History Main / OverRatedAndUnderLeveled

* In ''ArcanumOfSteamworksAndMagickObscura'', at the end of the game, you can add [[spoiler:Arronax]] to your party. While he's at the maximum possible level allowed by the game engine, he equips no weapons nor armour, and most of the time prefers fists to his (quite decent) magic. This may, however, just be a result of a glitch. [[spoiler:The dude single-handedly destroyed advanced technological civilization and was bad enough to be generally regarded as his world's Crystal Dragon Satan. It can be Lampshaded in that he had few occasions to practice his powers during the last two thousand years. This also happens to the other Banished villains - for example, a half-man-half-dragon creature whom the collective of most powerful mages of the world defeated after days-long battle.]]

* Garr in ''BreathOfFireIII''. The story presents him as a extremely powerful warrior with skills way above the strongest warriors in the world. He always joins the annual Warrior Tournament as a solo entry, while the standard is to register a team of three. Balio and Sunder, the duo of the previous two HopelessBossFight you have, tremble by just being stared hy him. Turns out he eventually joins your party in the third battle against the duo, and after killing them, casually remarks that he was eventually planning of disposing them. Turns out that, in-game wise, he's just the standard MightyGlacier character who is easily outranked by Ryu. He has a plethora of Fire spells but his magic is so low that even his strongest spells can't match the power of his standard attack.

* Leon in ''VideoGame/{{Tales of Destiny}}'' is supposed to be an elite military warrior, carefully trained since childhood to be a prodigy general. Yet when he joins the party, he's at the same level as the low-level thieves (+ country bumpkin) he easily wiped the floor with moments before.
* Kratos in ''VideoGame/{{Tales of Symphonia}}'' is supposed to be a powerful, experienced mercenary, adept at both blade and magic, but when he joins he's only a level or so higher than the rest of the party (which at that point consists of only [[KidHero random schoolchildren]]) and knows only a handful of weak techniques. (Of course, there is a spoilerrific reason for this.) Later in the game he is replaced by another character, Zelos. Despite being a pampered noble, [[SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute Zelos is effectively Kratos in combat]]: they have the exact same skills, weapon proficiencies and combat role, with only a few minor differences in stats (Zelos' are lower) and attack style (Zelos is better at using certain attacks). [[spoiler:Oddly enough, when you have to ''fight'' them, even if they just left your party in the previous cutscene, [[GoodIsDumb they're suddenly tough enough to match the entire party all over again]]... [[FridgeBrilliance but, of course, they're]] [[LetsGetDangerous using their Angelic powers during those fights]].]]

* The ''FireEmblem'' series of tactical {{RPG}}s has more instances of this than can be conveniently listed. The reason is primarily a result of the games' mechanics -- since [[FinalDeath death is permanent]] in this series, late recruits exist only to give the careless and the inexperienced a fighting chance in the later levels. As a result, the experienced knights, powerful generals and legendary warriors of the world (who come later in the game) are almost invariably weaker than the rank novices, random mercenaries, and inexperienced students (who join early) raised to the same level. Almost without exception, a character who starts out at level 5 and is raised to level 15 will be far stronger than a character who starts at level 15, even if the character who starts at level 15 is renowned for his peerless strength and skill. (The only exceptions are GameBreaker units who join on the final chapter of most games.) Too many specific examples to list, but a few are Cecilia, Dayan, Juno, and Niime from ''[=FE6=]''; Karel, Karla, Renault from ''[=FE7=]''; Innes from ''[=FE8=]''; and Elincia's retainers from ''[=FE9=]''. There's actually a bit of FridgeBrilliance regarding them, as you'll read.

** In ''VagrantStory'', the main character's {{backstory}} involves him being among the baddest of badasses, but he gains amnesia before the game starts and forgets most of his past -- and most of his fighting skills. He doesn't actually learn new attacks; he "remembers" ones he already knew from before he lost his memory.
** Zero, the "Legendary Hero" from ''MegaManZero'', was violently awoken from his 100 year rest and has forgotten most of his fighting techniques. True to his series heritage, he recalls most of his techniques [[MegaManning after beating a boss and mimicking its attacks.]]
** Played extremely straight in ''PlanescapeTorment'' - The Nameless One doesn't so much learn new skills as he remembers what his previous incarnations knew... and some of those were ''absurdly powerful''.
* Used in ''KnightsOfTheOldRepublic'': Carth is "one of the Republic's best pilots," "a hero of the Mandalorian War and a legendary soldier." He's only a couple clicks higher than your starting character, possibly justified in that being a crack pilot doesn't mean much in on-the-ground fighting (the bulk of your game). Bastila? The paragon of Padawans and key to the war effort - at ''less'' of a starting level than you will be at that point, which is also handwaived by her being an adept of Battle Meditation, an exceedingly rare ability which boosted her reputation. The "amnesia" excuse shows up to explain why [[spoiler: you, the ex-Dark Lord and galaxy-feared Badass]] are unpowered and a rather pathetic fighter for a few levels and also further explains why your "exceptional" compatriots seem so mediocre in comparison. And in the second game, damage and age are used to explain the low starting levels for [[spoiler:Canderous, who becomes the Mandalore]] and the droids when Exile finds them.
* ''KingdomHearts'' actually zig-zags this trope quite a bit, often starting you at level one with no abilities by putting you in control of a different character, while playing the trope straight and explaining ''why'' it's played so.
** In ''KingdomHeartsChainOfMemories'', Sora enters Castle Oblivion just days after beating the final boss of the first game. If you remember, by then Sora had become quite the capable fighter, but [[spoiler:Marluxia]] informs him that right as he entered Castle Oblivion, he forgot all of his abilities and had to re-learn them. However, at the end of Chain of Memories, Sora is [[spoiler:put to sleep for a year, having his memories also siphoned off during the events of 358/2 days]] and by the events of ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsII'', is level one again and has to re-learn all his magic while also picking up new tricks. [[FridgeBrilliance It's easy to assume he still knew these; just didn't immediately remember them right off the bat.]] ''KingdomHearts3D'' justifies Sora and Riku being rewound to level one because they must "Restart their training".

* In ''NeverwinterNights'', the novice players are tasked by Lady Aribeth to defend the city. Aribeth is a legendary fighter and defender of the realm. In a major plot point she later [[spoiler:[[FaceHeelTurn turns heel]] and the players must fight her]]. Fortunately, by this time the players have been adventuring for a few months and any one of them could mop the floor with Aribeth without much difficulty.
** In ''NeverwinterNights2'', we have [[spoiler:Ammon Jerro]], who is stated by several characters to be "a wizard of some power," others to be "a powerful sorcerer," and still others "an extremely powerful Warlock." In-game, he only has Warlock levels, and is fairly powerful, but all the descriptions of him suggest that he is, in fact, every single frelling spellcaster class available short of Bard, and should technically have more levels than the game suggests is possible. When you actually fight him, his summoned help is ever-so-slightly harder to beat than he is.

* In ''DefenseOfTheAncients'', many of the heroes, according to their backstory, ought to be powerful beyond belief already, but for balance everyone starts at level 1.
* Adell in ''{{Disgaea}} II''. Although he starts the game at Level 1, as appropriate for an RPG hero, he's already traveled all over the world of Veldime looking for Overlord Zenon, whom he's sworn to defeat -- and Veldime has some pretty dangerous regions to search through. When he couldn't find the Overlord, he instead traveled all over Veldime ''again'' to collect the ingredients his mother needed to summon Zenon -- which included killing a few mighty beasts. So, he's supposed to be much stronger in the story than his level in the game indicates. This is how he can block one of Etna's attacks in a story segment, even if gameplay wise she has over 100 times his Level.

** ''{{Disgaea}}'' also contains a mechanic that allows a character's level to be reset to 1 in exchange for higher base stats. It's possible he Reincarnated just before the beginning of the storyline.

** The UpdatedRerelease of ''{{Disgaea 2}}'' parodies this with one of the DLC unlockable characters, in which Hanako sacrifices a copy of PhantomBrave in which all the characters are leveled up to 9999 (Don't think too hard about the fact that Phantom Brave is disk based...) for a summoning ritual. All that comes out of it is a level 100 Marona.
** Near the beginning of ''Disgaea2'', your party runs into Demon Lor...erm...Beauty Queen Etna from the first game, who is Level 1,000 (compared to your party being maybe Level 10 or so.) Later on, Etna becomes the strongest Demon on the planet and is inadvertentely summoned by Adell's group when they try to summon Zenon again (only this time, by not summoning Zenon specifically, but by summoning "The Strongest Demon In The World" instead.) [[spoiler: However, since Etna gave them bad summoning materials out of spite, she messed up the ritual and suffered severe level drain in the process. Only now does she join your party (or rather, stalk your party until she gets her levels back.)]]

* Luna, from ''SoulCalibur 3'''s Chronicles of the Sword Mode, is a recurring boss from the first half of the mode who wields the titular ''SoulCalibur''. She joins 2 chapters before the end, is average level, has a class with unexceptional growth rates AND she has the ONLY moveset in the entire game without a known [[AIBreaker anti-AI move]], near required against Chronicles of the Sword's [[TheAIIsACheatingBastard cheating AI]]

* Many characters from ''{{Growlanser}} I'' return in ''Growlanser II''. They seem to have [[BagOfSpilling lost all their levels]] between the two games, which is given no explanation whatsoever.

* ''CityOfHeroes'' uses different stats and AI for allies compared to enemies. This can be clearly seen in Gaussian's story arc, where the previously incompetent Longbow allies that you've fought with for a few missions now are suddenly much, much tougher when you have to fight them instead.

* This occurs in the ''[[BaldursGate Baldur's Gate]]'' series, most obviously near the beginning of the first one. Several [=NPCs=] who join you early on are supposedly experienced adventurers (Khalid, Jaheira, Xzar and Montaron), yet upon joining they will be the same level as you (likely 1 or 2) and only carry basic starter equipment.

* In the original ''PhantasyStar'', your ally Odin has a reputation as a "man of great strength." He's weaker than all your other party members, including the SquishyWizard.
* Every single character in the ''DawnOfWar II'' campaigns. Tarkus and Avitus are warriors almost as accomplished as the legendary Davian Thule, [[EveryoneCallsHimBarkeep the Force Commander]] and Thaddeus are highly successful despite their relatively young age, and Cyrus is older than all of them, ''trained'' most of them, and was even a member of [[ChurchMilitant The Inquisition]]'s Death Watch. All of them are level 1. ''Chaos Rising'' introduced Jonah (powerful enough to survive direct, solo contact with the Tyranid HiveMind, yet no stronger than the player), while ''Retribution'' has the former right-hand of the Chapter Master and a Space Marine so renowned he is known only as [[RedBaron The Ancient]] (level 1 again).

* The playable characters in ''LeagueOfLegends'' have four usable abilities, but when you start a game with them, they can only use ''one'', and are actually rather weak with less than a thousand health. Especially when you look at some of their backstory. However; this is presumably ''invoked'' by having spells around the fields of justice so that the champions powers are kept equal or in check. Even though [[SchmuckBait players will forever argue about champions being overpowered and underpowered]].

* Since the party characters in each timeline of ''RadiantHistoria'' don't overlap 100%, the levels of those characters that don't appear in both timelines tend to lag behind those that do (As all experience gained remains even if you go back and forth in time or change timelines, probably because doing otherwise would have been very difficult to program). This is especially true of Rosch, who isn't playable in a significant fraction of the timeline he ''is'' a member of the party in, what causes him to lag even further behind.

* The prequel novel to ''GuildWars 2'' is about the FiveManBand [[spoiler: (well, it's five by the end of the book)]] who took down several [[TheDragon Champions]] of the [[EldritchAbomination Elder Dragons]], and nearly succeeded in taking out one Elder Dragon himself. In the game proper, the tutorial mission and lvl 1-20 story missions of each race feature the player fighting alongside one of the group's members, where they are marginally stronger or equally strong as the low level player.

* Cloud in ''FinalFantasyTactics'' is extremely useless unless you put a ton of effort into raising him properly. Despite being pretty strong in his own game, he joins your party at level 1 and he can only use his special abilities from the Soldier class if he has a certain sword equipped, which is pretty weak compared to other weapons. Most of the time, you are better off raising Cloud with whatever job classes you have available rather than stick to his default class.

** Ezel''FinalFantasyTacticsAdvance'' once you gain the ability to recruit him into your clan. Ezel is touted as a character who can make any law cards that can easily nullify whatever laws are set in battle and is someone that is quite elusive. However, Ezel is just a reskin of the Alchemist class. He only has two abilities (one which makes you immune to status ailments once and another that puts all enemies to sleep) and can't change classes at all. Despite Ezel having extremely high magic power, he posses no abilities that are based on it. Along with being extremely slow, physically weak, having low HP, and can't even walk into water due to a glitch, Ezel may look like a powerful character but is absolute crap in battle. Even if Ezel joins your clan, he won't give you law cards for free, thus you still have to barter with him to get the cards you want.
* Al-Cid in ''FinalFantasyTacticsA2''. He's a powerful opponent when you fight him, but he loses several levels once he joins your clan. He is the only human in the game that can use a gun in battle, which would have made him extremely awesome, but like with Ezel in the above example, Al-Cid can't change classes and most of his abilities revolve around the gimmick of females present in battle. If you don't have many female units in the clan, Al-Cid will become useless quickly.
* In ''Bleach: the 3rd Phantom'', character levels are determined by when in the storyline they first appear. Since the four senior captains are encountered first (but don't join you until later), these legendary warriors have starting levels lower than captains hundreds of years their junior (though their high statistics make them more powerful, even at low level, than many other characters).

* ''VideoGame/{{X-COM}}'' is infamous for this. Your troops, supposedly drawn from the best of Earth's special forces, are pathetic chumps who stormtroopers could give a run for their money.

* Ulfric Stormcloak in ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim'', should the player pursue the Imperial questline. The game practically turns Ulfric into a king-slaying, [[LoudOfWar Thu'um throwing]], MemeticBadass, if dialogue is to be believed. Yet when an Imperial-Alligned Dragonborn storms his castle, his own [[TheDragon Dragon]] is harder to kill than him. [[note]]The meta reason takes this trope literally. Up until patch 1.6, all [=NPCs=] were leveled based on when the player first encounters them. And Ulfric is the 3rd character you see in the opening sequence. So, you were essentially fighting what would be a challenging enemy, ''if you were at level 1''. Even with the patch to buff his health, his outfit possesses a whopping '''7''' armor rating (the weakest item in the weakest armor set in the game gives an 8), so any decently-skilled character will wipe the floor with him.[[/note]]
** The game tells us that the said murdered king was "a boy" (probably in his late teens to early 20s) and inexperienced in combat, and the said Thu'um that he used was Unrelenting Force, which he ''does'' use against the PC in the aforementioned battle.
** Humorously, if one uses the console to spawn Torygg (the king he murdered) and set them to attack each other, Torygg will win most of the time, even if Ulfric shouts him down.

* Quattro Bajina in ''SuperRobotWarsZ'' is a variation on this, he's one of the best pilots in the game(He usually is. In fact, here he's probably second in ''Z'' only to [[SuperDimensionCenturyOrguss Kei]] ) but rather than getting his own top of the line mobile suit, he's got the OK Hyaku Shiki, which is not very good compared to the units you get late game. [[GameBreaker UNLESS you do what many do and put him in the]] ''Anime/TurnAGundam''.....

* The prequel novel to GuildWars 2 is about the FiveManBand [[spoiler: (well, it's five by the end of the book)]] who took down several [[TheDragon Champions]] of the [[EldritchAbomination Elder Dragons]], and nearly succeeded in taking out one Elder Dragon himself. In the game proper, the tutorial mission and lvl 1-20 story missions of each race feature the player fighting alongside one of the group's members, where they are marginally stronger or equally strong as the low level player.

* In Bleach: the 3rd Phantom, character levels are determined by when in the storyline they first appear. Since the 4 senior captains are encountered first (but don't join you until later), these legendary warriors have starting levels lower than captains hundreds of years their junior (though their high statistics make them more powerful, even at low level, than many other characters).

* In DefenseOfTheAncients, many of the heroes, according to their backstory, ought to be powerful beyond belief already, but for balance everyone starts at level 1.

* Garr in BreathOfFireIII. The story presents him as a extremely powerful warrior with skills way above the strongest warriors in the world. He always joins the annual Warior Tournament as a solo entry, while the standard is to register a team of three. Balio and Sunder, the duo of the previous two HopelessBossFight you have, tremble by just being stared hy him. Turns out he eventually joins your party in the third battle against the duo, and after killing them, casually remarks that he was eventually planning of disposing them. Turns out that, in-game wise, he's just the standard MightyGlacier character who is easily outranked by Ryu. He has a plethora of Fire spells but his magic is so low that even his strongest spells can't match the power of his standard attack.

* In VideoGame/TheLegendOfDragoon [[spoiler: Rose]] was one of the original Dragons, and arguable the strongest considering she was [[spoiler: the only one to survive the final battle]]. Since then she has had a massive time to train. So why is she no stronger then two (admittedly competent) soldiers when she joins the part after all that training?
* Surprisingly, Char Aznable....sorry, Quattro Bajina, in SuperRobotWarsZ is a variation on this, he's one of the best pilots in the game(He usually is. In fact, here he's probably second in Z only to [[SuperDimensionCenturyOrguss Kei]] ) but rather than getting his own top of the line mobile suit, he's got the OK Hyaku Shiki, which is not very good compared to the units you get late game. [[GameBreaker UNLESS you do what many do and put him in the]] ''Anime/TurnAGundam''.....

* Ulfric Stormcloak in ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim'', should the player pursue the Imperial questline. The game practically turns Ulfric into a king-slaying, [[LoudOfWar Thu'um throwing]], MemeticBadass, if dialogue is to be believed. Yet when an Imperial-Alligned Dragonborn storms his castle, his own [[TheDragon Dragon]] is harder to kill than him. [[hottip:+: The meta reason takes this trope literally. Up until patch 1.6, all [=NPCs=] were leveled based on when the player first encounters them. And Ulfric is the 3rd character you see in the opening sequence. So, you were essentially fighting what would be a challenging enemy, ''if you were at level 1''. Even with the patch to buff his health, his outfit possesses a whopping '''7''' armor rating (the weakest item in the weakest armor set in the game gives an 8), so any decently-skilled character will wipe the floor with him.]]

* Magus from ''VideoGame/ChronoTrigger'' is an infamous case, as he is an incredibly powerful dark wizard who fights your party frequently, but upon joining your party becomes a run-of-the-mill spellcaster who has to learn all of his Dark spells over again. This is justified by having the game's BigBad drain him of most of his power shortly before he joins the heroes, but we all know it's really because GoodIsDumb...[[CompletelyMissingThePoint and because the game's easier enough without having a character with six thousand health in a game where the health cap is nine hundred and ninety nine.]]
** This isn't so much a straight downgrade as an adjustment for being on the other side of HealthDamageAsymmetry; as a boss his spells do abut 150-200 damage, with his signature maxing out at 500. As a PC he's hitting the max damage cap with most of his stronger dark spells when everyone else is still stuck in the 500s range.

* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyX'' has this occur very blatantly in a plot-relevant {{Minigame}}: While the original members of your Blitzball team are certainly not the best players out there in the long run, the extremely-hyped, won-the-championship-many-years-in-a-row Luca Goers are a highly competent, tough to beat team... at level 1. They also have pretty much the worst stat growth in the game, rendering them ineffective by the time players' levels are in the teens. The first, story-mandated, match against them needn't be won, which is good because winning largely involves praying they never get the ball, but by the second or third league season, they shouldn't even pose a challenge. The Al Bhed Psyches, on the other hand, start and remain a formidable team, and their starting goalie is a prized recruit for players who seriously pursue Blitzball; however, the story never actually makes much of their abilities, even having them try to win by cheating in a {{cutscene}}-only match. They're also the first team the pathetic Aurochs defeat in ''ten years'' in the storyline, making it even more confusing once you play them normally.
** Another occurrence in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyX'' is Auron. The cutscenes present him as incredibly {{Badass}}, and he's already done the whole Pilgrimage thing once, so in all logic would have done the inherent LevelGrinding too. But since he's one of the main characters, he's the same level as everyone else. Of course [[spoiler: coming back as a revenant might have something to do with that.]]

* There are quite a few examples in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXII''. They include a sky pirate and his partner, who is described as a "master of weaponry" but is only two levels ahead of your character when you recruit him. Level 5.
** Fran is the oldest of the main cast, comes from a line of magical huntresses and can single-handedly take down several imperial soldiers during cutscenes. Which makes it all the more surprising that she is the statistically WORST party member, all-around. The game also makes a big deal in one boss battle about how she (and presumably other non-humans) go into feral rages when in areas shrouded in mist. The battle shows this by putting her in permanent Berserk status for the duration; later in the game, you go to similar areas but she gets no bonus whatsoever.

** Similarly, Jake Armitage is always your level on the two occasions where you use him as a party member, and comes with appropriate spells.

* The final mission in ''VideoGame/ShadowrunReturns'' has a famous character from the ''Shadowrun'' setting, [[spoiler:Harlequin, a 2000+ year old immortal elf MagicKnight who is single-handedly a match for an entire high-level team in the tabletop]], join your party. He's a rather underwhelming mixture of melee adept and mage, and while he'll pull his weight against your foes he has nothing on a good mage or street samurai damage-wise.

* The final mission in ''VideoGame/ShadowrunReturns'' has a famous character from the ''Shadowrun'' setting, [[spoiler:Harlequin, a 2000+ year old immortal elf MagicKnight]], join your party. He's a rather underwhelming mixture of melee adept and mage, and while he'll pull his weight against your foes he has nothing on a good mage or street samurai damage-wise.

* The ''FireEmblem'' series of tactical {{RPG}}s has more instances of this than can be conveniently listed. The reason is primarily a result of the games' mechanics -- since [[FinalDeath death is permanent]] in this series, late recruits exist only to give the careless and the inexperienced a fighting chance in the later levels. As a result, the experienced knights, powerful generals and legendary warriors of the world (who come later in the game) are almost invariably weaker than the rank novices, random mercenaries, and inexperienced students (who join early) raised to the same level. Almost without exception, a character who starts out at level 5 and is raised to level 15 will be far stronger than a character who starts at level 15, even if the character who starts at level 15 is renowned for his peerless strength and skill. (The only exceptions are GameBreaker units who join on the final chapter of most games.) Too many specific examples to list, but a few are Cecilia, Dayan, Juno, and Niime from ''[=FE6=]''; Vaida, Karel, Karla, Renault, and Marcus from ''[=FE7=]''; Innes and Duessel from ''[=FE8=]''; and Elincia's retainers from ''[=FE9=]''. There's actually a bit of FridgeBrilliance regarding them, as you'll read.

** It should at least be noted that he joins your party for a short while before this, and he's a good 40 levels higher than your party by that point (assuming the player isn't grinding). He drops to around the same level as you when his artes are sealed.

** Even at level 3, his four-hit combo is extremely powerful, and turns most fights at lower levels into cakewalks. Add the fact that the increase in damage from level 3 to 33 is generally at least 1000% and you realize that he was originally probably capable of [[Badass taking out the player's full-grown dragon]].

** Even at level 3, his four-hit combo is extremely powerful, and turns most fights at lower levels into cakewalks.

* Dias in ''StarOceanTheSecondStory'' is the classic version, a legendary swordsman who frequently calls party members weak. Once joining the party, he is quickly outclassed by Claude. In Dias' case, this trope was somewhat turned back; in the [[VideoGameRemake PSP remake]] he was vastly improved, and more on the level of badass the game makes him out to be.
** Also happens to Albel Nox in ''StarOceanTillTheEndOfTime'', who is level 29 ([[AllThereInTheManual according to the guide]]) when you fight him, and level 24 when you get him.
** And Ashlay in ''[[VideoGame/StarOcean1 Star Ocean]]'', who is a grizzled and aged veteran, swordsman known the world over, personal friend of most of the world's royalty... and joins at level 15, only to be very quickly overshadowed by Ratix.

* At Ostagar in ''VideoGame/DragonAgeOrigins]]'', it takes an ogre and several waves of darkspawn forces to finish [[TheObiWan Duncan]] off in a cutscene. In the Fade sequence, it takes you a couple of minutes at most (to kill Duncan). Justified in that [[spoiler:it's not really him, but a demon guarding the main boss of the level]].

* At Ostagar in ''[[DragonAge Dragon Age: Origins]]'', it takes an ogre and several waves of darkspawn forces to finish [[TheObiWan Duncan]] off in a cutscene. In the Fade, it takes you a couple of minutes at most. Justified in that [[spoiler: it's not really him, but a demon guarding the main boss of the level]].

* By Metal Gear Solid 2 Solid Snake is literally the most famous living soldier in the world for his famous one-man army infiltration of Outer Heaven, Zanzibarland and Shadow Moses. Everyone who hears his name is awestruck by him; whether it is as a hero or as a worthy challenge. And yet... when you actually get to fight alongside him for the first time ever when Raiden is trying to make his way up to the roof of Arsenal Gear he is completely unremarkable to the point of verging on TheLoad. To put it simply; if it wasn't for the rookie helping him out he would have been absolutely destroyed. And what makes this worse is that this is ''Solid'' Snake not ''Old'' Snake where he would have had the excuse of his failing health letting him down.

*** Sanaki from the same game. She's the head of an empire. You'd surely expect AuthorityEqualsAsskicking, right? Well actually - it's justifable why she's pretty fragile because well, she's a thirteen year old girl who has been sheltered her whole life. She actually turns into MagikarpPower.

* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyII'' has this problem with the final GuestStarPartyMember [[spoiler:Leon]]. Throughout the game he's hyped up as the Emperor's [[TheDragon Dragon]], yet when he joins you his HP and MP are rather pathetic compared to your party's at this point, with no magic skills whatsoever, and poor weapon skills as well. Leveling him up is fairly easy, but it's also rather tedious.