Always Someone Better / Video Games

There's Always Someone Better in Video Games.

---

• Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War has Larry "Solo Wing Pixy" Foulke, who starts off more famous/notorious than player character Cipher. Eventually, Cipher manages to become better, as demonstrated when Cipher in his F-15 squares off against Pixy in the Morgan and wins.
• Crash Bandicoot: Coco Bandicoot upgraded to one for Crash in Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time. While Crash is semi-competent in heroics, he is also clumsy, simple-minded and can't even speak. Coco, meanwhile, not only has all of Crash's abilities, but is more nimble with them and always lands on her feet, has a genius IQ, is a Gadgeteer Genius and can think up strategies on her own (while Crash mostly needs others to tell him what to do), and is popular with most of their teammates, while Crash borders on The Friend No Body Likes due to his comic relief role (even with Coco herself). Even Coco's Crash: On the Run! bio states she could very easily supplant Crash as the world's hero if she wanted to (it should be noted that this dynamic was much vaguer in the prior games; in some titles, Coco only thought she was the more competent sibling and screwed up just as often).
• Dark Souls:
  • Played rather tragically in the first game with Siegmeyer of Catarina's sidequest. In the world of Dark Souls, The Undead turn Hollow when they lose all sense of purpose and cross the Despair Event Horizon, and Siegmeyer keeps himself from Hollowing through his love of adventuring. He is encountered several times throughout the game, always stymied by some obstacle, and since he's a friendly character most players would of course be inclined to help him out. The problem is, after helping him several times, Siegmeyer realizes that he's basically relying on you to do everything for him and is barely making any progress on his own, and starts losing faith in his own skills. Finally, in a last-ditch attempt to both repay you for all of your help and to regain some of his badass cred, he attempts a Self-Sacrifice Scheme where he fights a group of Chaos Eaters by himself, allowing you to escape unharmed while he has a Dying Moment of Awesome. Most players would again be inclined to fight alongside him and ensure his survival, but the fact that you once again ended up saving him when he was trying to save you ends up being the straw that breaks the camel's back. He Hollows out in Ash Lake, and is put down by his own daughter.
  • A cut sidequest from the game involved Oscar, the knight who rescues you from your cell in the Undead Asylum at the beginning of the game and gives you your Estus Flask before kicking the bucket. In the cut content, he would have survived and escaped the Asylum with you, and help you out several more times throughout the game. Eventually, though, he'd realize that you fit the prophecy of the Chosen Undead better than he does, and since his dream is to be the Chosen Undead and fulfill the prophecy he takes this pretty hard. Unlike Siegmeyer, however, he doesn't Hollow out from despair but instead becomes Driven by Envy and would ally himself with whichever Primordial Serpent you didn't. He would appear at the end of the game after you defeat the Final Boss, declare himself the true Chosen Undead, call you a sucker who was tricked by your Serpent's lies, and challenge you to a duel.
• Devil May Cry: Despite all of Nero's impressive feats in Devil May Cry 4, it's made abundantly clear that he's no match for series protagonist Dante. Nero frequently struggles against enemies that Dante slaughters with ease, and when they do battle he only "wins" the first fight because Dante underestimated him, and even then Nero's brutal onslaught doesn't phase Dante at all. When they fight the second time, despite Nero's demonic power growing significantly he's easily tossed around by Dante who still wasn't taking him entirely seriously and just wanted Nero to cool his head. This becomes a sore spot for Nero in Devil May Cry 5 when he feels Dante dismissed his strength as deadweight, not realising he was trying to protect Nero from Vergil.
• Disgaea: Hour of Darkness: In the updated PSP port, Afternoon of Darkness, a male priest who keeps tracks of your records and information points this out to you, stating that not once should you ever forget this fact.
• Carver from Dragon Age II has issues with this. His father and twin sister are mages, his older sibling is either another mage or a superior fighter. If he survives the prologue he has to listen to everyone constantly praising Hawke, who finally goes and becomes the Champion of Kirkwall. If the Hero of Ferelden is Amell, Carver additionally has another mage family member, who became a hero by ending the Blight in just one year. Depending on his fate at the end of first act, either he will get over with this trope by forging his own path and keep aside his need to be liked in favor of protecting his older sibling who is constant magnet for trouble as a Grey Warden or his resentment of being overshadowed by Hawke will get worse as a Templar.
• Elden Ring has Juno and Diallos Hoslow. Juno was a true warrior who was favored to lead his house over his "all talk and no trousers" brother, and fights you honorably if you attack him as a Recusant target. Diallos has an understandable raging inferiority complex regarding his brother. If you progress Diallos's questline, his desire to prove himself gets him seduced into fighting for the Volcano Manor, the organization that targeted his brother for assassination and killed his servant. He eventually realizes what he's become and instead decides to devote himself to protecting Jarburg, later performing a Heroic Sacrifice to save the inhabitants.
• The Elder Scrolls:
  • In Morrowind, Edwinna Elbert, Stewardess of the Ald-Ruhn Mages Guild Hall, fancies herself as one of Tamriel's top researchers of the extinct Dwemer, particularly their mechanical centurions. Even without counting the mage lords of Great House Telvanni (who have had a thousand-plus year head start in their Dwemer research but who also don't bother to share their research outside of their private circles), there are several others with greater knowledge of Dwemer technology in Morrowind alone. The Rat in the Pot, a pub right across the street from Edwinna's Guild Hall, is guarded by Dwemer spider centurions maintained by Estoril of the Thieves Guild. In the Tribunal expansion, one can meet Ignatius Flaccus in Mourhold who builds Dwemer centurions as a hobby for his warbot arena. With the Bloodmoon expansion installed, Louis Beauchamp, who stands right outside the Ald-Ruhn Mages Guild doorway, built his own Dwemer airship.
  • As revealed in Oblivion's Shivering Isles expansion, the other Daedric Princes considered Jyggalag, the Prince of Order, to be this. Fearing his growing power, and also because they were jealous, they came together and cursed Jyggalag into becoming his antithesis: Sheogorath, Prince of Madness.
• Final Fantasy VII has Teioh, the black chocobo found in the chocobo races whose stats are always higher than your chocobo's, even going past the normal maximum stats. Not unbeatable, mind you, but still a challenge to win consistently against.
• This describes the relationship between Kieran and Oscar in Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance (and subsequently Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn). Kieran is a loud, obnoxious man who challenges Oscar at every possible moment, yet Oscar isn't even aware of it until he breaks Kieran out of prison. He is indifferent to Kieran's continued proclamations.
• Genshin Impact: Barbara grew up in Jean's shadow — everything Barbara can do, Jean can do it better. Part of the reason Barbara became an Idol Singer is because she wants to best Jean at something, and while she does not resent Jean for being better at many things and continues to love her despite their separation, she just wanted to find something she could be good at, too.
• Grandia II's protagonist Ryudo has always been a lesser swordsman than his brother Melfice. This becomes a considerable problem when the group meets the now psychotic brother at various points in the game, generally leading to a Hopeless Boss Fight or two before Ryudo is finally able to defeat him.
• Grand Theft Auto IV: The Pegorino crime family and its don Jimmy Pegorino want to get a seat on the Liberty City Mafia Commission, but nobody takes them seriously for being Incompetence, Inc. That Pegorino is nothing but a Miles Gloriosus speaks volumes. In both endings, the Pegorinos are essentially defunct with Pegorino being killed off by either Dmitri Rascalov (Deal) or Niko (Revenge).
• Rosh in Jedi Academy starts out like this: he has actual Force powers in the intro level, and in the tutorial he defeats the training remotes and finishes the course before you do (though even with the lightsaber training droid to slow you down, it's still a close finish). As early as two missions into the game, though, he starts grousing that Kyle might be holding him back to keep him from becoming too powerful, while Jaden, the Player Character, exponentially grows in his powers. Rosh eventually falls to the Dark Side partially because of this.
• Kingdom Hearts:
  • Riku is hinted to have always been able to outdo the main character Sora, something the latter admits at the end of Kingdom Hearts II. Unfortunately this gets a brutal Deconstruction throughout the first game for several reasons. Riku is a case of I Just Want to Be Special and grows jealous that Sora is The Chosen One because of the Keyblade going to him, even though both are able to wield it. The two are also in a Love Triangle with their mutual Childhood Friend Kairi, who loses her heart for most of the first game but only Riku is working to save her and he believes that Sora has abandoned them for his new friends. These factors lead to him embracing the powers of darkness and taking the Keyblade from Sora to achieve all of his goals but Sora is able to reclaim the Keyblade and fight him off. By this point The Dark Side Will Make You Forget has taken effect, leading Riku to on even more power from the darkness and allowing the Big Bad to take over his body while his heart is lost to darkness.
  • The later games see a Reconstruction of this trope. Riku has become The Atoner for all the damage he caused to his friends and is frequently working separately form the other heroes. His ability to outdo Sora as a warrior means he can deal with threats the former isn't ready for yet and proves to be a Spanner in the Works for the plans of the villains. By the end of Kingdom Hearts II he admits to how he sees Sora in this way compared to himself and goes on in the later games to acknowledge that Sora is the one they need while his capabilities are devoted to supporting him.
• In The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, despite his skill and renown among the Rito people, Revali always felt slighted at being chosen to only assist Link, who Revali feels is some random knight, yet is given a greater role solely because he possesses the Master Sword.
• Mass Effect 2:
  • Miranda Lawson has this feeling when it comes to Shepard. Miranda was designed by her father to be genetically perfect and this has caused her to have a severe case of Inferiority Superiority Complex. She sees Shepard as someone who has accomplished everything that she has and possibly more. In her mind, while Shepard's achievements come from his/her incredible skill, charisma, hard work, and determination, her own accomplishments only come from how she was genetically designed. She can start getting over this if Shepard helps her see past it.
  • There are also subtle hints, particularly in 2, that Garrus feels this way towards Shepard, though he never lets it get in the way of their close friendship or more. In fact, it's one of the reasons why he has so much respect for Shepard and often looks to him/her for advice and inspiration. The Shadow Broker's dossier says that under Shepard, he'll probably never realize his full potential.
  • The reason why Garrus is a downplayed version of this trope unlike Miranda is because of the differences of their culture: turian culture focuses on unity and collectivism which clashes on the individualistic aspect of human culture. While Garrus feels inferior to Shepard, he is more focused on getting results of their goal based on their shared beliefs, thus wouldn't mind following Shepard and will always choose his friendship/relationship with them more than his desire to be personally acknowledged. Not to mention their personality differences and how their respective Character Development is different that of the other. While Miranda struggles to see her value and making her reassert her identity beyond just a genetic perfection which she can only gets the credit for her failures and not her achievements (that she chooses to do with her enhancements), Garrus struggles about overcoming his extremes in regards to morality and learns how to make compromises.
• Mega Man: Dr. Wily has always been second to Dr. Light, which is the main reason why he turned evil in the first place. He's the four years consecutive runner-up of the LIT Manual Design Contest. He has won the Silver prize at the worldwide engineering grand prix and was a nominee for the Nobel Prize in Physics. Guess who won all of these.
• Metroid Dread: After nearly the entire series portrays Samus as an unstoppable badass warrior who can kill entire planets of enemies on her own, it's a surprise in Dread that it features someone who is actually a better fighter than she is, and whom she just cannot match: the Big Bad, Raven Beak. Even in the final boss battle against him, he's clearly not being pushed to his limits, and when the fight ends, he just grabs Samus's throat in an instant and comes within a hairsbreadth of choking her to death. She only survives (and kills Raven Beak) because her Metroid powers suddenly activated at the last second, surprising them both.
• Persona:
  • A lot of the animosity between Makoto and Junpei in Persona 3 is specifically attributed to the latter's jealousy of the former's talents.
  • In Persona 4, at the end of his Social Link Yosuke admits to Yu that at first, deep down he was jealous of him for being so much more sociable and talented than him despite them coming from similar backgrounds.
  • The Tower Social Link in 4 revolves around Shu, a middle schooler being tutored by Yu who's pressured by his well-meaning Education Mama to be the best. He developed an inferiority complex after the new transfer student at his school ended up being smarter and cooler than him, and he got bullied once he no longer had the status of being the smartest. With Yu's help he manages to reconcile with his mother and grow out of it.
  • Persona 5: After the first phase of their boss fight, the traitor's rant against the Phantom Thieves makes it clear that they're jealous of everything Joker has been able to accomplish, and that they just want to be acknowledged for their talents. Even though Joker tries to talk sense into them, it doesn't take, and the traitor just attacks again while undergoing a Villainous Breakdown.
    Akechi: Why am I inferior to you...!? I was extremely particular about my life, my grades, my public image, so someone would want me around! [...] You're just some criminal trash living in an attic! So how...!? How does someone like you have things I don't!? How can such a worthless piece of trash be more special than me!?
  • Persona 5 Royal: Kasumi Yoshizawa was always this to her sister Sumire before the latter died, which gave Sumire a fairly bad inferiority complex.
• Pokémon:
  • Played with in regards to your rival in Pokémon Red and Blue. He's always a step (or more) ahead of you, getting to places and making noteworthy achievements much faster than you can. For example, he boasts about having captured 40 Pokémon when you meet him on the S.S. Anne, at which point the player has probably caught barely half that number. ^note It is possible to have that many caught by that point, but it requires a lot of level grinding to evolve your team, or outside trading. However, the player winds up turning the trope right back on his head by winning every single battle you have with him ^note except possibly the very first one, the only time in the game where losing to him still progresses the story, culminating in you yanking the title of Champion out from under him within hours — or possibly even minutes — of him acquiring it. By the time of Pokémon Gold and Silver, he's mellowed out enough that he's able to admit that ultimately, Red (the player character) wound up being this trope to him, rather than the other way around as he initially believed.
  • Lance, who, depending on whether you're playing Red/Blue/Yellow or Gold/Silver/Crystal, is either the fourth Elite Four member or the Champion, is this to his cousin Clair, the eighth Gym Leader in Johto.
  • Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire gives you the chance to be your rival's Someone Better. The rival is easily flustered, expects to lose most battles with you, and when the time comes to face the Elite Four and the Champion, which anyone who's played a Pokémon game before expects to be your rival, it's not him/her. It's Steven. Your rival does rush in after it's all over to offer advice, but ends up just standing there in awe of the fact that you won. Then he/she has to stay behind because only Champions are allowed past a certain point.
  • You're this once again to both of your rivals in Pokémon Black and White. Your first rival, Bianca, chooses the starter that's weak to what you picked, doesn't seem to know what she's doing sometimes and usually just accepts that she's probably the weakest of the three of you. Your other rival, Cheren, chooses the starter with an advantage over yours (may actually beat you in your first battle) but from then on, continues to lose to you, which he chooses to challenge you after almost every goddamn Gym Battle, usually lamenting his loss with "why are you so much better than me?"
  • You become this even further in Pokémon X and Y to the point that you could make an argument that you're more like the Gen I Rival than the actual protagonist. You're constantly one step ahead of your rival, you gain access to Mega Evolution before him/her, you beat them at every single turn, you catch the Legendary Pokémon, you become Champion and post game, when the rival comes back now equipped with Mega Evolution access of his/her own, you still beat them. All the while, the rival character never becomes angry or bitter and is only mildly frustrated at the inability to catch up.
  • Once again, the player character ends up being one of these in Pokémon Sun and Moon, and the parallels to the Gen I Rival are even more pronounced. Not only will you always be a step ahead of Hau in terms of completing the island trials, but you'll actually end up with the starter that's strong against his. But the greatest parallel is after you've become the Champion and have to defend your title. Remember how in Red and Blue you fought your way through the Elite Four only to find that your rival had beaten you to it? This time, it happens again, only this time you're the one who got there first. The first Title Defense Battle is always against Hau. He stays upbeat for the most part, but as you continued to defeat him, he gets visibly more frustrated at the fact that he can't beat you. In Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, Hau ends up fighting you for the title of Champion instead of Professor Kukui. Despite giving everything he's got, you still best Hau.
• Sonic the Hedgehog:
  • Sonic is this to Dr. Eggman, defeating him and foiling his plans for world conquest on an almost daily basis.
  • Metal Sonic was created to be this to Sonic, yet it gets inverted by Sonic defeating him every single time they fight, which drives Metal nuts and fuels his Inferiority Superiority Complex.
  • Shadow is this to Infinite in Sonic Forces. Shadow's Curb-Stomp Battle against Infinite triggered the latter's Inferiority Superiority Complex, prompting him to redouble his efforts as Dr. Eggman's enforcer, be Reforged into a Minion, and go on a rampage around the world. Oops.
• Dias Flac is this to Claude in Star Ocean: The Second Story: A better swordsman, and another love interest for Rena (whom he has history with — Claude just showed up). Ultimately subverted in Rena's story, since when he joins your party Claude eventually surpasses him.
• This is the root of Hien's issues in Strider 2, as he can't just deal with the fact that his friend Hiryu has reached the greatest honors in the organization at a young age while he Can't Catch Up. Hien's betrayal to join the Grandmaster partly stems from this, but he still cares enough about Hiryu to attempt to talk him out of fighting.
• Sword of Paladin: Nade believes he's lagging behind Alex as a swordsman, especially when the latter can use Lancelot's Million Thrust without a skill gem, which becomes a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy that causes him to lack the confidence needed to improve himself. This gets flipped around when Nade becomes the Paladin and manages to kill Berienstahl, Alex's revenge target, causing Alex to feel like he's the one falling behind. While Alex has more wins against Nade under his belt, the two playable duels against Alex end in his defeat.
• In the reboot of Syndicate, Eurocorp is this to the multiplayer characters' syndicate Wulf Western. Tooltips for much of their equipment reveals that it was imperfectly replicated from Eurocorp's.
• Tales Series:
  • Essentially Yuri's relationship with his best friend Flynn in Tales of Vesperia. They joined the knights together, but while Yuri dropped out after less than a year Flynn rises to Commandant by the end of the game. He also regularly beats Yuri in combat. A big part of the story is Yuri trying to find his own thing and getting out from under Flynn's shadow, but you can also resolve the tension by beating the crap out of Flynn as an endgame Duel Boss.
  • Also a minor plot point in Tales of Graces after the timeskip when Hubert first returns to Lhant and briefly takes it over. Hubert challenges Asbel — the Lord by birthright — to a fight, and he's impossible to defeat. Then Hubert rubs his superior military training in Asbel's face, declares himself to be the rightful ruler of Lhant, and exiles his brother from the city.
• Touhou Project:
  • The Moriya shrine. The heroine, Reimu Hakurei, is a miko who is jaded, lazy, sharp-tongued, and surrounded by Youkai friends and hang-ons that she was supposed to be exterminating. She's also completely broke because none of the humans want to venture into the shrine of a youkai exorcist when the shrine is full of partying youkai. Enter Sanae, an apparently kind and cheerful, if naive, foil to Reimu's Deadpan Snarker personality, whose shrine grows to be extremely popular in a short time and who later becomes a playable character when she tries her hand at Reimu's job. However, the game in which the rivals are introduced is not this, as the Moriyas take aggressive action against Reimu without understanding Gensokyo's political climate or her shrine's status as a Cosmic Keystone.
  • In general, Reimu is this to Marisa, along with Hard Work Hardly Works. Marisa doesn't mind as much, since she can still beat everybody else.
• Yakuza: Nishikiyama's betrayal of Kiryu after the Time Skip in the first game is mostly driven by his frustration at always being in Kiryu's shadow. Nishiki is a strong fighter and fairly street smart- he's just not Kiryu, who had a meteoritic rise through the ranks and was on the verge of becoming a Patriarch while Nishiki (who joined the Yakuza at the same time as Kiryu) is relegated to second fiddle. Even after he got his own family, Nishiki had to deal with uppity underlings who said to his face they would rather work for Kiryu (who, at this point, is in jail for a murder Nishiki committed) than him. And the final nail in the coffin is that their mutual childhood friend, Yumi, loves Kiryu and won't give Nishiki the time of day. All this combined leaves Nishiki Driven by Envy, and his scheming to finally one-up Kiryu leads to a civil war within the Tojo Clan.

---