Power Gives You Wings / Video Games

• Achaea characters have the option of transforming into a dragon on reaching level 99. Wings, talons and really bad breath included.
• Light Cavalry in Age of Empires II: the Conquerors fit the trope when they are upgraded to become Hussars, which do have wings—a reference to the famous Winged Hussars of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
• In Aion, we have the Daevas (who are basically angels by another name). Humans can become Daevas, gaining Immortality, wings and other nifty powers in the process.
• Invoked in Arc the Lad: Twilight of the Spirits, but as a Zigzagging Trope. Kharg gains the ability to learn magic early in the game, but doesn't know why; when it's revealed later in the game that his magic is a result of his Half-Deimos lineage, the shock causes him to grow a pair of wings, which he rips from his back in disgust, so he's both a justified case and an avertion. His brother Darc is an inversion; he begins the game with wings and spellcasting abilities, but shortly after his wings are torn off, he finds a human sword and decides to incorporate human martial arts into his fighting style.
• In the Armed With Wings series, the titular chosen ones/incarnations of Blackmist are given the ability to access a powered up form in which their shadowy form becomes white instead of black, and they grow a pair of white wings. In this state, they can access far more of Blackmist's divine power than normal.
• Inverted somewhat in Atelier Iris: Eternal Mana - When weaker due to running low on mana thanks to being an Artificial Human, Lita sprouts a pair of white angel wings in battle. This lowers her HP, but increases her attack power, turning her into somewhat of a Glass Cannon.
• Nearly everyone in Baten Kaitos is a Winged Humanoid who can make said wings appear or disappear at will. They summon these wings in battle, mostly just because it looks awesome. The wings disappear at the end when The Magic Goes Away.
  • Played straight at one point in the first game. After Kalas' Face–Heel Turn, he grows a second wing when he's infused with Malpercio's power. When he rejects Malpercio later, he rips the wing out of its socket.
• Borderlands:
  • Borderlands: Some of Lilith's better class abilities give her wings.
  • Borderlands 2: Lilith is even more powerful, so she has wings basically whenever she does anything with her powers. Combined with her fire abilities, this has caused some bandits to start worshiping her as the Firehawk. Both other Sirens featured in the game also get wings at high level.
  • Borderlands 3: Interestingly, neither of the new Sirens have wings; Tyreen doesn't have them even when she's using the powers she stole from Lilith, and Amara gets spectral arms instead. Maya (from the second game) does still have them, and Tannis (using Angel's powers) has them as well.
• Castlevania:
  • Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow's Soma Cruz, while utilizing the soul of a flying humanoid, will sprout huge wings, twice his own size. The extent of this newfound wingspan is making him smarter and luckier.
  • In Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia, Shanoa also gets this with the Volaticus Glpyh acquired late in the game.
• In Champions Online, the Celestial power "Ascension" temporarily grants the player glowing wings, increases both their healing and damage output, and grants them the ability to fly if they couldn't already.
• In Child of Light, Aurora is bestowed fairy wings by the Lady of the Forest after recovering the Stars at the end of the first act.
• During the climax of The ClueFinders 4th Grade Adventures: The Puzzle of the Pyramid, when the eponymous Cluefinders are given powers by a quartet of Egyptian gods, Horus bestows Owen with the power of flight. Much like the other kids, after the Big Bad is defeated and Professor Botch is saved, their powers go away.
• In Dante's Inferno, Dante can activate an ability called "Holy armour", which gives him invincibility and health regeneration over thirty seconds, giving him two wing-shaped beam things on his shoulder blades.
  • They don't do anything, really, but some theories think that either the wings themselves are what give Dante his protection from Hellspawn, or they act as vents to prevent Dante from blowing up from the sheer Holy power.
• In Chapter 2 of Deltarune, Spamton NEO bears a large pair of multicolored wings that are absent in his normal form. However, in a dark parody of this trope, they turn out to be functionally useless, to his dismay; he's actually being strung up by a series of wires, and helplessly crashes to the floor like a shot duck if all of them are snapped.
• In Destiny and its successor, the use of the Warlock's solar super gives the player model wings.
• Devil May Cry:
  • Some of Dante's Devil Trigger forms come with wings, either his own, Nevan, Alastor or Sparda. However the absolute example is the Majin Form Devil Trigger form which has four wings. This is likely a reference to how in some angelic mythos, the number of wings represents how much higher up the heavenly hierarchy an angel is. Both the Majin and Sin Devil Trigger forms have four wings, befitting how they are more powerful than Dante's regular Devil Trigger.
  • Devil May Cry 2
    • Lucia's Devil Trigger form also comes with wings and similar to Dante's Majin form, hers has four wings — two at her back and one under each arm. Interestingly, Lucia's Devil Trigger form looks more like an angel than any of Dante's forms.
    • In his true, more powerful form as the Despair Embodied, Argosax resembles a fiery angel with wings.
  • Devil May Cry 5:
    • Vergil's Sin Devil Trigger grants him four wings, similar to his brother Dante.
    • Fueled by his determination to stop Dante and Vergil's fighting, Nero unlocks his true Devil Trigger which as expected comes with wings. Unlike the leather, dragon-like wings his father and uncle possess, Nero's Devil Trigger wings are blue and spectral. He can also manifest them partially in human form.
• Angels in Diablo have wings made of energy tentacles. In Diablo III the Demon Hunter gets a pair of dark colored wings identical to an angel's when using their Shadow Power ability.
• The Bad Ending of Disgaea 2 has Adell grow a pair of huge black wings after he's possessed by Overlord Xenon.
• Elden Ring:
  • Malenia's skill with her blade is often metaphorically referred to as "wings", and her second phase sees her gain wings made of butterflies and her own hair.
  • Mohg sprouts black feathered wings in the second phase of his boss fight.
• Ayu Tsukimiya in Eternal Fighter Zero uses her winged backpack in battle, its wings grow several times to strike at her opponent; Ayu herself fully transforms into an angel for her Final Memory.
• A sufficiently powerful character in Fable III will gain a luminous, transparent pair of wings, which show up when an attack is charging.
• Final Fantasy likes this trope. There's a reason it's the Trope Namer for One-Winged Angel.
  • Kefka grows six wings for his final battle: two black, leathery bat/demon wings, two darkly feathered wings that seem like a mix of demonic and angelic wings, and two white, feathery angel wings. In the pre-rendered cutscenes for the Anthology version of FFVI, he has six golden wings.
  • Sephiroth: Six wings. He may have one extra, but he still counts. In other Compilation entries, Sephiroth has 1 black wing on his right, Genesis has a bigger black wing on his left, & Angeal has 2 white wings on his right.
  • Vincent's Chaos form in Dirge of Cerberus has this in the form of dark, bat-like wings. It notably distinguishes the power of that form from the lesser form of the other playable demon, Galian Beast.
  • Rinoa's "Angel Wing" Limit Break in Final Fantasy VIII, which provides her with exactly what it says and a heightened magical power. It should also be noted that Rinoa is a Sorceress, and of the three besides Rinoa seen in the game, two of them also have wings, and the third one has two strips of fabric extending from her back that kinda look like wings.
  • Two decorative wings on Eiko's back grow to more realistic proportions during her Limit Break.
  • Seymour in Final Fantasy X sprouts wings as he grows in power during the course of the game. Jecht sprouts wings in the second part of the final battle.
  • A minor example in Final Fantasy XI, Valaineral R Davilles has a unique AoE Weapon Skill where he temporarily grows wings of light before slamming the ground and making pillars of light come out of the ground.
  • In Final Fantasy XII, when Vayne goes One-Winged Angel in the final battle, he turns into a mechanical version of the iconic summon Bahamut, complete with giant steel wings.
  • Cid Raines sprouts wings when he becomes a Cie'th Corpse in Final Fantasy XIII.
  • Paladins in Final Fantasy XIV sprout giant wings of light when using their "Passage of Arms" skill, shielding party members standing behind the Paladin and reducing their damage. White Mages, on the other hand, gain smaller and less flashy wings when they use "Temperance", which also reduces the party's damage as well as increasing the power of the White Mage's healing magic.
• Galaxy Angel the emblem frames gain wings when the Halo system (based on the pilot's emotional state) reaches 100%. This gives them a huge boost of power.
• Grandia 2: Millenia had a special attack called Fallen Wings, where they sprout behind her as a full moon appears. She is also seen with the wings in game, actually using them to fly instead of for decoration. Justified, as she is the Wings of Valmar.
• Guild Wars Paragons have an ability that has them momentarily grow wings of light before setting their next target on fire.
• Kahu in Jade Cocoon 2 gets a pair of wings when Elrihm the Forest God declares him The Chosen One and sends him to do battle with Levant and Lilith.
• In Jak 3: Wastelander, Light Eco gives Jak glowing tentacle-like wings similar to the angels of the Diablo series.
• Pit in Kid Icarus (1986) starts out with rudimentary wings, by the time he acquires all the MacGuffins, he has fully functional wings.
• In Knights in the Nightmare, when using Ancardia for an Ex Skill, Maria sprouts an impressive pair of orange wings similar to Marietta's. Meria could probably do the same thing if she wanted to, but...well, let's just say she's the Revenge Before Reason type.
  • Melissa also subverts this trend: When using her rage bullet, she literally uses her wings to materialize all the massive shrapnel and energy beams, and appears without them for as long as the attack is active.
• Legacy of Kain subverts this. The intro of Soul Reaver establishes that Kain experiences each vampiric "evolution" first, then his offspring... until Raziel grew wings before any of the other vampires. In a fit of jealous rage, Kain had two of his other offspring tear the bones out of Raziel's wings before throwing him in the Abyss. Even after being brought back as a wraith, Raziel never does get his wings back, though he can glide with what's left of them.
• In The Legend of Dragoon, those who gain the power of a dragon and become a Dragoon grow wings when they transform. The Divine Dragoon, strongest of them, has multiple pairs of wings. Unfortunately, though, these can't be used to fly except in cutscenes; at one point when the protagonists are faced with a large pit blocking them from reaching a prisoner, Shana tries to transform and fly over, but unfortunately, Dragoon power can only be accessed with the ‘madness’ that’s associated with combat.
• In Maglam Lord, when the protagonist, Killizerk the Bladelord, unleashes their full Demon Lord powers, they gain flaming magical wings among other changes to their appearances.
• Mega Man:
  • Lumine's second form in Mega Man X 8 grows wings.
  • Don't forget Copy X's in Mega Man Zero, from which the aforementioned Lumine is based on.
  • Also Master Albert in Mega Man ZX. He and the previous two are all also combining Light Is Not Good into their design, just to further the symbolism of their status as "Messiahs" to the world.
• In the PSN/XBLA title Moon Diver, each of the characters gain a pair of energy wings when a special technique is used.
• Some Pokémon gain wings and the Flying type upon reaching their last evolution. Notably Charizard, Dragonite and Salamence.
  • Also many Bug types—Beautifly, Butterfree, Mothim, Masquerain, ect...unfortunately, aside from maybe Masquerain, none of these are particularly powerful like the examples mentioned above. Generation five did give us Larvesta, a bug who you could equate with power causing wing growth but it is not a flying type. It does learn many flying moves after evolution though.
  • Trapinch gains wings and the Flying type Levitation ability, because it also gains the Dragon type when it evolves into Vibrava. This is different because Vibrava is not the final form.
  • Deino from Black and White gains a pair of wings upon evolving into a Zweilous. However, a Zweilous can't use its wings for flying until it becomes a Hydreigon where it has six wings and Levitate as its ability.
  • Upon Mega Evolving, Absol's fur grows out to resemble wings, though they don't do anything. Pinsir's Mega Evolution however does gain actual wings, and they're very much functional, giving it the Flying type and the Aerilate ability which converts Normal-type moves into Flying-type.
• QP Shooting Dangerous!! has QP gaining a pair of wings after becoming Sweet Guardian in the final battle.
• The final boss of Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc, Reflux, spawns bat-like wings in his fourth phase due to an enormous boost of energy caused by him lodging scepter directly into his body, being able to summon countless Hoodlums during that portion of the fight.
• In Senran Kagura, Miyabi gains six wings whenever she uses her Ultimate Secret Ninja Art and Super Mode, with three on one side be black and three on the other side being white.
• Zerglings in StarCraft II gain wings when they receive their speed upgrade. While they don't gain flight, their animations show them flapping and taking short hops as they run.
• In Star Ocean: Till the End of Time when Fayt manifests his power of Destruction and blows up a Vendeeni battleship, he temporarily grows white, glowing wings for no readily apparent reason. He also has them when he uses his "Ethereal Blast" attack.
• In Street Fighter III: Third Strike, Gill has a screen-filling super (called "Ascencion" or "Seraphic Wing" depending on who you listen to) during which he briefly is shown with three pairs of wings. Not surprisingly, this is the most universally loathed super in the game.
• Hime from SUGURI has these as a part of her Accel Hyper attack.
• Super Mario Bros.:
  • Mario in Super Mario 64 has the Wing cap, which has little wings on it. The power part comes at the end after beating the last boss. When Bowser is defeated he drops the last Power Star, and upon picking it the Wing cap appears automatically on Mario.
  • P-Wings in Super Mario Bros. 3. Or is that Wings Give You Power (of flight)?
  • Peach's mega strike in Super Mario Strikers Charged involves her leaping into the air, growing a set of energy wings and then kicking the ball.
• Super Robot Wars 64 has the Simurgh Splendid, created from the combination of the Simurgh and the Elblus.
• Super Smash Bros.:
  • Yoshi's final smash in Brawl mostly revolves around him growing wings and just going nuts on the other characters. A similar effect is seen in Super Mario World when Yoshi eats a flashing yellow shell.
  • Tabuu has a set of bizarre looking butterfly wings. They also seem to represent his power: before Sonic destroys them, he's completely invincible to the main characters. Afterwards, he can only manifest his wings for a few seconds at a time, when using his ultimate attack: Off Waves, which, if not dodged, is a One-Hit Kill three times over.
• The title character of Sylphia is a human warrior who's chosen by the gods to defend humanity from evil, after witnessing Sylphia sacrificing herself to defend a village from an army of orcs. Besides reviving her, getting blessed also grants Sylphia wings, and the rest of the game have her flying around blasting enemies apart.
• Siter Skain's The Tale of ALLTYNEX: Any machine containing a ZODIAC core will get a set of energy wings (green at lower levels, then yellow at maximum power). This includes the player's ship at one point.
  • These games are also largely responsible for the same style of wings appearing all over the place in Fraxy, after Eboshidori made several Siter Skain-inspired bosses.
• Angels in Tales of Symphonia. Also renegade angels. And Colette, when she was turning into an angel. And Lloyd near the end, because he's just that much of a messiah.
• Touhou Project has several straight examples and variations:
  • Fujiwara no Mokou has phoenix wings symbolizing her Immortality.
  • Yuyuko Saigyouji has a giant fan.
  • Byakuren Hijiri has what seems to be a lotus blossom. Byakuren's name can mean "White Lotus Saint".
  • Toyosatomimi no Miko grows butterfly wings. As a Taoist, it's only appropriate that she invoke Schrödinger's Butterfly.
  • Before any of them was the PC-98 boss Shinki, who grew six glowing white wings in battle that turned into more bat-like purple wings midway. Shinki is the god and creator of a world of demons.
  • When Marisa Kirisame and Yuuka Kazami appeared in the Seihou series (a sort of sister series to Touhou), they both had a pair of wings. Yuuka's were green, befitting her power over flowers, while Marisa had angel wings. Fanon has generally decided that this trope applies to both of them when they're going all out — which may be supported by the games themselves: Yuuka only has wings when she's performing an attack, while Marisa in Seihou is the first boss of the Extra stage. Fanon also tends to depict Yuuka's wings as being plant-based (I.E made out of vegetation), given her association with flowers.
  • In The Story of Eastern Wonderland, Mima gets a pair of blue and purple bat-like wings when she fights you. If you beat that form without continuing she changes her appearance, and they are replaced with six feathered purple wings. In further games, Mima does not have wings; but she is generally displayed as having them in fanworks, generally when fighting. Touhou Soccer takes it to humongous levels. She also sports a pair of black bat-like wings in her bombing image in Mystic Square.
• In Twinkle Star Sprites, Princess Sprites, Ran's powered-up older self, has pixie wings. Possibly justified, since Ran's mother Memory also has wings.
• In Valkyrie Profile, the animation for Valkyrie's super attack includes luminescent wings sprouting from her back. This is continued in Valkyrie Profile 2: Silmeria for all three valkyries. Alicia starts doing this when her super attack upgrades. Finally, there's the one true valkyrie, who sprouts SIX wings in her version of Nibelung Valesti. One set for each vakyrie.
• Reapers in The World Ends with You have black skeletal-like wings, although Reapers can hide their wings to blend in with other people (their Impossibly Cool Clothes don't give them away... this is Shibuya, after all). In an interesting twist on the trope, the wings forcibly vanish under certain circumstances, leaving the Reapers as normal humans; in other words, the wings give them power.
• World of Warcraft:
  • The Paladin ability Avenging Wrath temporarily boosts all damage and healing and causes the user to sprout a halo and golden wings of light.
  • Some of the armor sets that boast wings of varying levels of solidity as part of their shoulder pieces. Priests in particular seem to get this effect, although Warlocks have the best by far in a set that randomly and temporarily sprouts an enormous set of demonic bat wings. Wildheart Spaulders, the classic dungeon 1 set of druid shoulders, had birds perched on them, their wings stretching to the sky. Big birds.
  • Warlocks who specialize in Demonology have a "Demon Form" they can shift into for a short time. In this form, they appear as a black goat-hooved demon ... with wings.
    • In Legion, this was removed from Warlocks and instead made a signature mechanic of the new Demon Hunter class. They can even use their wings to fly (or at least glide).
  • As of the Cataclysm expansion, priests also have a spell that gives them wings and a temporary bonus to spells in correspondance to the magic they specialize in - "Archangel" with bright wings and a healing bonus for smiting priests, and "Dark Archangel" with black wings and a damage bonus for shadow priests.
  • With the conclusion of the Cataclysm expansion, rogues who are willing to spend many hours, mountains of gold, and kill Deathwing can obtain the "Fangs of the Father" daggers which, among other things, grant the rogues the ability to sprout wings after a set number of attacks. Granted said wings cannot fly, but hey, Rule of Cool.
  • Also, Warcraft III has Illidan gain wings in his demon form after consuming the skull of Gul'dan. After a second power boost from Kil'jaeden, he gains permanent wings in his base form.
  • Kil'jaeden himself gained wings after being empowered by Sargeras.
  • Mists of Pandaria allows players to obtain legendary quality cloaks, two of which will manifest an energy wing visual effect both in and out of combat, either the green wings of the Jade Serpent of Wisdom Yu'lon or the orange of the Red Crane of Hope, Chi-Ji.
• Xenoblade Chronicles:
  • Xenoblade Chronicles 1: Zanza has two wings made up entirely of golden Instant Runes, and with him being the Big Bad of the game, it signifies that Light Is Not Good.
  • Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Jin's One-Winged Angel form gives him a pair of wings.
  • Xenoblade Chronicles 3: Future Redeemed: Both A and Alpha each have one singular golden wing each that matches Zanza's from the first game. Given that Zanza drew his power from Alvis/Ontos, and both Alpha and A are the latest incarnations of Ontos, this checks out.
• In Xenogears, the red Gear piloted by Id has six wings of green light, with yellow feathery projections. They become more brilliant as the engine coil warms up.
  • Grahf's Gear has huge demonic-looking wings that only unfold when at full power.
  • The Omnigears, augmented versions of the heroes' typical Gears, all have wings.
    • Fei's upgraded Weltall II, though not technically an Omnigear, gains energy wings like Id's when in Hyper Mode, especially after using System Id to enter Hyper Mode at will. This is because Weltall and Id's Gear are one and the same, and the whole point of System Id is to let Fei tap into Id's power without letting him take over.
    • And of course, the Xenogears itself, which is just the evolved form of Weltall after Id allows Fei to use all of his latent powers without needing System Id. The explanation is that the wings are really just the superheated exhaust coming from the gear.
• Ernst in Ys VI: The Ark of Napishtim grows black feathery wings. Considering his goal was to gain the power of the Winged Gods, this should hardly be surprising. Also from the same game Adol Cristin temporarily sprouts white feathered wings.
• Zone of the Enders has Anubis, with six massive wings. In an anime spinoff, they open up to absorb projectiles into subspace and redirect them back to their enemies.
  • In The 2nd Runner, the wings become disembodied, held to the frame only by streams of data-like energy which is only visible when the lines flash along the frame. The also exhibit a red burst when open to contrast Jehuty's blue.
    • Additionally, there is a boss fight involving a weaker duplicate of Anubis that lacks the wings to further lampshade the trope.
  • Jehuty can also qualify as well. While the physical wings are quite small, the energy they produce is easily half the size of the frame itself when greater speed is demanded and its color changes as it evolves, going from blue for the whole of the first game, to bright green near the end of the game and white for the final battle
  • The anime adaptation, Dolores i features Hathor, an armless machine that does its physical fighting with the large featureless wings growing from its feet. When it absorbs the conrol program from Dolores, it grows arms and its wings become more detailed and flare out to feature crystalline feathers not unlike its predecessor, Idolo.

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