Overpowered Weapons That Almost Ruined Great Games
It's one thing to include a nice, strong weapon in a game, for those aggravating later stages where a baseball bat simply won't do. It's a whole other ball of bullets to include something so strong, so powerful, and so unstoppable it effectively breaks the game and makes anything resembling a challenge a pipe dream. These games could be so much better if you just steer clear of the following weapons.
Knights of the Round - Final Fantasy VII
In a game filled with powerful summon attacks, the Knights of the Round summon from Final Fantasy VII stands out as the strongest, and, even to fans, the cheapest.
True to its name, this attacks calls forth a dozen Knights of the Round Table, followed by (apparently) King Arthur himself, to absolutely devastate whatever enemy is in the way. Each Knight can do anywhere from 8500 to 9999 hit points in damage, meaning by the time the extremely long summon wraps up, the Knights have done between 100,000 to 130,000 damage points. Virtually every enemy and boss can forget about survival, and should search for the good in essentially dying five or ten times over.
Even the final boss of the game, Safer-Sephiroth, doesn't feel safe around this attack. Depending on how powerful you are, and what actions you took in the battle just before his, he'll sport anywhere from 80,000 to 400,000 hit points. This means even the Big Bad of the game could be felled with a single Knights summon. It's a shame, because without the Knights, the Safer-Sephiroth battle is one the best final boss fights of all time, between the epic music and a difficulty level that will challenge you, but not make you want to practice skeet shooting with the game disc.
Fat Man - Fallout 3
In Fallout, nuclear war has devastated the planet. So why would anyone keep a portable, live nuke lying about for anyone to use? For that matter, why would anyone keep many portable, live nukes lying about? The simple answer is, "no one would," but this is what happens in Fallout 3, where a weapon called the Fat Man launches mini-nukes that obliterate your enemies, something fans aplenty have condemned as both unfair and tonally ridiculous.
The Fat Man shoots from up to 150 yards away, a distance we recommend you adhere to since, remember, this is a nuclear bomb. Shoot it at a nearby wall and there'll be no more happy times for you. But fire at faraway enemies and you'll trigger a humongous nuclear explosion that destroys anything and anyone in its path. The area will be irradiated for a spell, but simply waiting a short while will let you collect all the dropped loot in peace. The tiniest bit of patience with the Fat Man equals no consequences whatsoever.
What's more, there are so many nukes. Each Fat Man can launch 167 nukes, and about a dozen of these guns litter the Wasteland. That's a lot of untold devastation, which is fine if that's your goal (and being an open-world game, your Fallout 3 goal can be whatever you want it to be). But if you want to truly prove your mettle as the Sole Survivor, steer clear of all Fat Men.
Hand Cannon - Fortnite: Battle Royale
You may not be able to tell thanks to the game's cartoony aesthetic, but Fortnite: Battle Royale is a highly competitive shooter. In fact, many former video game pros have taken to the title, and huge audiences regularly show up to watch them play on sites like Twitch and Mixer. Because so many people play Fortnite, and because there's an active competitive community surrounding the game, weapon balancing is always a topic of discussion, and Epic has had some missteps in the past with weapons that were just too powerful.
The Hand Cannon, however, is on an entirely different level.
Fortnite's Hand Cannon is that game's spin on the Desert Eagle handgun, and like an eagle, it soars — much to the chagrin of competitive players. It's not a new weapon by any means, as it was first introduced back in early 2018. But a buff later that year turned the Hand Cannon into a real powerhouse. Now it deals even more damage, can demolish structures in just a few shots, and has pro players and streamers cursing its very existence.
In fact, some have even stopped playing Fortnite entirely until the Hand Cannon is vaulted. But it's still out there, which means it still has a chance to ruin Epic's incredibly successful shooter, even with a minor nerf to its structure damage.
Crissaegrim - Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
As beloved as Castlevania: Symphony of the Night is, it's never been the most challenging game. That said, you at least have to try to win...or, you can pick up a Crissaegrim weapon and instantaneously become the nightmare that nightmares have nightmares about.
Statistically, the Crissaegrim isn't the strongest sword in the game. Realistically, that doesn't matter, because the sword strikes an enemy four times per swing. What's more, you can swing while moving, and don't have to recover for even a nanosecond between swings. This equals a sword that can deal untold amounts of damage to even the largest group of enemies in no time flat. No lie, a Crissaegrim-wielding Alucard can best the penultimate boss, Shaft, in roughly one second. Who's the real bad-mother-shut-your-mouth now?
The final boss, Dracula, takes a little longer, and by that we mean maybe four seconds. About the only thing that limits the Crissaegrim's power is that you can only find it one way: by killing an enemy called a Schmoo and hoping they drop one. They rarely do, but once it happens, you've all but won the game. And if a second Schmoo drops another one? You are officially the Lord of the Vampires. Even the ridiculously overpowered hidden boss, Galamoth, has but ten seconds to live under your cheap and evil reign.
Metal Blade - Mega Man 2
Of the countless weapons Mega Man has ganked from evil robots, perhaps none are deadlier, or more game-breaking, than the Metal Blade from Mega Man II. Even decades after the game's release, fans debate why such a cheap weapon exists at all, and about the only conclusion anyone can agree on is, "it's kinda funny."
The Metal Blade can be shot from eight different directions. If that's not enough, you can shoot multiple Blades with virtually no rest period. If that's still not enough, you can shoot four Blades before losing a single weapon energy bar. At 28 energy bars, that means you can shoot 112 Blades before needing a recharge. Still not enough? The Blades go right through the enemy, meaning a single blade can take out an entire row of bad guys with no hesitation at all.
Perhaps the most hilarious use of this weapon comes against the original Blade-wielder himself, Metal Man. The Blade costs him 28 bars of damage, and everything in this game–Mega Man, the weapons, and the bosses–has 28 bars. Yep, just one Blade can bring down its former master. About the only con to this weapon is how a few bosses are immune to it, and how they actually heal the final boss. But a weapon that makes it insultingly easy to even reach these bosses is still a ridiculously overpowered one. At least Metal Man's stage music is undisputedly epic.
BFG-9000 - Doom
Doom isn't an easy game–few games where you literally descend into Hell to battle a supersized demon-army are. But the BFG-9000 doesn't just even the odds–it flip-turns them so severely that Satan now bows to you. If a real Marine had this weapon, they could've won World War II single-handedly.
The "Big F****ng Gun" (which is literally what BFG stands for) is a humongous weapon that shoots globs of green plasma at your foes. These globs are super-powerful, capable of flooring virtually every enemy in one shot. Even the couple mega-monsters still standing after one shot go down after two or three. What's more, a single pull of the BFG trigger sends the plasma flying toward every single enemy on the screen, so if you enter a room and find about 20 demons, a single BFG blast should eradicate most, if not all, of them. And while each blast consumes 40 to 80 units of ammo (depending on your difficulty level), ammunition isn't exactly rare. Your ability to mow down hundreds of enemies per minute is limited only by how much stuff you pick up off the ground.
Don't think that the gun got any weaker as time went on. On the contrary, the 2016 Doom reboot introduced a BFG-9000 that was just as devastating as its forefather. This gun may cheapen the game overall, but to be honest, Hell had it coming.
FarSight XR-20 - Perfect Dark
Goldeneye: 007 had the Golden Gun, a weapon that could kill any enemy with just one shot. Perfect Dark saw Bond and raised him the FarSight XR-20, one of the most unfair weapons a super-spy could ever hope to wield.
The FarSight is a brightly colored railgun of alien origin, and it's so powerful any enemy goes down instantly after one shot, no matter how protected or shielded they are. Also, it's absurdly accurate, meaning you won't be wasting much ammo. That in itself is badass enough, but then you learn what truly makes the FarSight so undeniably cheap: you can shoot through walls. What's more, you can use your infrared-vision ability to see enemies on the other side of the wall, meaning you can aim perfectly accurately, fire, and one-shot-kill, no matter where you are. You are, without exaggeration, a god with a gun once you start wielding that thing.
Finding the FarSight is as simple as entering a non-hidden room and picking it up, so you don't even have to work hard to earn one or anything. Aside from the very slight drawback of not being able to see what's near you, and being unable to auto-aim, the FarSight could not be more perfect of a weapon, and that makes it terrible if your goal is to feel accomplished after you win.
The Redeemer - Unreal Tournament
Meet the Redeemer: a weapon so overpowered it makes Unreal Tournament even more unreal, and much less fun.
The Redeemer is, quite simply, a nuke launcher. You load it with a literal nuclear warhead and send it flying to wherever you want to create a wasteland. As you can see in the above video, the nuke can travel basically anywhere–above ground, underground, through the air, weaving through tunnels–until it blows up its target clear across the city. But it's equally effective at the short range, fully capable of detonating mere yards away from you and setting off a nuclear explosion big enough that you better hope you're not too near.
Unlike some overpowered weapons, you can beat the Redeemer. When its payload is flying hither, thither, and everywither, an opposing player can actually shoot it down, harmlessly exploding it far from the target. That said, according to an Epic Games thread, many servers still disable the Redeemer outright, due to it being unbalanced, gimmicky, and quite possibly a simple way for new players to rack up a sweet body count without much effort. It's rarely a good sign when players have to go out of their way to un-ruin their favorite game.
Energy Sword - Halo
In the world of Halo, giant alien guns are almost as numerous as the aliens. Yet the one weapon that might be the strongest (and cheapest), is a simple sword. If anyone grabs the Energy Sword, woe be unto you.
The Energy Sword–essentially a brass knuckle with two curved lightsabers on either side–has no respect for whatever armor its victims may have equipped. With one slash, the sword can cut through basically anything, resulting in instant death for the poor soul silly enough to use some mere gun.
It's not perfect, though: each swing uses energy, you can't recharge it, and it's an exclusively short-range weapon. But that hardly matters. The sword's power and lunging ability make it that, as the video above mentions, "whoever has the energy sword is king and there's nothing you can do about it." As long as you can withstand firepower long enough to reach your opponent, just hit them once and they're down.
As you can imagine, this can get annoying (unless you're the one with the Sword). For 2015's Halo 5, according to Dot Esports, 343 Industries released an update meant to significantly tone down the Sword. But there are still single-slash kills, plus you can increase your lunge and range, meaning the Energy Sword's owner is still more likely to reign over everyone else in the arena.
Symmetra's Proton Projector - Overwatch
In Overwatch, the Support character Symmetra has been offending many gamers, who fear her overpowered weaponry risks bringing Overwatch down until she's properly balanced.
Symmetra's main weapon, the Photon Projector, emits a microwave beam that locks onto enemies and doles out continual damage at four hits per second...until she lets go or the other player dies. It's been criticized by gamers for being too strong and too flexible. It can lock onto just about anyone, anywhere, moving around corners and staying locked on an opponent long after its grip should've realistically been broken. Plus, as one message board poster explained, she "can even melt tanks in no time at all." That's not Overwatch, that's overkill.
Symmetra's super-strength appears to have been a case of over-correction. As other forums have pointed out, Symmetra used to be a weaker support character, one you'd have to be incredibly skilled to win with. It seems that Blizzard Entertainment improved her by overpowering her, giving her an ultra-powerful weapon with tons of range (seven meters versus her former five), and the ability to dole out just as much damage as before (120 hit points per second).
Even her fans realize this, like this cosplayer who dressed up her friend as a Photon Beam and sicced it on her adversaries, including a T-Rex. Even nerds in dinosaur costumes are no match for the mighty Symmetra.
Auto Shotgun - Left 4 Dead
Compared to some of the more fantastical weaponry discussed so far, a simple automatic shotgun almost sounds anticlimactic. That is, until you see Left 4 Dead's shotgun in action and revel in its game-busting power.
The Auto Shotgun's already an insanely powerful weapon on its own–a few shots can easily blow away dozens of Infected who might otherwise eat your face. But that's not what catapults the Shotgun into overpowered infamy. As this Steam forum thread points out, its range is positively ridiculous for being a mere shotgun. Its bullets can reach as far as 245 feet, and the damage from that distance is just as high as if you blew away a badnik from ten feet away.
Few weapons in Left 4 Dead have better range, and one of them is the sniper rifle, which at least makes sense. A real-life shotgun, meanwhile, starts to lose its accuracy after about 120 feet, according to Rem870. Even though Left 4 Dead isn't close to reality (zombies aren't real, no matter what your prepper buddy insists), it's still insane to double an actual weapon's range simply to make a video game easier.