History CrutchCharacter / RolePlayingGame

** Ashlay in ''VideoGame/StarOceanFirstDeparture'' starts out relatively powerful, but will easily be surpassed by characters like [[SpellMyNameWithAnS Ratix/Roddick]] by the end of the game, and so he's considered low-tier. Conversely, Cius/Cyuss might not seem that great at first, but can become a real powerhouse. As it so happens, Ashlay and Cius are mutually-exclusive {{Optional Party Member}}s; you can't have both. Perhaps to give a reason to choose Ashlay over Cyus, the remake makes Ashley a requirement for getting the game's secret party member, who surpasses all of her fellow mages in battle.

** Shinjiro Aragaki has all the traits of a Crutch Character: advanced abilities, hits harder than any other character, only stays for a short while and is pretty damn cool to boot. However he only joins for a short while midgame when the rest of your team is already leveled enough for him to not really be needed. He makes the boss fights a joke if you use him while he's with you, but it's doable without him so the point of having him join at all isn't really clear.[[note]]Particularly since he can also cost you a boss fight by choosing to spend his turn waiting rather than attacking.[[/note]]
** Akihiko rejoins the main party at a higher level than the rest of the cast and as the only member capable of inflicting strike attacks. As he levels up, he becomes capable of wasting enemies in one blow, as well as learning some ''very'' helpful status effect spells (even if you have to nudge him into using them). He's ''also'' the first one to gain an upgrade to his Persona midway through the game. Like the protagonist, he hits diminishing returns toward the end of the game, and unless Monad is unlocked, he'll be unable to gain enough experience to finish leveling up. That being said, it's difficult to form a party ''without'' him, as he's arguably the most well-rounded character in the game, doesn't have abilities that consume his HP to use, and can be equipped to deal with his one weakness. Doubles as a BrickJoke in-game when he tells you that his persona is "balanced" and that not relying too heavily on one stat is essential.
** Junpei boomerangs on this. He starts out as a decent tank, but eventually the player hits several bosses in a row that can take advantage of his weakness, turning him into a liability. However, this eventually tapers off, and if the player sticks with him and keeps him leveled up [[MagikarpPower he can learn some powerful attacks by the endgame]] (which also happens to coincide with his CharacterDevelopment.)

** Naoto Shirogane's skillset allows her to access the high level Light and Darkness magic, as well as abilities to boost their effectiveness, and several powerful Almighty spells as well. This combination of powers makes her brutally effective against a surprisingly wide variety of Shadows, including some [[DemonicSpiders very annoying ones]] that most other party members can barely even damage. The letdown aspect of the character, however, comes when you take her into a boss fight... and realize that all those spells listed above are now underwhelming at best, totally useless at worst, as her stats have no correspondence to the skills she learns. One of the major effects of these being that she doesn't even have the MP to be repeatedly casting Almighty spells. Averted in the PS Vita remake, where Almighty spells had their MP cost reduced AND she is capable of learning every single elemental attack in the game, along with a slew of other useful abilities, including one that restores her MP, one that buffs every stat of a party member, one that buffs her own evasion stat to all attacks making her nearly untouchable, and a skill that makes the entire party invincible. Couple that with a weapon she gets that makes her Ice Attacks even more powerful than both the other ice users in the game making her good for bosses, being the second fastest character in the game, and her final persona upgrade having absolutely no weaknesses at all (all the other party members keep their weakness, despite gaining good buffs), and it's easy to see that somewhere between 2008-2012, someone with a lot of love for Naoto joined Atlus.
** Chie is the polar opposite. While Naoto is good for random encounters and bad for bosses, Chie is a physical fighter and becomes useless if the enemy can block/repel her attacks, but, if you buff her speed and critical hit, she can knock most bosses, and you know, [[GameBreaker knocked enemies lose their turns...]] Chie also has the interesting issue of being a character who's strong early on, but weaker at midlevels, but then gets strong again. This is because her skill learning is unbalanced and she learns no midlevel skills, leaving her with basic ice spells and a mid level physical attack while everyone else is learning Dyne spells or support magic or strong attacks, but once you level her past 60 she learns Power Charge and God Hand, making her the next strongest boss killer in the game barring Kanji and the MC. Golden fixes this by letting her learn additional skills through her S Link, letting her get Bufudyne and other skills to keep her useful until you learn God hand.

** Ryuji is similar to Junpei in that he boomerangs back around near the endgame. He is a tank with great physical skills, and easily your biggest source of damage in Kamoshida’s Palace. Unfortunately, he has the worst magic skills out of all party members, and Yusuke very quickly shows up and outclasses him in raw physical power, leading to his usefulness falling off. However, if you keep his level up throughout the game, he picks up Matarukaja to keep the team's offense buffed up, then eventually Charge and God's Hand, enabling him to do insane amounts of damage. It helps that one of his strongest weapons grants a free attack boost at the start of the battle, while his absolute strongest grants Elec Boost, allowing his electric attacks to at least do decent damage if needed without spending a skill slot on it.

** ''VideoGame/PhantasyStarII'' has Nei, who's also a forced party member. On one hand, she grows levels twice as fast as everybody else in her team, has the highest agility, and can dual wield claws/bars, meaning she can outdamage even [[TheBigGuy Rudo]]. On the other hand, her growth is very sluggish, and while she's eventually caught up by the time [[spoiler:you fight Neifirst]], she leaves the party permanently afterward. In the UsefulNotes/PlayStation2 remake, she can be prevented from leaving, but doing so causes her to permanently be stuck in the 2nd party slot with subpar stats and weapons, which can only be compensated for with rare equipment.

* ''VideoGame/EternalSonata'' has Viola, who is far stronger than the rest of your party when she joins. She is the first character to have a "heal entire party" ability, and by using manual aim she can head-shot enemies from a distance for incredible damage. However, her actual attack rate is quite low, so when Harmony Chains (and the need to rack up a lot of hits as quickly as possible) become more important to the combat system she loses a great deal of her advantage. This was exaggerated in the UsefulNotes/{{PS3}} version where her movement and speed growth were {{nerf}}ed.

* ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfHeroesTrailsIntoReverie'' has a variation: [[spoiler:Rean and Rufus]] can be considered as this trope in the main game with their powerful and versatile crafts, great orbment lines, decent Brave Orders, and the fact that [[spoiler:they're the protagonists of their own route]] means that players will get a lot of use out of them. However, relying on them too much means that the rest of the cast (and there are ''a lot'' of them) will be underleveled due to the game not having any LeakedExperience system unlike the previous games. And unfortunately, they're not available for the FinalBoss of the main story as [[spoiler:they fight off their own final boss on the only winnable [[UnexpectedGameplayChange mech fight]] of the game]]. [[spoiler:Crow]] is also this trope as well due to him [[spoiler:joining with Rean and Rufus in their final boss fight]] and he is considered to be the best art caster of the post-game content.

** Kaeya, the last of the starters, has the most longevity - while not a GameBreaker, he does have higher DPS than Amber and is more durable and focused on quick attacks than Lisa. However, he isn't particularly useful against [[AnIcePerson Cryo]] enemies (such as the Cryo Regisvine or [[NobleWolf Andrius]], to say nothing of the many [[TheGoomba Cryo Slimes]] found around Mondstadt), meaning that the player pretty much ''has'' to invest in the other characters to advance.

** Lisa, although useful when fighting [[ThisLooksLikeAJobForAquaman near water or in the rain]], is [[CripplingOverspecialization overly dependent on charged attacks]] and suffers from long cooldown times, and even her utility passive (a chance of refunding potion materials) does not require her to be in the party.
** Kaeya, the last of the starters, has the most longevity - while not a GameBreaker, he doesn't have the same limitations as the other two. However, he isn't particularly useful against [[AnIcePerson Cryo]] enemies (such as the Cryo Regisvine or [[NobleWolf Andrius]], to say nothing of the many [[TheGoomba Cryo Slimes]] found around Mondstadt), meaning that the player pretty much ''has'' to invest in the other characters to advance.
** Noelle, who is granted by the Beginner's Wish banner, is a StoneWall with the ability to heal the party while her shield is active. These qualities are beneficial in the early game, but her shield has a long cooldown and [[DishingOutDirt Geo]]'s lack of offensive reactions lead to her lagging behind in the damage department. However, [[MagikarpPower with the right build and some Constellations]], Noelle can become a powerful JackOfAllStats in the right hands.

** ''VideoGame/SuikodenV'' gives the player character Georg Prime, a powerful bodyguard who must, for plot reasons, abandon the hero soon after the main plot kicks in. And even before that, he's only available sporadically. By the time he joins for good, he's still one of the best physical attackers in game, but he's not ludicrously overpowered compared to the rest of the party. He's still rendered unavailable for the final battle, unless you are in a NewGamePlus.

* ''VideoGame/FindingLight'': Roxie is able to learn certain useful skills before the other party members can, since she can consume and adapt to monster meat. This makes her the best support character until the best support skill orbs can be found in the endgame.

[[folder:The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel]]
* ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfHeroesTrailsOfColdSteel The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel II]]'' has three of these, Toval, Claire and Sharon, each joining you for one of the first three parts of Chapter 1. Toval plays this trope the most straight though: he starts out at a higher level then your other party members, has some powerful Crafts and a unique accessory (which you can't take from him) that halves the casting time of all his spells, which at that point makes him ''very'' powerful. After Chapter 1, you don't get him back until the final dungeon, and while his level has been raised to compensate, his overall stats are mediocre compared to the members of Class VII you've now been reunited with. Sharon averts this though, she's a borderline GameBreaker when you first have her, and her Crafts have such strong secondary effects that she's still useful at the end.
** In ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfHeroesTrailsOfColdSteel IV'', [[VideoGame/TheLegendOfHeroesTrailsFromZeroAndTrailsToAzure Randy Orlando]] at the start of the game will be 20 levels higher than the main cast which translates to more of everything. He also has [[CastFromHitPoints Wild Rage]] that sacrifices some of his HP to add more Craft Points so he can use his Craft skills easily. And at this point in the game, he'll have the highest damage output from his LimitBreak compared to everyone else. Even when [[spoiler:the TimeSkip happens and the other members nearly catch up to his level, he'll still be stronger than them. However, at the end of the first section, he leaves the party and Ash takes his place in the team. He does come back however when the plot takes Rean, Class VII, and Tita to Leeves and he's still as strong as ever but players can't take him to the final dungeon (mainly because he and ''a lot of characters'' are dealing with their own final dungeon sections) though he can be taken towards the TrueFinalBoss.]]
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* ''VideoGame/{{Absinthia}}'': In the first battle against Lilith, Freya is at level 8 when everyone else is likely level 3 or 4. She can also draw aggro, which can help keep the other party members alive. The other party members will eventually catch up to her over the course of the story, and in Ambervale, Freya admits that Sera surpassed her. However, she's never loses her usefulness as the party's primary tank and defense buffer.

** Ochette starts even better than H'aanit due to Beast Lore now allows a beast to be summoned for unlimited numbers of times, and she can also prepare a beast to discard them, turning them into food items that can be used in many ways, such as befriending [=NPCs=] to summon them in battles, exchanging stuffs in her home village and being used in battles. In early to mid game, some beasts she can capture provide very powerful [=AoE=] damage. She also starts with an animal companion that can hit the enemies' weaknesses and reveal them. In late game, while she can continue to be useful with more powerful summons, other characters also have great support skills, and her DPS at this time tends to fall behind.

* ''VideoGame/XenobladeChroniclesX'' has a late game example with the Excavator [[HumongousMecha Skell]]. It's the only level 60 Skell that can be made before the postgame, since its plans are obtained from completing Alexa's second affinity quest. It has improved stats compared to level 50 Skells, and is the first Skell that can equip level 60 gear. Once you do reach the postgame and other level 60 Skells become available, it becomes apparent that the Excavator is by far the worst level 60 Skell, since it has much lower attack, worse armor than even the [[FragileSpeedster light Skells]] even though it's supposed to be a heavy Skell, and is weak to Gravity attacks when all other level 60 Skells are resistant to it. The Excavator may be useful for finishing the final story missions, but it will not help if you want to take on the [[BonusBoss level 90+ Tyrants.]]

** Much like Cyrus in the first game, Osvald is good in early game for analyzing enemies and dealing AoE damage, but quickly outclassed once other party members get enough attack power.
** Ochette starts even better than H'aanit due to Beast Lore now allows a beast to be summoned for unlimited numbers of times, and she can also prepare a beast to discard them, turning them into food items that can be used in many ways, such as befriending NPCs to summon them in battles, exchanging stuffs in her home village and being used in battles. In early to mid game, some beasts she can capture provide very powerful AoE damage. She also starts with an animal companion that can hit the enemies' weaknesses and reveal them. In late game, while she can continue to be useful with more powerful summons, other characters also have great support skills, and her DPS at this time tends to fall behind.