Most action video games are about letting players live out a power fantasy. These are the kind of games starring all-around badasses: the best of the best, the elite, the chosen, the “HERO” with a capital H. But sometimes, a game will put you into the shoes of a capable hero only to ratchet up their capabilities to stratospheric levels: it’s one thing to be an elite soldier, but another to be the queen of an entire alien hivemind.
Say a little prayer to the deity of your choice because you’re about to go toe-to-toe with some of the most overpowered main characters in gaming just like mesa prime build. Kratos – God of War Greek mythology suggests that whatever your fate is, that’s what you are doomed to live, no matter how hard you try to avoid it. Well, God of War’s Kratos begs to disagree. He killed the Sisters of Fate, remove his destiny on their loom, and then murdered his way through Mount Olympus itself. His unceasing anger destroys not just Olympus but the Greek world below: storms, floods, and plagues wrack the hapless civilians without the gods’ protection.
Meanwhile, Kratos himself is killed several times, only for his wrath to fuel a rampage right out of Hades. Kratos is unstoppable. He is invincible. He is a primal scream in human flesh. And there is nothing anyone, not even the gods, can do to stop him. “It’s just… you hate the gods so much.” Oh ho ho… you have no idea, boy. Sarah Kerrigan – StarCraft On the surface, StarCraft’s Sarah Kerrigan looks like your everyday elite military operative fighting in an interstellar conflict.
And that’s because she was, until, of course, the alien Zerg decided to convert her into one of their own, transforming her into the queen of Blades. With augmented psychic abilities, carapace armor, and, for whatever reason, built-in high-heels, Kerrigan became the critical weapon in the Zerg arsenal. So she’s a highly-trained human military operative, and a top-tier psychic, an ace Zerg combatant, and the ruler of an ever-larger slice of the entire Zerg Swarm. And still, she had further to rise.
At the end of StarCraft II: Legacy of the void, Kerrigan ascends to yet another stage of existence: she becomes a xel’naga, a kind of ascended creature of pure energy. Even more potent than before, she sets out to defeat the most ancient and powerful creature in all the universe. And she does, which makes Kerrigan the most potent single being, anywhere, ever. Elizabeth – Bioshock Infinite The protagonist of Bioshock Infinite, BookerDeWitt, spends nearly the entire game shepherding young Elizabeth through the floating city of Columbia.
Fortunately, thanks to some finely-tuned AI, Elizabeth is never a burden: she hides from enemy fire and even tosses Booker items and ammo she finds around the map. Oh, and she can cut holes through reality. So that’s nice. Elizabeth harbors a unique ability to tear through the thin veils separating parallel universes. In narrative terms, this means she can rewrite history, travel through time, and even access alternate planes of reality.
That makes Elizabeth way more than your standard damsel in distress. Instead, she’s the most powerful character in the game, vastly more capable than even Booker himself. Don’t like her? Don’t worry: there are other versions of her out there. Infinite. The Dragonborn – Skyrim In Bethesda’s The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim, you start as a prisoner, convicted of… well, some crime. And, now, you’re going to get your head chopped off.
You’re in rags, you have no special abilities to speak of, and you can’t even overpower the essential guards that escort you. And you’re about to die. And then, well … Turns out, you, gentle ex-con, are the key to defeating these winged bastards, for you are the Dragonborn, blessed with the ability to kill any dragon and end their blight upon the land. Most “chosen one” archetypes are more about having heart, courage, steely determination; here, you’re blessed with the ability to absorb freaking dragon souls. That’s pretty over-powered for a simple criminal. Which, of course, is the game’s entire point: to give you the feeling of growing into a hero of your own making.
Mario When your sink springs a leak at 1 a.m., any plumber willing to lend a hand is a hero. That said, no plumber has rescued as many princesses from dinosaurs as a certain Italian dreamt up by Japanese developers. For someone with no combat training, no superpowers, except the ones that mushrooms and flowers give him, and with presumably a leak to fix somewhere, this is an extraordinary accomplishment, far beyond what’s typically requested of a plumber. Maybe that’s the real moral of Mario: if even he can be such an over-powered paragon of good, then there’s gotta be hope for us schmucksyet!
