History Main / PurposelyOverpowered

** ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsIII'' brings back [[spoiler: [[CloneAngst Roxas]]]], who was notorious in the previous games for looking extremely cool in cutscenes and being a [[ThatOneBoss difficult boss fight]] whenever he was your opponent, but getting heavily nerfed to Sora's level of strength when playable. This time he’s your party member for one boss battle. He comes with a full array of powers that he used in his boss fight form, insane damage output putting Sora's to shame, and INVINCIBILITY! The reason for this is to make the payoff for his [[CameBackStrong return]] all the more triumphant, plus [[CatharsisFactor making it satisfying]] to see him pummel [[spoiler:Saix]], the man who most directly made his life terrible . Many players say standing back and watching [[spoiler:Roxas]] take down the boss by himself as a completely viable strategy. The ''Re:Mind'' DLC also makes him playable, so you can pummel [[spoiler:Saix]] yourself.

** ''VideoGame/Splatoon2'': Random Loadout Salmon Runs allow players to get random weapons from any available in the mode. That means you can get a ScrappyWeapon... or you can get one of four rare Grizzco weapons. The Grizzco Blaster has an absurdly fast fire rate, like it's on the hardest crack cocaine. Its power and ink efficiency leave a bit to be desired, but anything in front of its users (yes, you can get ''multiple'' Grizzco Blasters in a single round) that takes damage from normal weapons is gone in one second tops, as is everything right around it. The Grizzco Brella has a far faster fire rate and much wider area of attack than any other Brella weapon (though it trades off by not having a shield). The Grizzco Charger will pierce lines of Chum and pulverizing bosses as long as you have a steady aim and a quick trigger finger (which is offset by the weapon's dreadful ink consumption). And the Grizzco Slosher can [[ArmorPiercingAttack bypass any inkproof armor the Salmonids can muster]], saving you the trouble of having to AttackItsWeakPoint at the cost of it being a PainfullySlowProjectile and using up 25% of your ink tank for each shot. The weapons are implied to be entirely illegal; they certainly would violate the rules of the Turf War sports that serve as the main game mode.
** ''VideoGame/Splatoon3'' introduces to the Grizzco lineup the Grizzco Stringer, a bow that shoots an absurd ''nine'' projectiles at once across a wide area. Not only can it clear out hordes of smaller Salmonids easily but at close range it can deal up to ''a thousand points of damage'', enough to instantly drop any boss. Against King Salmonids the user can easily ignore using their egg cannon in favor of spamming charged shots since the target is so big you're guaranteed to hit most, if not all bolts on him for max damage. The only thing holding it back is its high ink consumption requiring frequent pauses to refill, but with damage and coverage so high it's worth the trade.

-->--'''{{Lets Play}}er Nakar''', on ''VideoGame/UltimaV'' [[https://lparchive.org/Ultima-4-5-and-6/Update%2020/]]

** The Allied Harbinger is a stupidly-tough gunship that self-heals and fires mini-nukes and can switch to an AntiInfantry chaingun, while the Futuretank is essentially an HK-Tank from {{Film/Terminator}}, an (also self-healing) TankTreadMecha firing massive AoE energy bursts.

* Most of the upgrades in ''VideoGame/StarcraftIIWingsOfLiberty'''s campaign mode, with the most ridiculous probably being the [[TankGoodness Siege Tank]] upgrade for almost double damage to the primary target -- if it isn't the Marauder upgrade that slows, not just the primary target as in multiplayer, but everything ''around'' it -- or perhaps the Battlecruiser's HerdHittingAttack or DeflectorShields. Suffice to say, this level of power is absolutely necessary for [[NintendoHard the final missions]].
** ''VideoGame/StarcraftIIHeartOfTheSwarm'' is no different in this regard. How do [[StoneWall self-resurrecting Ultralisks]] sound? Zerglings that can [[DungeonBypass jump over walls]]? ''[[ActionBomb Banelings]]'' that can jump over walls? And that's not counting Kerrigan herself, a veritable OneWomanArmy who can wipe the floor with an entire base if fully empowered. All of this is meant to siege Korhal, ''the Capital Planet of the Terran Dominion itself''.
** ''VideoGame/StarcraftIILegacyOfTheVoid'' has its fair share of broken units as well. Zealots that revive themselves after dying, Sentries that boost the damage output of your other units, Phoenixes that can lift ''two'' units into firing range ''and can fire on them on their own''. The campaign also brings back the Dark Archon from the first game. Not only is their MindControl ability intact, it no longer removes all of the Archon's shields. And if you're being swarmed by a horde of weak units that aren't worth Mind Controlling individually? Cast Confusion on the lot of them and watch as all those Zerglings tear each other apart. To say nothing of the building upgrades; can we say "construct '''any''' unit to '''any''' location with pylon power"? [[spoiler:The final boss is an Elder God, and you're going to need all of the above]].

* The final boss characters in ''VideoGame/AdvanceWars 2'' and ''Days of Ruin'', Sturm and Caulder/Stolos, are very challenging (the latter is in fact outright BANNED from Wi-Fi play, while people agreed to use the former only in 2 vs 1 matches). Sturm in the first game and Von Bolt from ''Dual Strike'', meanwhile, are not.[[note]]It is actually a case of TheComputerIsACheatingBastard with Sturm in the first game. The Sturm you face as the final boss has 30% higher attack but 20% lower defense and a movement cost of 1 on any terrain. The Sturm you unlock, however, has 20% ''lower'' attack and 20% higher defense, making him a lot less powerful, which is a nasty kick to the balls for players who go through hell warmed over to unlock him ''thinking they are getting a wickedly powerful character to play with.'' That said, he's still considered to be very good, since he still has the movement-cost removal, making his units very fast and hard to take down (especially given the mechanics of defense boosts).[[/note]]
** There's also Hachi, who has a permanent 10% discount on all units built and has zero drawbacks. His base power grants him a 50% discount on all units, which can let him pump out a lot of powerful units like Medium Tanks and Neotanks. Hachi's super CO power not only retains the 50% discount, but it also lets him build units on ''any city under his control'', which grants him a massive advantage of being able to build without needing a base, seaport, or airport, which are generally far fewer in number compared to cities.

* ''VideoGame/StarControlII'' has the Chmmr Avatar. Max HP and energy. Ridiculous energy-to-damage efficiency (it can kill any ship with only half of its energy stockpile). Incredible energy regeneration. 3 orbiting satellites that intercept lots of incoming fire. For a capital ship, it is very fast. The only downside is that its primary weapon is short ranged, but that's OK because it has a ''tractor beam'' as its secondary.

* With only a few exceptions, SSR-rank shikigami in ''VideoGame/{{Onmyoji}}'' are just flat-out better than those of lesser ranks whenever there's any overlap in their roles. The only R or SR-rank shikis that have any purpose in the game once you have an SSR equivalent are those who fulfill unique roles that no SSR covers (yet) such as accelerators (e.g Yamausagi which is R, or Kamaitachi which is SR). The only balancing factor for [=SSRs=] is [[PowerEqualsRarity how rare they are to get]] and [[DifficultButAwesome how hard it is to level up their skills]] (which is often essential for them to perform their role properly). For perhaps the most-blatant example, compare the R healer Kusa/Hotarugusa to the SSR healer Hana/Kachōfūgetsu. Kusa has a basic attack that heals herself for 30% of the damage she does, a passive that causes her to automatically recover a percentage of the damage done to her by enemy attacks, and an ability that heals her entire team based on her attack, giving them a mark which will also cause them to heal on subsequent turns and negate some incoming indirect damage. Hana has a basic attack that hits multiple times and has a % chance of healing her injured teammates based on her HP, a passive which gives her a chance of accelerating her speed to let her take more actions and also negate crowd control effects on her team, and a teamwide heal that heals the entire team based on her HP for 3 consecutive turns. Hana also has one of the highest HP pools in the game (while Kusa's attack, which her healing is based on, is unimpressive) so Hana will not only heal more but is simply much harder to bring down, while Kusa gets ripped to shreds because of her low HP, which she's not encouraged to stack. Hana is usually built as a counterattack shiki, allowing her to automatically heal her team whenever she's attacked, sometimes negating enemy attacks altogether. Even the fact that Hana's Fragrant Flowers costs 1 more orb to cast than Kusa's Healing Light doesn't change the fact that Hana heals her team for free ''almost every time she attacks.'' The two aren't even ''comparable'' in power, just because Kusa is a mere R, while Hana is an SSR.

** In ''VideoGame/SilentHill3'', the Heather Beam is unlocked after defeating 333 monsters across any number of playthroughs. It's automatically equipped when you have no other weapons equipped, and it involves Heather [[EyeBeams firing homing energy blasts out of her eyes]]. While it has unlimited ammo thanks to its use being tied to Heather's recharging stamina, it's not a particularly powerful weapon on its own. However, when paired with the [[MagicalGirl Princess Heart outfit]] that's unlocked by beating a NewGamePlus, it becomes the Sexy Beam with considerably beefed-up power and far more projectiles fired such that it can [[CycleOfHurting stunlock]] enemies, as well as a SecondaryFire that sees her shoot even more powerful laser beams. The Sexy Beam takes what had been a horror game about a teenage girl tormented by a ReligionOfEvil and the demons in her past and turns it into a game about a MagicalGirlWarrior who effortlessly plows through them all.

** ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsIII'' brings back [[spoiler: [[CloningBlues Roxas]]]], who was notorious in the previous games for looking extremely cool in cutscenes and being a [[ThatOneBoss difficult boss fight]] whenever he was your opponent, but getting heavily nerfed to Sora's level of strength when playable. This time he’s your party member for one boss battle. He comes with a full array of powers that he used in his boss fight form, insane damage output putting Sora's to shame, and INVINCIBILITY! The reason for this is to make the payoff for his [[CameBackStrong return]] all the more triumphant, plus [[CatharsisFactor making it satisfying]] to see him pummel [[spoiler:Saix]], the man who most directly made his life terrible . Many players say standing back and watching [[spoiler:Roxas]] take down the boss by himself as a completely viable strategy. The ''Re:Mind'' DLC also makes him playable, so you can pummel [[spoiler:Saix]] yourself.

* Some VideoGame/{{LEGO Adaptation Game|}}s have unlockable features of this nature that are all sold for exorbitant amounts of studs, often making them available only to those that are doing the post-game content or use cheats; the Force ghost versions of Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Yoda in ''VideoGame/LEGOStarWars II: The Original Trilogy'' cost 1,000,000 studs or more, but as Force ghosts are invulnerable to harm and invisible to all enemies, the Accio spell in ''VideoGame/LEGOHarryPotter'' costs 4,000,000 studs but allows you to bypass cauldron puzzles by pulling the ingredients towards you, and the Super Speeders cheat in ''LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone Wars'' costs '''40,000,000''' studs, but allows you to cheese ground battle missions by making the standard Republic and CIS speeders able to destroy gold and silver objects that ordinarily require vehicles equipped with lasers or explosives.

* ''VideoGame/DragonQuestIV: Chapters of the Chosen'' lets you play as [[spoiler:Psaro]] when you beat the game once, then backtrack to get a certain item and perform a certain event, then reach the place where you defeated him the first time. He joins your party at a starting level of 35, not so impressive sounding considering you should be level 45-50 when you beat the game... and yet he still manages to outperform your party at every turn. He also learns many powerful skills when leveled up, [[AdaptationalEarlyAppearance many of which weren't initially seen until the latter games in the series.]] Which makes perfect sense, given that [[spoiler:you've just recruited ''the (former) BigBad'', an infamously NintendoHard MarathonBoss, into your party]].
* In ''VideoGame/DragonQuestV'', Pankraz, your father, demonstrates his strength when following him in the world map in the beginning of the game and in a later dungeon. You're also awarded with exp. He later becomes less physically dominating: he's level 20 and has good equipment (including his awesome sword), but you're doing damage almost on par with him at level 12, and your HP is getting close to his at that level as well. You'll never get to make two moves per turn like he does, though.
* ''VideoGame/DragonQuestVI'': The Hero class takes a while to get, requiring mastery of almost every other class, but once you do it hits hards ''and'' regenerates health every turn.

* ''Everything'' in ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerRedAlert3 Uprising'', which is why there's no multiplayer mode. The grand prize probably goes to the Rising Sun Gigafortress: a massive, self-aware battleship with several battleship guns and several rocket pods (each as powerful as a separate unit in their own right) that can transform into a flying artillery piece that takes out everything.
** Also, the campaign-only Shogun Executioner from vanilla ''Red Alert 3'', a giant mech with three instant-killing swords that can trample buildings to death. It fears only artillery, and is available only in two campaign missions. In one, it's the ''only'' unit the primary player fields.

* ''VideoGame/{{Terraria}}'' has the Zenith, a melee weapon with huge range that deals rapid damage to everything and even has a lock-on ability to ensure that nothing opposing its user gets out alive. It can kill the final boss of the game in seconds on the hardest difficulty. However, getting it requires, among many other things, killing said final boss at least twice, and that's if the player gets ''highly'' lucky with drops. It also has the largest and most complex crafting tree out of any item in the game. By the time it's assembled, there's barely anything left in the game to use it on, save for maybe reaching the final wave of the Frost Moon, clearing the highest-tier Old One's Army, and beating daytime Empress of Light. Most of the other optional challenges in the game could be easily beaten with gear that's weaker and easier to get than the Zenith.

* In ''VideoGame/MagicalBattleArena'', if you hold down a button while selecting [[{{LightNovel/Slayers}} Lina Inverse]] she will become the Lord of Nightmares. Let me repeat that, the ''[[RealityWarper Lord of]] [[EldritchAbomination Nightmares]]''. She has absurdly high attack power and is immune to damage, but automatically loses after a set period of time.

** To a lesser extent, [[LightNovel/TheGardenOfSinners Ryougi Shiki]] as well. Her Void personality is (at least [[BadassBoast boasting]] to be) able to kill anything and everything under the sun, including {{God}}. [[spoiler:She can't kill Crimson Moon.]]

* ''VideoGame/MountAndBlade'' has a couple cases. One: Cavalry. A knight riding a heavy horse is nigh impossible to take down, and a horse archer will whittle down your troops no problem. This happens because that's just how things went down in medieval times, with cavalry taking down infantry if the battlefield wasn't working against them. And two: nordic Huscarls. Twenty of these guys packed into a tight formation essentially become a steel and flesh threshing machine whose answer to anything is an axe to the face, be it thrown or swung. The reason? Simple: Nords don't have cavalry, and they have to keep up with the above somehow (Rhodoks don't have much cavalry either, but they have [[BladeOnAStick lots and lots of pikes]] to counter that).

** ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil4'' is full of numerous examples of excellent unlockable NewGamePlus weapons, one or two of them accumulated as bonus content from various re-releases. Perhaps the most powerful of them is the Wii version of the PRL. When originally added to the [=PS2=] port of the game, the gun was effectively a source of infinite flash grenades when fired without charging, and when charged, it was an insta-kill laser blast. When the game was ported to the Wii, however, it was beefed up so that its charged attack would fire ''many'' beams in one blast, each of which would auto-target a particular enemy and kill it. The end result was that ''everything in front of you'' would die in one charged shot, with even the enemies halfway across the map getting sniped down.
** ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil4Remake'' has numerous unlockables, the hardest of which is the "Cat Ears" (unlocked by clearing Professional Difficulty on a new save which means no new game+ inventory, doing so under five-and-a-half hours total, and using 15 or less saves). Given this is the hardest task the game has to offer, it is unsurprising that it grants the absolute best reward: infinite ammo for all ammo types. By the time you get it, you've probably mastered the majority of the game and thus can just use it for fun.

* Good luck beating the {{Superbosses}} in ''VideoGame/WildArms2'' without [[SuperpoweredEvilSide Knight Blazer]].

* The final boss characters in ''VideoGame/AdvanceWars 2'' and ''Days of Ruin'', Sturm and Caulder/Stolos, are very challenging (the latter is in fact outright BANNED from Wi-Fi play, while peopled agree to use the former only in 2 vs 1 matches). Sturm in the first game and Von Bolt from ''Dual Strike'', meanwhile, are not.[[note]]It is actually a case of TheComputerIsACheatingBastard with Sturm in the first game. The Sturm you face as the final boss has 30% higher attack but 20% lower defense and a movement cost of 1 on any terrain. The Sturm you unlock, however, has 20% ''lower'' attack and 20% higher defense, making him a lot less powerful, which is a nasty kick to the balls for players who go through hell warmed over to unlock him ''thinking they are getting a wickedly powerful character to play with.'' That said, he's still considered to be very good, since he still has the movement-cost removal, making his units very fast and hard to take down (especially given the mechanics of defense boosts).[[/note]]

[[folder:Beat 'Em Up]]

** The event-exclusive Arceus is worth a mention, as it is fearsome, even when compared to other terrific Pokémon -- one of the only mons that can reasonably expect to come even close to matching it is Mewtwo. (Especially if Mewtwo has [[SuperMode Mega Evolved]].) It not only has [[LightningBruiser 120 in every base stat]], but can use Plate items to change its type to anything it wants. On top of the normal reason, the reason for Arceus' sheer power is because it is heavily implied to be the creator deity of the Pokémon universe -- its signature move is even called Judgment.

[[folder:Shoot 'Em Up]]

* ''VideoGame/PeretEmHeruForThePrisoners'': Should you recruit him, [[ImmoralJournalist Soji Mizumi]] is a very powerful teammate, with two skills that inflict helpful status effects and another that can potentially OneHitKill enemies. The drawback is that Mizumi is [[HateSink so much of an absolute cad]], some players absolutely cannot stomach working with him. [[spoiler:Or [[RefuseToRescueTheDisliked saving his life]], for that matter]].

** The [[HumongousMecha Steel Titan]] can only be used for a short time but it makes mincemeat out of everything it comes across. Justified in-game as being AncientTechnology revered at the time as a ''god''.

** [[spoiler:[[SecretCharacter The Egg Dragon]]]] in ''VideoGame/LufiaTheLegendReturns'' has 999 in every stat, even when RestartAtLevelOne kicks in in the Ancient Cave.

* ''Anime/YuGiOhArcV'': While {{Big Bad}}s normally have {{Story Breaker Power}}s because they're the FinalBoss, Z-ARC is the only one whose deck is purposely broken because he's afraid of losing, and therefore has a lot of cards that will ensure him to not lose at all.