Who needs weight classes when you can TKO Mike Tyson when you're half his graphical height and half his weight?
- Mizuki Okiura from AI: The Somnium Files is a 12-year-old girl with strength no child of her body, build, and size could ever have; it's simply beyond human limits. She easily bench presses 100kg like it is nothing, jumps several times her own height, kicks a whole tall tree down with ease, and during a Somnium she can easily lift furniture as if they were made of paper. While Somnium worlds do not necessarily reflect reality, Mizuki acts as if she really has done that around the house before. The sequel reveals that this strength comes from being subjected to genome manipulation at the hands of Chikara Horadori.
- Baryonyx in ARK: Survival Evolved is a semi-aquatic dinosaur slightly bigger than a Raptor, but with the combat stats of a Carnotaurus and a tail slap while swimming that can stun-lock and kill even alpha predators. It's considered one of the best dinosaurs for cave expeditions because it can squeeze through most entrances and still destroy anything inside. However, its small size and slender build give it terrible knock-back resistance.
- Pablo Sanchez is one of the shortest players in Backyard Sports, yet he usually has some of the highest-total stats in the series (Baseball, Football and Hockey).
- Mazzy Fentan of Baldur's Gate II is a 4 ft.note tall lady knight who is one of the best melee fighters in the game and will rip through foes many times her size.
- Gwen from Beyond the Edge of Owlsgard is a small owl who appears much shorter and more petit than Finn. However, she turns out to be extra-strong, enough so that she manages several physical feats Finn can't (like pushing a massive cauldron all by herself). She attributes this strength to fitness training and "protein shakes".
- BlazBlue:
- Jubei is a 123cm "tall" two-tailed cat-man weighing in at 25kg... He's also hailed by pretty much everyone as the World's Strongest Man, as demonstrated by his ability to effortlessly catch one of Iron Tager's punches in Tager's story mode. Note that Tager is a 240cm-tall Cyborg weighing in at 550kg.
- Makoto Nanaya is a 163cm tall squirrel girl weighing in at 49kg, but is capable of punching massive craters into the ground, outrunning Carl Clover while carrying an injured Tsubaki over her shoulder and sending people flying with her punches. According to Jin Kisaragi, she broke the Torifune Military Academy's grading system when doing their physical tests.
- Emilia, of Blaze Union. She is 11-years-old, just barely four feetnote tall, and is a stupidly powerful Blood Knight who is capable of turning a one-sided battle in her enemies' favor into a complete rout... the first time she ever picks up a weapon. And that's not even getting into her Superpowered Evil Side. At that given point in time, she is essentially the most powerful person in the world — Gulcasa would be stronger than this if he ever lost control of his demon blood, but he never does.
- The Igniter bloodline from Bloodline Champions are at least half the size of the other ones, but are fully capable of holding their own against the others. The fire powers help.
- The Mutant Midget Psychos and Shotgut Midgets from Borderlands can do some damage if you let them gang up on you. One of the mini-bosses is a fairly tough midget-type enemy named King Wee-wee.
- Salvador the Gunzerker from Borderlands 2 is only 5'4"note , but he's incredibly muscular, strong enough to use two guns at once when using his Action Skill, whether they're pistols, shotguns, sniper rifles, or even rocket launchers. He has several skills that boost his melee prowess, including one that gives him the ability to throw a devastating Megaton Punch. In the Tiny Tina DLC, he's even the template for the dwarves in Tina's RPG campaign, something that he thinks is awesome. Justified by the reason he's so short in the first place: heavy steroid use has stunted his growth.
- Gaige the Mechromancer is slightly (less than an inch) shorter than Salvador, and has a cybernetic left arm that can crush concrete.
- Also, the boss of the early side-quest "Symbiosis" is a psycho midget riding a four-armed gorilla creature called a bullymong.
- Midget/Runty Rats are some of the most annoying enemies in the second game. They're even smaller than regular midgets (and thus harder to hit), much more mobile, and their guns can drop you in seconds.
- Sandman, the midget pirate captain from the Captain Scarlett and her Pirate's Booty DLC, is essentially a Runty Rat with a badass' health and shields. Yikes.
- Moze, one of the possible Player Characters from Borderlands 3, is the smallest of the bunch. She's also a loud, crude Spec Ops soldier with a Mini-Mecha and a her skills encourage her to bring out the biggest guns.
- Salvador the Gunzerker from Borderlands 2 is only 5'4"note , but he's incredibly muscular, strong enough to use two guns at once when using his Action Skill, whether they're pistols, shotguns, sniper rifles, or even rocket launchers. He has several skills that boost his melee prowess, including one that gives him the ability to throw a devastating Megaton Punch. In the Tiny Tina DLC, he's even the template for the dwarves in Tina's RPG campaign, something that he thinks is awesome. Justified by the reason he's so short in the first place: heavy steroid use has stunted his growth.
- Bully: While not really small, Jimmy Hopkins is shorter than most students his level (including the girls) and can beat up almost anybody in a fist-fight, even fully-grown adults provided they don't manage to restraint him.
- Chest: Rosy is the shortest party member at 140 cm, but she has excellent stat growth and is the third strongest member of the party.
- Yan from Crisis Beat is a teenager working aboard the Princess when the terrorist takeover happens, and also an expert karateka who can easily take down scores and scores of enemies with her mop as her default weapon.
- Chrono Cross gives us Marcie at first. Age? 9. Occupation? Bratty half-pine killer of thousands as an elite of the Acacian military, one of the four Devas. Max strength of 86 on her own. For reference, Serge (that's you) maxes out at 88. Her coworkers Zoah and Karsh hit 90. But the worst offender? Leah. Age? 6. Occupation? Abandoned child in the wilderness. Max strength? 93. Max HP? 999. Both highest without any outside help.
- Considering that Leah is implied to be Ayla's mother...
- In City of Heroes there are a number of 3-footnote tall tanks with the Super Strength powerset.
- In Darkstalkers, B.B. Hood is only 4'8"note , and yet she's just as lethal as any other fighter in a game where some are over seven feet (or even eight feet) tall.
- A good number of characters in Disgaea are one of these. Laharl, for example, is a stick-thin, 4'3" 13-year-old capable of curbstomping a starfleet.
- Hibachi from the DonPachi series is often not much bigger than the player ship, sometimes even smaller but have nack for throwing every bullet fired in WWII at you.
- Utha from Dragon Age: Origins – Awakening is a female dwarf Grey Warden who has taken the vow of silence and has been corrupted with the Darkspawn taint. She has since joined the Architect in his quest. Unlike the other Grey Wardens, she does not like to use weapons and is, in fact, a master of unarmed combat.
- Merrill in Dragon Age II is a young elvish woman, definitely the smallest member of the main cast (Varric may be a bit shorter, but Merrill is a lot thinner), and capable of unleashing a horrendous firestorm of offensive magic.
- Dragon Quest:
- Dragon Quest V: Parry is a tiny 8-year-old kid and yet is a capable tank, the only character who can use the legendary Zenithian equipment, and the only party member who learns the Zap (Lightning) family of spells.
- Veronica, from Dragon Quest XI is a sage from an ancient tribe of Guardians, a reincarnation of a Legendary Hero, a mini-nuke unrivaled in the entire game and all of three feet tall after a monster hit her with an age draining curse while trying to steal her magic.
- EXTRAPOWER: Giant Fist: One type of fanatic protecting the desert around Blackberry's pyramid is about knee high compared to everyone else, and is a tricky combatant who leaps about through the air and flings a fan of knives out.
- In Fallout: New Vegas, if you play the "Old World Blues" DLC with the Wild Wasteland perk, at one point you can encounter Stripe, an Alpha Deathclaw approximately the size of a teacup poodle. Feel free to laugh... until it leaps at you and takes out three quarters of your health in one hit.
- Saber in Fate/stay night isn't even five feet tall and is built like a twig, yet she's the 'strongest' hero in the Fifth Holy Grail War. Even while only partially powered against the next strongest, Berserker, she's still capable of holding her own. With Rin as her master, she's described as being absolutely invincible. Also subverted somewhat in that Berserker isn't using magic to buff himself like she does and like he should, but Ilya won't let him. Archer also manages a tie against her despite being very weakened, despite her being 'invincible.' Strength isn't everything, Saber!
- Without her magical energy, Saber is very frail; maybe even Sakura has more physical strength since no one is smaller than tiny old Saber.
- Aside from being strong Saber is also fast enough and skilled enough with the sword to win against Sasaki Kojirou
so her failure to defeat Archer (who fell to his knees unable to stand while parrying overhead blow from her sword) came more from emotional reasons than anything else. - Saberfaces are typically very powerful Servants who are also very petite, according to a height chart for Fate/Grand Order that puts them at generally below 160 cm, with Nero being the shortest at 150 cm (approximately 4'11'').
- In Fire Emblem: Three Houses, Imperial Princess Edelgard is the one of the shortest members of the cast, yet superhumanly strong and durable as a result of both a Heroic Lineage, and Training from Hell. The tied-for-shortest member of the cast pre-timeskip, Lysithea during the Time Skip), meanwhile, is a magical powerhouse who easily outperforms every other caster in the game. Their extremely skewed power-to-size ratio is strongly implied to be a side effect of both of them having not one, but two Crests, which is known to cause nasty health issues, one of which may well be stunted physical development.
- Hilda from the same title is only 154 cm tall (or just over five feet) and no taller after the timeskip, making her one of the few characters to be shorter than Edelgard. This does not hinder her ability to lay down the smackdown with giant axes in the slightest.
- Cyril ties with Lysithea as the shortest character pre-timeskip, and ties for the shortest male character after the timeskip. However, he has no issue with using axes, and if playing as the Blue Lions or Golden Deer, he can be recruited early and taught Point-Blank Volley, notably much earlier than any other character who learns a forced double combat art.
- Downplayed with Felix, who while of comparable height to multiple other male characters, is also noticeably thinner than most characters and no bigger (in terms of height or width) after the timeskip. Felix also has one of the highest Strength bases and growths (10 and 55%, respectively) of the students, and ties for the third-highest Strength cap (78).
- Lilties, from Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles, are, like 3 feet tall, on average, but they're the warrior race that used to rule the entire world. They were The Empire (the most adorable empire ever, but still). In fact, they're sort of still in power, since the princess is half-Lilty (yeah, they can breed with humans, which is a little... squick)
- Conversely (and an inversion), Yukes, the tallest and most intimidating race, are the magical race, with little direct combat capabilities and, some say, no real bodies to speak of at all. Yes, they all wear armor and their weapon of choice is a hammer. But they couldn't wield it to save their lives.
- Speaking of Final Fantasy: what about the Moogles? Granted, they do not fight often, but when they do... 4 feet tall, 94 pounds, and apparently above dragons in the food chain.
- That would be the standard and Crystal Chronicles moogle. The Ivalice breed, on the other hand, is a different beast. Most Moogle classes provide crazy-ass support (Animists can heal one person completely while Jugglers have nasty debuffs), but the Moogle Knight can stand firm alongside any Hume or Bangaa, and if one of them decides to take up marksmanship, your best bet is to run as fast as you can in the opposite direction and never stop while there is breath in your body.
- Final Fantasy XI brings us the Tarutaru race. They come up to your knees, and are just as capable of thrashing monsters as any other race.
- Final Fantasy VII's Cloud Strife is 5'7" according to the English translation, though given that he's 173cm in Japanese, he's closer to 5'8". Roughly average in America, but he's the shortest human adult male in the party, and quite possibly the entire cast. He's also the strongest member of the cast save for Sephiroth.
- Dissidia Final Fantasy brings together the main series' heroes to kick ass and take names, and prominent among the name-takers and ass-kickers is Zidane. The toony, chibi-fied art style of his original game is now finally translated to something a little more realistic, and, well — it turns out that it wasn't just the chibi-style, the kid has yet to clear five feet. This does not stop him from thrashing characters literally twice his height and probably many times his weight. A similar thing applies to the Onion Knight — the people who make a big deal over tiers may place him near the bottom, and who knows, they might be right — but a computer-controlled OK has the best average AI of any character in the game, according to the Word of God, and puts it to frightening good use.
- Final Fantasy XII has Zodiark, who is the smallest of the Espers, but is one of the most difficult bosses in the game. His attacks all deal huge damage and he become temporarily invincible. Once you defeat him, you can have him use those same attacks on your enemies (sans invincibility) and they're no less powerful than when you fought him.
- Final Fantasy XIV features the Lalafell race, the spiritual successor of the Tarutaru. Despite being about three feet tall, they're just as capable of swinging massive axes and tanking blows from giant monsters as any other race.
- In Freedom Wars, Elfriede is signifigantly shorter than other sinners, but she's just as fiesty a fighter as her father Uwe. She also uses the same kind of unique knuckle-mounted weapons as Uwe.
- Genshin Impact:
- All of the playable child characters like Klee, Qiqi and Diona are much smaller than the rest of the teenaged and adult cast, but are very capable of wiping the floor with many powerful Mooks with their weapons and Visions.
- Xiao is among the shortest male characters, though people know better than underestimate him based on his height alone. The facts that one, he is a Yaksha, and second, holds the title "Conqueror of Demons" should be telling enough.
- In Guild Wars 2, the Asurans are an entire race of these.
- The Poison Headcrabs from Half-Life 2 deplete your heath to one hit-point with a single bite. This is less due to the strength of their jaws and more the strength of their namesake poison, however.
- In fact, they do no damage themselves. You could be chewed on by a dozen poison headcrabs for a straight hour and be perfectly fine. The poison even eventually wears off and you will be back at the same amount of health you had before you were bitten. The real reason they are so dangerous is that they allow other enemies in the area to cause a Critical Existence Failure very easily.
- Bronya Zaychik from Honkai Impact 3rd was an 11-year-old girl no more than 147 centimeters tall at the start of the Azure Waters manhua, but she was strong enough to strangle a man with her stockings, break another man's neck unarmed, and even lifted another adult man clear into the air by his necktie. She did this all before receiving superhuman augments in the form of artificial stigmata, although it's left ambiguous whether having natural resistance to Honkai confers superhuman strength on its own.
- Peashy, of Hyperdimension Neptunia Victory, despite being a child, is capable of knocking her surrogate mother Physical Godess Neptune around with playful punches before she can even speak properly. In battle, one of her team specials is to try and play ping-pong with an enemy, only to do it far too hard and clean Neptune up with the foe. Her CPU form is even stronger, but anything but pintsize.
- While people in Inazuma Eleven GO are empowered with some sort of magical shadows/avatars, Shinsuke Nishizono is pretty much a midget among a group of teenagers. Playing as an ace goal keeper, one of his main stretegies involves throwing himself at powerful shoots, and punch it to make a clearance.
- Daxter from Jak and Daxter is one of these, at least in the later games and especially in his Gaiden Game (if you believe his stories, that is).
- Jak himself fits as well. According to his stats in Jak X he is 5'8" in Jak II: Renegade, which definitely seems average... until you compare him with the other characters, that is, and realise he is only at about chin height with most of them. And of course, those are only the humans.
- The King of Fighters:
- In stark contrast to many other sumo wrestlers in fighting games (e.g. E. Honda and Ganryu), Hinako Shijou is a rather petite and short teenage girl. Doesn't prevent her from throwing grown men twice her size from one end of the screen to the other.
- Krohnen McDougall/K9999 is one of the shortest males in the series, at around 5'6" or 1.68m, and definitely has the temper to go with it. Being an expy of Tetsuo Shima, however, he's also a Walking Arsenal with the abundance of Shapeshifter Weapons at his disposal to go with it. Enough to rival the other resident Cyborg of the series, Maxima, despite the latter being several heads taller at 6'8" or 2.04m.
- Kingdom Hearts:
- King Mickey. At roughly two and a half feet tall, he's lucky if he reaches someone's waist, the Basic Shadow Heartless is larger than him, and more powerful enemies tower over him. None of this keeps him from being the most badass character in the series.
- The protagonists Ventus, Xion, Roxas, and Sora all count, the latter three moreso, and Sora especially. Judging by presentation alone, Sora is not only powerful, but balls-out crazy in his application of said power, despite being 15-years-old and short.
- Kingsley's Adventure: Kingsley takes out enemies many times his own height and mass, despite being a cute little fox kit. Most bosses are almost three times Kingsley's height.
- Kirby, in well, Kirby, is 8 inches tall, at least when not sized up in Super Smash Bros.. Do note, this eight inch tall pink puffball has torn at least eight different Eldritch Abominations to shreds. When people rank him among the most powerful video game, they are being completely sincere.
- League of Legends has a lot of characters fitting this trope, most notably Veigar, the Tiny Master of Evil. One of the smallest champions with the ability to dish out some of the highest damage in the game and the ability to stun an entire team. Similar things can be said for the likes of Fizz the Tidal Trickster, Kennen the Heart of the Tempest and Teemo the Swift Scout, all of whom are as short as Veigar but capable of wrecking even the largest foes. Averted with Rumble the Mechanized Menace, who is even smaller than the previously mentioned characters but runs around in a (by the standards of his race) large mecha.
- Really any of the Yordle champions qualify. Veigar, as noted above, may be the absolute best example of this since he has no limit to the amount of ability power he can have. A fed and farmed Veigar can destroy even the tankiest of champions with a single combo.
- Poppy is another exceptional example. She can tackle any champion in the game and stun them if they collide with terrain and her utimate sends enemies (yes, as in multiple) flying half way across the map. Juggeryordle is a very appropriate name for her.
- The cuccos in various The Legend of Zelda games. Dear God, the cuccos. Keep hitting one of them and the whole flock will take you down in seconds.
- Any child variant of Link counts, but special mention goes to Toon Link.
- The version of Link from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is realistically proportioned, but aside from elderly characters he is the shortest adult Hylian in the game, and also the greatest warrior in the land both before and after he was placed in the Shrine of Resurrection. And that's not even getting into the other major races of Hyrule (Rito, Zora, Goron and Gerudo) who are depicted as being quite a bit taller than Hylians as a whole.
- On the villainous side in Breath of the Wild, Thunderblight Ganon is only perhaps a head taller than Link, and thus positively tiny compared to the game's other bosses. It's no less a formidable opponent than the others, though; in fact, it's widely considered the most dangerous of the lot thanks to its incredible speed.
- Credit has to go to Midna. An imp, about half the size of Link, stops a charging Ganon and then flicks him across the room. With her hair!
- Link in Skyward Sword — the first incarnation of the hero — is implied to be kind of short, and keeps getting called "Master Shortpants" by Scrapper. However, the guy is a formidable swordsman and a One-Man Army who manages to get Demise to refer to him a "paragon".
- Ciela in Phantom Hourglass turns out to be one once you get the hammer. When you equip it, it's wielded by her instead of Link, meaning it can be used at range!
- Live A Live: Out of all the human characters, Pogo the Caveboy is the youngest and smallest, yet, as he levels up, he gains both massive strength and massive HP. Not only is he very good at bashing enemies with his bone club, but to open the path to the Trial of Instinct he breaks a stone wall by ramming it headfirst.
- LunarLux: Tetra, a small robot, has a red support skill does 50 damage to the enemy team, but a quest can be completed to upgrade her damage to 200, which is more than most single-target skills and renders many other support skills redundant. In Chapter 4, she's strong enough to carry Nickle the Murk Slayer while flying at the same speed as a Jet Suit.
- Mass Effect: While it doesn't fully show in game, canonically Female Shepard is only 5'3", putting her in the running for being the smallest person on any iteration of the Normandy. She is still one of the most lethal soldiers in the galaxy even before getting strength and power-enhancing implants from Cerberus that allow her to use bone-shattering weapons and hold her own in a melee against krogan and yahg.
- In MechWarrior Living Legends, the man-sized powered battlearmor exists along 20 meter tall Humongous Mecha powered by nuclear fusion reactors. With a skilled operator, the battlearmor can take them all on and rip them limb from limb in a bloodthirsty rage, thanks to the battlearmor's tiny size, incredible agility, and potent weaponry equal to that of a light mech. The battlearmor pays for this with agonizingly slow movement speed on open terrain and being an effectively One-Hit-Point Wonder; small wonder when a single mech weapon weighs as much as the entire battlearmor.
- Some of the Maverick bosses in the Mega Man X series are smaller than X, Zero and Axl, but are capable of dishing out lots of pain. Special mention goes to Gravity Antonion from X8, who, besides being a Gravity Master, can also carry a block that's four times his size and throw it at the player!
- X himself also counts. He is just 5'5" and proves again and again that he is indeed a Super Prototype for all Reploids, complete with Story-Breaker Power. The only thing keeping him pretty low in Maverick Hunter's rank is his Martial Pacifist personality.
- Minecraft: The baby zombies are even more powerful than their normal-size equavalent. Though their attacks do the same amount of damage and they have the same amount of Hit Points, they're able to do so at a faster rate, and move at over three times the speed of normal zombies.
- Mini Robot Wars has the appropriately-named Minirobots. They're half as large as a standard enemy unit... and can put some serious hurt on the invading Machines. The tagline for the game even includes the phrase "Size Doesn't Matter!"
- Monster Hunter:
- The titular hunters: No more than two meters tall. Their usual targets: giant dragons and wyverns that are often 1-2 dozen meters long. That doesn't stop the hunters from slaying those big scary monsters and turning them into new weapons and armor.
- Kirin is not just the smallest Elder Dragon but the smallest "Large" monster period, being no bigger than an ordinary horse. It's still an Elder Dragon, the highest echelon of monster, and extremely powerful.
- Rajang is one of the smaller monsters in the game, being about the height of two Hunters put together, while most monsters are big hulking wyverns that the series is well-known for. But don't let that fool you; it's one of the most dangerous monsters in the entire series, boasting deadly thunder attacks coupled with an acrobatic fighting style to routinely knock out Hunters in just one or two hits.
- In Mousehunt, every one of your opponents is a mouse crossed with Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot. Many of them are capable of easily outdoing the very best of your traps, such as the Acolyte Mouse, Dragon Mouse, Silth Mouse, Warmonger Mouse, Balack the Banished, etc. In mouse standards, the Nerg Chieftain fits here. He's the smallest mouse in the Nerg tribe, and most difficult to catch.
- In Nefarious, Princess Ariella is the warrior princess of Dwarf Country, and loves adventuring and fighting, demonstrating the ability to knock out steel beams with her ax.
- In New Horizons, player can sail with the Caravela Latina. It is tier 6 ship with 78 crewmen. But, first of all, it has 32 guns.
- Tressa from Octopath Traveler is the smallest playable character, but she's just as competent a fighter as the other party members are. This is highlighted in her second chapter, where her fellow merchant Ali is defeated instantly by Morlock, leading Tressa to go save him.
- From Octopath Traveler II:
- Hikari is the shortest male character and doesn't look much more muscular than Temenos, but starts out in the very physically-inclined Warrior class, and he's well-known in Ku for his skills with the sword.
- Ochette is downright tiny, being the shortest main character altogether; it's implied that Beastlings are small in general and age more slowly than humans. However, this doesn't hinder her combat abilities at all. Much like Hikari, she starts off in a strong physical class (Hunter), and her Latent Power even allows her to fight with her own teeth and claws.
- The Duplicants from Oxygen Not Included weigh 30 kilograms and are 42 centimeters tall but can carry hundreds to thousands of kilograms of material.
- Paleo Pines:
- Despite her short stature and old age, Granny Agami often boasts about how she has the strength of ten men.
- Khepri the Protoceratops is too small to be a steed, but she's strong enough to help rebuild the archway to Ariacotta Canyon.
- While not as much as in the anime, the Pokémon video games tend to have more than a fair share of smaller creatures overpowering significantly larger ones.
- Mew weighs in at a little under 9 pounds and a foot tall and Shaymin is only slightly larger, but both have base stats well above average even among Legendary Pokémon. Its equivalents in later generations, namely Celebi, Jirachi, Manaphy, Victini, and Meloetta, also deserve a mention.
- Azelf. Tiny, light, very high Special Attack. Its physical Attack power is just as high.
- The Misdreavus line is also a notable case. Misdreavus stands 2'04" and weighs 2.2 Ibs, but it has pretty high stats for an unevolved Pokémonnote . Mismagius is not much larger, being 2'11" tall and weighing 9.7 Ibs, but has high special stats and speed.
- If a Shuckle uses Power Trick, it becomes the most powerful attacker in the entire series, period. It's two feet tall.
It's a shame that Power Trick Shuckle is for the most part an unreliable strategy... - From Pokémon Red and Blue, we have Machop, a fighting type humanoid Pokémon that is 2' 7" tall and only weighs 43 pounds. Despite being so short, it packs one hell of a wallop and all of its body weight is pure muscle. When it evolves into Machoke, it grows to 4' 11" and weighs 155 pounds, which still makes it quite short yet still retain its power. Its final evolution, Machamp, only grows a few inches taller but it gains an extra pair of arms as well.
- Excadrill is so ridiculously overpowered that many competitive formats ban it... and it's not even a legendary! It has a large base 135 Attack stat that can be bolstered by a Swords Dance, and an ability that doubles its Speed, making it the fastest Pokémon in the entire series in a sandstorm. Its height? About 28 inches.
- This trope is referenced at the beginning of Pokémon Black and White. You and your best friends get your starters, which were delivered to your house to be picked up. Since they're only level 5 Pokemon and still pretty small and cute, Bianca suggests having a Pokemon battle in your bedroom, assuming such cute little things couldn't possibly do much damage. Cut to after your battle with her and the cute little Pokemon have pretty much made the room a disaster area. This trope is promptly lampshaded by all present, including your mother who just saw the aftermath (though she's not too upset about it), no matter how little an adorable a Pokemon is, it's still a powerhouse.
- Another Mega Evolution is Mega Mawile, at 3'3" and 51.8 lbs, Mega Mawile was the smallest of the first batch of megas; it also has an ability called Huge Power that doubles its attack stat, giving it the highest maximum attack stat in the game. Combined with high defense and above average special defense, Mega Mawile is a Mighty Glacier that looks like a little girl.
- UB-04/Kartana from Pokémon Sun and Moon is the tiniest of the Ultra Beasts and one tiny Pokemon overall, being merely one foot tall and looking like sentient origami. It's also one of the hardest hitters in the entire game and can chop entire buildings in half because of its sharp edges, and can take physical attacks relatively well, too.
- Sun and Moon also introduced Marshadow. At 2'04", it is quite small, which is also quite noticeable when sent onto battlefield. It also has Special Attack of 90 and Attack of 125, unresisted STAB combo of Ghost-Fighting and ability that gives 50% boost to weaker attack (on top of STAB) that means ridiculously powerful Shadow Sneaks. And don't even think about trying to kill him by buffing your Pokemon, because it has a move that steals your buffs then uses them right away to hand you an instant kill.
- In Pokémon Sword and Shield, Corviknight is considered to be an apex predator, with respectable stats and standing at 7'03", and is the taxi service due to most Pokémon being unwilling to attack it. In Pokémon Scarlet and Violet however, it is the prey of one of the Pokémon there, which hunts it so regularly that Corviknight not only is prey, but it cannot run the taxi service because of the risk of being attacked. What is this vicious predator? Tinkaton, a 2'04" Fairy/Steel type that wields a 220 pound hammer and knocks boulders at Corviknight for fun. While its stats aren't that impressive for a fully evolved Pokémon, it compensates by learning the devastating 160 power Gigaton Hammer and the respectable Ice Hammer via breeding, and Corviknight possesses almost no attacks that can significantly hurt it in return.
- Far more seriously in Pokémon Violet is The Future Paradox Pokémon in the Paldea Crater. These Pokémon are noted to be much smaller than their present day counterparts, but have stats that vastly exceed the original. They're also not supposed to be here, given that they were brought to the present via time machine, despite the danger to the local ecosystem.
- Scarlet and Violet DLC introduces Terapagos, who is a measly 1-footer turtle and still a rather small-ish 5-footer in its Super Mode. Despite its diminutive size, it's capable of incredible feats, primarily, the source of the Terastal phenomenon that affects multiple regions, as well as the same phenomenon The Professor used to empower their time machine which brought forth the aforementioned time-displaced Paradox Pokémon.
- NieR: Automata has the main character 2B. She stands at 5'6" — when factoring her Combat Stilettos. They make up roughly six inches, and without them she's shown to be roughly five feet tall. Even when factoring them, she often takes on enemies many times larger than her and wins.
- Psychonauts:
- Morceau Oleander is a short, angry man. However, he's a powerful psychic who manages to fend off Sasha and Milla, two powerful Psychonaut agents, who both are seen struggling to get the upper hand. It's only until when Ford arrives that Oleander is outmatched.
- Series protagonist Razputin Aquato certainly qualifies, standing at 4'4''(~ 132cm). Despite that (and being 10), he has defeated numerous talented psychic adults and creatures.
- Little Mac from Punch-Out!!, taking on boxers twice his size and definitely out of his weight rank like it's nothing.
- Everything in their universe absolutely dwarfs both Ratchet & Clank. Clank is especially noticeable, since he plays the part of Awesome Backpack most of the time. Ratchet is, supposedly, 5'1. Not too short by our standards, but almost everyone towers over him in-universe... even his fellow lombax, Alister Azimuth. This becomes even more puzzling when you see him in PlayStation Move Heroes, where he doesn't even come up to Jak's shoulder. Jak, for the record, is in the running for shortest human(ish) character in his own series. As to the 'powerhouse' part of the trope? Ratchet is a one lombax army with an unbelievable arsenal of BFGs, and Clank's a robotic secret agent with loose control over time (depending on the game). You do the math.
- Ash from Raging Justice is a teenage police trainee, and the only member of the gang who walks around carrying a schoolbag. It doesn't stop him from kicking ass all over the place (mostly by using his bag to smack enemies around) - for reference, he stood around the waist-level of the lower-grade mooks.
- Julia from Revenant Saga is half as tall as the rest of the party but has the second-highest natural strength.
- From Rune Factory 3, protagonist Micah in his wooly form. Woolies are the weakest, least-aggressive monsters in the Rune Factory series (Basically their version of sheep). Wooly Micah can bounce around monsters ten times his size, bare-handed.
- In Sam & Max: Freelance Police, Max is about three feet tall, but is incredibly dangerous. Hell, he once tore apart a demon in hell...with his bare hands!
- Shovel Knight of the game of the same name is one of the smallest characters in the game, but he's also an extremely potent fighter with his Shovel Blade and smashes his way through the Order Of No Quarter, including powerful fighters like Polar Knight, fast duelists like Propeller Knight, or creepy undead abominations like Specter Knight.
- Skylanders introduces Chopscotch in Imaginators, a small Undead ghoul who is a Smasher Sensei and wields an axe that's even bigger than what she is.
- Sonic the Hedgehog has a number of these. Most of the non-human characters are slightly built, a little on the short side, have noodle arms, and are very strong. Knuckles especially, who is pretty much The Big Guy of the series despite being the same size as Sonic and most anthros. And any of the flying characters (Cream the Rabbit can carry Big the Cat, Charmy the Bee can carry Vector the Crocodile, and Rouge the Bat can carry E-123 Omega).
- Tails deserves special mention — he's 44 pounds (most of which seems to be his tails, which are each about the same size as the rest of him), and can beat up a giant robot with little trouble and no weapons. Repeatedly.
- Classic Sonic is smaller than most present day characters such as Modern Sonic, but he's still able to tunnel through solid rock, and he eats big, strong, fast things for breakfast. No giant battlemechs lived to talk about him.
- Don't forget Shadow. He can flip over a bus with one hand, and when he takes his limiters off, he's quite able to take out an army of Mephiles.
- Basically all the Anthros are this, if you think about it, given their average size (The main one with a confirmed height, that being Sonic himself, is only 3'3" — that's assuming Modern Sonic, anyway, as Classic Sonic is even shorter). In spite of this, most of them don't really have much trouble dealing with giant killer robots.
- Siegfried from the Soul Series. He starts out the series as not only its shortest male character but its shortest character, but he goes through many growth spurts throughout the series. He starts out at a measly 157 cm at age 16, becomes 165 cm at age 19, becomes 168 cm at age 23 and becomes 172 cm at age 40 and is retconned to be this height at age 19 in the Continuity Reboot, VI. He wields a BFS the same size as him and has one of the heavier styles of the cast.
- Skully has the titular character, a sentient... skull. Human-sized. Who can defeat elemental monsters by rolling really hard.
- If you play a Bounty Hunter in Star Wars: The Old Republic you eventually get a tanking companion named Blizz. Blizz is a Jawa, one of those little hooded guys from A New Hope, that wields a rocket launcher.
- Unlockable companion Treek is a notorious mercenary, a legendary hunter, easily tossed aside a few humans who got in her way, and can tank or heal. She's also the first Ewok (those deadly little guys from Return of the Jedi) to leave her planet.
- Street Fighter:
- Chun-Li is called "The First Lady of Fighting Games" among fans of the genre; her official stats list her as 5'6". Compared to most other fighters in the franchise, she's almost petite.
- She still has Cammy beat by two inches, however, and the Trope certainly applies to her too.
- Streets of Rage: Sammy/Eddie "Skate" Hunter, a preteen, can throw the games' Big Ben enemies without a problem, even in the third game where they're otherwise immune to being thrown (they'll fall on top of the player and deal damage and come out unscathed). In Streets of Rage Remake, only he and the wrestler Max Thunder can do it.
- Mario from Super Mario Bros.. He's 5'1" (Unless you go by the crossovers, where he's about 3'1"), slightly pudgy, with no visible muscles, but he can lift a castle and throw it to the side like a football without breaking a sweat. He is also able to swing around and throw a huge, massive and heavy dragon-turtle just by the tail.
- In Super Mario Galaxy 2, there is a Gearmo (which is about half the size of Mario) that can destroy Chomps with one punch.
- The martial arts master Jinx is the smallest opponent in Super Mario RPG, but he is very powerful and one of the hardest fights in the game.
- SD Gundams in Super Robot Wars BX and Super Robot Wars UX are capable of fighting mecha much bigger then them, to wit Knight Gundam in BX even earns the "Ignore Size Modifier" pilot skillnote .
- And then there's the cyborg Aschen Brodel when she's gets included in Super Robot Wars: Original Generation The Moon Dwellers. She's not a pilot but is capable of beating the crap out of a mech at least five times her size when players use the Gespenst Haken's Phoenix Showdown attack.
- In Super Robot Wars X, Wataru might beat Chirico with his magnum and Ange with her machine gun when Wataru's final attack involves him slashing the enemy with his sword on foot. And yes, it can be done in space.
- Meta example from Sword of the Stars: SOTS starships are tiny by most series' standards; dreadnoughts are smaller than modern US supercarrier. Word of God states that antimatter-era weapons (Cutting Beams mentioned in post) are on par with Babylon 5 Shadows.
- Tak and the Power of Juju: The Dinky Juju is a toddler that can cause earthquakes.
- Presea from Tales of Symphonia. She's the shortest member of your party but wields an incredibly large axe. She's also the only one capable of carrying the sacred wood.
- Them's Fightin' Herds: Arizona is a small calf but she's strong enough to cause earthquakes by stomping as well as send bears and adult bulls flying with just her hooves and a lasso.
- Shanty isn't too far off the trope either. She's the shortest playable ungulate so far but that doesn't stop her from beating and spinning opponents in midair much larger than her.
- Suika Ibuki of Touhou Project has the appearance of an 8-year-old girl, yet as the leader of The Four Devas of The Mountain, the four strongest Oni in all of Japan, she's physically one of the strongest characters in the setting. And that's before she uses her power of density manipulation to grow several times her size...
- Cirno is one of the smallest named character in the games, being a child fairy. But even though her incompetence, stupidity and supposed "weakness" are legendary, none of the named Touhou characters are to be trifled with (except maybe Rinnosuke, Akyuu and Kosuzu). Cirno holds her own against some of the powerhouses of Touhou in Touhou Hisoutensoku ~ Choudokyuu Ginyoru no Nazo o Oe and in Yousei Daisensou ~ Touhou Sangetsusei is strong enough to give trouble to Marisa Kirisame.
- Speaking of Marisa Kirisame, she herself can count as this, given that she's actually one of the shortest characters in the series. For reference, she's only marginally taller than characters such as the Scarlet sisters and the aforementioned Suika, and notably shorter than even Akyuu and Kosuzu. In spite of this, she's known as Gensokyo's number two as far as danmaku duels go, and that's for good reason.
- There's also Shinmyoumaru Sukuna, who is probably the smallest character in the series due to being based on Issun-boshi and usually only being about the size of a mouse, yet she's a Final Boss and was able to use her Miracle Mallet to make herself the size of a child. And she still manages to put up a fight.
- Treasure Planet: Battle at Procyon: The eponymous Procyons are shorter than most humans on average, but are stronger than humans due to having a 20% higher muscle to bone ratio.
- In The Walking Dead (Telltale), as she grows older, Clementine is still quite short compared to most adults. Nevertheless, she is still capable of fighting walkers and hostile humans twice her size.
- Warframe brings Clem, a friendly Grineer trooper who is at least one head shorter than the rest of his race (and any given Tenno). He is also strong enough to hold his own against entire platoons of enemies without help from the players (though he will need support eventually).
- Rudy Roughnight from Wild ARMs is 158cm or roughly 5' 2". He's the strongest member of your team due to his ARM powers and due to him having an incredible amount of strength. Justified because he's made of living metal like the demons, meaning he can deal out and take more damage than Jack and Cecilia.
- A metagame example from World of Warcraft. Smaller character models are harder to select and thus attack. Of the player races, this means the very tiny Gnomes are particular nuisances. And since Gnomes can be both Warriors and Death Knights, they can also be stupidly powerful and durable. Goblins, who were added in the Cataclysm expansion, are much the same. Dwarves aren't nearly as small, but are still pretty shrimpy, and can be Warriors, Paladins, and Death Knights — all the main tanking classes besides Druid.
- That said, once the aforementioned expansion hits the only race that will have all of the tanking classes available to them are the typically 8 foot tall Tauren.
- The Goblins are Gnome-sized greenskinned creatures who are pretty strong for their size. And insane to boot.
- As for NPCs, Jani, the Loa of Scavengers, qualifies as this. While he is "only" a saurid (Warcraft's equivalent to a Compsognathus), he is a Loa and WILL teach anyone who deserves it proper respect.
- Xenoblade Chronicles 1:
- The first game has Riki, a Nopon. One of his catchphrases is "Riki can win by himself!", and he's not all talk, far from it! He has the most HP out of all the members of the party, and with the proper strategy he can solo bosses.
- Xenoblade Chronicles: Futures Connected, the new scenario added to the Definitive Edition, has Nene, Riki's daughter. Her moveset is a derivative of Reyn, The Big Guy and tank of the main game's party.
- Lin Lee Koo in Xenoblade Chronicles X. At 13-years-old, she's the youngest party member, and easily the smallest. She's also the party's tank, wields a Gatling gun, and has attacks that can knock an enemy over in a game where many enemies are the size of a house.
- In a similar vein, Tora from Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is Made of Iron, having the greatest HP growth of all the party members, and starts out as the party's tank with the help of his creation Poppi. However, given the Poppiswap system, it's possible to make Tora and Poppi fit whatever role you need with enough grinding of the 'Tiger! Tiger!' minigame, and they can become practically unstoppable with the right setups.
- Continuing the series tradition, in Xenoblade Chronicles 3, Sena is the Agnian side of Ouroboros' powerhouse, despite being short and lean of figure. She is paired with the Kevesi Lanz, and, despite the latter's initial distrust, the two bonded rather quickly over their shared love of muscle training. Notably, when the team are first able to swap one anothers' classes, Lanz expresses particular surprise that she had been able to wield her hammer unaided, as he initially found himself struggling with its weight even with compensation from his power frame.
- There's also the Hero Ghondor, who is even shorter than Sena is. Although most of her Martial Artist Class fighting style is based around laying down a constant barrage of rapid fisticuffs, she displays a capacity to send enemies flying when she drop kicks them and can render them dazed with a good blow to the head.
