(bright music) - [Falcon] Sometimes,
people call video games a power fantasy and
sometimes they're right. It's not always a bad thing after all. Hi, folks. It's Falcon. And today on Gameranx, 10 games where you eventually
become stupidly powerful. Starting off with number
10, it's "Dragons Dogma 2". This game, like the first
game, starts off pretty rough. You're weak, you're slow, and for the first few
hours, you stay that way. You do eventually start
to get stronger though. You learn skills that make
fighting monsters easier. The key word here is eventually though. There are plenty of games where you become stupidly powerful. But for this list, I
think we're gonna talk about ones where it takes
a while to get there. You don't always have
to start the game off as a total chump who's
struggling to beat up a goblin, but there's a pretty noticeable difference between how the game plays
at the start and at the end. "Dragons Dogma 2" almost feels like a different game
once you've powered up. The real game-changer comes when you unlock the Wayfarer class, which allows you to equip
any weapon in the game and switch between them whenever you want. The class also lets you equip
any ability you've unlocked and just playing as the class makes it so all your classes level up. So, there's really no reason not to switch to being a Wayfarer at
the end of the game. It's just absurdly powerful. Now, you can combine the
abilities of a mage, a warrior, an archer, a thief, whatever you want. You can mix and match
your most powerful skills and you can heal yourself with
just the press of a button. The most important thing though, is that you can just melt enemies. By the end of the game, stuff
that used to take 10 minutes of hacking away at, you can just kill. (robust sound effect)
(character growling) (character screaming) (robust sound effect) If you use the right skills, it's done. You take the letter S off
the word skills, it's kills. You rack 'em up. Like it is ridiculous how
much of a killing machine you become with the right combination of abilities in this game. At number nine is the
"Forest/Sons of the Forest". The contrast from where
you start in these games and where you end, it is
sharp, to say the very least. In the opening hours, you're a caveman like
rubbing rocks together. And by the end, you're
walking through hoards of monstrous freaks, mowing
them down with shotguns, machine guns, and a katana
sword, cladding golden armor. And that's a power curve right there. The game starts off with
only a few basic supplies and the clothes on your back. The best you've got is an emergency ax and maybe a sharpened stick
to ward off the locals. But through exploration, you
eventually upgrade your arsenal with a more powerful and more
effective array of equipment. Pretty much the only way you're gonna be upgrading
yourself is by finding stuff. So, exploration is of course, highly incentivized in that situation. You can never make a bow that's
as good as the compound bow. You can't build a gun out of rocks, so you're forced to find this stuff. Certain locations, they're too dangerous without the proper equipment too. And unlike games like
"Dying Light", for example, your guy doesn't start the
game out as a parkour badass. You're pretty vulnerable until you start getting some of the better
equipment out there. A lot of survival games go
from struggling to survive to unkillable god after
playing them for a while. But the path of progression
in the forest games, it does feel more satisfying
to me than a lot of them. (creature growling) (gun fires) (gun reloads) (gun fires) (gun reloads) (gun fires) (gun reloads) (gun fires) (gun reloads) And number eight is "Crackdown". You start off pretty tough in "Crackdown". You're a super soldier, but that is only a taste
of how over the top you become at higher levels in this game. What's noteworthy about "Crackdown" is how the game basically starts you off slightly overpowered, hey, you're an open
world game protagonist. What's new there, right? But it eventually just turns
you into a superhero, flat out. (bomb exploding)
(gun firing) You start off with a little peashooter, a barely there vertical leap. You die easy from swarms of enemies, which you're constantly fighting. But kill enough bad guys, collect enough orbs, and
you're dude devolves. In "Crackdown", you don't
just feel the power increase, you see it, 'cause your guy gets taller,
beefier, or you know, whatever. It allows him to run around fast or jump higher, cause more mayhem. The weapons get more and
more over the top too. By the end, you're just
jumping over buildings, cutting down enemies by the
dozens without breaking a sweat. It's not that you were
breaking a sweat before, the game isn't that hard overall, but the way the game doles out power is pretty satisfying in a simple, straightforward kind of way. You pick up orbs, you get
stronger, simple as that. And you get very strong after
you collect a lot of them. - [Character 1] You simply reset. (character plops) - [Falcon] And number seven is "Control", another one of those games where you get pretty strong pretty quick, but the game just keeps
throwing new powers your way, that the way you're playing
the game, the first few hours just looks completely
different than the last few. At the start of the game, you're mostly limited to basic
pistol and psychic throws, which is fun, but not super powerful. Once you get the levitate power, the game really starts to open up. It lets you infinitely hover in the air and reign death down on your enemies. It's one of my all-time
favorite hover powers in games. The animation just sells it. And when you combine it
with all the other powers, you really feel unstoppable. The game literally makes you
unstoppable for the finale, giving you infinite power to just absolutely destroy everything that stands in your way. Everything you do by the end
feels really overpowered. You can literally just
convert enemies to your side and have them fight
for you until they die. The only downside here is that you're still pretty vulnerable. Doesn't take a lot to kill you. But with the right
upgrades and power usage, it's not that much of an issue. (gun fires) (creature growls) (robust sound effects) (character grunts) (robust sound effects)
(character screams) And number six is "Elex II". For this entry, pretty
much any Piranha Bytes RPG could work, "Gothic", "Risen", "Elex". They all start you off as a chump who's tripping over their own shoe laces and eventually you get god-like powers. But for me, "Elex" probably gives you the most dramatic transformation. "Elex II" starts you out a little bit tougher than the first game, but you're still a goober in rags trying to fight off
mutant rats with a stick. (stick slams)
(creature growls) That's how it starts anyway. Death is a constant companion and all the NPCs treat you like a chump. Takes dozens of hours
of struggle and toil. It feels like everything's
working against in these games. But eventually, you're a
laser mini gun-wielding badass and power armor who also has magic powers that can make people obey your every wimp. By the end of the game, you're mowing down dozens
of monsters at a time. And that's the complete contrast to when you can barely
fight a single enemy at the start of the game. It's that huge power gap that makes the game so notable to me. It's like "Fallout" if
Bethesda hated your guts and dared you to keep playing
rather than handing you a set of power armor
in the first few hours. (gun firing)
(creature growling) I'm not really a huge fan
of Piranha Bytes games, the "Elex" games in particular, but there's no denying that the progression in these games takes you from zero to hero. And number five is "Infamous". You get stronger pretty much
in every "Infamous" game. But in my mind, the biggest
difference between how you start and how you end is
definitely the first of them. In terms of ultimate power, I think the later games
have a higher ceiling, but both "Infamous 2" and "Second Son" start
you off at a higher level. (bomb exploding)
(gun firing) In the first game, yeah, just
to start off at rock bottom. At first, the lightning powers Cole gets at the start of the game feel more like a curse than a blessing. You die if you touch water. And if you go to an unpowered
section of the city, you're almost completely helpless. The powers you have at the start, they're really weak and you die easily unless you're constantly taking cover. At first, "Infamous" feels more like an open world cover
shooter than a superhero game. But as you power up
and earn new abilities, how you're actually playing the game slowly starts to change. (lightning rumbles)
(exploding sound effect) (thunder cracks) By the end, you're just battling
out giant swarms of enemies with high tech, secret
society guys backing them up, any of which would've wiped the floor with you during the first few hours. But now, you can just
brush 'em aside with ease. When you unlock that ultimate
lightning strike attack, you feel unstoppable in a way the other games just
never managed to capture. And number four is "Skyrim". All the Bethesda games give you the tools to get
extremely overpowered, but in "Fallout's" case,
it's a little too easy. And oblivion has a inverse
problem with a game that makes you feel
weaker as you level up, because of the goofy level scaling. Very wonky, very, eh, don't love it. I love "Oblivion", but that's probably one of the downsides of it in my opinion. "Skyrim", on the other
hand, hits the sweet spot. Sure, you could just pump
points into stealth and archer and you basically become an
unstoppable killing machine. But even that takes some prep work to fully take advantage of and not something you
could do for minute one. There's also the "Infamous"
restoration potion trick that lets you completely
break the game if you want. But even that's not necessary to feel super powerful in "Skyrim". Even if it's fun to reach the point where you're literally untouchable and could kill everyone in a single hit, that's the thing about "Skyrim". The game gives you many different ways to become overpowered. From supercharging your
spells to using tricks and crafting to make overpowered weapons. It's a playground if you wanna
become stupidly powerful. And unlike some of Bethesda's other games, it still takes some effort to pull it off. The restoration trick is powerful, but it does take some
time and preparation. Same as a lot of the
other overpowered tricks and builds in the game. Breaking "Skyrim"'s difficulty wide open is a time-honored tradition at this point. It's one of the best
things about the game, even if at a certain point getting overpowered is
practically inevitable. - [Character 2] One, two.
(character grunts) (character screams) (character grunts) Murder. (ax strikes)
(character grunts) - [Falcon] And number
three is "Hogwarts Legacy". There's plenty of games
to give you the tools to be absolutely absurdly overpowered, but few games do it in a way that makes it quite as easy as this one. The "Dark Arts" take
this to like a new level. You can literally cast a spell that curses all the enemies around you. Then, follow up with the death spell and that's it, everyone's dead. You get a free to use
instant death spell for all, with the only downside being that it's one with a time limit. But with overpowered potions and the also overpowered
ancient magic stuff, you'll be able to cast
death again in no time flat. If you know all the combos, you can completely dominate
all opposition in this game. And it frankly feels wrong sometimes. Isn't this supposed to be like
a family-friendly kids game? Are you really supposed to be the god of death reaping his grim harvest? You might think there would
be some story drawback to using dark magic too, but other than ruining some NPCs lives, which is more funny than
anything else, there isn't. So, kill everything you
see as much as you like. So, have fun, kids. A far cry from where you start the game, fighting literal school children, but every unstoppable killing machine has to start somewhere, right? - [Character 3] Avada kedavra. (robust sound effect) (subdued music) - [Falcon] And number
two is "Path of Exile". For this entry, all you really need to do is look at some footage of the early game versus the end game. That might as well be two
completely different games. When "Path of Exile" starts, you're a shipwreck survivor, fighting off zombies with
a piece of driftwood. It's like "Diablo", if you somehow started off even lower than those games. You're slow, each enemy takes a while, and well, you could die
from only a few attacks. (weapons striking)
(characters grunting) Compare that to the end game where you're just a human
tornado fighting dozens, if not hundreds of enemies at one time. The screen is just
covered in crazy effects. Everything is dying all over the place and you are the eye of the storm. And that's just me playing on a hopelessly unoptimized build. (character screaming)
(weapons striking) This game can get so much
crazier than even this. A lot of RPGs have you
starting off fighting slimes, and by the end, you're
literally facing god. But the actual power increase
is basically meaningless. You don't actually feel any
stronger at the end of the game, 'cause it's all just numbers. In "Path of Exile", when you're fighting the gods at the end, you feel like a god. And finally at number one, the
"Earth Defense Force" series. The power level you
start at in these games is already pretty absurd, but it's nothing compared to the end. The "Earth Defense Force" games have always started simple
with a basic machine gun or a shotgun that could
kill a giant in a few hits. But as you progress through the campaign, you find better equipment. Things quickly spiral out of control. At the highest levels, you can get weapons that don't just mow down
dozens of enemies in seconds and can destroy entire enemy
motherships in a few hits. They can also completely
level an entire city block. (bomb exploding)
(characters screaming) - Come on.
- Jump in. (gun firing)
(bomb exploding) - [Falcon] By the end of this game, you're a bigger danger to
earth than the invaders. I don't know who's making these
absolutely insane weapons, but I think they may be
a little too effective. You're supposed to save
the city, not do this. (bomb exploding) (character faintly speaking) - [Falcon] You're blowing it
up. You're blowing the city up. These are games that
just revel in the absurd. They just throw in whatever, regardless of how much sense it makes or how much it will affect
performance, for that matter. In "Earth Defense
Force", if you fire a gun and suddenly everything
goes into slow motion, it's not like an effect. It's probably just a really good gun that's not exactly going
easy on your computer. That's a good gun. The amount of destruction
you can bring to bear as this dorky little soldier
is completely stupid. And I mean that in the best possible way. And that's all for today. Leave us a comment. Let
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for watching this video. I'm Falcon. You can follow me
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right here on Gameranx.
