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The Ace / Video Games

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  • In Chicory: A Colorful Tale, People in Picnic have nothing but praise for Chicory, including Pizza, who takes every opportunity to sing Chicory's praises as both an artist and as the Wielder of the Brush.
  • CP3D: Agent R. He powers his hideout using nothing but sweetcorn, survived years trapped in the Box Dimension, and his Black Belt implies he previously mastered the martial art, Card-Jitsu.
  • Almost every character in Danganronpa is this in one way or another, given the title of "Ultimate" because they are the best at their respective talent. Special mention goes to Izaru Kamakura who's Ultimate Talent is talent itself!
  • Isaac Clarke of Dead Space. Extremely competent engineer, skilled pilot, occasional hacker, and seasoned Space Zombie Killer. Occasionally kills Eldritch Abominations with a Plasma Cutter.
  • Demon Hunter: The Return of the Wings: Emil is recognized everywhere as one of the best hunters, has the appropriate confidence, and wears Cool Shades all the time.
  • Devil May Cry's flagship badass, Dante. Mostly in Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening and Devil May Cry 4. In the first few minutes of DMC3, he takes scythe blades through the arm, leg and chest. He casually rips the blade from his chest without flinching, then proceeds to kick the crap out of a bunch of Mooks using only a bunch of billiard balls and a gun. While munching on pizza. Almost always has a one-liner ready for the situation at hand, while also succeeding in not being a heartless Sociopathic Hero too.
    • Though he is the villain, Vergil could be considered this way too. The Daniel Southworth-voiced, blue-clad, katana-wielding Aloof Evil Twin beats Dante at one point, and would continue to be a consistent rival to his brother throughout the series.
    • Both brothers can be cited as Broken Ace, due to having so much baggage, a lack of poor communication skills to anyone weaker than them, being complete blood knights looking for a quick fix in a fight, or just having no respect for each other as brothers that hate each other.
    • Dante is more of an Ace in DMC4. Every time he shows up he upstages Nero in some way and spends half the game killing villains whom Nero couldn't kill.
  • The three player characters from the Dragon Age series (the Warden, Hawke, and the Inquisitor) are all recognized as this in universe.
  • Duke Nukem is the quintessential Ace, mixed with a bit of Jerkass for good measure. He publishes a book titled Why I'm So Great, collects his own memorabilia, and, while saving the world from aliens, is more concerned with the aliens stealing Earth's nubile women than Earth itself.
  • Dyztopia: Post-Human RPG:
    • Akira is the current top Hunter due to finding two Zodiac Stones. They are acknowledged not only for their own personal combat skills, but also their ability to unite others in completing missions that no Hunter can complete alone. In Chapter 2, they're strong enough to defeat their mentor Kael, who was the previous top Hunter before his faked death.
    • Kael was the previous top Hunter before his untimely death and taught Akira how to fight. It turns out he never died and he actually managed to rise to the top of the Vulcanite Resistance.
  • In Europa Universalis IV, if a ruler is born with a 6/6/6 score it means he's the best at administration, diplomacy and warfare. The ruler who comes closest to that at the game start, is King Skanderbeg of Albania with a 6/5/6.
  • Elden Ring:
  • The main protagonists of The Elder Scrolls are this (or rather some of them become this over the course of the game), as they're all born adventurers developing all manner of skills, combat experience and arcane prowess. Special mention must go to The Nerevarine, The Champion of Cyrodiil and The Dovahkiin, the former both achieving godhood by the end of their journies and the latter being a prodigy in the art of the Thu'um, granting them the power of a large scale Reality Warper simply by speaking. While who's the most powerful or influential of the heroes is debatable at best, there's no doubt that all of them were the chosen by the gods for a damn good reason.
  • Fallout:
    • In most of the series' main games, you can take the special trait "Mysterious Stranger," which lets the player be occasionally and spontaneously aided by a man in a coat and fedora, armed with a six-shooter, who shows up, shoots everyone who has any intention of hurting the player, and then leaves. It's rare that it happens, but his overwhelming badassery makes up for it. His unique magnum can kill just about anything that moves (or doesn't) in one hit, but he still likes to unload all six rounds into them.
    • Fallout: New Vegas
      • You, the Courier. Depending in the allocation of your skill points and what perks you take, you can become capable of taking out whole platoons of trained soldiers by yourself while outsmarting every major and minor player in the Mojave through extensive knowledge, practical experience, more meticulous cunning and planning, or having better people skills. Possibly all at the same time.
      • In a meta sense, the Courier as a character is regarded as this compared to the protagonists of the other games due to being, well, a courier and thus a frequent traveler of post-apocalypse America with all its mutated dangers and savagery for years before that fateful delivery of the platinum chip. Comparatively, most of the other protagonists start their stories having just entered the wasteland for the first time (the Lone Wanderer lived in Vault 101 their whole life and the Sole Survivor was cryogenically frozen since pre-War times).
      • Providing the page image, Lanius, the Legate/General of Caesar's Legion. Feared far and wide on both sides of the Colorado River, he earns his moniker as the "Monster of the East" for his sheer brutality and strength. Despite many a rumor considering him a mere barbarian by association with the acts the Legion performs, when you meet him during the Second Battle of Hoover Dam (regardless of whether your character is opposing or supporting the Legion), you discover that despite popular opinion, he is equally clever and capable of listening to reason. But face him directly in battle, and you will learn exactly why Caesar trusted him to lead his Legion.
  • In the Final Fantasy VII-verse:
    • Before his Start of Darkness, Sephiroth was known as the absolute best of the elite group SOLDIER and admired as a hero. He was actually so good that, according to Cloud, the tall tales people told about him were understating how strong he was — rather than the other way around as usual.
    • Zack Fair, especially in Crisis Core. He's everything Cloud wants to be — upbeat, popular with everyone, cheerful and fun-loving, Jumped at the Call and never came down, actually a member of SOLDIER, etc. He did nearly everything Cloud's famous for and did it first, up to and including riding on the top of trains, fighting rogue SOLDIERs and arguably did a better job of all of it. He's the first to meet Aerith by falling into her flower bed, as Cloud does years later. Almost everyone Zack encounters likes him, or at least they don't hate him even though he works for Shinra — this includes Cissnei, Tseng, Sephiroth, Yuffie, Tifa, etc. The only time Zack really fails at a critical moment is in trying to stop Sephiroth during the Nibelheim Incident — unfortunately, Zack's efforts are Doomed by Canon. Though he eventually loses to Sephiroth, Zack manages to put up a darn good fight. Zack is the sort of guy who's just Too Good for This Sinful Earth. His death is a Foregone Conclusion, but he naturally dies in an epically heroic way, still every inch a Hero and every ounce an Ace.
      • Even death doesn't stop Zack, because he appears to Cloud just as Sephiroth is charging for the kill and manages to give Cloud a time-stopped heroic pep talk from beyond the grave, inspiring Cloud to find the strength not only to fight on, but to win decisively in a single attack.
      • Zack's position as The Ace is lampshaded in episode 8 of Before Crisis, when Zack first shows up and works with the player character Turk. The title of that episode is "A Light That Penetrates Through the Darkness" or "A Light Even Darkness Can't Penetrate". Guess who they're referring to.
      • Though Crisis Core also shows that Zack had some serious issues due to all of the misery the game puts him through. To Cloud and others, Zack was an awesome heroic figure — but Zack himself had Heroic Self-Deprecation in spades and died still wondering if he had managed to become a true hero.
      • Zack is also an Ace because despite not being a member of the Jenova project directly, he defeats Genesis and Angeal, the two members of Project G, while they're powered up into giant monsters by their genetic absorption abilities. And even Sephiroth, fully insane and with no regard for anyone's life, was unable to kill him the only time they fought head-to-head, though he did defeat Zack, and probably would have killed him had Cloud not run him through and thrown him into the reactor core. If there's any regular SOLDIER more powerful than Zack, we don't get to see them.
  • Tidus the "Blitz Ace" in Final Fantasy X. Yuna also fits this role quite well in Final Fantasy X-2 as well, as demonstrated through her Chronic Hero Syndrome. Tidus is only really The Ace in Blitzball; he's an Idiot Hero for a lot of the game.
  • Fire Emblem:
    • Deconstructed in Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones. Ephraim starts off so damn amazing. However, when he gets back to Renais, Seth tells him that the citizens are not cheering for his return. They're only happy because Orson's reign of terror is over. Ephraim takes this as the sign that his Leeroy Jenkins tendencies haven't been great for his people and begins to mature from then on. Additionally, his fame as The Ace is one of the biggest reasons why his friends Innes and Lyon, despite both being very talented in their own areas, display quite a bit of an inferiority complex and covert/not-so-covert envy. In the first case Ephraim only sees it as normal Friendly Rivalry, but Innes takes it more seriously to the point of telling Eirika that he'll only propose to her after defeating Ephraim; in the latter, it's massively Played for Drama since Ephraim adores Lyon and never sees him as inferior, so he's struck hard (read: he's driven to tears) when he learns about Lyon's psychological troubles and how a part of them can be linked to seeing himself as inferior to Ephraim.
    • Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance and Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn has a few of them. Ike qualifies in his Radiant Dawn incarnation (having already taken down one evil empire in Path of Radiance), the Black Knight is busy being the best general for both Daein and Begnion at the same time, and Bastian seems to be a man of many talents (including being perhaps the greatest politician in all of Tellius) and Shinon is not only the best archer in the game, but his epilogue explicitly states that he's just good at everything he tries out.
    • Despite their youth, Byleth of Fire Emblem: Three Houses is already an exceptionally skilled mercenary at the start of the game, quickly becomes one of the best teachers at the Officers Academy, and their choice of allegiance is the deciding factor in the post-Time Skip war.
      • Claude, the leader of the Golden Deer house, is a very intelligent and resourceful young man who is also a master archer (able to shoot an arrow down in mid-air with one of his own!), a brilliant tactician and Chessmaster, and also demonstrates in cutscenes he is not without skill with a sword. He also inspires a great deal of loyalty in the men he commands, he has a knack with animals, and he's a hit with the ladies to boot.
  • F-Zero: Captain Falcon is considered one of the best pilots and bounty hunters in the entire universe.
  • Grand Theft Auto IV: In a franchise full of badasses, Niko Bellic may just stand head and shoulders above the rest. Either running or fighting, he is extremely strong, tough, fast and durable. It's not just how you play him, more than one NPC will remark on his One-Man Army abilities.
  • Like his mythological counterpart, Lancelot in Guenevere is presented as a seemingly perfect knight who embodies the chivalric virtues to the public.
  • Hitman: Agent 47. An expert with every weapon in the world, capable of quickly and efficiently dispatching targets with pistols, assault rifles, shotguns, sniper rifles, chainsaws, briefcases and so on. Trained in at least three martial arts. A Master of Disguise who is able to pass himself off as anyone, from anywhere, despite being a tall, pale, bald man with a barcode tattooed on the back of his head. A Stealth Expert who can find a way into any location, no matter how secure. A Polyglot who can speak almost every language he encounters like a native. And that's just the stuff he uses in every mission. Specific missions have demonstrated that he is also a gifted drummer, flair bartender, chef, detective, realtor, tattoo artist, chemist, painter, manager, telepresence operator, psychologist, yoga instructor, barber, sommelier, gardener, mechanic and masseur. Justified, at least to a degree, in-universe; 47 is genetically engineered for superior intelligence, and his job largely seems to consist of showing up for a day and being paid a great deal of money, meaning he has plenty of time to pick up new skills and a superhuman ability to remember them; that being said, it seems...out of character for a man like 47 to have learned a highly energetic drumming style or taken up flair bartending when to all appearances his only hobbies are buying highly expensive suits and thinking up murder puns.
  • Inazuma Eleven : Gouenji, the ace striker from the main team, is aknowledged as this in-universe. In fact, most if not all soccer teams have at least one ace striker. Strikers are usually the best players and they tend to be the captains, but not always.
  • In the 8-bit game Infiltrator, the player character is Johnny "Jimbo-Baby" McGibbits: super-soldier, ace helicopter pilot, engineer, heart and neurosurgeon, karate expert, movie actor, rock star and devil-may-care all-round nice guy.
  • The heroic Superman from the prime universe in Injustice: Gods Among Us. He's considered the very model of a hero and is looked up to by all the other heroes on his world, and generally regarded In-Universe as one of the noblest and most powerful heroes of them all, which is really saying something. And then when he's finally pulled into the !Injustice-verse, he thoroughly lives up to his reputation, proceeding to effortlessly defeat the most powerful of the Regime's enforcers in quick succession before beating his own evil counterpart into submission.
  • Kingdom Hearts: This series features a lot of powerful Keyblade wielders, though some definitely stand out.
    • Riku was the greatest fighter on Destiny Islands who always seemed one step ahead of Sora in both his combat and travels. His experiences also mean that he's developed a pretty strong resistance to darkness. Unlike Sora, he passed his Mark of Mastery in DDD and is thus far the only member of the Destiny Trio to achieve the rank of Master.
    • Sora himself is an odd example; unlike most heroes of stories like this, he's actually The Unchosen One and was always in competition with Riku over who was better. He also ended up failing his Mark of Mastery Exam (though no one can really blame him for it). Despite this, he's easily the most experienced traveller, connects with the hearts of others in a way Ansem the Wise claims makes all his research "amount to nothing" in comparison, he almost single-handedly destroyed Organization XIII and defeated Master Xehanort, who was wielding the X-Blade (though he did have some luck and some help from his friends Donald and Goofy). He may not be a full-fledged Keyblade Master, but he's earned the right to the title and then some.
    • Then there's Master Xehanort. This guy manages to make the combined forces of Organization XIII look like a bunch of rank amateurs. Not only is he easily one of the most intelligent and powerful characters in the entire franchise, but he possesses a mastery over magic even Aqua hasn't yet demonstrated and is a Lightning Bruiser (sometimes even using real lightning!) that even Sora has trouble pinning down at times. He orchestrated the entirety of the events from Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep to Kingdom Hearts III and even manipulated the likes of Malificent into doing what he wanted without her being any the wiser. He's so fucking good at what he does that half the time, even when there's a huge setback to his plan, he barely bats an eye because he's the king of Xanatos Speed Chess who has many different routes to his final goal.
    • King Mickey is usually the toughest when he's actually on the battlefield, even with the help of Sora, demolishing Xehanort's Replica’s while reaching the light, despite being mortally wounded.
    • Finally, we have The Master of Masters, a Keyblade Master who can create Keyblades and is said to have the power to see into the future. While he's revealed as a Well-Intentioned Extremist later on, it doesn't change the fact that he manipulated the Foretellers, even Luxu (himself a contender for this trope) into doing EXACTLY what he wanted them to do so the future would play out how he wanted it to. He even manipulated Master Xehanort into doing the things he did. While he's never seen in combat, one can only imagine what a absolute beast he probably is.
    • Yozora is easily one of the hardest bosses in the entire franchise and for good reason; he's an absolute combo monster with a variety of awesome skills and seems able to manipulate data and energy at will, he's even able to steal Sora's Keyblade and render him unable to use any of his abilities. His exact role in the series is unknown so far, but no matter what side he's on, the other side better watch their step.
  • League of Legends: Jayce, the Defender of Tomorrow, is an extremely good-looking, highly intelligent Badass Normal who fights crime with his lightning-based cannon-hammer hybrid. He's one of his hometown Piltover's most brilliant Hextech inventors, while at the same time being extremely popular with the city-state's general populace, who look up to and respect him as an Ideal Hero in his endeavors of enforcing justice in Piltover. On the other hand, he's also exceedingly full of himself and highly arrogant about his talents, to the point that he's disliked by most of his colleagues because of it.
  • Every person (post-Tia) who joins your party in Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals/Lufia: Curse of the Sinistrals gets hyped up in the town that you meet them in. Selan and Dekar are the most prominent examples in both games.
  • Prince Peasley in Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga. Whenever he smiles, the entire screen flashes white. Luigi swoons over him.
  • Commander Shepard from Mass Effect is a clear example. S/he is regularly stated to be the most skilled fighter in the galaxy and his/her leadership and charisma become practically legendary in 2 and 3. And that's not even getting into his/her nearly flawless success rate. Over the trilogy, not counting the Collectors' ambush on the first Normandy, Shepard is only shown to lose once, on Thessia. A defeat that sends him/her into a brief Heroic BSoD before s/he quickly bounces back to deliver a devastating strike on Cerberus, the ones who caused the defeat in the first place.
    • Miranda Lawson is a noteworthy example, what with being genetically engineered to the summit of human perfection. She doesn't seem to have a problem with mentioning it from time to time. It's also Deconstructed through conversations. She suffers from an inferiority complex caused by having all her physical and intellectual abilities hand-tailored from birth, which causes her to feel that she can't take credit for any of her accomplishments on her own merit. Even more so, because she can't help but compare herself to the aforementioned Commander Shepard, who she sees as having accomplished everything s/he's done without being genetically engineered.
    • Joker is also a clear Ace, being the "best... helmsman in the Alliance Fleet", top of his flight class, commendation after commendation, all in spite of a crippling disease. He even claimed to have been better than the instructors by the end of flight school.
    • It's harder to notice with Garrus Vakarian since he tends to be overshadowed by Shepard, but he is one of the most skilled soldiers in the turian army, let alone party members. He's an outstanding sniper, highly capable engineer, great investigator, natural leader and excellent strategist. In the first game, it's revealed that he was a Spectre candidate at one time, before his father stepped in, though he tends to downplay this by pointing out that turian Spectre candidates are a dime-a-dozen. However, by the third game, he's mostly stepped out of Shepard's shadow and been promoted to having his own squad to counter the Reapers, and is implied to be one of the highest ranking officials in the turian military.
  • The CEO protagonist of Max Gentlemen Sexy Business! is simply great at everything they do. The most prominent is obviously being a businessperson, but they are also a highly skilled fighter, an incredibly well-traveled adventurer, and an effortless charmer, among many other areas of expertise. The start of the game is them returning from a particularly exciting vacation, and numerous date events with the love interests reference hordes of other nigh-superhuman achievements in the past.
  • Zero to X in the Mega Man X series.
  • The Boss from Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, who not only managed to fight in World War II while pregnant and give birth on the battlefield, she gave herself a Caesarean section! She's the fictional Mother of American Special Forces, is respected by everyone (even Volgin, who towers over her is intimidated by her), and the reason behind all of the events of the Metal Gear saga.
    • Snake from the same series is superficially The Ace, a legendary One-Man Army who's saved the world on multiple occasions and capable of wooing any woman (or man) he encounters, but the player, those close to him and Snake himself know that the truth is far less flattering. (It turns out that much of Naked Snake/Big Boss' accomplishments are fabrications created by Zero, while Solid Snake is an imperfect — and rapidly aging — clone of Big Boss. He may have saved the world, but it's revealed that in doing so, he's been an unwitting part of a not-so-Ancient Conspiracy's feud with Big Boss, then Revolver Ocelot.)
    • Grey Fox. "Fighting was the only thing... the only thing I was good at...". He was considered a hero and The Ace even after his defeat in Metal Gear 2.
  • Marco from Metal Slug.
  • A weapon example in the Monster Hunter series. The newest weapon, the "battle tonfas", in unite is criticized for being a weapon that excelled in way too many aspects and ruined the competitive balance, rendering some other weapons close to obsolete. It has the mobility and versatility of sword and shield, the fire rate of dual blades, the charge-gauge-based special attacks like a charged axe, but with spontaneous damage output like wyvern fire from a gunlance. On top of it all, it has a jumping move and can keep attacking mid air. Oh, did I mention that it can do both IMPACT and CUTTING damage by utilizing the gauge and is therefore the quickest impact weapon you can use to knock out a monster? Japanese fans said that this weapon has at once put lance, hammer, dual blades and insect glaive all to tears.
  • Pathea's My Time at Portia and My Time at Sandrock inevitably have the main player character, the Builder, become a highly accomplished member of their profession with incredible mastery in various other skill sets. Aside from helping construct massive infrastructure projects and smaller construction projects, they will often also become incredibly skilled monster hunters and ruin divers, professional chefs, and war heroes against the ongoing hostilities with the Duvos Empire. By the late-game, it's not unusual for NPCs to comment on how accomplished they have become, regarding them with impressed awe. There are NPC examples, however:
    • Wei from Sandrock is a legendary builder who was presumed lost and dead in the desert for years, and when he manages to come back and becomes the new Commissioner of Sandrock after his brother, Yan, is arrested and kicked out of the position, he proves he's an incredibly skilled superior and builder still, personally taking on the many highly-advanced projects the player's Builder participates in all while coordinating the many infrastructure projects and administrative duties around town.
  • Aki in Namco High is running perfect marks in every subject at once (and she's taking all the subjects) and is president of every club and star player of every sports team. The only thing she isn't good at is having more than four seconds a day of personal time. Also, she's a superhero.
  • Dan Murray of The Next Big Thing is a sports writer of no little renown, and good friends with most of the important Hollywood types. Everyone loves him so much that he can belittle, insult, and demean them until he's blue in the face and they'll just laugh and say, "What a guy!"
  • Lucien Moreau from the Nexus Clash Laurentia arc was a larger-than-life globetrotting adventurer who effortlessly succeeded at everything he put his mind to and was remarkably rich, charismatic, well-traveled and famous from a remarkably young age. Unfortunately, he got the notion that his four children would automatically be just as successful by virtue of being his and would be certain to carry on his legacy just as well as him. To say that this didn't work well for any of them would be an understatement. This didn't keep him from becoming Shrouded in Myth and being remembered as the father of his country.
  • Tom Goodman from No One Lives Forever. Subverted because he's already dead, and the one you meet is an impostor.
  • Oxenfree implies Michael was one. Possible dialogue reveals that he was very popular in school and actually got some cops to buy him beer. He was also the valedictorian for his high school graduation.
    • It gets Deconstructed when Michael admits he feels burdened by everyone's high expectations.
  • Joe Chin from Parappa The Rapper. In the cutscene from the first level he defeats two bullies just by boasting about his accomplishments to them.
  • The protagonists of the Persona series tend to be this from the third game onward. They're all Chick Magnets who won the Superpower Lottery with their exclusive ability to utilize multiple Personas as the users of the wild card. They also tend to be extremely talented in a variety of fields such as cooking, the arts, and leadership, invariably becoming the charismatic leader of their respective groups. They're also incredibly sociable, kind-hearted, and helpful, going out of their way to help up to 21 people per game with their personal problems.
  • The Champions in Pokémon are considered to be the strongest Trainers in the region, and are invariably the Final Boss of the game they appear in. Even getting the chance to fight them requires you to obtain eight Gym Badges/four Island stamps, traverse the local Victory Road, and defeat the Elite Four. They have high-levelled, well-trained, balanced teams, and can be very difficult to defeat if you don't know what you're doing. Or even if you do, in some cases.
    • Pokémon Red and Blue have your rival, implied to be the first Champion of Kanto. He has a type-balanced team, and while his Pokémon aren't going to be anything you've never seen before, they are going to be strong enough to catch you off-guard. Even worse, back when the games originally came out, you had no idea he existed. You're only told that there is a fifth trainer to defeat after you've defeated the last of the Elite Four.
    • Pokémon Gold and Silver have Lance, a Dragon-type trainer and former Elite Four member who ascended to the Champion position since the previous game. He establishes his character in the game when he has his Dragonite use Hyper Beam on a member of Team Rocket. Not a Pokémon owned by Team Rocket, a human. He's also a cheating bastard, because he has Pokémon with impossible levels and movesets. Should you obtain eight more badges after beating Lance, you can face off against Red, the protagonist of the previous game, who has the highest-levelled team in the game, and who is talked up throughout the game.
    • Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire is an interesting one. If you're playing the originals or the remakes, you're up against Steven Stone, a rich heir with impressively powerful Steel- and Rock-type Pokémon. In the remakes, he's even able to Mega Evolve his ace Metagross, turning an already-powerful Pokémon into a complete nightmare. Should you be playing Emerald, you'll fight Wallace instead, and while Wallace is an easier fight, his Water-types are still no pushover.
    • Pokémon Diamond and Pearl has Cynthia, who is widely considered to be one of the most difficult fights in the entire series. Her team isn't type-based and consists of high-level, powerful Pokémon with perfect stats, one of which, Spiritomb, has no weaknesses until Fairy-type is introduced in Generation VI. Her ace is her Garchomp, a Pokémon that is feared to this day for being nightmarishly fast and strong, and which can probably sweep your team on its own if you're not prepared for it. Her final rematch team in the Diamond and Pearl remakes is even the highest-levelled team owned by an NPC in the entire series outside battle facilities, where levels are automatically set.
    • Pokémon Black and White has Alder, who is something of a Broken Ace, as he spends a lot of time wandering when he's not taking challengers due to the death of one of his Pokémon. In the main campaign, he's not the final boss. The real ace is N, who defeats Alder shortly before you get there and becomes the (unofficial) Champion himself. N is notable for being the first NPC trainer who uses a Legendary Pokémon on his team in the main series. Enough said. When you finally get around to fighting Alder, you'll find that the "broken" part doesn't stop him from being a nightmare to fight, as his team sports things like Volcarona.
    • Two years later in Pokémon Black 2 and White 2, Alder has been succeeded by Iris, a sweet little girl who uses Dragon-types like Lance before her. Don't be fooled by the cutesy princess outfit. Dragon-types were completely broken in this generation, and Iris has a Hydreigon, one of the most dreaded Pokémon in the series on her team, and a Haxorus that knows Dragon Dance, making it capable of sweeping your team once it sets up.
    • Pokémon X and Y are generally considered to be the easiest Pokémon games, but that doesn't mean that Kalos's resident Champion is an easy fight. Diantha is notable for being the first Champion in terms of game release to have Mega Evolution available to her in the form of her Mega Gardevoir, which has a monstrous Special Attack stat and can do ridiculous damage with Moonblast if you let it.
    • Pokémon Sun and Moon and their sequels have an unusual example: you're the Champion. As in, you beat the Elite Four and take your throne, then face off your first challenger in the form of either Kukui or Hau. From the way everyone else treats you, it's clear that you're now considered to be The Ace. Nevertheless, Kukui is no slouch. Everyone in Alola talks him up as a master Trainer, and he gets respect from everyone he meets. He's known to use competitive-level tactics in the fight, and he'll have the starter that didn't get used on his team, as well as access to its Z-Move.
    • Pokémon Sword and Shield has Leon, who has a perfect win record in professional matches, and is beloved by the entire Galar region for being a Champion who has been undefeated since he was 10. His ace is a Charizard that can Gigantamax.
    • Pokémon Scarlet and Violet has two Champions due to the fact that Champion is a title awarded to anyone who passes the Gym Challenge: Geeta is the official "Top Champion" of the Pokemon League and is both it's Chairwoman and it's strongest trainer, with her Ace being a Glimmora that can be Terastalized into a Rock-Type. Nemona is a Champion-level Trainer stated to be potentially much stronger than Geeta who not only comes from a wealthy family but is the Student Council President of the Academy. Her Ace is the Starter that's weak to yours (which she chose in order to fight on the player's level).
    • Red, the original protagonist from the first gen games, is canonically and in-universe considered this even compared to other Champions who are already aces. Blue, his rival, is considered this to a lesser degree than Red, but both Red and Blue are considered so good that they have titles that differentiate them from regular Champions and are regarded as "Battle Legends". It also shows in-universe as Red is usually the Superboss in the games he appears in as an NPC, and his team also contains some of the highest leveled Pokémon that an NPC has in the series outside of battle fascilities.
  • The protagonist of Radiant Historia is this; he was able to learn an invisibility spell after seeing an enemy use it once. From the perspective of the non-time travelers, its even more ridiculous. "We need a one-of-a-kind magic item protected by the most powerful army in the world!" "Oh, I have that right here in my pocket." He had to jump between two different timelines a few dozen times to get it, but they don't see that.
  • Deconstructed in the Hentai game Season of the Sakura; protagonist Shuji Yamagami is instantly good at any sportnote  without needing to practice or train, but refuses to participate in any club unless its members can beat him fair and square. Eventually he explains to his friends that he tried being the "school hero", but the people who actually had to work to get where they were resented him for just having skill handed to him on a silver platter, and he ended up being shunned and hated, which was why he transferred to this new school in the first place.
  • A protagonist example exists in Sonic the Hedgehog himself. He always manages to foil whatever scheme the villains have, and his sheer charisma has most of the cast looking up to him. And Sonic is very much aware of his status too.
  • In Starcraft II, November "Nova" Terra is one of the Dominion's most elite Ghost assassins. She completed her training in record time (two and a half years, instead of four) and her psychic powers eclipse anything short of the most epic Zerg and Protoss beings.
  • Mario himself. Going through all his accomplishments would take all day.
  • Sanger Zonvolt from Super Robot Wars. A Large Ham whose only real weakness is that his mecha's attacks all cost energy. He gains Ace status during the Earth Cradle where he takes on a cyborg zombie version of himself from another dimension in a duel, accidentally destroys a bunker that was supposed to withstand the apocalypse, and then one hit kills a boss. Like Kamina he can say the cheesiest crap and make it look badass.
    Sanger Zonvolt: I am Sanger Zonvolt! The sword that cleaves evil!
  • Tales of the Abyss: Van Grants is the Ace in a world that's just a few competent civilians short of being a World of Badass and, in a weird way, while he's very much a broken one, he's also a straight one... to the villains.
  • By reading his CV, it is clear Santino from Tales of Monkey Island was every bit the ace... Just too bad that by the time you meet him, he's been dead for decades. None of his crew-members seem to have realized this, however, as they still think he's awesome.
  • Saxton Hale from Team Fortress 2.
  • In Tokimeki Memorial 1, main heroine Shiori Fujisaki is gorgeous, booksmart, kind-hearted, athletic, feminine, popular... What does she not have, as the "golden girl" of Kirameki High? Ah, she's very picky in regards to boyfriends... Well, you can still try to woo her and become her Victorious Childhood Friend! Unless you choose to court other girls, that is.
  • Lara Croft from the Tomb Raider series. She has excellent acrobatic and fighting skills, and iconic sex appeal. She is broadly intelligent with a witty sense of humor, and can speak multiple different languages. Not to mention she owns a fortune, living in a manor and has her own butler.
  • This is the defining trait of Valkyrie Drive -Bhikkhuni- Koharu Tsukikage. Fittingly, she's a perfect foil for Rinka Kagurazaka, the game's main character.
  • Maniac from Wing Commander straddles the line between actually being The Ace and merely pretending to be—he starts as a reckless nutcase with a superiority complex, but eventually becomes every bit as formidable as he thinks he is, with two thousand confirmed kills by the start of Wing Commander Prophecy. Even before then, background fluff made clear that both he and the Player Character, Blair, were among the top 20 aces for Confed in the entire Kilrathi War. (The other 18 were all killed in action.)
  • Clementine in The Walking Dead (Telltale) is one of the most experienced survivors of the apocalypse. Unlike Rick Grimes' group, she has survived for 8 years without staying in a certain area for prolonged periods of time and most of those years are by herself. She is well capable of almost all the skills necessary for survival, ranging from driving a car, horse riding and using any kind of weapon. Her skills are why even adults take advices from her and she immediately becomes the leader of Ericson's Boarding School despite recently joining them. Heck, she even manages to outlive Rick Grimes himself.
  • The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt: Caranthir is the pinnacle of a millenia-long eugenics program, and dear God, does it show. First of all, he is an immensely powerful mage, described by Avallac'h as his most talented pupil ever. He manages to handily defeat his old master in in a one-on-one duel, and later conjures a blizzard five members of the Lodge of Sorceresses (the weakest of which has been seen wiping out armies) working in concert fail to dispel. On top of this, he can dimension-hop (something only the most powerful sorcerers can do, and then only under very specific circumstances) at will and with almost languid ease. On top of this, he is over seven feet tall, broad in proportion and strong enough to smash rocks into gravel, as well as an extremely skilled warrior, who duels Eskel (a man whose skills Geralt, widely considered the World's Best Warrior, speaks well of) to a standstill on his quarterstaff skills alone.
  • Citan Uzuki from Xenogears. He is "officially" just a rather skilled doctor, but as Fei once states, "the doc knows a lot about a lot of things". Apart from his medical skills, he is also a genius mechanic and engineer, one of the greatest swordsmen in the world, a talented martial artist, usually the most intelligent person around, a keen psychologist, a highly skilled spy and double agent, an expert in Lost Technology (although some people are better than him at that), a good and responsible husband and father, and maybe the only person in the world who understands something of the game's metaplot (whose implications would scare the shit out of any normal person) without being at least several hundreds of years old. With all of that, he still manages to be a really kind, caring and accessible person who helps everyone and will usually always say and do the right thing. The only things he sucks at is cooking. (But his wife is amazing at it.)

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