History Main / CutscenePowerToTheMax

* ''VideoGame/TombRaiderI'' and ''VideoGame/TombRaiderAnniversary''. Lara can survive a huge fall in an early cutscene that would naturally cause instant bone-shattering death when tried in-game (proven in the remake, in which this area is playable just before the cutscene).
** In a cutscene towards the end of ''Anniversary'' Lara reaches a ledge by essentially grappling on nothing, despite it being very established by then that it could only work on specific points, this is made worse by the fact that the original game already provided a plausible (within Lara capabilities) ending to this sequence.

* ''VideoGame/TalesOfSymphonia'':
** In a short cutscene that takes place in the King's castle in Meltokio, Lloyd takes out a huge, heavily armed Imperial Guard soldier who happens to be looking the other way by saying "Sorry about this!" and ''punching him in the back''. When you encounter such guards in-game, they are worthy foes that require quite a bit of damage before going down. Said guards are also an example of CutsceneIncompetence.
** One boss' signature attack is to fire energy bolts at you and naturally he does this as his base attack during his fight. Soon after losing the battle, he appears in the following cutscene sneaking up on the heroes and points his blaster at one of the characters. Another character sees this and immediately dives in the way to save them. It is implied that his one shot was potentially fatal while you could easily take about a dozen of them in battle without healing. I guess while crawling up from his defeat he "[[WesternAnimation/ToyStory1 Set his laser from stun... to kill.]]"
** Two of the party members have wings and can fly... in cutscenes. During gameplay they are just as restricted by the {{Insurmountable Waist Height Fence}}s as everyone else.
** Genis' weakest spell, Fire Ball, is always highly effective in cutscenes, even on the FinalBoss. Lloyd's [[RazorWind Demon Fang]] is also much better in cutscenes than in-game.
** Sheena can casually [[SummonMagic summon 4 summon spirits]] at once in cutscenes. In gameplay you get you summon one and even that's only as a LimitBreak and with high {{Mana}} cost.
** Regal displays this...semi-frequently. In both ''VideoGame/TalesOfSymphonia'' and [[VideoGame/TalesOfSymphoniaDawnOfTheNewWorld the sequel]] Regal fires very large [[KamehameHadoken energy beams]] that could rival [[Franchise/StreetFighter Ryu]] or [[Franchise/DragonBall Goku's]], but only when the party is in tight situations in the story. This is justified in-universe in that he swore to never use his hands to fight another living being again.
* In ''VideoGame/TalesOfSymphoniaDawnOfTheNewWorld'', the first time the protagonists encounter Lloyd, [[CombatMedic Marta]] is pretty evenly matched with him in the cutscene, trading blow for blow. After that cutscene ends, you fight Lloyd for real...and he outclasses your characters at that point so badly it's pretty much a SingleStrokeBattle. There ''is'' a way to beat him, but it requires NewGamePlus benefits and emphatically does ''not'' involve using Marta.
* ''VideoGame/TalesOfTheAbyss'':
** The main character, Luke, kills a fully-armored, heavily-trained soldier with a wooden training sword. ''By accident.''
** Tear, at various points, puts an entire house to sleep, slits a man's throat with a throwing knife, and takes a hit for someone with much higher defense. In battle, the sleep spell only affects one target, her knife based attacks are pitifully weak, and her defense is among the lowest in the party. She's still very good, just not at what the cutscenes would suggest.
* In ''VideoGame/TalesOfVesperia'', during one cutscene, Yuri and Flynn take out ten mooks in seconds. Yuri can knock out mooks by ''throwing pebbles'' at them in cutscenes. Mooks wearing ''helmets''.
* ''VideoGame/TalesOfXillia2'' has an odd example of this where [[spoiler: alternate Julius]] gives Ludger and Jude a beatdown that leaves them both on the floor in the pre-battle cutscene. It gives off the vibe you'd get from a HopelessBossFight, but it's required that you win [[TheBattleDidntCount (And you don't end up losing afterward, either).]]
* Justified in ''VideoGame/TalesOfBerseria''. Despite being a noncombatant and claiming she can't fight, Magilou nonetheless manages to blow away a room full of Exorcists with a single spell in a cutscene. However, when she joins the party properly, she really is capable of taking mid-game enemies like that out in a spell or two. The reason she doesn't fight earlier was because she was missing her Malak, so her spells would do nothing to the daemons the party spend nearly all their time fighting. [[YouDidntAsk Not bothering to clarify this earlier]] is exactly the sort of half-truth she's notorious for.

[[folder: Non-Video Game Examples]]

*** The trope is true though during the final boss fight, where [[spoiler:Batman sprays Explosive Gel over his fist to power up his punch. Though it is explained why he can't do this normally as he severely injured his arm doing that in said cut scene]].

* Dante from the ''VideoGame/DevilMayCry'' series is fairly intimidating even during normal gameplay. However, his powers become almost absurd in any cutscene sequence, and especially ridiculous in the third installment. His feats include his getting staked to the ground by his own sword and calmly pulling himself up ''through'' the blade (and the huge ass wickedly pointy ''crossguard''!), shrugging off horrific injuries to [[LodgedBladeRecycling kill his enemies with the pieces of their own weapons]] embedded in his body, and [[HighSpeedMissileDodge casually surfing on a missile]]. Furthermore, he kills enemies with single attacks, a feat that cannot be replicated in-game except by difficult-to-use moves. His single-shot killing of enemies is most certainly '''not''' replicable in-game (semi-joke [[OneHitPointWonder "Heaven or Hell" mode]] aside). One exception is when Dante rides a fallen enemy like a skateboard while shooting other enemies, something he can also do in gameplay. Taken to the logical extreme, in that [[MemeticMutation nothing can beat Cutscene Dante]], except maybe Franchise/{{Batman}} if he has time to plan.
** In the LimitedSpecialCollectorsUltimateEdition of ''VideoGame/DevilMayCry3DantesAwakening'', Vergil himself is the WORST offender. Also happens to be OverratedAndUnderleveled when you consider the fact that despite having access to all of his weapons from the start, you STILL need to purchase his stronger moves and many of them from his [[SuperMode Devil Trigger]] like the [[RazorWind Judgement Cut Storm]] ''aren't available for use when you are given control''. Add that to the fact that Vergil can generally [[DiagonalCut own]] [[OneHitKill everything]] in his path in cutscenes, yet still needs to smack demons around a couple of times with the scabbard before making the CleanCut during normal gameplay (barring [[OneHitPointWonder Heaven Or Hell Mode]]) and Vergil is made even less effective (if [[RuleOfCool cooler]] because KatanasAreJustBetter) than [[GunFu Dante]].

* ''VideoGame/MetroidFusion'' has a scene where the SA-X obliterates a doorway with a Super Missile. If you try this outside of the cutscene, the hatch tends just to open, not blow up spectacularly...
** Similarly, there's a scene with a Power Bomb, which normally can only affect certain blocks, but the scene displays them every bit as destructive as they're described in conversation.

* In ''VideoGame/MetroidPrime'', Samus is able to perform her iconic spin-jump only in cutscenes. In ''VideoGame/MetroidPrime2Echoes'', she eventually gains the ability to use it in the specialized form of the screw attack under player control late in the game. In the multiplayer mode of ''Prime 2'', however, you can see other players doing it even though they can't see it themselves. This implies that Samus really is doing the spin jump, but her visor somehow keeps the view going straight so she doesn't get dizzy. (Samus also jumps ''ridiculously'' high in cutscenes -- which is completely [[JustifiedTrope justified]] by her PoweredArmor, which causes your inability to do so in game to make even less sense)
** In ''VideoGame/MetroidPrime3Corruption,'' a single shot of Samus' Power Beam can throw Space Pirates (and unarmored Ghor) a good 15 feet in cutscenes, even uncharged. In gameplay, a single shot of the Power Beam does nearly nothing, and a charged shot will only push them back slightly.

** Dynasty warriors in general love to do this. The opening cutscene in just about every game is especially blatant, oftentimes showing characters doing things that you could not possibly hope to do. The [[VideoGame/DynastyWarriorsOnline online]] version is especially bad.

* ''VideoGame/GearsOfWar 2'' featured Skorge the new Dragon to replace Raam as the biggest scariest locust, his cutscene introduction shows him cutting a tank in half with a chainsaw staff. However when it comes time to fight him... you never really fight him. He basically runs away from you and summons minions and easily avoided over telegraphed AOE attacks from outside the combat zone, punctuated with really brief rock simple [=QTEs=]. Just about every fight you did in the level proceeding the encounter is a hell of alot harder, and to add further insult the next time you see him is in a rail shooter segment where he ultimately falls off his flying mount and breaks his neck when you shoot it out from under him and that's the end of him roughly eighty percent of the way through the game. I don't think it matters how much they built him up, he just comes across as a total punk.
** In ''VideoGame/GearsOfWar 3'''s "[[DownloadableContent RAAM's Shadow]]", the ending cutscene shows Minh charging through a swarm of Kryll attacking him and only suffering a few little cuts if anything while the rest harmlessly bounce off his armour. During gameplay, Kryll will tear things to LudicrousGibs pretty quickly, including Minh.

* In several cutscenes in the ''VideoGame/SyphonFilter'' series, Logan performs death-defying actions such as {{Super Window Jump}}ing through a glass ceiling and falling a height that would kill him in-game. Conversely, he also occasionally suffers CutsceneIncompetence.
** 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]].

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

* While there aren’t exactly cutscenes in this medium, sometimes GMs will forgo rolls and simply describe events for the sake of the narrative. Success and failure become guaranteed, fulfilling the spirit of this trope.

* Technically, at least four characters in ''VideoGame/GuiltyGear'' are Gears, i.e. living weapons of mass destruction that humanity fought against for a hundred years (one of them going so far as to wipe out an entire fleet all at once in [[AllThereInTheManual supplemental material]]), and the Gears almost ''won.'' That doesn't mean an adolescent crossdressing nun armed with a yo-yo and a teddy bear can't defeat them during gameplay, though.

* The trailers for ''VideoGame/MarvelVsCapcom3'' feature several instances of playable characters displaying their powers at levels that far exceed what they can do during actual gameplay matches. For instance, Comicbook/{{Magneto}} is shown in one trailer using his magnetic powers to effortlessly toss Comicbook/{{X 23}} and [[VideoGame/GhostsNGoblins Arthur]] aside with just a small flick of his wrist, but he can't do that to anybody during actual matches. Ironically, the power levels that characters display in the trailers are mostly accurate to their established power levels in their own series while most of them are severely watered down during gameplay for the sake of matches lasting longer than a couple seconds.

** Comicbook/{{Magneto}} is a massively powerful mutant, able to challenge your entire 4-person squad of ComicBook/XMen, and throws Sentinels about like toys. In the sequel, he is no more powerful than any other character, certainly no more able to fight Sentinels than any other character, and begins, like all of them, at novice-level experience. Prior to the events of ''X-Men Legends II'', he wiped out whole fleets of fighters with his magnetic powers, and in the opening cutscene, tosses soldiers and metal doors aside with little effort. His subsequent encounter with yet more soldiers becomes jarring, as they now provide him far more serious opposition.

* 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 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."

** Frog is merely opening an already existing passage, though. And by the time you face Lavos again, you've leveled up several times.