone. (And in "Meet the Sandvich", the exact scene is replicated, except this time the Heavy is munching on said Sandvich, and yet [=BLUs=] can be heard dropping dead left and right.)

** "Meet the Scout" shows the Scout run straight into a Sentry Gun's line of sight and apparently move fast enough to avoid its targetting. At the range he approached it, the Sentry would assuredly lock onto him and shoot him to death in a matter of seconds--Sentries are considered the hard counter to Scouts for exactly this reason. The scene of him beating a Heavy in melee is certainly ''possible'' for a skilled player, but it favors the Heavy considerably (the Heavy has more than double the Scout's health and can kill the Scout in two hits or a single crit), and the Scout is only shown hitting the Heavy three times to bring him down (in-game, this would only be possible if all three hits were crits).
** In "Meet the Demoman", the Demoman has more stickies deployed than he currently is able to by default (to be fair, though, at the time of the video he really did have that ability -- then it was nerfed). He also tricks a Sentry into tracking his grenades instead of him, which in-game Sentries never do.

** In "Meet the Sniper", the Sniper uses his default rifle to shoot two targets at once (he can only do so with a much later unlock) and indirectly cause some barrels to explode (not an in-game feature).
** The most extreme has to go to the Spy who saps a sentry from a distance, disguises himself in plain view, and wins in direct melee combat against the Sniper and the Medic.
** "Meet the Pyro" then proceeds to top this by turning the Pyro into a OneManArmy who is TheDreaded by his/her/its own teammates. The [=BLUs=] who aren't immediately killed don't even ''try'' to fight back at all. Furthermore, the Pyro is shown burning down the entire town, while there are no destructible environments in-game.
** "Meet the Medic" features what is apparently the very first ubercharge, so only the Heavy is marching down the field being invincible. None of the [=BLUs=] think to ShootTheMedicFirst.

** [[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime Sheik]] takes out an [[VideoGame/StarFox Arwing]] by teleporting onto its canopy and '''putting her fist''' through the glass of the cockpit windshield.

** In Subspace Emissary, right before [[spoiler:Tabuu turns everyone into a trophy again,]] Sonic appears and [[spoiler:smashes his wings with incredible speed and power]]. In gameplay, Sonic's adjusted like the other fighters.

* In ''Webcomic/{{RPG World}}'', Eikre introduces himself by insta-killing a monster with an ability called Top Cut. Once he actually joins the party and Hero asks him to use Top Cut again, Eikre refuses and explains that he "just doesn't do" that ability anymore.

* ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosUltimate'': The opening cutscene of World of Light shows Galeem vaporising the whole cast effortlessly. Nothing like this can happen in any other part of the campaign, including the actual fight against Galeem.

** In ''[[VideoGame/SonicRushSeries Sonic Rush Adventure]]'', in the cutscene right before the boss for Coral Cave, Blaze shoots a huge [[PlayingWithFire fireball]] at Captain Whisker. During gameplay, she can't even shoot small ones, although she can temporarily ''become'' one to attack surrounding enemies.

** The Genesis titles as a whole tend to have Dr. Eggman/[[DubNameChange Dr. Robotnik]] escape from Sonic before continuing on with his plots. Even getting close to Eggman only causes him to speed up so Sonic is unable to catch up to him. This is in spite of Eggman being a [[FatBastard rotund but otherwise normal human being]] whom Sonic could easily catch up to in any other scenario. ''WebAnimation/SonicShorts'' poked fun at this:
-->'''Sonic:''' How...can a man...THAT FAT MOVE [[SoundEffectBleep F***ING]] FAST?!

** In a convenient conjunction with GameplayAndStorySegregation, during the final cutscene of the last Terran mission the artifact can still be destroyed before it discharges its final blast. This will not affect the outcome of the mission, and the artifact will still release its final blast, destroying all zerg forces, and awarding the player a victory.

*** There is cutscene where Barry Burton kicks open a locked door to save Jill Valentine from a DescendingCeiling trap. This is the only time in the entire game that any character is able to open a locked door without a key or unlocking it from the inside.

*** That is put to shame by the cyborg ninja [[spoiler:Gray Fox]]. When you fight him as a boss, you beat him in a fist fight, yet later he displays enough strength to [[spoiler:hold up Rex's foot and survives, albeit barely, getting slammed by Rex against the wall]]. Also possible with [[BigBad Liquid Snake]], whom off-screen supposedly shoots down a pair of jet fighters using a MI-24 Hind attack helicopter (which is not nearly fast enough to deal with super sonic jets), which he can't beat you with.

* During Monomachus's LastStand in ''VideoGame/TearsToTiara2'', he plows through a huge bunch of mooks, 1hkos all of them, and takes down a [[KrakenAndLeviathan kraken]] all by himself before collapsing. In comparison, as he uses a BladeOnAStick, his attack in game is on the lower end for melee members, and no one's going to be soloing a kraken.[[/folder]]

Granted, being this powerful during the gameplay would make the game [[ItsEasySoItSucks extremely]] [[RuleOfFun easy]]. On the other hand, some degree of consistency is expected between the rules of the gameplay and the rules of the story, and when cutscene spectacle overrides that, the game has a serious problem.

* In the ''Webcomic/ElGoonishShive NP'' story "Parable", Susan (who knows she's currently in a video game parody) realises she's in a cut-scene when she's prevented from fighting the way she prefers to. When this inspires Rhoda to [[DropTheHammer pick up a huge hammer]], Susan [[https://www.egscomics.com/egsnp/parable-058 snarkily comments]], "She's about to do an amazing super-move she's never going to use again, isn't she."

** VideoGame/TheWitcher3WildHunt add on ''Hearts of stone'' has Geralt one shot an enemy by throwing a sword though his chest, something impossiblein normal gameplay

* ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosBrawl'':

** Subspace Emissary is positively ''stuffed'' with this. Every cutscene shows the various fighters doing various awesome things that are far, far beyond their actual capabilities in gameplay. One of the more JustForFun/{{egregious}} examples involves [[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime Sheik]] taking out an [[VideoGame/StarFox Arwing]] by teleporting onto its canopy and '''putting her fist''' through the glass of the cockpit windshield. There's also an instance of [[VideoGame/FZero Captain Falcon]] taking out a [[GiantMook giant ROB]] with a single flying punch.
* In the ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosUltimate'' adventure mode, the opening cutscene shows Galeem vaporising the whole cast effortlessly. Nothing like this can happen in any other part of the campaign, including the actual fight against Galeem.

*** ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerRedAlert3'' didn't have very much combat in its cinematics, probably to avoid this, but its in-game cutscenes are just as bad. Superweapons routinely [[RocksFallEveryoneDies take out entire bases]], and the Imperial and Soviet support superweapons, which temporarily physical block off an area and render units invulnerable, respectively, have an unlimited duration. (The Chronosphere, which teleports units around, generally does what it's supposed to -- with the caveat that it "teleports" in [[OffscreenVillainDarkMatter units that didn't exist before]].) Sometimes this works ''for'' you, though, such as the final Imperial mission, which opens with Yuriko and a host of troopers attacking from ''within'' a Psionic Decimator shot -- it's usually not half as discriminating in who it kills.

* ''VideoGame/StarCraft'' similarly has a big statistics difference between cuts and game. The Battlecruiser's [[WaveMotionGun Yamato Gun]] supposedly blasts another unit (e.g. a starship) with one shot and keeps going -- in-game, it takes two full shots for the Battlecruiser to kill another capital ship, and more for the larger buildings. Also, the Battlecruiser in gameplay only fires a single laser shot at a time with a pitifully low rate of fire, compared to cutscenes where they're actually TheBattlestar armed with MoreDakka and BeamSpam. Even more drastic, standard Zerglings take ''two'' shots of said Battlecruiser's lasers to die, whereas in cutscenes a Ghost can kill them with [[OneHitKill just one shot]]! (The Ghost itself takes three or ''four'' shots to end a Zergling in-game as well.) The weapons of other races also are much stronger in cutscenes, often slicing each other outright, in contrast to the CriticalExistenceFailure shown in gameplay. In one instance in the ''Brood War'' opening cinematic, the [[SpaceMarine Marines]] even use a weapon (a grenade launcher) that they don't have in-game at all!

* Every {{Franchise/Batman}} video game ever.

* Ninjas (and Eliot) in ''Videogame/DeadOrAlive'' only ever use their swords in cutscenes. In Hayate's ending for [=DOA4=], he slices a {{Mook|s}} in half and brings down an entire blimp with one arrow.

* ''[[VideoGame/SuperSmashBros Super Smash Bros. Brawl]]'':

* ''VideoGame/{{Tekken}}'':

* In Comicbook/{{Storm}}'s ending in ''VideoGame/XMenChildrenOfTheAtom'', she's able to destroy a Sentinel with a single bolt of lightning. In the actual gameplay, while Storm is pretty powerful, her projectiles aren't ''nearly'' that strong.

** In VideoGame/KingdomHeartsIII, Donald Duck at one point casts ''Zettaflare''. An attack that is not even used by the strongest forms of ''Bahamut''. So, this duck has a spell that is of planet-destroying capability ''at the very least''. However, he does collapse after he uses it, so this might be the reason he doesn't use it more often.

* ''VideoGame/MarvelUltimateAlliance'', the spiritual successor to the ''X-Men Legends'' series, also has quite a few examples of this. Perhaps the most egregious example is [[Comicbook/TheMightyThor Thor]]. In the game's opening cutscene, he is shown to effortlessly plow directly through the middle of an attacking enemy ship, causing it to explode without injuring him at all. He then shrugs off a shot from a second enemy ship and promptly destroys it with a giant lightning bolt from his hammer. He does all of this while hovering in the air a few hundred feet above the ground. When the player gets to actually control him, he can only fly about five feet above the ground and can only maintain that altitude for a few seconds. His lightning attacks are also considerably weaker and have a much shorter range than the one he used in the cutscene and he cannot simply plow through enemies and shrug off their attacks in the fashion that he did in the cutscene.
* A cutscene in ''VideoGame/MarvelUltimateAlliance3TheBlackOrder'' has Comicbook/{{Colossus}} lift up a Sentinel and hurl it through the air without breaking a sweat. While he's pretty strong in the actual game, he's definitely not ''that'' strong.

** In [[VideoGame/ShadowHeartsCovenant Covenant]], Yuri's Amon form is shown to be outright ImmuneToBullets, which is not quite true in gameplay. Later on, [[spoiler:the same Amon fusion is shown to be powerful enough to destroy a huge airship]], a level of power not quite consistent with its powerful, but not GameBreaking status in gameplay.

* ''Videogame/TheWitcher'' -- Geralt handles a monster spectacularly well in the introduction video. You fight the same monster later in the game and Geralt has none of the cool moves he had in that cutscene. Justified as the battle took place before Geralt suffered from LaserGuidedAmnesia.

* ''VideoGame/{{Touhou}}'' doesn't really have cutscenes beyond simple dialogue, but almost all characters canonically have terrifying powers such as [[PersonOfMassDestruction "destruction of anything and everything"]], or simply [[OneHitKill instant death]], that they will obviously [[NonLethalKO never use ingame.]] The in-universe explanation is that everyone has agreed to a system of non-lethal duels, but the games include a number of characters that ''couldn't'' have learned the rules.

** This is even more jarring on Syphon Filter 2's first cutscene video, where we get a kill montage of Gabe making his way to rescue Lian from the terrorists. For example, he rolls and ''shoots a bad guy in the head mid-roll''. [[FlatWhat What]].

* The box art for both ''TableTopGame/HeroQuest'' and ''Space Crusade'', the closest thing such games can have to cutscenes: In the ''[=HeroQuest=]'' one, the heroes are fighting a huge roomful of monsters at one, something they would be unlikely to be able to handle, ''and'', apparently, still find the time to fight each other too. In the ''Space Crusade'' one, the SpaceMarines are fighting Genestealers and the [[GiantMook Destructor]] with nothing but Bolters -- they'd be reduced to a wet patch on the ground within a minute, especially considering Destructor's defences are too high for Bolters to hurt it even in principle.

* In the opening of ''VideoGame/ShadowHearts'', Yuri reattaches his severed arm, exhibiting a remarkable regenerative ability that is never alluded to again.

* ''VideoGame/StarCraft'' similarly has a big stat difference between cuts and game. The [[WaveMotionGun Yamato Gun]] supposedly blasts another battlecruiser with one shot and keeps going -- in game, it takes 2 full shots. Battlecruiser ''only fires a single laser shot with a pitifully low rate of fire'', compared to cutscenes where they're {{The Battlestar}}s armed with MoreDakka. Even more drastic, zerglings take 2 shots of said Battlecruiser to die, whereas in cutscenes a Ghost can kill them with just one shot! The weapons of other races also are much stronger, slicing each other outright. In one instance the {{Space Marine}}s even use a weapon (grenade launcher) they don't have in-game at all!
** The grenade launcher actually has an interesting explanation. Most of the cutscenes for Starcraft were made in Beta phase of the game. The space marine unit was original supposed to have a grenade firing ability with limited ammo ala the Spidermines of the Vultures, but this was removed after being seen as too hard to balance. The result is that all images and cutscenes with space marines clearly show them having the underslug grenade launcher on their rifles, but no such ability. This was one reason the grenade launchers were removed from the rifles in ''Starcraft 2'' instead having bayonets which can be pushed out underneath the barrel. Which were however also removed during the Beta phase again leaving the Marines with a cutscene weapon they can't use in game.
** One cutscene shows a single Zergling take out two marines with ease. However, in the game the Zerg, being the namers of the ZergRush, tend towards many *weak* units. The zergling are the equivalent frontline fodder to marines and two are produced when they are built, for less cost and time then marines. The game literally states that zerglings are half as powerful as marines. So one zergling taking out two marines would imply he was four times as powerful as he should be!
** The worst example has to be the Gantrithor, Tassadar's flagship. In the storyline, the Gantrithor has a WaveMotionGun that causes EarthShatteringKaboom, and the only reason the Zerg are a problem on Tarsonis is that Tassadar didn't want to kill the Terran population. In-game, the Garinthor is about twice as good as a normal carrier, which is good, but hardly planet-scouring.
*** Well, Ganthritor is part of a fleet which Tassadar took with him, apparently full of planet glazing guns. Nobody ever managed to explain what happened to these.
** In-game cutscenes frequently use this trick with a unit killing some other unit in a single
*** Done rather poorly in the first game, since even during a cutscene you can still select units so you can see their hitpoints dropping to zero, or their attack's damage suddenly becoming ''one hundred times more powerful''.

* ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsII'': Several times in the game Sora and company will one hit enemies that will normally take several strikes or combos to defeat. "I don't have time for you!". Sora can also slice entire buildings in half in cutscenes via ActionCommands.