History Main / OneManParty

** In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIX'', the main character Zidane eventually does orders of magnitude more damage with his standard attacks and is much faster than Steiner (without his secret weapons) or Freya. Vivi can eventually outmatch him once he gets Doublecast, but at the cost of ludicrous amounts of MP. Unless Freya has her Dragon's Crest ability and the party has killed enough dragons, in which case she winds up dealing 9999 damage every turn, regardless of enemy defence, for a paltry MP cost. However, a player can either knock Zidane out or infect him with the Virus status to let other party members catch up. The game splits EXP among conscious and non-Virus party members after a battle so there's no lost experience for doing this.

* In ''VideoGame/OnePiecePirateWarriors 4'' the game deliberately hampers your ability to level up too quickly.
** All characters have a third Growth Map which unlocks after hitting Crew Level 4, however the XP needed to go to the next level increases steadily, making quicker low-level maps give out XP that becomes more and more paltry over time.

* This is a fully supported build in ''VideoGame/DivinityOrigialSin2.'' The Lone Wolf talent gives a character massive bonuses (double stat points per level and a sizeable increase in [[ArmorAsHitPoints Physical and Magic Armor]]) as long as no more than two characters are in the party. Cutting down to just one is possible, if a bit difficult. The difficulty mostly comes in Civil Abilities, which one character just doesn't get enough of. You'll either lose our on significant amounts of loot due to a lack of lockpicking, wind up picking a lot more fights due to a lack of social skills, or lose out on the all-important ability to examine foes' stats in combat.

*** Although even the best of the best (non-cheating maximum was just a bit over 100 hps)... could be killed by few stray shots from a plasma pistol (and friendly fire... damn those squaddies!) or a single shot with plasma/sonic rifle. TFTD upped the difficulty, so even a sonic pistol can down your best-equipped, superhealthed soldiers with one shot - the chance is little, but it happens. This was due to the way damage was calculated - there was a random damage from 0% to IIRC 200% damage - 200% damage of sonic pistol is quite capable of penetrating even the heaviest armour. Not to mention alien grenades and blaster bombs/DPTs. People die in ''VideoGame/XCom''.

* In ''VideoGame/ShadowHearts'' the main character so dwarfs everyone else that the main discussion about what groups to use to fight the endgame bosses is limited to "Who is the best item caddy for Yuri?"

** In Adventurer mode, you will often be vastly more skilled and effective than the random soldiers you pick up along your journey, especially since they can't change equipment. Mostly you'll just have one to keep away the [[ThingsThatGoBumpInTheNight bogeymen]] that attack loners at night and a few in case that guy dies. Getting a large party can downright kill you, because ambush sizes scale to your party's size, making battle even more chaotic and bringing in [[AuthorityEqualsAsskicking badass squad leaders]]--though you may actually want this, for the challenge, in-game fame, and because they have the best equipment outside of a player-made fortress.

** In ''VideoGame/SoulNomadAndTheWorldEaters'' it is very easy -- almost too easy -- to turn Revya's unit into a One Unit Army by putting all your hero characters into it. Since all the other units have to be summoned onto the field and take time before you can act, hero characters are far superior to their mundane counterparts, and Revya's only real bad matchups are Gypsies and Gideons (the latter only show up in a BonusBoss fight), this will allow you to almost finish the game with that unit alone, given a good room.

* Zeorymer of ''Manga/HadesProjectZeorymer''. In ANY ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWars'' game it appeared in, no matter the situation, the player could toss Zeorymer to the enemy's ZergRush and [[EvilLaugh laugh]]. This is a game franchise filled to the brim with [[SuperRobot Godlike / Magical / Uber-powerful Robots]] including ''[[Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion Evangelion]]'', ''Anime/{{Rahxephon}}'', or even ''[[Anime/SpaceRunawayIdeon Ideon]]'', and Zeorymer is STILL considered one of the standout GameBreaker and [[GodModeSue God Mode Sues in the SRW franchise]]. What a feat...
** We haven't even gotten into the fact that Zeorymer in ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWarsJudgment'' gets '''UPGRADED''' to Great Zeorymer, taking its {{game break|er}}ing abilities to the next level. To illustrate, its weakest two attacks are the ultimate attacks of three of the bosses it faced...
** ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWarsW'' had a fairly extreme case in this regard. After you get the Valguard midway into the game, it can practically solo the rest of the game even without its final upgrade, having a very spammable MAP weapon, durability comparable to the tankiest of battleships, a bunch of pilots in one mecha, and a fairly cost effective weapon sets despite its relative lack of power. Then it upgrades into the GameBreaker Valzacard which notable in its first appearance to destroy several battleships with its weakest attack. Despite being crippled in term of weaponry, Valzacard have an even higher level of durability, a relatively insane evasion rate, just as spammable MAP weapon, ridiculously cheap weapon line up including a far ranged and close ranged attack that costs no more than 35 EN, 4 Item slots, and even more pilots than its previous forms, which includes the ability to move several times in one turn. Valzacard is so overpowered, that with some support he could finish the final stage, from start to finish all on its own in one turn.
*** Then there's Tekkaman Hiver which has have Reactor Voltekka, a relatively cheap MAP weapon with an extreme amount of range, massive damage output, and a ridiculous amount of AOE, and the unit itself have 2 pilots with several supportive Spirit Commands, including the Love spirit command, which improves the damage output and rewards you get from killing the enemies. Reactor Voltekka is so efficient, that the most optimal way to clear most of the game is simply to nuke down the entire map with it, sending out heavy hitters like Anime/GaoGaiGar and Anime/{{Mazinkaiser}} to clean up the rest and the tougher boss

* Until ''VideoGame/PokemonBlackAndWhite'' implemented AntiGrinding, ''the'' [[GameplayDerailment most effective]] single-player play style in ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'' was to fight exclusively with one Pokémon until it was dozens of levels higher than anyone else. The damage formula[[note]]Attack, Defense, and HP are mostly proportional to level. Damage done is also proportional to level itself. This means the relative strength of two differently-leveled Pokémon is approximately the ratio of their levels ''to the fourth power'', and that's without accounting for an increased movepool. Experience Points are only proportional to level to the third power.[[/note]] and [[TurnBasedCombat binary speed stat]] mean a severely overleveled Pokémon will almost always go first, knock out most opponents in one hit, and take negligible damage on the rare occasion they're hit. Even a [[ElementalRockPaperScissors type disadvantage]] is easily surmounted by a wide move pool or [[ScissorsCutsRock brute force]]. Add in a few [[UtilityPartyMember HM Mules]], and you're set for the whole game. This is so effective and naturally occurring that ''LetsPlay/TwitchPlaysPokemon'', which took almost a whole day to ''go past a ledge'', had a Pidgeot rapidly gain so many more levels that it can curb-stomp almost everything, even when moves are effectively selected at random with only half of them being able to do damage.

** We haven't even gotten into the fact that Zeorymer in ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWarsJudgment'' gets '''UPGRADED''' to Great Zeorymer, taking its {{game break|er}}ing abilities UpToEleven. To illustrate, its weakest two attacks are the ultimate attacks of three of the bosses it faced...

** VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas rewards the player for having a follower or two (the ArbitraryHeadCountLimit restricts you to 1 humanoid and 1 non-humanoid, however), which each follower bestowing a "Companion Perk" that helps you in some way (for example, letting you target cloaked enemies in V.A.T.S., slowing the rate of item degradation, or increasing the effectiveness of healing items). The ''Lonesome Road'' DLC adds the "[[TitleDrop Lonesome Road]]" Perk, which increases damage and V.A.T.S. accuracy, but only appears when you have no Companion Perks.

** In the ''VideoGame/DevilSummoner'' series the Protagonist is paired with a magic caster at the start of the game, Rei in the Original Devil Summoner and Nemissa in Soul Hackers, and both are incredibly powerful magic casters that will determine the outcome of many of your battles even in the late game, with your Demons often acting as support for your female powerhouses.