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"Impossible! Beaten by a little girl?!"
—Dracula in Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles, after getting defeated by Maria
You've just unlocked an absolutely useless Joke Character. Weak attack, laughable specials, etc. And yet, the player next door uses him every time... and always kicks your ass.
Is he Cherry Tapping? Nope; the last time you won was when you put it on "random." He's discovered how to use the Lethal Joke Character.
The designers, looking for balance, have sneaked in one obscure, impossible-to-master, but incredibly rewarding technique for this character, and using it, you'll win every time... if you can get it down. But doing so requires skill, practice, and the ability to see the potential in the seemingly-useless. It's a sort of Obfuscating Stupidity applied to the game mechanics.
Compare Elite Tweak. Unlike a Magikarp Power, the Lethal Joke Character always had this ability to kick ass; it just requires a lot of skill to use him. Take a look at Lethal Joke Item for useless inventory and skills that eventually become overpowered.
As with Joke Character, this is a Game Trope.
Examples:
- The Raiden Fighters games has the Guest Fighter, the Raiden mk-II. It is the slowest ship in the whole series, even slower than it was in the Raiden games. Additionally, its Awesome Yet Impractical Plasma Beam is pathetically weak at lower levels. However, fully powered up, this ship can damage many enemies simultaneously and even get a few hidden bonuses that even the mighty Slave cannot get.
- The Naruto: Clash of Ninja games had Akamaru the puppy who, unlike all the other human characters, was very tiny. Even though he only had a few attacks that don't do much damage, all the other character's attacks were designed to attack regular characters so a vast majority of them would fly over you. It came to the point that all of a character's intricate combos would be useless and they'd have to focus on aiming kunai or carefully timing sweep kicks to hope to survive.
- In Collectible Card Games, cards that look useless, but subtle rules interaction (or later releases) makes them killer.
- High Tide
 in Magic The Gathering. Initially easy to overlook (Fallen Empires was not a particularly popular set), later expansions brought assorted super powerful cards which this card would then fuel. Combined with several similar cards, it led to the ubiquitous "Combo Winter" era in the game's history.
- An even bigger Magic example is Necropotence. It famously got one star out of five from In Quest magazine. The very existence of this card taught players two very good lessons: one card is worth more than one life, and the only life point that matters is the last.
- And then there's the Lion's Eye Diamond. Players were wondering what the designer's were thinking when it came out, since discarding your entire hand meant the three free mana was practically useless. Then Yawgmoth's Will and other cards came out that made the "Discard your hand" part a minor obstacle. It didn't take long for the Diamond to land in Banned and Restricted lists, and people were wondering what the designers were thinking once again... wondering why they made such a broken card that is.
- Yet another example: The card Donate. Who knew that giving away your own cards could be so effective?
- Try Donating Bronze Bombshell which happens to be another joke card. A 4/1 creature that can only activate its effect when controlled by anyone other then its owner... The other players always laugh at it right up till it goes off, taking more than 1/3 their life points with it. Well worth the combined mana cost.
- Donate is at its best when paired with yet another Lethal Joke Card, Illusions of Grandeur, which gives you a temporary massive life boost (equal to your starting life) as long as you pay its ever-increasing upkeep cost. This is accomplished by having you gain the life when it is played and lose the life when it leaves play. But the person who loses the life is the one who controls it at the time. So if you Donate it to your opponent, not only do you get to keep the life boost permanently... This particular combo is the basis of the "Trix" decktype.
- Illusions of Grandeur also pairs well with another "useless" card, Lich... because "gain 20 life" becomes "draw 20 cards," and "lose 20 life" means "I don't care."
- Donate is at its funniest when paired with three cards. Urza's Contact Lenses, Mindslaver, and Mesmeric Orb (Mirrodin artifact). Donate the Lenses to them, then Mindslave them. The combination is then set up whereupon you can tell them "Now give yourself a big hand!" - and they die of deck death.
- Even funnier is Donate + Card that can tap artifacts + Mindslaver + Ashnod's coupon + pre-bought soda. (Un-duel, obv.) Tap the Coupon with the card. Donate the (tapped) coupon to your opponent. Then Mindslave him. During his turn, make him activate Ashnod's Coupon on you, for the drink you bought earlier. As it's your drink, you set the price. The result, your opponent loses all his money. His only defense is to concede the game.
- Donate also powers the insane Lich's Mirror + Donate + Rain of Gore combo, which kills its opponent not once but an infinite number of times over. Short version: Play Rain of Gore. Donate the Lich's Mirror. Kill him somehow. Lich's Mirror activates, causing him to
gain 20 life oh wait he loses 20 life because of Rain of Gore and dies again. Since it's your Lich's Mirror, he still has it. It activates again. And again. And again. And again.
- To an extent, goblins. In-universe, they're the chew toys of the universe. In the game... not so much.
- Yu-Gi-Oh has Shapesnatch, a seemingly useless monster with no effect whatsoever and requires 1 Tribute just to be Normal Summoned. with weak stat for a monster that requires Tribute to be Summoned, but when combined with Limiter Releaser, its Attack strength is doubled, and if you have three on your control with your opponent having no way to counter the attack, it is pretty much a game.
- Another one is Dark Grepher. He makes you discard a powerful Dark monster to summon him, the cost of his effect is another discarded Dark monster, and his effect? you send ANOTHER Dark monster from your deck to the grave. Sending 3 powerful monsters to the grave seem kinda stupid, until you realise that's the exact summoning requirements for Dark Armed Dragon, one of the most broken legal cards at the time.
- Voldo in Soul Calibur, or as we like to call him, Mr. Freaky Guy, is either useless or invincible. A good portion of his "Special Moves" are simply to change his physical orientation to his opponent, backwards crab walk FTW.
- Ivy is also a close runner.
- One of Yoshimitsu's suicide moves — Manji Blood Petals — will fully heal him afterward if the player can get the precise timing right before he hits the ground. He also has stances that let him jump on his sword like a pogo stick, fly, or meditate and recover. Though even his spinning kick can take off a good third of an enemy's health.
- Yoshimitsu seems like his attacks are just crazy things, but once you have learned all of the combos he can run across the battlefield almost instantly attacking you and then pouncing on your body, timing his wind-up swings to move him right out of the road of all of your attacks just to then clobber you with them.
- Yoda is such a joke. He is incredibly weak and his movements are nothing short of ridiculous to follow; however, his short height, amazingly telegraphed combos, imperviousness to throws, and insane speed make him deadly in the right hands.
- In Suikoden II, there's a character named Sheena. He's a lecherous Upper Class Twit with not-so-special stats. Basically, a character that most casual players would never use. However, long-time players of Suikoden swear by him, because he has something casual players tend to overlook. Sheena comes with three free Rune Slots, giving him insane twinking potential. With very little effort, one could very easily turn him into a Game Breaker.
- An even worse case is Hai Yo, who could also acquire three free rune slots... and is a cook.
- This type of Lethal Joke Character gets averted in Suikoden V...but not by excluding three rune slot Game Breakers. Instead, the favored three rune slot ass-kicker is Miakis, an elite Queen's Knight who specializes in Dual Wielding and is said in-game to have been a badass since she was 5 years old.
- Suikoden V has the beavers: Cute talking critters and elite waterborne soldiers. Correctly used, they will turn most army battles into sick jokes and to add insult to injury, they don't even have a Gameplay And Story Segregation: storywise, it's when they join the heroes that their army start to get the upper hand in the war.
- Justified; given that the ships are all made of wood, it's to be expected that giant beavers would be devastating in naval combat. And if you try to take your beaver squads into the land side of the battle...don't.
- An interesting addition is Viki; up until 5, she was an above average mage but always fell short to other more powerful spellcasters. However, in this edition, she is a definite Game Breaker, as her unique skill 'Chain Magic', when fully upgraded, can clear entire battlefields due to her ability to cast very powerful spells a second time at no additional cost about 60%-80% of the time! Equip her with a Fire, Lightning, or Pale Gate Rune and watch the destruction!!
- Most players of Final Fantasy Tactics won't touch a Mediator, but it's a favorite of people who love to mess with their stats. And people who want to effectively steal entire sets of equipment at once. Just Invite the enemy to your party, take all their equipment, then send them on their merry way.
- Dancers are also fairly useless... unless you use them to farm JP for your Calculator, or give it to a character with high MP attack whose charging speed is lightspeeds beyond anybody's ability to get a turn, and the damage can't be blocked. (For even more absurd firepower, pair a character with the Dance ability with at least one Mimic.)
- Fairly useless unless you count the Nameless Dance which in one turn will cast frog, sleep, paralyze, or otherwise change half the opponent party from "enemy" to "target to destroy when you get around to it".
- There is the trick of using the Sunken State reaction from the Ninja class. Basically whenever you take damage you turn invisible, which means that the enemy AI does not consider you as a target until you break the invisibility by taking an action. The trick lies in the fact that once you have chosen a dance, it will continue to cause an effect such as dealing a small amount of damage to all enemies, even if you wait. The result is a team of invisible (and thus invincible) cherry tappers.
- Gadgeteers from Final Fantasy Tactics Advance earned a lot of ire for the risk that goes along with using their Pandora abilities, but when properly used they can devastate battlefields.
- Said proper way is to outfit your entire team with immunity to a negative Pandora-able status ailment, then spam that Pandora so that if it backfires, you simply don't get affected. Still far less than efficient, since you get six units at best.
- It gets more efficient when you're working with multiple Gadgeteers.
- Naru from Battle Arena Toshinden 3 is one of these, by virtue of being the last unlockable character in the game. She's very small and carries a comparatively big sword, making her attacks slow, but also making her harder to hit. Her fighting style is close to that of her adopted father Kayin, so characters who know how to master him should be able to fight as Naru no problem.
- Although it's not a fighting game, the Skeleton form in Castlevania: Circle of the Moon is clumsy, can be destroyed in one hit (0 Defense, which in that game means any attack deals infinite damage), and throws not-very-effective little bones as its attack... except for the instances where the standard, not-very-effective little bone is replaced by a comically huge, 9999-damage one. It's tricky to use, but highly effective if done properly, most notably against bosses.
- Also in Castlevania, the quoted character, Maria Renard of Rondo of Blood is like this, fighting with doves, cats, robins, a baby dragon, and a turtle shell, but these are all quite powerful - being juvenile forms of the four legendary beasts of Chinese mythology- and have more varied use than straight Character Richter's weapons. In Castlevania Judgement, she is again the lethal joke, seemingly unable to control her weapon and having her pet owl do her final attack for her, but with a long range area of effect attack with nearly no startup and a three move combo that links back into itself with little to no lag whatsoever. A year later in universe, and she loses the joke status, but the lethal is no less applicable.
- The Chairperson in Rival Schools is pathetic in battle, as she trained in Saikyo, the martial arts style of the Joke Character par excellence Dan Hibiki. But her Team-Up Attack is one of the most powerful in the game, as it is the only one that recovers both health and super meter (all other healing Team-Ups only restore one of those two). She's useless as a player character, but invaluable as a teammate.
- Speaking of Dan Hibiki, Marvel Vs Capcom games turned his near useless Otoko Michi super from an amusing way to kill yourself into the single most damaging move in the game. It still reduces Dan to exactly a pixel of health when it hits, but losing Dan to take out one member of the opposing team is very much a victory for Dan's team. More amusingly, it has priority over Akuma's Shun Goku Satsu (The move which Otoko Michi is a parody of); if Akuma and Dan both use their respective supers at each other, Dan will come out on top.
- In Street Fighter Alpha, Dan also has this potential. His normals are some of the hardest-hitting in the game and the Koryu Ken uppercut move actually becomes invincible after a certain amount of attacks/taunts. If you're good at keeping count, this can lead to a humiliating defeat for your opponent when you hit them out of a super.
- Dan is at the height of his power in Street Fighter 4 making him downright decent.
- Which says very little about Dan and more about how ungodly bad most of the cast is. Also, Dan's crowning moment in terms of in-game strength and useability was Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter. For example, his Punch and Launch throw was especially nasty in this game leading to nasty loops and mind games when used well, he had good pokes, with the right partners he could actually be very effective, and most people either dismissed him or didn't know how to handle him, making him viable for once in his existence.
- Sean probably qualifies; he's Ken's young student and attacks with basketballs, but he's actually quite good. He also strives to be everything Dan wasn't.
- They nerfed his balls off in 3S, though. The only character worse is Twelve, although the joke there might be how terrible Capcom was (is?) at balancing games. Also notable in Sean's case is that he's actually worse than Dan in the storyline.
- Speaking of Capcom versus games, Roll in Tatsunoko vs. Capcom has been improved upon. She still has a low stamina (with Karas being the lowest), but she is tiny, has a disjointed hitbox thanks to her broom, and has a fast air-dash. Her ground combos can lead to her Roll Sweep-Sweep special move, which can hit a grounded foe and CANNOT BE ESCAPED! She has a LEVEL 1 hyper move that recovers her health decently too! Her attacks also deal good amount of damage!
- In Gundam Battle Assault 2, the player can unlock such powerful cheese machines like the Big Zam, Epyon, deceptively-ridiculous Zeong, the f***ing Dark Gundam, the more under-the-radar Hydra Gundam, the Missile spam crazy Heavyarms Custom, and the custom Psycho Gundam Mk. III. Sharing the spotlight with these titans of argh is...a Ball, piloted by barely-above-no-name Shiro Amada. Not to denigrate his status as a pilot or a protagonist, but Shiro isn't exactly on a par with Newtypes like Char or zombie-cyborgs like Major Ulube or even prettyboy aces like Treize Kushrenada. Still, people fear the Ball, all for one reason: sheer speed. Ball is the second-fastest character in the game, and has a trick by which it can stop its vernier boost and rapidly descend with an attack. This lightning-fast cross-up could then be canceled into his ungodly-damaging jackhammer attack or his even-more-damaging 120mm cannon shot. Even without any mega-specials and pitiful defense, the trusty Ball managed to crush almost anyone in its path.
- Likewise, the Ball of Mobile Suit Gundam : Federation vs Zeon has the lowest armor and most limited weaponry of any suit, while being slow and having rather limited boost power. A Rick Dom or most Mobile Armors can blow it up in a single shot. It's mostly in-game for plot purposes. It can still be ridiculously lethal in the right hands, though, since where you'd only get a couple Rick Doms, players using the Ball get at least six, and often many more, all of which are small targets devoted to long-range attacks. They can only take down real mobile suits by nibbling them to death, but they can nibble things to death.
- Mobile Suit Gundam : Encounters In Space has traditional Joke Characters in the Ball and Core Fighters, but a number of other suits can be dangerous. Perhaps the best example would be the Japanese-only MS-06SHAKU Zaku II Shaku Yumiko Custom. Custom Zaku? Uh oh. Custom bright pink Zaku? A little odd, but after Char and Johnny Ridden, it'll frighten most dedicated players. Custom bright pink Zaku decorated with bright pink hearts◊? Not so scary, especially since its damage and speed is the same as normal Zaku IIs and it can be carved up by an experienced GM pilot with a bullpup machinegun. Its distinguishing feature? An i-field powerful enough that it can sit down in front of a Big Zam and smile smugly, because with said I-field it takes minimal damage from beam weapons, and thus can tear apart beam-only/beam-dominant mobile suits like the Gundam Blue Destiny units or Gundam Physalis.
- In the MMORPG Ragnarok Online, a class called the Super Novice can be obtained if one creates a regular Novice and keeps it from obtaining a class until base lv 45. The Super Novice at first seems to have a great deal of potential, being allowed to acquire almost all the skills the 1st class Jobs can use, and having a collective pool of 99 points (instead of the usual 50 1st class Jobs usually have) to allocate them to. However, Super Novices can only use the same crappy gear novices have, and along with their abysmally low HP/SP gains from leveling up, can easily be killed in one or two hits. Their real strength shines if built like a Mage class, as, since casting time for spells is determined by the game's DEX stat, using the right gear, maxing their base DEX stat, and using all the DEX skill buffs available to them, the Super Novice can nearly be able to instantly cast spells. If coupled with a Bard skill that even further lowers casting time and after-cast delay, players and effectively make efficiently-leveled Super Novices into living, Fire Bolt-spewing maching guns...as long as their puny SP holds out, anyway.
- Arguably, the Soul Linker class could also qualify. Seemingly an innocuous buffer with little Pv P ability (Almost all the class' offensive skills don't work on player characters), a particularly skilled player can take on entire, well-armed, well-equipped, and famed-in-Pv P guilds by himself, exploiting the class' mobilitiy and defensive capability. Actually, pretty much all the game's "Expanded" classes could qualify.
- The Soul Linker could also be considered the Lethal Joke Character for monsters, as they only have one damage dealing spell that can only be cast in a short time frame after casting a different spell that consumed a lot of sp. Oh, and you have to spend 22 skill points into skills comparatively useless to everything else you can get to actually use Elemental Rock Paper Scissors with it, AND you have to use your most likely low strength stat to punch your way to get the 26 skill points to master it. Then of course you realize that it deals more magical damage than any other magic spell in the game.
- Soul Linker can also equip a special weapon called Dagger of Counter/Counter Dagger, a dagger that grants high Critical rate for your physical attacks, which at first doesn't seem like an interesting weapon as only Mage-type classes and Soul Linker can equip the dagger, but Mage-type classes and Soul Linker generally does not even use physical attacks - and you need to do physical attacks to inflict Critical damage. But when a Soul Linker is built around this Critical physical attack strategy, with high Attack strength and high attack speed, it has been proven deadly - especially since Critical damage ignores the target's Flee and Defense. But the exact reasons why this type of Soul Linker is a Lethal Joke is that it's very hard to get the dagger (therefore it is rare to see such type of Linker), and on top of that, Critical damage is not a high damage - Critical damage is usually used to bypass Flee & Defense, not for the damage itself, making Critical-based Linker seems like a joke, but when you add the fact that this type of Linker has VERY high Attack Speed, coupled with the fact that they have skill that can alter the element of their weapon to inflict more damage AND another skill that increases physical damage (including Critical ones) depending on the amount of other people in your group, the numbers adds up quickly. They still, however, quite a joke since a Linker built around this strategy is very squishy due to sacrificing a stat used to increase tanking ability (which a normal Linker is quite an expert on) and another stat used to reduce their cast time for a majority of their skills (which tends to have long cast time) for stat that increases attack speed and another stat that increases damage. This type of Linker also cannot use the powerful magic skill mentioned above, due to the fact that this type of Linker does not increase the stat required to inflict high magic damage, making them more or less lethal only for their "hitlocking" ability (and their powerful physical damage ONLY when they are in a large group), but a joke due to how squishy they are.
- In the 'Maniacs' version of Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne the first demon you recruit is a relatively harmless pixie. If you keep her in your party for the entire game, however, and take her into a certain room in the Labyrinth of Amala secret dungeon, she becomes the awesome 'Uber-Pixie', equipped with some of the most powerful spells in the game.
- In SNK's Gals Fighter (a.k.a. Queen of Fighters) for the Neo-Geo Pocket, you can unlock Kyo Kusanagi's non-martial artist girlfriend, Yuki. She looks like a harmless schoolgirl, and she's often surprised whenever she wins, but her attacks can be deadly. She can fight by swinging her school bag around, advancing from one end of the screen to the other. She screams out a Big No to stop air attacks cold. And best (or worst, depending on your point of view) of all, she has a 12-hit slap move that is dangerous all by itself, but can be easily chained to her scrambling super attack for up to 33 hits, the highest in the game!!
- At first glance, Yachiru in Bleach: Blade of Fate seems worthless. She has two moves, a dash attack and her Battle Aura, and one super that's a stronger version of the aura. If you use her personal Spirit Card deck, however, you'll see it's all Stability (which prevents her attacks from being stopped if she gets hit) and Spirit Pressure Increase. That's the trick - use her dash to corner her opponent, then bust out her super, and the opponent can't escape taking every hit. If you have three super bars, that's most of their health. No wonder she's a Cute Bruiser.
- Sadly, Dark Souls hit her with a Nerf. Personal Spirit Card decks were removed, her attacks have much more wind-up, and she randomly trips, regulating her to normal Joke Character status. Amusingly, Hanataro can make a claim to this status - unlike Shattered Blade, he only has two attacks that heal the enemy, and one of his special attacks inflicts paralysis, which is like a "Free Air Combo" ticket.
- Pokemon has a few characters that work like this, the most famous being Wobbuffet. When it was first introduced in Pokémon Gold and Silver, its gimmick of only being able to counterattack and a tiny movepool of only 4 moves left it quite difficult to use without prediction. However, with the advent of its ability Shadow Tag, which prevents the opponent from switching out against it, and expanding its movepool ever so slightly (by 3, but only one of them is really needed), it made the huge jump from never-used tier to the uber tier. As it is now nearly impossible to take one out without losing a Pokémon. People are even considering placing it in a tier of its own.
- Another Pokemon that could qualify is, ironically enough, Pikachu itself. Equip it with a Light Ball and it gains incredible attack power, but it's still a Glass Cannon. Its evolved form is tougher but is unable to use the item. Marowak is in a similar position with the Thick Club, though it's a bit stronger.
- A bit stronger? A bit stronger?! A single Thick Clubbed Swords Dance sends its attack flying into quad-digit land! Couple that with a B Ped Agility/Rock Polish, and... (and I'm pretty sure the round 1024+ down to stupidly low attack bug was 2nd generation only). Ever wondered why it was so popular back in the early 00s?
- And to answer how it hits 1000+ despite the 999 limit: it doubles the current stat, period; it ignores the whole "round down to 999" calculation.
- Add Ninjask, resident Fragile Speedster, who can pass its speed to Marowak, and you've got an almost unstoppable combo.
- In addition, in Pokémon Emerald and later, breeding a Pikachu equipped with a Light Ball would result in the offspring knowing the super-powerful "Volt Tackle" attack.
- Shuckle may be another one that looks outright pathetic, but when well trained (i.e., with the knowledge of EVs), it can become the best "wall" in the whole metagame. Not only that, with the advent of abilities, it became immune to the biggest threat to its "walliness": the maligned "One-Hit KO". With the right moveset, it'll simply stand in place killing pokémon after pokémon of the opponent.
- Shuckle can also become the strongest of all Pokemon, primarily due to it learning Power Trick, which switches its attack and defense, potentially giving it attack far outclassing everything else (For context, Shuckle's max would be 614, while the Attack Form Deoxys, the Pokemon with the next best power, has a maximum attack of 504.) One issue with this is that Shuckle is extremely slow, so it will usually be killed right away if it does this... But if Trick Room, a move that reverses the order of movement, has been used, then it will always go first unless the foe uses an increased priority move. This makes Shuckle into an incredible pokemon, although it's pretty unlikely to happen.
- While we're on the topic of unlikely situations, if a Shuckle were to have maximum boosted attack, have used Power Trick, be holding a Metronome, then use Defense Curl and Rollout against a pokemon that's doubly weak to rock and have had minimized defenses, and be hit with a critical hit, the damage could be up to 210 million. The highest HP any pokemon can have is 714. The probability of this happening is, of course, slim to none, but it's still pretty impressive.
- Also, Shuckle learns Toxic. Since Toxic always doubles the damage on the opponent and is conditional to the total HP, it will always kill the enemy in at most 6 rounds. Being a traditional Wall, it means Shuckle can Toxic down opponent after opponent...
- Porygon fits this. First, at the cost of one turn, he only takes half damage from any special attack your opponent plays. Secondly, he has Psybeam, which, in RBY, meant something.
- Then there's Dunsparce, notable in that it has a special ability, Serene Grace, that was originally exclusive to the event-only pokemon Jirachi. In GSC it was completely useless, but with this ability Dunsparce has a high chance of causing status affects, meaning you could completely immobilize the enemy opponent if you taught it moves that caused confusion, paralysis, freezing, attraction, and others much more easily than any other "annoyer" pokemon.
- Smeargle has astoundingly horrible stats, but it's still popular due to the fact that it can use almost any move in the game. This leads to a very effective moveset where Smeargle can Baton Pass the Ingrain effect, making the next Pokemon immune to Whirlwind and Roar (switching out without Baton Pass forfeits all stat boosts and other similar temporary statuses) and being able to recover an additional 1/16th of max HP each turn.
- FEAR. Which stands for Focus Sash, Endeavor, Quick Attack, Rattatta. Basically, the strategy of using a ridiculously low-leveled Rattatta equipped with Focus Sash (that saves the Pokemon from death once, leaving it with one last HP), use Endeavor (that lowers the opponent's HP to the same value as yours) and then finalizing it with Quick Attack (which will always attack first). There are several ways of counter-attacking this plan, but it's still an ingenious way of defeating an Olympus Mon with a Com Mon.
- Along the same vein as FEAR, a similar technique can be used to turn Magikarp into something capable of sweeping entire teams of ubers and legendaries. Really.
- A much more useful version of the strategy involves combining Focus Sash and Endeavor with the Hail weather effect, which deals damage to non-Ice types after every turn and can be induced permanently by Abomasnow unless another weather-changing move or Pokemon is used, and the "Magic Guard" ability exclusive to the Clefairy line, which blocks residual damage such as Hail (Sandstorm works as well, though not as effectively as more things resist it). After Endeavor is used, the Hail will finish off most Pokemon, resulting in a one-turn KO. If your opponent doesn't have a Ghost-type (which is immune to Endeavor) or Ice-type on their team, Cleffa, Clefairy, or Clefable is guaranteed to take down at least one Pokemon each, and the fact that each count as a separate species means you can have all three on one team.
- Shedinja is another pokemon that may fit this trope, with a max HP of 1 most people would think this is a joke character, but the fact that it is only effected by attacks that are super effective means that it is immune to 11 out of 16 types of attack, making it invincible when used against the right enemies, most notably Kyogre.
- In the new Pokémon Games HeartGold and SoulSilver, contests are replaced by the Pokéthlon, a sport variety of Minigames. Each Pokémon has different stats in a category for how well they do in the competitions. The officially weakest Pokémon, Sunkern, is one of the very few Pokémon with full stats.
- Let me reiterate that: Sunkern, the Pokémon officially weaker than THE Magikarp, has Pokéthlon stats comparable to Olympus Mons; the likes of Mew, Giratina's Origin Forme, and the Olympus Mon itself, Arceus. And Ditto. On top of that, its slightly-better evolved form, Sunflora, doesn't have these stats.
- Jigglypuff in Super Smash Bros. Melee was seen as a completely ineffective, unwieldy joke character.... until everyone discovered what her down-B attack, the one where she falls asleep for a second, does when positioned and timed just right. Boom.
- To clarify, Jigglypuff's down-B attack put it to sleep for about five seconds, during which it is entirely vulnerable. Combined with Jigglypuff's very, very low weight (it's even lighter than Kirby, making it the lightest fighter in the game), this generally resulted in Jigglypuff getting OHKO'd. However, if you're able to hit down-b at a very precise time, with an almost ludicrously small hit-box for the "attack", the Rest move will knock the enemy far away, quite likely defeating it in one hit or at least dealing a good amount of damage.
- Not to neglect mentioning Jigglypuff's Sing attack, which is basically a set up to OHKO someone with Rest by putting opponents to sleep, giving you the chance to put the hitbox onto the sap's unsuspecting character.
- Jigglypuff's Rest move isn't the only thing lethal about her. She also has multiple air jumps and a wide array of aerial moves, making her one of the best air fighters in the game and earning her the nickname "Wall of Pain."
- In general, beginners have a hard time using Jigglypuff due to her pitiful range, which requires her to be very close to the opponent in order to be lethal. Also not mentioned was Jigglypuff's Rollout move, which can be even more powerful than her Rest move but which can cause her to commit suicide if not used properly.
- Jigglypuff's balance keeps moving in opposite directions. In the first Smash Bros., her Rest move was a 1-hit KO anywhere from 30 to 50% damage (depending on the size of the stage) and Sing would keep the opponent asleep for more than enough time to line it up. In Melee, they weakened Rest and Sing a little, but gave her Rollout and improved her Pound technique. By the time Brawl came around, Rest and Sing had been nerfed to the point of near uselessness, but all of Jigglypuff's other abilities, from smash attacks to basic aerials, had been improved enough to make up for it and keep her deadly. Nowadays a good Jigglypuff player's more notable for her annoying "dancing" in the air around her opponent than she is for that "goddamn sleep attack."
- Ice Climbers also fits into the same category in Melee and Brawl, due to being hard to control both of the characters, but having zero-death combos off of a grab in both Melee and Brawl.
- Bloody Roar: Primal Fury manages to do this with the normal final boss. In a tournament filled with individuals that turn into man-tiger or man-wolf forms, his basic beast form is a penguin. Not a human-sized penguin, or a superfast penguin, or a one that hits supernaturally hard. It's about two feet tall and squeaky. It attacks with wingslaps. His normal human form is a bit bishie, too, and not particularly strong with fairly short combos. He seems like a joke. Except a two foot tall penguin coincidentally happens to be far too short for most attacks, even many special powers, to hit. It can't be grabbed, and thus is very easy to turtle with, can be hard to predict, and can end up slapping enemy combos apart. In some cases, you can force enemies to turn around while continuing their combo, leaving them very, very open. His hypermode is a short-lived human-sized phoenix form with a one-hit kill that acts more on the level of normal beast forms, and it's still a downgrade from the penguin.
- The prior - and again, somewhat jokey - character Uriko, first made an appearance as the first game's final boss (against her will) and subsequent appearances unable to complete her transformation, so she looks like a catgirl instead of a weretiger, and acts like the former as well, and many of her techniques involve her losing balance or dizzying whether or not she's succesful. Why a lethal joke? Her basic and beast combos are infinitely chainable at the right tempo, and can keep all but the perfectly timed opponent juggled 'til their lifebar is done.
- The mecha combat action game Another Century's Episode 3 allows the player to unlock the Gotchko, a small, relatively basic unit from Overman King Gainer. It would seems like a bit of a joke character, or maybe just an affectionate inclusion to play to the fans of King Gainer... until you actually use it. The unit, with few or no upgrades, is one of the most powerful units in the game simply because of the ridiculous range and accuracy it has for its two weapons. It is restricted to ground stages, and cannot actually fly, but it doesn't need to.
- In at least one game in the Gauntlet series, a cheat allowed you to eschew the three basic units and play as a life-sized chicken. He had no melee skills whatsoever, but his ranged attack (flaming eggs) was ridiculously overpowered, let alone his magic attack, which was instant-kill fire breath.
- The chicken returns in the Gauntlet Legends series via an item or a cheat, and he brings his flaming eggs along with him.
- In Mace: The Dark Age, you can play as Pojo: The magic chicken with a code. Pojo is weak and has very few attacks, but is so small that most attacks miss entirely, including everything the final boss does.
- If you're confused about why you went through so much effort to unlock the seemingly useless Onion Knight in the DS remake of Final Fantasy III, then you obviously didn't know that in the original, the Onion Knight's stat growth exploded at levels 90-99. The same deal applies in the DS version.
- In addition, they have access to all types and levels of magic from level 1, so they can be used to cast non-stat based spells (such as status cures) at lower levels then usual.
- This pretty much sums up Marvel Comics' Squirrel Girl, who has the power to control squirrels and beat Doctor Doom so badly that when Squirrel Girl wanted to borrow his time machine, he just gave it to her. She's beaten Deadpool into the ground as well.
- Not to mention Thanos, MODOK, Terrax... This list goes on for a while.
- Cut from the US version of Streets of Rage 3 is Ash, a Hard Gay character who runs and screams like a girl and has a limited move set (no air attacks). However, his main attack, a weak looking slap, can tear even bosses apart in seconds.
- It does have Sheeva as a hidden character. Although tough as a boss, Sheeva lacks the variety of moves other characters have (such as a back attack or a directional super) to be as useful. Unless you realize that his default move (the one that replaces any move he doesn't have) is a short elbow jab that can infinite chain anybody.
- Tekken 2 has the boxing kangaroo character Roger, who, while obviously for laughs, is extremely hard-hitting. He has the crouch dash, an excellent throw game, good punches, and some excellent sidestepping moves.
- Speaking of Tekken 3, we got Gon... which despite being a bit slow and short (or due to being short), cannot be attacked by high attacks, cannot be thrown, and has unblockable projectiles.
- Not to mention Doctor B, who spends most of his time on his back, but provides quite a challenge as the end boss of an optional minigame, and can be lethal in the hands of an expert player.
- Hell, he's got an unblockable paralyzing attack, can do a sudden ground-stomping-kaboom after mindlessly evading your attacks, is practically unpredictable, etc. And he's got a killer 20-hit combo, while the rest of the characters have only 10-hit combos. The downside is that it can be hard to learn how to control him properly.
- Most of the games in the DBZ Budokai series have at least one of these. Ginyu could qualify in the first four games - simply let the opponent beat him up, use Body Change (which switches the characters' respective health bars), and finish what your opponent started. This was heavily nerfed in Tenkaichi 2, however, to the point where the move is practically useless. That game's example of this trope is Videl, whom most players quickly dismiss due to the fact that she has no long-range offense whatsoever, has a very small health bar, and has a weak short-range offense. However, she's fast. VERY fast. I'm talking "can string together 30-hit combos with minimal effort and finish them with a 75-hit combo" fast. Those hits may be weak, but they add up. Against a competent Videl, most opponents aren't even given a chance to breathe during their Death Of A Thousand Cuts, much less mount any form of offense themselves.
- Yajirobe is not a bad character per se, but he's not that great either. But his ultimate blast is one of the only rushes that can hurt giant monsters, and he has a technique to restore all of his health. And while we're on it, if the computer's any indication, knowing how to use Hercule makes you a force to be reckoned with. But then again, the computer's a cheating bastard.
- Hercule definitely qualifies. Unlike every other character in the game, his standard combo has no knockback whatsoever (on top of doing next to no damage). His Ultimate Blast can be either pathetic... or do only 1 damage. At first glance it seems his only saving grace is Present For You, a Blast 2 that can counter any close-range attack with a powerful bomb. Of course, the reaction is "then just use long-range attacks". Problem with that is, Hercule has a Blast 1 called False Courage that makes him immune to knockback. At long range, he can simply dodge everything and not care about what does manage to hit. At medium range, he can use a rush Blast 2 that has a tremendous amount of knockback (and in the meantime, he's charging energy to re-use it). At close range, Present For You. Game, set, match.
- If you ever play the Pv P racing game in Sonic Adventure 2: Battle, see Amy. She's easily the slowest of the available characters, however, she only needs to collect half as many rings to earn a special attack as Sonic or Shadow. In many levels Amy can spam special moves so quickly that her opponent may not even be able to move for minutes at a time. What's more, while Sonic and Shadow's time-freezing ability stops the opponent completely, Amy's only locks the player out of his controls; if they happen to be in the middle of some death-defying stunt (as they often are, given the nature of the game), they'll likely careen off into a pit, be sent back to the last checkpoint, and still have to wait out the remainder of the freeze. Meanwhile, Amy's collected enough rings to attack again...
- Metal Sonic has no special moves, and only one special attack... which coincidentally makes you immune to everything INCLUDING super moves if you time it right. Not to mention he's pretty damn fast. And he gets even faster when you use the special attack AND his speed in conjunction with one another. Stacked with the gravity physics of the game. Imagine City Escape's big downhill segment. While invincible. Out-of-nowhere victories and downright dominations await.
- Normally, Sora's Anti Form drive in Kingdom Hearts 2 is a Deadly Upgrade that cuts off your ability to heal and gain experience, drops your attack power heavily, and makes you take a LOT more damage from enemy attacks. The tradeoff, however, is IMMENSELY fast movement speed and attack speed. If one uses these two things to their best advantage, it is actually possible to inflict a lot of hurt with Anti Form.
- Some people have found Anti Form is the only way for them to win certain fights. Xaldin seems to be the favorite here.
- Cait Sith from Final Fantasy VII. When you first get him, it's hate hate hate hate. Then he gets his final Limit Break, which has the possibility of ending the battle. Period. Get the best result on his "Slots" Limit, and you win. Against anything. Even Bosses. Even the Final Boss. Even the Bonus Bosses. (Still, hate hate hate)
- Quina, the Blue Mage from Final Fantasy IX looks really goofy and probably seems pretty useless to most new players. However, he has several attacks that are devastating in the right hands and can be obtained early in the game. For example, L5 Death instantly kills certain enemies (including dragons in the first disc who are supposed to be too powerful to beat) and Limit Glove is guaranteed to do 9999 damage (as long as Quina is at 1 HP).
- The Blue Mage class from Final Fantasy V doesn't look quite as goofy as Quina but still may be considered useless by players who don't know how to use it. One reason they are so powerful is that their L5 Death spell can even kill bosses! They can even use it to kill bosses who have levels that aren't divisible by 5 because of two other spells they have: Dark Shock, which halves the target's level, and L2 Old, which makes even-leveled targets get a status effect that gradually lowers their level.
- Final Fantasy V also has the Alchemist class. Their Mix ability allows them to mix two items together to make various effects. Many of their Mixes are fairly useless, but some of them cast powerful buffs that can crank party members' physical damage Up To Eleven. The Mix "Blessed Kiss" can also be used on Caster type bosses to Berserk them (even if they're immune to Berserk), which prevents them from using any of their spells.
- Speaking of which, another of their Mixes double the Level of whatever it's used on. Using it on bosses seems stupid at best, suicidal at worst, but pair it with a Blue Mage just waiting for that cap (255) to come... L5 Death, anyone? Atomos is the best use for this one, mostly because all things considered, unless you're idiot enough to keep all four party members alive, it does (relatively) nothing.
- Speaking of Blessed kiss- The way berserk works is that it makes the person infected with it just attack, is to completely over-ride their A.I. script. Yes, you will completely skip the final boss's second, and much more powerful, form if you use Blessed Kiss on him.
- If we're mentioning Final Fantasy characters, Final Fantasy VI has Gau, easily the most misunderstood character in the game. Not quite as scrappy as Umaro (who is always, totally uncontrollable), but close second simply because his entire mechanic involves losing control over him. Oh, and to learn his spells, you have to grind the Veldt to learn monster abilities...and it's random. But pick up the right ones, and know how to deploy them, and he becomes the strongest character until the very end of the game. To really get the lethal joke character flavor though, it's worth noting that some of his strongest attacks come from monsters that are ridiculously weak. Who knew a little mouse met in the first half hour of the game would teach you to instantly kill someone?
- Another Super Robot Wars example is Boss Borot. Ooooh... Boss Borot. He is Magikarp Power incarnate, especially once you could start upgrading attack damage. In Super Robot Wars Advance, the upgrade mechanics meant you could buff him up more than Shin Getter Freaking Robo. Super Robot Wars J also gives him the ability to heal units along with the long-running staple of him resupplying him, and you get experience *every* time you heal someone. Not to mention a particular doujin puts Jiron Amos from Xabungle at the controls, and... just◊... take◊ a◊ look◊ at◊ its◊ power◊.
- Think that's all the Borot can do? In Alpha Gaiden, once his will was high, just plant him in water and have him fight beam using enemies. They do 10 damage, HE kicks their ass. Also, if you buff his defense and HP, you can actually turn the Borot into a highly viable meat shield in J and W.
- The Super Robot Wars Compact series usually feature Leina Ashta of Gundam ZZ, Annoying Younger Sibling to Judou and Only Sane Man of the Shangri-La bunch, as a playable character. Lacking the abilities many MS pilots usually have, she's not a good pick for a Mobile Suit, but despite her low SP count and her tendency to draw critical hits (maybe a Shout Out to her terrible luck in the series?), she is lethal in the right hands, as her stats are definitely not too shabby, and she has a pretty solid set of seishins. Put her in the Elmeth or the Alpha Aziel, and she will surprise you...
- Dr Eggman in Sonic Chronicles. He has pathetic stats and only two special moves - one a nuke that drops bombs on all enemies, the other a One Hit Kill attack that only works on robots and requires Tails' help.
- From the online card collection strategy game Poxnora there is a Champion called the "Magma Bunny" that had stats well below average for the Mana Cost. However, it had the ability to split off a copy (splitting its HP), and if you upgraded a useless ability you could pump its Mana Cost to huge levels. Senseless? Perhaps, except for two spells, one that sacrificed a champion to refund the full Mana Cost, and another spell that sacrifices a champion and deals damage equal to the Mana Cost to the nearest enemy champion. And each copy cloned off of the original had the same mana cost as the original. Then there also happened to be another (in most circumstances crappy) spell that allowed you to keep redeploying your Magma Bunny after Sacrificing it, over and over again. That Deck became known as the "Bunnies of DOOM!" Finally the mechanics were nerfed.
- Neko-Arc in Melty Blood - despite being completely unplayable (literally) for half of the versions, Neko-Arc is ridiculously overpowered: very small height, good speed, and powerful ranged and throwing attacks. A safe strategy leans towards crouching in a corner continually tripping her until she runs out of health. Luckily, she doesn't do too much damage overall, and has about the worst defense in the game, but if a skilled player hits enough times...
- Neko-Arc suffers from one problem - her only attack that's likely to land a hit on the opponent is her True Ancestor Beam, which requires magic circuit to use. Neko-Arc Chaos, on the other hand, combines all of Neko-Arc's advantages with some of Nrvnqsr Chaos' far-reaching attacks... *shudder*
- In Dynasty Warriors 5, one of the (MANY) characters is Zuo Ci, an old man whose weapon is a deck of cards. At first glance, especially compared to massive pike-wielding badasses, this seems exceptionally lame. And yet his attacks, while not especially powerful, tend to hit EVERYONE even remotely close to him. In a game where it's quite common to be surrounded by 30-40 Mooks, this is invaluable.
- The Qiao sisters and her twin fans are rather weak, in damage dealing terms. Still, if they're played correctly, they can defeat dificult enemies in levels where the rest of characters would have to run for their lives.
- In Tales Of Symphonia, we have The Chosen One, Colette. She appears to be a frail girl, that, well, needs protecting — barely capable of holding her own in a fight. With only mediocre stats, low speed, an odd fighting style and Idiot AI, one would think she's not worth keeping in the party — even her magic is bad (A simple, low damage light spell, a status buff that takes forever to cast, an Awesome But Impractical spell that kills her, and lastly a flashy spell that hardly hits anything) so why is she called a Game Breaker? She gets the game's strongest Physical Special Attacks — including one that only uses 14 TP, deals massive (x4.6) damage (and it's Lightning Elemental — a LOT of the game's enemies are weak to it...), another that can do x10 damage — and that stacks with another hidden ability: Her seemingly weak Pow Hammer attack can become Toss Hammer, a poisoning attack that NOTHING IN THE GAME (not even That One Bonus Boss) is resistant to, and anything afflicted by it drops it's HP down to 1 in a minute. (This In Action) She also has an easy to use Hi-Ougi. In the hands of any skilled player she's a force to be reckoned with and NOT someone to be underestimated.
- Even in the hands of an unskilled player, combinining her Hammer Rain with Lloyd's level 2 Sword Rain arts in an Unison Attack provides the devastating Stardust Rain combination, which can connect for 100+ hits on its own against a sufficiently large opponent.
- In TOME you can switch on or off "silly" enemies; ones from different series that don't quite fit the series' "Lord Of The Rings meets Dragonriders Of Pern with the numbers filed off" theme. One of these enemies early on is a "floating mine." If you have enough skill in the Symbiote ability, you can fuse this to yourself and fire rockets. These work very well against Nazgul.
- Jonathan in the manga Fullmoon wo Sagashite. While it's not a game and he isn't playable, his overall nature fits this trope quite well. He's the partner of Izumi; a crudely drawn ghost with a hat usually getting slapped around for making stupid jokes and generally not seeming like a serious character ...until it is revealed that he's actually the Shinigami's superior and responsible to a few sabotage acts concerning Mitsuki prior to the revelation. Later he also pierces Mitsuki and Takuto with a lance. Not to mention the scene in which he comes out with his secret is just badass. (He grows an abundance of tentacles out of his body which trap Izumi in a spectacular way high up in the sky.)
- Shingo Yabuki of The King of Fighters '97, who is less effective in terms of technique but still has lots of damage potential in him, thanks to his ability to do random critical hits. Basically, it's a bit hard to have him hit you, but when he does hit, he'll break your defenses more than once. Yeowch.
- Also in King Of Fighters are Chang and Choi. Both characters look and act goofy and are part of the "joke" team, but are absolutely lethal in the right hands. The AI also tends to play them very well, making them lethal joke characters in normal play.
- The USA Team of Lucky, Brian and Heavy D! is meant as a joke team, but the characters can be nasty in the right hands. The winner of a recent major Japanese KOF tournament had Heavy D! in his team.
- "Meant" being the key word there. The only real joke out of the three is Lucky. Heavy D! is extremely fast and powerful, and Brian has surprisingly extensive combo ability.
- In the Sega Saturn classic Guardian Heroes, there are several joke characters including Nando the bunny. However, if one were to go into 6-player versus mode with a team of at least three Nandos, that player will DOMINATE everyone else. Nando is incredibly tiny and has virtually no delay time between punches. Three or more at time can hit any character so many times that they won't be able move and it's inescapable. This even includes the couple of gods the player can use.
- Albion features a scientist called Rainer Hofstedt, who is easily the weakest character in the game, and is only in the party for story reasons. He's also one of the only two characters who can use one of the best weapons in the game (a gun, in a mostly medieval setting).
- The demo came with an edited savegame, where he gets a magic ring, that allows him to hurl fireballs. Not too powerful, but it does a decent amount of damage, and doesn't require any attack skill to successfully hit the target.
- The Toy Cars in Burnout Paradise. They're miniaturized Power Wheels-style versions of some of the regular cars. They're quite a bit slower than their normal-sized counterparts... but they are much easier to weave through traffic and extremely durable (some of the tougher ones can ram a bus head-on and not wreck.) Their maneuverability and light weight makes them great for Stunt Runs as well (the Toy P12 88 Special in particular gets an obscene amount of hang time.)
- The Flatmobile of Flat Out 2 is so comically fast that any typical player simply cannot control it. However, said acceleration is equally reciprocated in its brakes, and at sane speeds it can out-handle any vehicle in the game. In the hands of a truly skilled gamer, no other vehicle can possibly compete, even in the infamous destruction derbies.
- The Need for Speed Underground 2 Toyota Corolla. This car looks hilariously outdated, being a box-shaped mid-'80s car in a game about flashy modern ricers, and it is one of the starter cars alongside the unimpressive Peugeot 106 and Opel Corsa. Oh, and it is also by far the best car in the game, beating Skylines and Supras left and right thanks to its very accurate handling. Still laughing?
- Similarly, when tuned to the max with Junkman parts, the starter cars in Most Wanted are among the best cars in the game. Try owning multiplayer races with a Fiat Punto. Ah, the humiliation.
- In the Japanese version of Marvel Super Heroes a hidden character was Anita, Donovan's companion from Darkstalkers. Anita was small so many attacks flew right over her. Her super-move "Love For You" is the most devastating attack in the game: she throws a torrent of doll heads at you which hit for 99 hits, and even if you block you'll still lose half your life bar.
- Gracia from Samurai Warriors 2 is pathetically weak if played like a traditional character... but her special skills are absurdly more potent than anyone else in the game, to the point of bordering on Game Breaker. She can boost her stats at will, restore health, and blast with obscenely powerful attacks, all at the cost of a bit of Musou Meter — and she quickly gets skills that cause it to constantly regenerate or accelerate its normal regeneration.
- She's ridiculously effective on a horse, also. While her normal attacks are essentially her flailing her tiny fists at people (little damage, no range), her mounted attack is lobbing fireballs of doom. Gracia + Matsukaze = apocalyptic destruction.
- The Monkey of Time Splitters 2 and its sequel, Future Perfect. With character attributes off, the monkey still retains its MUCH smaller hitbox, making him VERY hard to hit. Worse yet, his hitbox is BELOW the neutral position viewline, meaning opponents need to deliberately aim downwards to make their shots count, adding to the inaccuracy. With attribs on, his speed combines with the already almost gamebreaking hitbox, making him literally impossible to damage with non-hitscan weapons if played right.
- Monkey is only a Joke Character at the select screen. As soon as you face him you realize he's a Game Breaker. There is even a stat that which keeps track of how many times you've played as him and he's overall seen as a cheat character. Modes like Money Assistant is a nightmare: The last player gets a team of monkey's wielding rocket launchers after them. One should also not forget Robofish, who is probably an even more Lethal Joke Character. First he is really hard to unlock in all the games. Secondly he is a fish with a robot bowl for it's head. After that he's equally fast and short as monkey, but since his body is as thin as it gets, he has a smaller hitbox. Even the head is hard to hit. The Shoal is also worth fitting up here. He's a floating whale with a top hat. The reason he's good is that when you realize he lacks legs he's harder to hit. He's got a fairly large torso, but the head is not part of the whale, but a fish on top. It's pretty small and unassuming and not very different from all the other fishes floating around him, thus it's very rarely anydoy ever does a headshot on him.
- Mortal Kombat's Nightwolf was originally a parody of Thunder Hawk from Street Fighter. Except that he could run faster than a character was being thrown, and he had a fast recovery time, so you could set up a throw combo. He's still pretty good even in subsequent games, but no unblockable 100% combos.
- Speaking of T.Hawk and throwing, he almost epitomizes this trope in Super Street Fighter II Turbo. He's laughably bad and has nearly unwinnable matchups against half the cast, and at a disadvantage against another quarter. However, if at any time, he achieves a knockdown in the corner, he can start a loop of safe-jumping (attacking with his jumping weak punch, which strikes on a blocking opponent, but whiffs and allows him to land against somebody attempting to reverse him), and following this with a button-up Stormhammer. This pattern allows him to do a completely unbreakable sequence of throwing somebody over and over again in the corner until they die, making him the only character in any iteration of Street Fighter II with an instant-win tactic, provided he can set it up.
- Carl Clover from Blaz Blue seems like a pretty terrible character at first, with a difficult style of play (you have to simultaneously control two characters, or else play as one character who's notably weaker than each other one in the game) and little in the way of obvious strengths. He also has the game's only infinite loop, which, while difficult to master, can easily win a match. Carl currently sits 4th or 5th (out of 12) on the game's tier lists, having initially been consigned to bottom-tier status.
- Kurumi of Vanguard Princess. Unlike the super-beings that are the rest of the cast, she is just a schoolgirl, and has only one move, but is the only character who can chain combo (deadly in this game as combos tend to be low in number and hit at near full power to compensate,) and as of the latest revision her supers are basically a One Hit Kill.
- As of Armored Core 4 it has become possible to equip an AC with two blades. this sounds pretty useless, considering the number of guns the size of freight trains being lugged about. But a fast pure blader in skilled hands can score hits surprisingly often, and when you consider the high damage output and PA reduction of the Moonlight...
- Someone made a version of Mario for MUGEN called "NES Mario". NES Mario is just like what you think, the version of Mario from Mario 1, and he's tiny at that. He can only attack by jumping on enemies and he dies in two hits (if you don't press the button to turn into Super Mario again at the expense of some of the lifebar, a merciful addition). However, there's something that makes him lethal: Fighting game characters flinch win hit, Mario does not. If you get a window of opportunity, you can just keep on stomping your foe and finish them off in less than a minute.
- Arguably, Zappa from Guilty Gear. Due to the random nature of his ghost summons, he's just as unpredictable to the person playing him as he is to his opponent, and his really powerful ghost takes a long time to set up...but once Raoh appears, the fight is more or less over. Plus he's good for just plain freaking opponents out with his constant babbling and impossible contortions.
- Black Ranger from Power Rangers for the Sega Genesis. He had a slow as heck charge attack, and a super easy to counter slow kick. But you start mashing the b button, or have a controller with an auto trigger, he turns into a whirling blade of death. Took me till my 3rd year of college to find a counter to it, and my 5 year old cousin still gets me with it
- No <3 for Fire Emblem yet? The games are practically designed around allowing joke characters to turn into total badasses, provided that you can stand to level them up. Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn are especially guilty, including the infamous Makalov, who has pink clown hair, orange armor, and is best described as an all-around doofus. Oh, and he also enters the game badly under-leveled. With some TLC, though, Makalov's great growths can make him into one of your best Paladins. Other notables are Rolf and Mist, the annoying younger siblings of the Ike and Boyd, who also enter the game badly underleveled and dressed like they belong in middle school (Mist is wearing what can only be described as a sailor suit, in what is supposed to be a western fantasy setting, So Yeah). In latter levels Rolf is a serious contender for best bow user in the game (he beats Shinon in defense though Shinon beats Rolf in attack, so Your Mileage May Vary) and Mist evolves into the only Valkyrie in the game, a valuable unit that has the movement of a rider combined with the ability to use a staff.
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