Character Power Creep

So there's something that's not done in video games as much as it should be. I don't think there's a term for it. So let's just calling it "power creep" of a character; the getting more and more powerful, but not just like stronger attacks, spells, or guns. More like starting out as just a foot soldier and become a legendary warrior or starting out as a mage knowing little magic and becoming a warlock god. Not just that, but being able to feel your power difference in the game play (and maybe the cut scenes).

The greatest example I can give is the Kingdom Hearts series. (I'll keep this spoiler free). Sora starts somewhat super human. He can jump about his own height off the ground, he can pull himself up a ledge with one hand, etc., but nothing too out of the ordinary for a video game. One of the first bosses you fight is a tiger and he is a tough boss. By the end of the 3rd game in the series (Kingdom Hearts II) you are a fucking god. Sora is running up skyscraper, basically able to fly, causing magic explosions, and cutting buildings in half. This change did not come all at once, but was a slow, steady growth. Get and ability that makes you jump a little higher, level it up, get an ability that let's you close in on enemies, get an ability that let's you dash a little bit, and so one. These small things aren't much by themselves, but put them all together and you are a super hero.

Anyone else think more games should do this rather than just the traditional leveling up where your attacks just hit a little bit hard and you get some more armor/HP?

Power creep is in almost every RPG, and it's a problem, not something we need more of.

Not really. It most RPGs your attacks just hit harder, you get more HP, more combat variables, and your attacks look cooler/flasher. Not really what I'm talking about.

He specifically said in games that aren't traditional RPG's where you level up and then your spells hit harder but actual character development where the character becomes more powerful, story wise.

However you're still correct in that any game where you gain abilities as the story progresses is something that is still in almost every damn game anyway and this is a pretty pointless topic.

No, go fuck yourself you shit eating casual.

Yes really. I'm not even talking about levels and abilities. In most RPGs, you start out as nobody and end up as a king or general or warlord or demigod.


No he didn't. But he was talking about narrative/infamy "power creep," which is what I was talking about, too.

I'd just like to note that it bugs me when this is all that really ever changes. The borderlands games were especially awful about that, by the end you're doing sooooo much more damage, but do you ever run faster? Jump higher? Nope. But if you ask me, that sort of stuff should happen too as a hero gets more combat experience. Now in a straight-up RPG where a character's physical abilities never really matter it isn't an issue, but in an FPS like Borderlands, or really any games where movement really matters, it does. Simply getting bigger damage numbers isn't satisfying heroic growth.

On a somewhat related note, while it's cool that you do actually get mobility-related upgrades in KH games, they suffer from cutscene/only in one battle power versus actual in-game power. Primarily toward the end of the games, Sora suddenly has abilities he uses in the big final fights that he never can use in actual gameplay, and that bugs me. Like in the final fight of KH2 he can cut buildings in half in one slash. For one thing, that'd make it easier to get through The World that Never Was if he just cut a path straight through. And for another, the kind of power that cuts an entire building in half in one slash is much, MUCH stronger than the standard keyblade melee attacks he's actually using in battle. He'd be ending the final area fights in one attack if he consistently could bust out such amazing hits, but nope, it's cutscene/scripted battle only powers. Boo.

Earning the strength you get =/= making the game easier for you

Kingdom Hearts is one of those series where you can reach the max level with all the best shit and STILL get your ass kicked in one hit by common enemies.

You just get to do more cool shit to avoid dying as quick.

">Make game easier as you play it
No, go fuck yourself you shit eating casual."

It actually makes the game harder if done right. As you have more abilities and skills you have to utilize against stronger enemies.


">Not really.
Yes really. I'm not even talking about levels and abilities. In most RPGs, you start out as nobody and end up as a king or general or warlord or demigod."

Yes, but the problem is is the game play simply doesn't mirror that beyond just a stat increase.


Yes this is what I'm talking about. But I have to disagree with you about KH. The growth is more than just the cut scenes and mobility. New spells, finishing moves, faster attacks, more ranged attacks, attacks requiring quicker reflexes, and more epic reaction commands all add to the power creep.


Playing the 15 super bosses in Kingdom Hearts 2.5 requires so much skill in critical mode (as well as the rest of the game). Only thing I can tell you is git gud skrub.

I know, I totally agree that Sora gets more abilities to use in-game. That's a good thing. My problem is that he gets even more abilities in cutscenes toward the end that don't exist in actual gameplay. Whatever a character's abilities or overall power level is, it should be consistent between actual gameplay and cutscenes/special boss fights.

Devil May Cry 3 was kinda legendary for the difference between in-game Dante and cuscene Dante, for another example.

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Yeah, DMC3 was annoying with that. You could only get hit a few times in that game, yet he always got fucked up in the cut scene and walked away just fine.

In DMC3 your green bar in top of the screen is not health, it's motivation. Once it's empty Dante falls down not because he's killed, but because he stopped giving a fuck.

Anyway, PSO2.

>at that point you're as strong as the top officials without their legendary weapons, can go toe-on-toe with any one of them

How this game makes you go above and beyond concept of mary sue is ridiculous, but at least it's fully acknowledged in-universe, you become one of (if not) the most powerful figures in the setting.

Aww yeahh boiiii. I know, it looks DeviantArt as fuck, but Anti made things interesting. Piss-poor HP, no access to items or abilities or magic.

But you were fucked if it happened in a battle where Reaction Commands were a requirement to win.

So are we all just gonna ignore all the newfaggotry on display in this post?
What the hell is that greentext supposed to be?

Yeah I always thought that the ending for 2 was a little too self indulgent for animations. Such is the consequence of having an artist as your director I suppose.

Really weird to see him go from super concentrated ultra swordsman blocking lasers being shot at him like bullets by spinning that key, to him in dream drop distance where some retard throws a rapier at him and he loses his balance

You want power creep? Play a post-SotN Castlevania. Like Circle of the Moon. In that game, starting moves and endgame moves are like night and day.

At least he's not posting shit like "@(post number)."

I've been on chans probably when you were still in elementary school, kiddo. I'll post how I want. I never bought into the "muh secret club" mentality.


I keep forgetting Dream Drop Distance even exists. Nobody talks about it. I've never played it. Does it suck or something?

Play Morrowind or System Shock nigga

I really don't believe you, but whatever.
Come on, guys, a fully powered JC Denton is hilariously overpowered.

The Kingdom Hearts series at least attempts to explain the level and skill reset, even if the attempt seems a bit hamfisted (i.e. in 3D where Yen Sid tells Sora that he'll be trained from the ground up - even when Sora is by and large using the same techniques as before).

I thought Power Creep referred to a character gaining a shit ton of power compared to everything else. Like initially, your character starts beating up goons with sticks but later he starts swinging around fucking ancient swords forged out of Satan's left nut and casting spells that blow up Saturn in the process, yet his adversaries rarely get tougher, and on the offhand they do get tougher, the protag gets even more powerful (usually by some asspull or deus ex macguffin), leading into an endlessly repeating process of characters out-bullshitting one another while the rest of the supporting cast just gets left in the dust.

Take that Crash Bandicoot Retold comic that got dumped here a bit ago for instance. Crash and his equally Mary Sue lookalikes just kept pulling more "Super" forms and super powers out of their ass with each new page, yet their foes rarely get any stronger. Most of the people Crash and his Donut Steel Brigate fight end up getting one-shotted. And the people that he does need to struggle against, he just pulls a new "super" form out of his ass and then one-shots them. And this process only repeated with each new villain, and the creep just got worse and worse to the point where I think he even walked around as a "Saiyan Bandicoot" casually, like that was his new default appearance. You see this all the time in Shonenshit animus. (remember that Madara Uchiha copypasta? Basically that)

And yes, this problem extends to vidya too. Forgive me for using a plebggame as an example, but League of Legends is terrible for this. Every new champ introduced just added more and more gimmicks and utility, to the point where they steadily made the original champs basically irrelevant. The worst offender for this had to be Yasuo, a character who's kit contained: a knockup, a pseudo-suppress on knocked-up targets that could hit multiple people, multiple fucking dashes, a damage shield that he passively builds up, a wall that destroys projectiles (skillshots, ults, even ranged autoattacks), ignores 50 armor from your opponent, and very short cooldowns based on attack speed. Couple that with his decent offensive stats and the fact that he doesnt use mana, and the fucker basically made the whole midlane his bitch. Nowadays, hes been cut down to size slightly since most bruisers will assrape him and he now needs to be really fed in order to be relevant, but he set a precedent for later champs to follow, with insane mobility, shitloads of crowdcontrol, yuge damages, SHIELD SHIELDS SHIELDS, and basically shitting on everyone in the current meta for their respective lane.

Natural progression of power isn't bad, as long as the rest of the game (and the audience's suspension of disbelief) can keep up.

Bumping because people ought to get a look at this post.

Morrowind. Fable does this too. At least the first one.

By the end of the first game, I'm essentially goku, flash stepping around, hitting people fifty times before they can react, everything that hits you deflects off you, and can blast the entire area with destruction.

Power creep generally refers to the a rising "norm" in media. It happens a lot in not just video games, but media.

It's funny you have a picture of a LoL character because that game was very guilty of it. Most of the original characters had 4 skills and a passive. Much later in the games life, most characters that were being released had several passives inside each skill, skills had multiple forms and functions, and the heros as a whole were just straight more powerful.

Dragon ball Z: every new villain has to take it up another notch. At the start of the series, Tien and Yamcha could fight bad guys. And frieza with the power to destroy a planet was considered terrifying. Near the end of the series, if your name didn't start with go-, or was vegeta, you didn't have the power to collapse the time-space continuum and thus couldn't take part in the story at all.

It isn't necessarily raw power, just that there becomes a new normal established as everything gets more powerful. It happens anytime an author wants to have the new bad guy be more powerful than the hero, but used the "powering up" means of having the hero beat the last bad guy.

Best Metroidvania

They should have allowed more than one card combo though.

This asshole starts as a novice who barely knows how to use a sword and literally attempts to defeat a slug monster by throwing salt at them.

By the end of the series, he's reached god-like levels of power, having the strength and resistance of a mountain, being as fast as the fastest winds, being able to predict an enemy's attack by sensing their bloodlust, being able to use angelical powers including countering any attack with a blazing nova and being able to use several elemental sword skills, including one that combines all four elements and can literally create a giant flaming fissure on the earth when not even used at full power.

He also remains a submissive beta the whole way

If that's not power creeping, I don't know what it is.

What you described is the same thing that happens in RPGs. Only difference is most of it is represented in numbers. You're arguing that you see your character doing that instead of what the numbers show. Some of the commands Sora pulls off are just context sensitive and in many cases you can't jump that high, move that fast, run on walls, or instantly cut things on half.

Meanwhile in other RPGs your character is getting new moves, becoming more powerful, and taking down challenges they couldn't before. It's nearly the same thing but slightly different genres. Now are you talking about the game showing the character is stronger through narrative instead of gameplay? Because what you're describing in the OP happens in a ton of games.

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Tactics Ogre does this, but with more a "political power and social influence" than actual combat strength (though that does also play a large role).

Play Morrowind N'wah.

Casuals get out

What gayyme?

Monster girl quest.

Given a sword made of angels made to kill angels.

Then you're taught famous monster techniques.

Then you're embedded with the power of the 4 elemental spirits through a minor pact

Then they're mastered doubling their effectiveness

Taught the Ultimate move that requires tapping into all 4 of their powers at the same time which is a claimed unstoppable move

Then the spirits are forced out of you, no worries because your body absorbed the experience and can recreate the effects as their own.

Find out you're Half angel and now start to gain evolved and much more powerful versions of those famous skills

Find all the spirits again but now a full pact on top of all the natural power you've gained and absorbed from the journey

Absorb the form, skill and power of your ancestor who was doing cooler shit then you with only the 4 spirits with minor pacts but now you can do that shit too

remember that ultimate move that used 4 spirits elements, now it's multiplied because the new pacts + your power + stacking your Angel power of light into it now with darkness on top

This game didn't have the right to be this awesome.