History Main / LateCharacterSyndrome

* ''Franchise/SuperRobotWars'' games tend to have characters join when the story says they should, which means any EleventhHourRanger or last-minute HeelFaceTurn will almost inevitably be one of these unless they're either made just as strong as one of the main protagonists, an honor only given to a tiny handful of rival characters. If they ''do'' fall into that category, enough investment of money, and [=TacP=] in games that use the [=TacP=] system, will bring them up to par with the rest of the team in no time, but the majority of endgame characters come well after the player has already selected their final team and invested plenty of resources in them.

* ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWarsV'': [[spoiler:The [=VangRay=] II and the sub-protagonist]]. Sure, [[spoiler:[=VangRay=] II]] is more powerful than its predecessor, but that's not saying much by the time you get it, at which point there really isn't any reason to use it anymore. Averted however with [[spoiler:Full Frontal with the Neo Zeong as he has some of the best spirit commands in the game coupled with one of the larger MAP attacks. All he really needs is "Hit and Run" and he's good to go.]]

** ''Royal'' has newcomer Kasumi Yoshizawa, [[spoiler:or better said, Sumire]]. She gets her Persona in early October, but doesn't join until early January, during the ''Royal''-exclusive third semester. By the time she joins, her Confidant is only Rank 5 at most (the last 5 levels open up after she joins) and she only has a first-tier Persona, while the other Phantom Thieves should have second or third-tier Personas (and Morgana ''will'' have his third-tier Persona by the time you start exploring the last Palace). Cendrillon won't evolve into Vanadis until you complete the Faith Confidant, and won't change into Ella until just before the FinalBattle.

* The mod ''VideoGame/StardewValleyExpanded'' introduces Lance, a charming and exotic adventurer-mage who is fully romancable. He only shows up once you've completed the Community Center, rebuilt the boat to Ginger Island, ''and'' reached the top of the volcano - meaning that, unless you know about him beforehand and are intentionally aiming for him, you've probably already married someone else already. To make it worse, he has a very complicated schedule (he's only in the valley two days a week, on the island two days, and the rest in places you can't reach yet) and has ''no'' affordable or easy Loved gifts, meaning that befriending him is going to be a slow process.

* Lakilester's the last partner to join up in ''VideoGame/PaperMario64'', and unfortunately, there's not much he can do in battle better than anyone who joined before. Even ignoring that prior partners would likely already be upgraded at this point while he isn't, his main combat niche (being able to hit airborne spiked enemies) is already something that Watt can do, [[HerdHittingAttack Spiny Surge]] doesn't have the damage potential that Sushie's Tidal Wave does, and the evasion bonus that Cloud Nine gives is moot when Lady Bow can grant full immunity from damage for a turn with Outta Sight. Even his ultimate move, Hurricane[[labelnote:*]]which can remove enemies from battle, at the cost of any [[ExperiencePoints Star Points]] you'd earn[[/labelnote]], doesn't do anything that Lady Bow's Spook or Mario's own Up & Away can't. He isn't useless, but he's not a remarkable party member, either.

* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'' runs into this with the ''Heavensward'' expansion: It introduces three new Jobs, which all start at Level 30. But to actually reach the area you gain the Jobs in requires you to have gone through the entire base game and started the Expansion content, at which point you will be on the far side of Level ''50''. This means the player has to bring the entire Main Quest to a halt, or at least take frequent breaks in progression, to catch up if they wish to continue the story with the new Jobs. Later expansions made sure to have the base levels of the new jobs be at least level 50, making it easier to level them by contrast.

** Many of the "pseudo-legendaries" tend to be available quite late, often only encountered in the final area of the main game and, in rare cases, only during the post-game ([[VideoGame/PokemonGoldAndSilver Larvitar]] and [[VideoGame/PokemonRubyAndSapphire Beldum]] are prime examples of the latter, with Larvitar in particular only being found in TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon at the end of the post-game). Even if you get them mid-game, they also reach their powerful final evolutions pretty late into your journey, often evolving in the mid-50s, if not later (looking at you, Hydreigon). Maybe you'll have them in time to fight the Elite Four and Champion if you grind a bit, but in most cases they're only be useful for post-game activities and competitive [=PvP=]. Later games play with this, as earlier games' pseudo-legendaries might be made available much earlier than the newest addition to the group; for example, Jangmo'o, the pseudo-legendary of [[VideoGame/PokemonSunAndMoon Generation VII]], isn't available until shortly before the final trial, but several other pseudos can be found on earlier islands.

* ''{{VideoGame/Lisa}}'' gives us two party members: Buffalo Van Dyke and Crisp Ladaddy. Although these two allies are quite versatile and fun to use, they aren't recruitable until you're ridiculously late into the game; like, so late that you'll only have one or two unfinished left dungeons to explore before [[spoiler:Brad abandons everyone to explore the final area alone in search of Buddy]].

* ''VideoGame/Lisa'' gives us two party members: Buffalo Van Dyke and Crisp Ladaddy. Although these two allies are quite versatile and fun to use, they aren't recruitable until you're ridiculously late into the game; like, so late that you'll only have one or two unfinished left dungeons to explore before [[spoiler:Brad abandons everyone to explore the final area alone in search of Buddy]].

** Ken and Koromaru run the risk of this in ''VideoGame/{{Persona 3}}'' due to being (relative) latecomers who are not as deeply integrated into the core storyline as the others, and in Ken's case is a little unfocused when it comes to his spell selection -- he tries to cover Lightning and Holy elements, Persona-based physical attacks, improving his regular physical attacks, and healing, all with [[MasterOfNone only 8 skill slots]]. He can cover some gaps, but the PlayerCharacter is far, far better at filling in for the rest of the party's deficiencies than Ken could ever be.

** Haru Okumura of ''VideoGame/Persona5'' suffers from this trope similarly. Although she joins towards the end of the midgame and isn't too far behind, her Confidant opens up incredibly late -- almost an in-game month after she becomes playable and two weeks after her introductory Palace's deadline -- and has a steep Proficiency requirement to advance past rank 1. In comparison, most other party member Confidants are available shortly after the preceding Palace is completed. On top of that, Akechi joins the party a few days before her Confidant opens up, and he gets a whole suite of Confidant-related tactical bonuses at once, making him a more useful party member before Haru can even ''begin'' catching up.

* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'' runs into this with the ''Heavensward'' expansion: It introduces three new Jobs, which all start at Level 30. But to actually reach the area you gain the Jobs in requires you to have gone through the entire base game and started the Expansion content, at which point you will be on the far side of Level ''50''. This means the player has to bring the entire Main Quest to a halt, or at least take frequent breaks in progression, to catch up if they wish to continue the story with the new Jobs.

** Though not as extreme as some of the other examples, ''Sword and Shield'' marked the debut of Eiscue, Stonjourner, and Duraludon[[labelnote:However...]]Duraludon has a small chance of appearing in rare dens in Wild Areas after the third gym, meaning you ''might'' find it prior to the second half of the game, though the chance of both the right den appearing and a Duraludon appearing in it is still only 0.15% (3 dens out of 99 it can spawn in, and a 5% chance in those dens).[[/labelnote]], none of which are available in the base game until the very last patches of tall grass before the end credits. Stonjourner in particular is a bizarre case, as rock formations that look like it are found around the early-game town of Turffield, which is also home to a cardboard cutout of this Pokémon. Downplayed after the release of the DLC areas, as all three are available in the Crown Tundra area, which can be visited earlier in the game.

** ''Sun & Moon'' had a number of location-based evolutions of this nature. Outside of Glaceon, there is Magnezone, Probopass, Vikavolt, and Crabominable. The first three need to be evolved by a magnetic field, and for whatever reason, the power plant you can visit halfway through the game doesn't count. No, they only evolve in Vast Poni Canyon, towards the end of the final island. Meanwhile, Mount Crabominable was even worse, as it can only evolve from Crabrawler when on Mount Lanakila, which is on the third island but nevertheless can't be accessed until the final hour of the main story. All of these were remedied in ''[[VideoGame/PokemonUltraSunAndUltraMoon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon]]'', where the Power Plant now counts as a magnetic field, and you're allowed to access the base of Mount Lanakila once you reach the third island.

** The remake of ''VideoGame/WildArms1'' has [[spoiler:secret character Zed]], who to unlock you have to go halfway into the final dungeon, grab an item and head back out. {{Subverted|Trope}} in that while he is gotten so late, and his skills all have NecessaryDrawback, his stats are astronomical and he's very useful for fighting all the {{Bonus Boss}}es that unlock the same time he does.

* In the original ''[[VideoGame/BreathOfFireI Breath of Fire]]'', your last party member is Mogu a mole-like creature you have to save from being trapped within his own nightmare. The only reason you need Mogu is to make use of dig command to find treasure on the world map and once to perform a vital plot function. And Mogu has it from the getgo, so there's almost no reason to level him up, particularly since [[TierInducedScrappy he's not useful in battle]].

* ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles3'' takes many steps to [[AvertedTrope avert]] this. Despite having six primary party members, they all join the party as early as Chapter 2, the battle system expands to not only allow all six of them to participate in battle at once but allow the player to switch between them at any time. Even the OptionalPartyMembers avert this, as while you can have only one Hero at a time, they share the same EXP, so they are immediately viable when acquired. The game even encourages using them by making it easier to level up the party's [[JobSystem classes]] faster.

** Terry joins the party pretty late in ''VideoGame/DragonQuestVI''. It's good that he mastered Warrior and Martial Arts jobs and wearing strong equipment. After Terry joins, you can recruit Lizzy, the Dragon Hacksaurus who is very useful in the party.
*** In the original, Terry didn't have anything mastered and he was 5 levels lower to boot. Thankfully, the remake gave him a few buffs as described above.

* In some ''VideoGame/EtrianOdyssey'' games, you can unlock classes later into the game. Problem is, like with all other characters you make, making a character of those classes starts them off at level 1. Depending on when the class is unlocked, this can mean having to pad out your adventure by 4-5 hours just to get their levels up to speed. In the DS games, the only way around this is to retire an existing character, replacing them with a fresh recruit that has half the retired character's level or level 30 -- whichever is lower -- and some stat bonuses. ''Etrian Odyssey IV'' has some items that let you head-start a new character's levels, and later games just drop the unlockable class mechanic completely.

** Debatably Edge from ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIV''. Especially in the DS remake, which requires a lot of grinding.

*** In Part 1 of ''[[FinalFantasyVIIRemake Remake]]'' Red XIII joins late in the game as a GuestStarPartyMember, presumably to avoid this trope.

** Haru Okumura of ''VideoGame/Persona5'' suffers from this trope similarly. Although she joins towards the end of the midgame and isn't too far behind, her Confidant opens up incredibly late -- almost an in-game month after she becomes playable and two weeks after her introductory Palace's deadline -- and has a steep Proficiency requirement to advance past rank 1. In comparison, most other party member Confidants are available shortly after the preceding Palace is completed. On top of that, [[spoiler:Akechi]] joins the party a few days before her Confidant opens up, and he gets a whole suite of Confidant-related tactical bonuses at once, making him a more useful party member before Haru can even ''begin'' catching up.

** ''Royal'' has newcomer Kasumi Yoshizawa, [[spoiler:or better said, Sumire]]. She gets her Persona in early October, but doesn't join until early January, during the ''Royal''-exclusive third semester. By the time she joins, her Confidant is only Rank 5 and she only has a first-tier Persona, while the other Phantom Thieves should have second or third-tier Personas (and Morgana ''will'' have his third-tier Persona by the time you start exploring the last Palace). Cendrillon won't evolve into Vanadis until you complete the Faith Confidant, and won't change into Ella until just before the FinalBattle.

** ''VideoGame/Persona4'' has [[spoiler:Naoto Shirogane]], the last member to join, and one of the more difficult members to integrate into the standard party dynamic. The fact that she comes in more than a month later than you would expect from the previous pattern of new party members is bad enough, but you've likely gotten pretty far into the social links of your friends, if not outright completed them, by the time she joins the party. More important is that she joins right before the biggest WhamEpisode of the game, [[spoiler:Nanako's kidnapping.]] And while your other party members have had months to get to know and love the victim, [[spoiler:Naoto]] had only just gotten to know her and so, emotionally, it's almost difficult to justify placing [[spoiler:Naoto]] in the rescue party. To top it off, while her stats are good and she has the widest range of attacks outside the PlayerCharacter, all of her attacks are single targeting and rather expensive, so taking out even a single group of enemies can take a serious chunk out of her SP. Almost as if to [[CharacterSelectForcing convince you to use]] [[spoiler:Naoto]] in the dungeon immediately after she joins the party, an abnormal amount of enemies in that dungeon are weak to Light, Dark, or nothing at all. [[spoiler:Naoto]] is the only party member outside of the PlayerCharacter who has access to Light, Dark, and Almighty spells, making her much more useful in that dungeon than in any other.

** To some people, [[spoiler:Akechi]] falls into this. While the character's status as a Bless/Curse user is a step up from [[spoiler:Naoto]] in the previous game, since [[spoiler:Akechi]] has direct damage skills instead of having to rely on instant kill skills, [[spoiler:his]] Persona does not get Boost or Amp skills for those. There's also the fact that [[spoiler:he betrays you at the end of the Palace in which he joins, and never returns to your party in the original game]]. ''Royal'' fixes this by having the character rejoin the party for the third semester, granting him more screentime and usage than in the original game.