Role-playing games are and forever will be a staple of the video game industry. They have been around since the days of the NES, and they frequently push the industry forward in terms of both storytelling and technical accomplishments. JRPGs, action RPGs, turn-based RPGs, tactical RPGs, sim RPGs, farming RPGs, open-world RPGs, Soulslikes…honestly, I could go on and on as the genre is just that diverse. There is something out there for pretty much everyone, and that includes folks craving an RPG that makes them feel like an all-destroying god.
OK, here is the thing: as role-playing games are typically extremely long, they dedicate a lot of time and attention to perfecting their difficulty. A 50-hour campaign that offers no challenge whatsoever can get boring very quickly, so many games try to avoid overpowering players. Sure, you can break the mechanics and become a breathing grim reaper for all enemies, but that is not the default state. Still, a few games turn players into walking deities without any peers.
Criteria and things to keep in mind:
- Only RPGs that allow players to become OP by just going through the campaign will be considered. No game-breaking options.
- Soulslikes will be excluded as they basically belong to a separate genre, and most of them are too difficult anyway.
- Playing as a god is not enough to be considered. For example, Summoner 2 features a goddess protagonist, but she is fairly vulnerable. The combat is also quite challenging.
7
Disgaea Series
Lead An OP Army & Create Life
For the most part, tactical RPGs are among the harder entries in the overall genre; however, they also regularly allow players to naturally become overwhelmingly strong, especially on repeat playthroughs. Disgaea revels in excess, delivering humorous adventures that cast players as (usually) Overlords who lead armies of misfits into battles.
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While most of the campaigns have notable difficulty spikes that ensure an element of challenge, attacks are still satisfying OP as they quickly start to hit for a ridiculous number of points. Landing an onslaught that delivers more than a million damage will never not be gratifying. Even outside combat, Disgaea‘s character creation system turns players into gods capable of birthing fodder soldiers who can be flung into battle and fed to the grinder.
There are a lot of Disgaea games, so newcomers might struggle to pick a starting point. The fifth numbered entry was my introduction to the series, and it still has some of the best gameplay (but a relatively weak story). Disgaea 1 Complete is a safe option, and the same can be said for the most recent release (Disgaea 7). 4 and 6 are among the weaker ones.
6
Crisis Core
Before You Know It, Zack Becomes An Unstoppable Juggernaut
Final Fantasy has plenty of games that allow you to feel like a god, and it is great. Final Fantasy 8 and 15 are fairly obvious examples, and FF16‘s first playthrough is so easy that most fights are rudimentary. The latter is a valid candidate for this discussion, but the former two require players to make conscious decisions to become OP rather than the transition happening automatically. Stranger of Paradise also has one of the most complete and powerful protagonists in the franchise, but Team Ninja’s game was just hard enough that I never quite felt like a force of nature.
Crisis Core‘s gameplay is just straight-up broken. The combat revolves primarily around a roulette system that determines what Limit Breaks can be used, along with equipped materia and relatively straightforward real-time action. While the first few hours offer a bit of a challenge, Zack only needs to complete some side quests to become absurdly overpowered, to the point that I randomly found myself nearly one-shooting most of the bosses during the second half of the story. Do not get me wrong, it felt great when I wiped the floor with Hollander’s face, but Zack is narratively not meant to be that strong of a character.
5
Skyrim
The Soul Of A Dragon, The Power Of A God
Skyrim
- Released
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November 11, 2011
Skyrim grants so much player freedom that our experiences are likely to be wildly different. Putting aside difficulty levels, there is no guarantee somebody will become overpowered by just doing their thing, especially if they primarily focus on playing through the story missions while occasionally venturing off the beaten path.
However, Skyrim‘s sandbox nature nearly demands taking detours, and it is hardly unusual for somebody to drop dozens of hours into the game before they even start touching the main quest. By that point, they should demolish most enemies without facing any real challenge, making the Dragonborn feel like a proper legendary figure.
While not guaranteed, it is not tough to become OP in Skyrim. Just focus on leveling up a skill like alchemy or conjuration, pick up a powerful weapon as early as possible (which is pretty easy to do), and you will spread death across the land.
4
Kingdom Hearts 2 & 3
Sora Lives The OP Dream
The original Kingdom Hearts was and still is pretty hard, but it is an outlier in Square Enix’s franchise. Although it is arguably the best entry in the series, Kingdom Hearts 2 goes out of its way to ensure that the main campaign offers only brief roadblocks, with Sora easily capable of hack and slashing his way through encounters without having to strategize. Even boss fights are quite easy, with massive health bars melting away with a few swings of a keyblade.
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Kingdom Hearts 3 takes things a step further by bestowing Sora with immediate access to all of his abilities and mechanics, making him feel pretty much unstoppable from the very first second. This decision leads to a game that plays out like a power fantasy that relies on style over difficulty, which is not a bad thing, depending on what type of adventure you are craving.
3
Cyberpunk 2077
Grab A Gun And Become Night City’s Death God
Considering its rough launch, Cyberpunk 2077 is in a good spot nowadays. The story shines, the world is pretty great despite not being the most interactive, and the customization options are plentiful. If there is one area that has never quite come together perfectly, it would have to be balance.
Unless played on the highest difficulty and with personal choices that facilitate a challenge run, Cyberpunk 2077 can become trivial by roughly the halfway point of the campaign, and reaching that point mostly just requires completing some side missions and finding a few solid guns. If you go for a stealth gun build, you will be annihilating enemies before long. Don’t get me wrong, V becoming a beast can be an absolute blast, but I feel like you need to make a conscious effort not to become overpowered in Cyberpunk 2077.
2
Kingdoms of Amalur
The Fateless One
Kingdoms of Amalur came out at a time when Western RPGs that prioritized real-time hack and slash combat were not a popular thing. As such, Big Huge Games’ project was a breath of fresh air that managed to set itself apart from the Skyrims of the world, delivering an accessible and gorgeous campaign that did not overstay its welcome.
Story-wise, Kingdoms of Amalur does kind of cast players as a god, as the Fateless One can pretty much reshape the future. Ultimately, this plot beat does not impact the gameplay all that much; however, that does not matter as the protagonist is extremely powerful from the start. The combat is very much skill-based, so once players get adjusted to the flow of battle, they will begin to feel unstoppable. Kingdoms of Amalur is not difficult by any stretch of the imagination.
1
Diablo 3
A Wrecker Of Armies, A Destroyer Of Demons
This one feels like a cheat, as Diablo has always been about the endgame and not the campaign. Provided somebody is sticking around for the long haul, they will spend most of their time repeating content to get better weapons, all the while scaling up the difficulty level to earn superior rewards. However, the first two Diablo games have at least somewhat challenging stories, with bosses that live up to their lore. That is not the case with Diablo 3 (and Diablo 4).
In Diablo 3, you will mow through the story without breaking a sweat, with enemies dropping like they are stuck in a modern Musou game. You will be showered with enough treasure to make Fate‘s Gilgamesh blush. While the lack of challenge can lead to monotony setting in, it can be satisfying to serve as the battlefield’s judgment.
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Some open-world games aim for realism, while others are power fantasies that make players feel like walking gods.
