There are plenty of moments in gaming where you lose it all, and have to go on despite your new-found vulnerability. Whether it’s washing up on the shores of Guarma in Red Dead Redemption 2, entering the final stage of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 with no rings, or being stripped a large percentage of your health in Bloodborne’s chalice dungeons, developers like employing late-game restrictions on you in order to mess with your understanding of the world – and really test your abilities without all those supplementary bells and whistles you’ve come to rely on.
But some games do it differently. They give you a ‘taste of power’, instead: introducing you to the world as an extremely powerful character, usually with an over-potent weapon or ability, and put you in a position where you can’t lose (even if you try). Sometimes, developers think they’re being clever by letting you ‘preview’ elements of the game that are yet to come, but more often than not, this trope is just a bit… hackneyed… at this point.
There’s a very video game-y term for this phenomenon, and it’s listed on the Giant Bomb Wiki as ‘Abilitease’. TVTropes goes for the more layman-friendly ‘taste of power’. You can also categorise things like the Assassin’s Creed 2: Brotherhood opening similarly; here, you slowly lose all your hard-won gear from the previous game in a cart-and-horse chase, being forced to start anew and research new things. A nice macguffin to tie into various systems and teach you the value of collectathons, or something.
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