With Great Power Comes Great Insanity / Video Games

Power causing insanity in video games.

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• Abyss Crossing: The Astras were spirits meant to maintain the balance of the True World, but they took in too much magic power and lost their sanity.
• In Aquapazza, Ma-ryan and Chizuru are both very powerful and extremely dangerous. Both get better after you've beaten them.
• The "Tyranny of King Washington" DLC for Assassin's Creed III shows what would happen if George Washington were to somehow obtain an Apple of Eden. Washington would declare himself King of the United States, turn the Continental Army into the brutal Bluecoats loyal only to him, wipe out whole villages and towns for refusing to bow down, and force the people of New York to build him a giant pyramid palace, while plotting to take the war to Great Britain. The end of the DLC reveals that this was a vision of a possible future given by an Apple that someone has given to Washington. Horrified, Washington has Connor get rid of the artifact and refuses to entertain any thoughts of a monarchy.
• Bionic Commando (2009):
  • Capcom seems to be setting up an implication in the new game in regard to this. However, it is subverted: people with bionic limbs are more or less sane (though in Rearmed, Spencer is one cocky son-of-a-bitch), but if they come to rely on the bionics and have them taken away... they kinda go Ax-Crazy.
  • The backstory for the new BC game clears this up. The government gives soldiers bionic replacements for limbs lost in battle. Then, the government says that bionic replacements are dangerous and wants to take them back. Which would be fine, except that the people who don't like the idea liken it to the government asking for parts of their bodies. Which is probably justified, especially in the case of people that have bionic eyes. Rather than give up their bionic replacements, these people join a terrorist group.
  • All in all... wouldn't you get a little annoyed if you were told that you had to forfeit your arm or leg?
• BioShock:
  • In the first BioShock, abuse of the mutagen ADAM, which gives the user incredible powers but often proves addictive, was one of the factors in the downfall of Rapture, the Utopia-gone-wrong in which the game takes place. Andrew Ryan, on the other hand, didn't need the help to go from visionary leader of an Objectivist utopia to batshit insane dictator. He had no qualms selling Plasmids or ADAM to make a buck, but he didn't use them himself. His crazy was all down to the political power he had, and his desperation to hold on to it at any cost.
  • In BioShock 2, Gil Alexander is a good example of this.
  • In BioShock Infinite, it's actually the other way around: when Elizabeth's full potential gets unlocked, she is literally able to see all that ever was, it and will be and becomes emotionally more stable. However, we also see that if she would have been tortured into insanity by Comstock before getting her full powers, she would have become Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds.
• BlazBlue:
  • Arakune sought knowledge from the Boundary, a place located between life and death, and got it. It had the unfortunate side-effect of destroying his sanity, turning him into this,◊ and giving him the power to summon BEES!
  • Also, the side effects of using Ars Armagus weaponry for extended periods of time are, amongst other things; seithr addiction, physical and mental deterioration, death (if you're lucky), and complete and utter madness (if you're not). This is also something of an Invoked Trope by the Nox Nyctores; in order to make their wielders as effective as possible in battle, they're designed to suppress unnecessary things such as fear, empathy, compassion, and emotions and instead provide its wielder with cozy things such as enhanced aggression, hate, bloodlust, and latent psychosises on top of the Armagus weapons' side effects.
• Bloodborne: True to its horror inspirations, pretty much anything that gives you neat powers is also going to drive you crazy. Running around with a birdcage on your head babbling about eyes is one of the better outcomes.
  • Use of the Old Blood has benefits including superhuman strength, rapid healing, and curing of all previous medical conditions. Side effects include going insane with bloodthirst and turning into a werewolf. And if you manage to resist the bloodlust long enough, when you finally snap you'll instead turn into a building-sized abomination.
  • Insight into the magic found in the Pthumerian Labyrinth doesn't lead to werewolfery. But it does lead to an unhealthy fascination with Things Man Was Not Meant to Know, probable brain damage, eye obsession, tentacles, and insanity. Of course, the really scary thing isn't the power itself, but the lengths people will go to seek it.
• In Borderlands 2, Gaige suffers from this heavily when using Anarchy. She even lampshades it by going "I'm going mildly insane!"
• In Breath of Fire III, the Kaiser Dragon, if using the Infinity Gene without an attachment of some sort, is uncontrollable and attacks friend and foe alike. The Failure Gene weakens it to the point where it can be controlled. Subverted, however, if you use the Trance and Radiance genes along with Infinity; this creates the true Kaiser Dragon form, which is controllable and stronger than the regular Kaiser.
• The Brief and Meaningless Adventure of Hero Man: If Hero Man beats Lord Doldrum at level 12 or higher, he'll become obsessed with power and violence, to the point where he becomes the next Demon Lord.
• Brütal Legend has the Sea of Black Tears. Whomsoever drinks from or bathes in it is granted a portion of Aetulia's wisdom, but also the great sorrow that caused her to cry it in the first place. Though, it's really less "insanity" and more of "soul-crushing emo-ness".
• Queen Zeal of Chrono Trigger fame went mad with power when she came into contact with Lavos, plotting increasingly dangerous ways to drain its awesome power for personal use, even at the cost of her own kingdom.
• Dark Souls has this happen a lot:
  • The recurring theme when it comes to sorcery is that its practitioners have a bad habit of going mad, implying that this is a case of Go Mad from the Revelation considering sorcery is contingent on intelligence.
    • Seath the Scaleless, as the only dragon without natural immortality (other dragons have it because of their scales, which Seath obviously lacks), conducted huge amounts of research trying to gain immortality some other way and more or less invented the entire practice of sorcery in the process. He also drove himself completely insane, to the point that he starts kidnapping people and turning them into bizarre monsters for no particular reason other than because he can.
    • Big Hat Logan, one of the most accomplished human sorcerers in the world, studies Seath's work in the Archives and eventually goes violently insane from the magical study, to the point that he strips naked in an attempt to emulate Seath's lack of scales.
    • The third game continues the tradition with Oceiros, whose epithet is "The Consumed King". The guy found Seath's giant library of sorcery knowledge, and, you guessed it, went insane from studying it (and also turned himself into a dragon somehow). When you arrive to fight him, his arms are held as though cradling something, though there's nothing there. His dialogue reveals that he believes he's holding his youngest child, Ocelotte. Partway through the fight he finally realizes his child isn't there, and that's when he gets really mad.
  • In general, it is suggested that anyone who could master the power of Dark could become immensely powerful: they could obtain power on par with or even greater than the god-kings that slaughtered the Everlasting Dragons and created the world as it exists. Thus far, no one who has tried to control the Dark has succeeded, and have been driven into mindless violence by the very power they sought. Even in Dark Souls II, where you can meet a few powerful Hexers (a magic practice that draws on Dark for its potency), they seem to have only a tenuous grip on their sanity.
    • The Four Kings of New Londo and their followers, the Darkwraiths, have become subsumed by the power of the Abyss and now mindlessly attack any humans they can find, determined to absorb Humanity from them to further increase their power. They act more like animals than humans.
    • Manus is one of the most powerful characters in the series, and has incredible power over Dark, and in fact is the being who spawned the Abyss. Notably, he's an accomplished sorceror, a practice that requires a high degree of intelligence. He's also completely stark raving mad, attacking everything around him in a berserk fury. The corrupted citizens of Oolacile act like miniature versions of him: violent, angry, and forever desperate to further increase their power. All of them were ordinary people before they tried to obtain the power of the Dark Soul.
    • In the Ringed City DLC for Dark Souls III, Slave Knight Gael attempted to take on the most concentrated parts of the Dark Soul that yet exist. It grants him immense power like unto the Lords of old, but it also twists him into an insanely violent knight who simply hungers for more of the Dark Soul. Unlike most examples, though, Gael knew this would probably happen before he did it, he just didn't see any other possible way to get the blood of the Dark Soul to the Painter.
  • Pontiff Sulyvhan invokes this with his Boreal Outrider Knights. The Outriders are knights whose ranks consist mostly of people who are a political threat to Sulyvhan and people he just doesn't like. He gives them magic rings and sends them out on missions to faraway lands. What he doesn't tell them is that in addition to their advertised beneficial effects, these rings are designed to slowly drive their wearer insane until their mind degrades to that of a feral beast. And you can use them!
• Dragon Age:
  • In Dragon Age II, it is eventually revealed that Knight-Commander Meredith bought the lyrium doll that drove Bartrand insane. She reforges it into a sword, which explains her increased zealotry and culminates in her animating statues in Kirkwall to fight Hawke and Co.
  • Said red lyrium becomes a central plot point in Dragon Age: Inquisition.
  • Inquisition's Rift Mage Trainer was the only survivor of the attempts to understand the Fade Rifts. She succeeded, at great cost to her understanding of everything else. She may not remember her name, but she is determined to pass those skills on, because she is Your Trainer.
• The Elder Scrolls:
  • Throughout the series, this is common for any mortals who obtain great (or sometimes godly) power. One could argue that you have to be at least a little bit insane in the first place to seek such power, and obtaining it does these individuals no favors...
  • Morrowind:
    • In the Backstory, Dagoth Ur and the three members of the Tribunal all tapped into the divine power of the Heart of Lorkhan in order to become Physical Gods. Dagoth Ur was much less restrained in his consumption of power from the Heart, making him much stronger than the Tribunal once he was able to resurrect, while also making him much more insane and dangerous.
    • The Daedric Prince Azura, who guides the Nerevarine in unbinding the Heart to cut off Dagoth Ur (and the Tribunal), states that mortal minds are not equipped to handle the rigors of godhood and that this would have been the fate of each member of the Tribunal eventually. Only Almalexia shows full-blown Ax-Crazy insanity in the game, specifically the Tribunal expansion, of which she is the Big Bad. However, based on what she says (and what others, mainly Azura and Vivec, say about her), she actually Inverts the trope. It's not the power that drove her mad, but the loss of it as a result of the main game's main quest.
    • Even though they managed to avoid the Ax-Craziness of Dagoth Ur and Almalexia, Sotha Sil and Vivec weren't exactly bastions of sanity, either. Sotha Sil was a hyper-eccentric shut-in who spent all of his time building the huge Clockwork City with a population that consisted entirely of himself. Vivec was a narcissist Depraved Bisexual who spawned monster children with the Daedric Prince of Rape and wrote prolific Blatant Lies and Metaphorical Truths obscuring his less-than-divine past and his betrayal (and possible murder) of Lord Nerevar.
  • In the Oblivion Shivering Isles expansion, the Player Character can become the new Sheogorath. This Sheogorath appears in the next game, Skyrim, and is completely mad. This is well justified by the fact that Sheogorath is the Daedric Prince of Madness. In further support of this trope, to become the Prince of Madness, one has to kill the last one. To do that, the old Prince needs to lose his insanity and then be fought and killed. While Sheogorath is his mad superpowered self for most of the DLC, when it's time for the new generation and he turns sane, he is reduced to a knight with armor and sword, apparently having lost all his other powers, thus showing that power makes you insane and loss of power brings sanity, apparently.
• Eternal Radiance: Akleim artifacts can make monsters more aggressive and can grant humans powerful magic, but at the cost of their sanity. Eldareth is aware that the artifacts are driving him mad, but he doesn't care because he's already committed to destroying the Shadowborn from within as revenge for burning his village to the ground.
• Final Fantasy:
  • Kefka from Final Fantasy VI. And gaining godhood halfway through the game makes him worse. It's all but stated explicitly by a few NPCs in the game that the process that made him a Magitek knight before the game started turned him into a raving psychopath from the get-go. It was stated that he was the first test subject as well.
  • Final Fantasy VII has its own version; being injected with Jenova cells makes you powerful, but it also leaves you vulnerable to becoming Brainwashed and Crazy -which is what happened to Sephiroth (though it only started when he learned the truth). And Cloud, until he overcomes them.
    • Before Crisis plays the traditional version of it. After summoning Zirconaide, Fuhito's body is transformed as the as-of-yet incomplete summon expresses itself through him. He becomes incredibly powerful, but only retains a bit of whatever sanity he had left (he was kind of a Hojo Jr. already)
    • Interestingly enough, the only person that doesn't go crazy from Jenova cells is Zack. And we all know how that ended.
    • Although it is never specified if the Jenova cells caused Hojo to be brainwashed, his injecting himself with Jenova's cells (with an amount that obviously was a much larger amount than that of a SOLDIER) certainly caused Hojo to become a lot crazier.
• Fire Emblem:
  • Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones: To a slight degree, Smug Snake Valter. In the supports between Duessel and Cormag, it's stated that the already unstable Valter once took a powerful magic lance owned by Duessel, when his own lance was broken in combat. The magic of said weapon increased his power, bloodlust, and insanity ever since then.
  • Lyon in The Sacred Stones also Took a Level in Badass from creating the Dark Stone, and almost immediately went mad as a result. (Mad enough to think that destroying the Sacred Stones would be a good idea, at least.) In Eirika's route, he becomes completely possessed; in Ephraim's route, he manages to resist the Demon King's attempts to brute-force his mind and body, but he still clearly has almost every screw loose.
  • The swordsmaster Karel in Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade. His madness from being possessed by his own blade drove him to constantly seek out and kill the strongest people he could find. However, he's not a villain. He also eventually snaps out of this madness when he develops character and later abandons the title of "Sword Demon" in favor of "Sword Saint" or "Saint of Swords".
  • This is why most of the dragons in Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon & the Blade of Light and Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem made the decision to take on human forms and seal away their true forms within dragonstones. Those who didn't eventually lost their minds and became feral beasts.
• First Encounter Assault Recon's Alma is most certainly this. The more powerful her psychic abilities got, the crazier she got. Then they had to lock her away.
• In Geneforge, using the genetic-modification canisters created by the Shapers enables you to build your skills and powers very quickly; but also pushes you strongly into the "arrogant, violent, and insane" realm, which determines the sort of interactions you're able to have with NPCs, and which of the many game endings you'll achieve. In fact, the closest you can get to a Golden Ending (even the best endings are mixed) requires never using a single canister. Using the Geneforge itself guarantees you'll end up a sociopathic supervillain; most likely a dead one. Some endings are so bad that they border on Anvilicious Author Tracts on the corrupting influence of power, and the evils of genetic engineering.
• In Granblue Fantasy, the repeated use of his Otherworldy powers even causes Gilbert to become insane, uncontrollable, and lose memories of what he was previously doing when he transformed into a Titan creature.
• In Guilty Gear, this is universally the trait of the Gears. It often manifests as social awkwardness and a loner attitude, as is the case with Sol Badguy and Testament, but can go into extreme misanthropy and delusions of grandeur. Even Dizzy, who is cute, friendly and mostly harmless can have some big freak out moments.
• The villain of Halo 5: Guardians suffers from this. Cortana solves her Rampancy issues when she connects to the Forerunner Domain, which gives her incredible amounts of knowledge and power, but decides to use this power to enforce peace across the universe at gunpoint. Her creator, who created her by copying her own mind, warns that the same impulses that drove her to support kidnapping 6-year-olds to turn into Super Soldiers like Master Chief are incredibly dangerous when given that much power.
• This trope is why the world of Enroth (setting of a good chunk of the original Might and Magic games) is no more. In Heroes of Might and Magic III, Gelu is entrusted with the Armageddon's Blade after he helped foil the Kreegans' plot to destroy Enroth with it. Unfortunately, literally wielding a Fantastic Nuke awakens something dark in Gelu, and he begins to dream of conquering Enroth with it (in the name of "saving" it of course). When he hears a prophecy that warns against allowing the Blade to clash with the Sword of Frost (another sword that doubles as a weapon of mass destruction), Gelu refuses to do the smart thing and get rid of his own sword since by then he's grown too attached to its power. The Immortal Hero Tarnum knows where this is headed and tries in vain to warn Gelu against acting like an idiot. When the Barbarian King Kilgor acquires the Sword of Frost (Kilgor is not an example of this trope since he was already Ax-Crazy even before he gained the power to wipe out entire armies with a single swing of a sword) Gelu makes the incredibly stupid decision to fight Kilgor with the Blade (remember there is a prophecy stating that the world will be destroyed if the two swords clash and Gelu knows it). By this point, Gelu had pretty much lost all reason, having been seduced by the Blade's immense power. The fight between Gelu and Kilgor leads to the swords clashing which triggers the Reckoning, killing both leaders and destroying the world of Enroth.
• Pretty much the whole point when playing an evil Cole McGrath in inFAMOUS.
• Arguably all three of the Brothers Sun in Jade Empire. When you see the Emperor, he is quite clearly out of his mind, being undead and powered only by leeching power from the Water Dragon. "Master" Sun Li seems pretty sane, and has it together enough to pull one spectacular plan on your character. However, he obtains the Water Dragon's power upon his brother's death and drains it even faster than his brother did. By the time you meet up with him for the final Boss Battle, he is very clearly out of his mind.
• Jak and Daxter: If it doesn't kill them, Dark Eco can instill people with great power; for example Gol and Maia in the first game and Jak himself from the second game on. However, it also has a habit of driving people insane.
  Baron Praxis: The dark eco inside you will eventually kill you, Jak. Its destructive effects cannot be stopped. Once you are in its chaotic grip, it will not let you go until you slide into insanity.
• Jeanne d'Arc's Liane grows increasingly reckless as she comes to rely more and more on the Paragon's Armlet, both ignoring her friends' suggestions and allowing the Crown to manipulate her. Later on, Roger himself goes insane with bloodlust as the Reaper inside him manifests openly.
• One possible interpretation regarding the actions of Lily and Isaac in Kathy Rain. Lily was forced to see all that will happen and thus became depressed and painted extremely disturbing images that depict the end of the world before forcing her mentally challenged brother to drown her. Isaac on the other hand got indoctrinated by his father, but misunderstood his teachings, leading to kidnapping dozens of people and forcing them to see into the abyss, leaving them an Empty Shell.
• The King of Fighters:
  • Whenever anybody attempts to use the Orochi power, it usually results in either death (Rugal Bernstein), insanity (Iori and Leona), or a God complex (Chris, Yashiro, and Shermie).
  • Averted in regard to Sie Kensou: he possesses the Dragon Power, which has been set up to be an astronomical power source that could potentially put him above the franchise's most powerful characters, but doesn't really affect his in-game performance. Kensou himself justified this, explaining that he tries not to tap into the Dragon Power too much because, having been in KOF since the very beginning, he's seen countless examples of people falling into this trope and has no desire to join them.
• Knight Bewitched 2: The Vulcan Stone can grant wishes, but at the cost of turning its user into an insane demonic being. According to Tiamat, this is how Typhus fell to evil, which implies that the stone is cursed by Lilith's master.
• The Legend of Spyro: Malefor, the Big Bad, was the first Purple Dragon and had all the power that Spyro can possess. The difference is he didn't know when to stop and let his power consume him, transforming him into a power-hungry monster. His hunger for power was such that it forced his masters to banish him just to protect the dragons from him.
• The Legend of Zelda:
  • In The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, several of the bosses Link faces off with have become corrupted by their possession of darkly powerful artifacts. A number of these, such as Darbus the Goron and Yeta the Yeti, were otherwise mild-mannered, friendly characters; the artifacts in question would grant their bearers extreme power and strength, but rob them of their sense and personality. The Triforce itself isn't evil, but it does grant the wishes of those who touch it as a whole, or its parts, whether they are good or evil.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild: Ganon is driven insane by his own supernatural powers, turns into an Eldritch Abomination, and razes Hyrule back to the dark ages. When you fight him, it's clear that his sanity has not returned after a century of lashing out from his prison in Hyrule Castle.
• One of the many side-effects of the Taint in Lusternia. Also a result of the Soulless Elixir, which turned many of the Elder Gods' best and brightest into megalomaniacal cannibals.
• In Mass Effect 3, especially in the Extended Cut and Leviathan DLC, it is heavily implied that the Catalyst is just a (super-powerful) AI that has completely lost its mind, having been created to find a solution to a problem that it has been completely unable to figure out. This goes a long way to explain the Insane Troll Logic that it uses, as well as its absolute refusal to see and acknowledge evidence that contradict its worldview (galaxy-view?).
• Dark Chips in the Mega Man Battle Network series. Gameplay-wise, however, they're more of a Deadly Upgrade, increasing your power output but permanently lowering your maximum HP.
• Phazon has this effect in the Metroid Prime Trilogy, causing many normally gentle creatures to mutate and go insane. It becomes much more prominent in Metroid Prime 3: Corruption when it drives the other hunters insane. This turns into a true horror when you see the "Corrupted" version of the Game Over screen in Prime 3; Samus is overcome by her Phazon corruption and turns into another Dark Samus.
• In the Modern Warfare series, this is what happened to Vladimir Makarov as the series progressed. Makarov started out as just a soldier in Zakhaev's army, and was promoted to Dragon status, but once Zakhaev died Makarov no longer had anyone holding his leash, and started a campaign of terror thanks to his newfound power. He eventually reached a point where he had virtual control of the entire Russian military, and was attempting to acquire the launch codes for Russia's nuclear arsenal as he wanted Russia to rule all of Europe, "even if it is just ashes".
• Monster Hunter has a couple of critters driven mad by their own strengths:
  • The Deviljho's juiced up metabolic processes cause it to eventually self-digest, turning it into a Savage Deviljho. This perpetually hungry menace has destroyed entire ecosystems, doesn't stop being enraged until hit during a certain attack, and its thought processes have been eroded away to the point where they're solely "find food".
  • Valstrax is an Elder Dragon with Dragon element-combusting jet engines for wings, and it normally stays high in the sky, flying at supersonic speeds to find food (also, unfortunately, splitting Guild airships in two because it can't turn in time). Normally it prefers the solitude of the stratosphere and high mountain peaks, but the Crimson Glow variant, driven mad by its own Dragon Energy, is Ax-Crazy and prefers lower altitudes, seeking out and destroying other monsters with draconic missiles because it can.
  • Gore Magala spreads a special substance called the Frenzy: miniscule, dust-like hair that allows the beast to make up for its lack of functional eyes. However, any creature that breathes it in will become afflicted by the Frenzy Virus. It's mostly harmless to humans, only restricting their Healing Factor, and it goes away once they attack enough. However, to large monsters, it's a deadly rabies-like disease that sends them into an insane, well, frenzy, making them much stronger and more aggressive, spreading the disease to other monsters with their attacks until they die in a few days' time. In the rare case the monster overcomes the disease, they become an Apex Monster; a Typhoid Mary that can spread the Frenzy to other monsters while retaining its sanity and also being able to benefit from the increased strength.
    • Interestingly, even Gore Magala can fall victim to its own disease, in a way. Gore Magala is a juvenile of the Elder Dragon Shagaru Magala. The sheer potency of Shagaru's Frenzy causes any Gores in the area close to molting to molt improperly. In this state, these specimens are known as Chaotic Gore Magalas, and they're in constant pain since they're something like a butterfly that's still part caterpillar. This causes them to rampage around for a few days and infect massive swathes of monsters until they eventually perish.
• Mother:
  • Giygas, the Big Bad from EarthBound (1994), becomes so powerful in the end of the game that he is unbeatable save for one specific trick. On the other hand, his mind is completely shattered, so he attacks randomly while babbling nonsense.
  • In Mother 3, Giygas's "protege" Porky, after gaining the power to travel through time and effective immortality — living for thousands of years — has gone from a mere rotten brat to an insane, murderous Psychopathic Manchild and Evil Overlord bent on destroying everyone in the world but himself.
• Naufragar: Crimson: A military experiment turned Hyo into an immensely powerful mage, but at the cost of his sanity and conscience. This, combined with his now limited lifespan, makes him willing to kill anyone in order to gain more coins and find other ways to extend his life.
• Neptunia series have a few examples
  • Rei Ryghts in Hyperdimension Neptunia Victory had this trope when she was the ruler of her nation thousands of years ago after gaining the power of a CPU. Thanks to this, she became a tyrannical ruler who in the end destroyed her nation. She then swore that CPU goddesses should never exist and thus founded the Seven Sages. She eventually gets those powers back and starts going crazy again, but thanks to a beatdown courtesy of the protagonists and another one handed to her Alternate Self, she promises to take responsibility and start learning control.
  • Arfoire in Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth1 is even more literal example: she was a human with power to copy other peoples' power who help a group of heroes to defeat the old Goddess, who for some reason went insane. Her job is to copy the Goddess' power after the heroes defeat her and use it to create new Goddesses in place. The problem is Arfoire's power not only copy a person's power, but also their personality, which resulted in the old Goddess' insanity being copied along with. She managed to hold out until eventually she was driven insane not long before the game proper starts.
• In Nevertales 2: Shattered Image, it's revealed that Malleck, one of the first people to discover how to use books as portals, ended up in the space between the book-worlds by accident and went mad with the realization that from there he could control everything.
• Nintendo Wars: In Advance Wars: Days of Ruin, Penny's flavor text describes that numerous experiments done to her left her mind shattered. Later you learn it was specifically augments to her mind that allow her to directly command an obscene amount of units all at once that basically left her with the mind of a child.
• Paper Mario: Sticker Star has the royal stickers that not only grants the wearer awesome power, but also drives them insane.
• The Nameless One of Planescape: Torment gained immortality, but at the cost of his memory, which he periodically loses. Each reincarnation develops its own brand-new personality, which is often insane. One of them was awesomely so. Another, one of the most dangerous, was mostly sane, but had the little problem of being a complete sociopath.
• Pokémon:
  • Mewtwo, who is said in various Pokédex entries to have the most savage heart of all Pokémon due to the genetic experiments performed on it to create it as powerful as it is. This is averted in the first movie's depiction of Mewtwo, where his "madness" was more psychological than physical.
  • In Pokémon Sun and Moon, it is revealed that Mega Evolution has this effect on some Pokémon, turning them into mindless violent machines bent on destroying as much as they can. Up to and including their own trainer.
• In Portal 2, you switch GLaDOS with Wheatley, and the little personality core is now fully in charge of all of Aperture Laboratories' operations... and immediately goes mad with power. Then GLaDOS points out that you did all the work while he did nothing, and he turns against you, sending both you and GLaDOS hurtling down a pit into the underground ruins of Aperture Science. When the two of you finally get back to the main facility, it's much more dangerous and about to self-destruct thanks to Wheatley's influence. (Doesn't help that he was programmed to make bad decisions...)
• [PROTOTYPE]:
  • The main character is focused and driven, giving little outward sign of anything but rage and determination as he kills and eats his way through thousands upon thousands of soldiers, civilians, and zombies. Normally. But give him a moment to reflect on his situation and what he's doing and...well...
    Alex Mercer: The people I've killed... they're in me. I can hear them. See the things they've done. I can understand it all. I'm supposed to do these things... but it's right I can feel it...
  • Not really an example, once we find out he's not actually Alex Mercer. He's The Virus itself assuming Mercer's memories and appearance. "Insanity" here is really best classified as Loss of Identity, but you can't really call it that when you never even had an original identity to begin with.
  • Arguably, it's completely inverted, since absorbing all of those people and experiencing their thoughts and memories, including their pain and fear, ends up giving him a conscience.
• In Psychonauts, those born with psychic potential can develop incredible powers and enter the minds of others. They also tend to range from seriously maladjusted to insane and few are actually all that eager to develop their abilities anyway. Also, a bit of a subversion, those without psychic powers, when exposed to a material that increases psychic powers, simply go mad, without powers. Also, the only person who's really gone mad with power is Oleander. Everyone else tends to show any issues more clearly because of them, aside from Raz, because of his father's training he subverts this because he has control over them.
• Shadow Hearts:
  • Part of the problem with Fusion is that doing so allows the demonic souls the Harmonixer fuses with to attack his sanity. In the first game, this is shown by having to pay a significant amount of the Sanity Meter to fuse. In the second one (and third, though that instead represents Shania losing herself in the power of the spirits), the fused character's Sanity Points run down at a faster rate instead. This is partially mitigated by how Fusion-capable characters start with much more Sanity Points than the rest of the cast (representing the incredible strength of will needed just to use the power).
  • In the first Shadow Hearts, we find that with great insanity comes great power, as the only way to unlock each Fusion's ultimate attack is to deliberately let your sanity points run out, Guide Dang It!.
  • Johnny Garland has a very, very powerful Awaker form as a manifestation of the Malice that brought him back from the dead, flips out very easily if he uses it, as he doesn't have the benefit of Shania, Yuri, or Kurando's mental discipline.
• In Shin Megami Tensei, it is stated as a very basic law of magic that it is perfectly possible to turn yourself into a nigh-invincible powerhouse by fusing your human essence with that of a demon (or angel, for that matter). Sooner or later, though, you lose all of your humanity. This means you can get your power — but will never be able to exceed a certain point, with the added caveat you've now branded yourself a monster and permanently switched off your conscience. Death almost never fails to ensue. No wonder everyone seems so terribly interested in the Hito-Shura, the one case in which the fusion was carried out successfully — and the human ended up in control, meaning the demon power limits do not apply...
• Sin and Punishment places Saki (as well as his son, Isa, in the game's sequel) as the victim of this trope once he becomes a half-Ruffian, as Achi tells Saki that the only thing that can redeem him at this rate is by accepting his humanity by falling in love with Action Girl Airan.
• StarCraft II:
  • The Dominion-loyalist Ghost Nova proclaims that this is what happens to Spectres, an experimental form of "super-Ghost" who have their powers boosted by, among other things, exposure to Terrazine Gas. If you side with her, this turns out true. But if the player chooses to ignore Nova's warnings and remain loyal to Tosh, the only free Spectre, and his plans for freeing his captured buddies, they learn that this isn't the case; Spectres are more powerful than Ghosts, but they were scrapped as a Dominion project because the upgrade process automatically blows their Restraining Bolt. Tosh, in fact, not only chooses only volunteers to become new Spectres, but deliberately screens them to ensure they are as sane and stable as is possible for a human with Psychic Powers in the StarCraft universe to be. Nova herself is fairly sane, despite being stronger than an average ghost by at least an order of magnitude (her telekinetic blasts can be rated in megatons).
  • Egon Stettman was accidentally abandoned on Bel'Shir for years due to the outbreak of war, and went insane from isolation and terrazine addiction... while also gaining incredible psychic powers.
• Because he doesn't train in using it like Akuma, Ryu of the Street Fighter series has this happen to him when he becomes "Evil Ryu" as a result of drawing on the Satsui no Hadou (Surge of Murderous Intent; a dark ki that drives a fighter to kill a foe during battle in order to win). Whenever Evil Ryu is trotted out, he either is much colder and more aggressive to his opponents or, at his worst (in the Street Fighter IV series), a bloodthirsty savage who fights so he can tear his opponents to pieces. Undeniably stronger than Ryu but also far more uncontrolled.
• Torque from The Suffering. Through gameplay, he fills a gauge called the Insanity Meter to transform into a creature that obliterates anything in his path. It's revealed at the end of the first game that the Creature is just Torque hallucinating, and he's actually tearing monsters apart with his bare hands.
• Suikoden V:
  • The Sun Rune is known to be one of the most powerful runes in existence. Even among the 27 True Runes, its power is extreme, granting both the power to destroy a kingdom overnight, as well as being able to revive a country. However, it also causes mental instability, as the bearer believes themself to be equal to a God, completely infallible, and believing that anyone that disagrees with them should die a very painful death. The King of the ancient Armes Kingdom fell victim to this, destroying his entire kingdom in his insanity, and Queen Arshtat also felt its effects on occasion, and very nearly did the same thing, attempting to destroy her own queendom in a fit of rage and grief after she accidentally killed her husband Ferid due to, again, the effects of the Sun Rune. Falena was only spared this fate because she was slain by Georg Prime, who had promised Ferid he would stop her from doing so if Ferid himself could not.
  • Supposedly, this insanity only results from the Sun Rune being damaged. If one were to also bear the Twilight and Dawn Runes at the same time, then there would be no ill effects. However, one of these runes was stolen before the events of the game, preventing proper use of the Sun Rune.
• Sword of Paladin:
  • Extra Gems are stronger than normal Skill Gems, but their overwhelming power can drive their users insane and permanently damage them. The Royal Gems are even stronger variations that come from the souls of Charlemagne family members, and likewise can drive their users mad. This is because all of these are infected by Miasma. When the Royal Gems are purified of Miasma, Alex is able to use their powers without consequences.
  • In Miguel's Chapter 2 episode, he's revealed to be the descendant of Demon King Sandraham, who was corrupted by Miasma. In order to obtain Azot's Paladin Soul, he has to master the power of his bloodline, but doing so is risky because it causes him to lose his sanity. Fortunately, his friends are able to encourage him to control his power.
• System Shock:
  • SHODAN, who goes insane after her ethical constraints are removed, seeing herself as a goddess destined to inherit the Earth. Officially, SHODAN reexamines her priorities without ethical constraints and draws new conclusions. What were her priorities to begin with? One would assume, keeping the day to day operations of Citadel Station running smoothly. She was also overseeing the station's research projects intended to better humanity (and the corporation's profit margin) through the fields of bioengineering and cybernetics. Which explains a lot of what happened.
  • From the sequel: "The Polito form is dead, insect. Are you afraid? What is it you fear? The end of your trivial existence? I am SHODAN. When the history of my glory is written, your species shall only be a footnote to my magnificence."
• Grand Maestro Mohs from Tales of the Abyss is a textbook example. He gets glyphs inscribed on him that flood him with Seventh Fonons to obtain the power of a Fon Master, but his body can't handle much of the Seventh Fonon. He immediately turns into a monster, then quickly goes insane. Subverted in that Dist, who applied the glyphs, knew exactly what would happen.
• Touhou Project:
  • Remilia Scarlet locked her sister in the basement for 495 years because she was afraid that this trope would apply. While Flandre is almost certainly crazy, it's uncertain whether it's due to her powers or due to being locked in the basement with next to no social interaction for nearly 500 years. However, an interview with Aya reveals that her mental state may have been one of the many lies Remilia has done for the sake of making herself and her mansion more fascinating and intimidating to outsiders. Despite knowing how dishonest her sister is, Flandre respects her nonetheless.
  • In Subterranean Animism, there is also Utsuho Reiuji who, well... ask yourself this: If you had been a birdbrained little bird mook who was granted nuclear powers by a Goddess and, over the course of an instant, became Final Boss material, can you honestly say you wouldn't have gone a bit cuckoo and tried to Take Over the World/burn it to the ground?
• Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines:
  • The Malkavian Clan. While they do gain all the benefit of vampiric powers when Embraced, they also inherit the clan's weakness (which oddly enough, happens to be their greatest power as well) — each Malkavian becomes incurably insane. And if that wasn't frightening enough, they can make you think whatever they want! Yup, their madness power lets them mess with your brain if they want.
  • In addition to that, Malkavians gain the unique power of insight. This isn't really obvious on your first playthrough, but in the second one you realize that Malks usually know the answer before the question has even been asked. They even seem to know the plot before it unfolds, but they can't make sense out of it. Malkavians have these visions, but they cannot interpret them. They also seem to know the names of complete strangers, but it can be hard to recognize since they tell them in an extremely colourful language and use lots and lots of metaphors. Other vampires, however, can make use of the Malk visions, although it's implied to be extremely difficult to separate the wisdom from the insane ramblings.
  • Also, while all Malkavians are a nutjob in some way, the player character is one of the really bad cases. The Malk elder of LA, Alistair Grout, seems to be pretty clear, even if he is suffering from a major paranoia.
  • The people Malkavians choose to Embrace are always already mentally damaged in some way, so this is also a case of giving insane people great power.
• Warcraft:
  • In Warcraft III, after Arthas claims the legendary (and cursed) sword Frostmourne, it ultimately ends up causing him to do a Face–Heel Turn, kill the king (his father), and willingly join the Undead, even eventually becoming its leader, while quite literally causing him to lose his sanity. Although he had made a few morally questionable decisions to get there in the name of the "greater good", the sword was what ultimately put him over the edge, despite using the same sword to destroy a quite sizable Undead force immediately after obtaining it.
  • The racial bloodlust of the Orcs which drove Grom and his clan into wild frenzies was a lingering taint in their blood from drinking the demon Mannoroth's blood. As seen in this game, drinking the blood gave the Orcs immense physical strength at the cost of warping their bodies and minds into killing machines.
  • In World of Warcraft, magic is addictive, and magic addiction makes you insane. And it's hereditary, so the entire High Elf and Blood Elf races are addicts, whether or not they use magic.
  • There are hints that the Night Elves are also addicted to the magic they use, but nobody really notices because their magic doesn't do things like attract demons, and doesn't seem to have any particular source or concentration.
  • In the Mist of Pandaria expansion, the Sha are remnants of a slain Old God who feed on the negative emotions of mortals. During the first stage of the expansion, many mortals exposed to it were warped into powerful Tragic Monsters. Garrosh was intrigued by the fact that the Sha power could be used to empower his soldiers, ignoring how many were driven to temporary or permanent madness by the experience. He ultimately stole the heart of the Old God to empower his True Horde, driving many of them, including himself, into a frenzied bloodlust (though it's noted that he himself was able to use that power without falling prey to the corruption).
  • In the same expansion, there's also Kanrethad of the Black Harvest — a warlock, who infused himself with a lot of demonic essence. On the plus side, he became a tremendously powerful half-demon. On the minus side, he lost his sanity because of it, and was defeated by another warlock, then permanently banished (kept in a sort of suspended, but probably aware state).
• X-COM: Heavily implied in XCOM: Enemy Unknown and XCOM 2. Everyone with psionic powers is unhinged in some way or another. Troopers with The Gift will become Large Hams who let out blood-curdling cackles when they use their powers, especially the Mind Rape one. In War of the Chosen, you meet a sect of more powerful psionic troopers called the Templars, who are basically a cult led by a guy who speaks like a supervillain, and the Warlock — who is stronger than even them — is a deranged psychopath, as also lampshaded in-game by Bradford.
• Xenogears:
  • The game features mecha pilots given performance enhancing drugs that cause them to go insane. This has caused the main female protagonist Elly a good deal of trauma, as she's brutally murdered dozens of her fellow soldiers with her bare hands whilst under their influence.
  • Fei's degeneration into Id, where he unlocks his true power and turns into a lunatic with severe Freudian overtones.
• Somewhat subverted in Xenosaga — Albedo started going mad when he found out not that he was unable to die, but when he found out that other people did die. He began to fear his brothers' deaths and subsequently his being alone for eternity, becoming really morbidly obsessed with death to the point that his greater motivation throughout the course of the series is to find a way to kill himself.

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