The Forbidden Fun of Breaking Games

Check out Quinn's Quest: / @quinns_quest
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There's nothing more satisfying in videogames than a big fun power fantasy - what could compare to the awesome feeling of crushing your enemies in style and becoming master of all you survey?... But if power fantasies are so simple, then why do so many games suck at creating them?
This is a mystery that The Architect has been pondering for some time, and it was only until they unexpectedly stumbled on one of gaming's greatest power fantasies contained within a humble card game that things finally started to make sense. The feeling of power in games doesn't come from violence or from spectacle, but from a feeling of control, and there's no better way to feel in control than to break a game wide open.
Doom Eternal - 2020
Asura's Wrath - 2012
Yakuza Zero - 2015
Devil May Cry 5 - 2019
Metal Gear Rising Revengance - 2013
Elden Ring - 2022
Batman: Arkham Knight - 2015
Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League - 2024
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 - 2009
Final Fantasy 15 - 2016
Vampire Survivors - 2016
Bayonetta 2 - 2014
Sifu - 2021
Mass Effect 2 - 2010
Devil May Cry 4 - 2008
Hades - 2018
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild - 2017
Assasin's Creed: Mirage - 2024
Borderlands 3 - 2029
Diablo 4 - 2023
Dark Souls - 2012
God Of War - 2018
Uncharted 4 - 2016
Getting Over It - 2017
Minecraft - 2011
Death Stranding - 2019
Baba Is You - 2019
A Short Hike - 2019
Tribes 3 - Early Access
Balatro - 2024
Warhammer total War 2 - 2017
Uncharted 3 - 2011
Saints Row 4 - 2013
Alan Wake 2 - 2023
Devil May Cry 3 - 2005
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess - 2006
Sonic The Hedgehog - 2006
Control - 2019
Grow Up - 2016
Paper Mario TTYD - 2004
Unicorn Overlord - 2024
Kirby and the Forgotten Land - 2022
World of Warcraft - 2004
Metroid Prime - 2002
Runescape - 2001
Hollow Knight - 2017
Duck Game - 2014
The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim - 2011
Destiny 2 - 2017
Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition - 2020
Mario And Luigi: Superstar Saga - 2003
Hi Fi Rush - 2023
Pokemon Scarlet - 2022
Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance - 2005
Final Fantasy 7 - 1997
Final Fantasy 7 Remake - 2020
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice - 2019
Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth - 2024
Warhammer 40k Boltgun - 2023
Hyrule Warriors - 2014
Super Mario Wonder - 2023
Don't Starve - 2013
My Friend Pedro - 2019
Hunt Showdown - 2018
Shadow of the Colossus - 2005
Titanfall 2 - 2016
Super Meat Boy - 2010
Resident Evil 2 Remake - 2019
Celeste - 2017
SIGNALIS - 2022
Titan Souls - 2015
Hotline Miami - 2012
Battle Brothers - 2015
XCOM 2 - 2016
Helldivers 2 - 2024
Pony Island - 2016
Inscryption - 2022
The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind - 2002
Luck be a Landlord - 2023
Risk of Rain 2 - 2019
The Binding of Issac - 2014
Noita - 2019
The Long Dark - 2014
Grounded - 2022
ARK: Survival Evolved - 2015
Subnautica - 2014
Baldur's Gate 3 - 2023
Scribblenauts Unlimited - 2012
Animal Crossing Wild World - 2005
Super Mario Bros - 1985
Fallout: New Vegas - 2010
Divinity Original Sin 2 - 2017
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom - 2023
Resident Evil 4 Remake - 2023
Super Smash Bros Ultimate - 2018
Starfield - 2023
Metal Gear Solid 5 - 2015
Marvel's Avengers - 2020
Fallout 4 - 2015
Hearthstone - 2014
Genshin Impact - 2020
Diablo Immortal - 2022
There is no game: Wrong Dimension - 2020
Terra Nil- 2023

[@ArchitectofGames]

Wow no power fantasy feels as good as breaking the game of youtube and giving independent people money for things you enjoy watching - so crazy!!! (this is not a legally binding statement, any and all impression of enjoyment from watching an Architect of Games video is purely coincidental): www.patreon.com/ArchitectofGames In Capitalism very few people have more power than elon musk - therefore... we must break him.: twitter.com/Thefearalcarrot

[@colorpg152]

why does this channel always manages to post the exact opposite of what i think, god i hate this american difficulty/pride obsessed mindset

[@drgonzo123]

I love your channel, and I’m not just saying that to balance the scales of the universe by countering the other comment here made previous to mine. I always look forward to a new video by what I like to believe is a little black mage, separated from his family at birth. Searching for answers in the universe as to what his place is in this crazy, unforgiving world. That or you’re just a guy with an accent I enjoy listening to ranting about video games. Either way, thank you architect. Now if you’ll excuse me, I must deliver this sacred artifact to a sheep farmer I ran into outside my local tavern.

[@colorpg152]

@@drgonzo123 cant stand someone voicing a opinion that is different than yours? his entire video works on the premise that the player enjoys difficulty, people like him are the reason games suck today because he cant understand there are other types of gamers other than mastery and competitive, insufferable devs that always think they know better than the player what fun is, that is why we will never have another game like skyrim.

[@drgonzo123]

@@colorpg152 I was totally just making a joke, nothing against you or what you said at all. But this is his channel, so I think he has the right to say whatever he wants. If it bothers you that much then why do you keep watching? There are so many KZbinrs out there making gaming content that echo your sentiment about gaming, why waste your time here? I don’t really even care what his stance is, or agree/disagree with anything he talks about. I just find his content very entertaining. Sorry if you took my silly little comment the wrong way or felt like I was dunking on you. It was a complete joke, a nothing burger.

[@drgonzo123]

@@colorpg152 as for games sucking, I do disagree with that. There are so many games coming out these days it’s impossible to not find 100 games that fit what you’re looking for. Gaming has never been better, you just might need to step away from the AAA space and try more indies.

[@SocraTetris]

Bigger number? Nah. Small number, THEN big number

[@TheCassiusTain]

you will love Gothic then

[@SimuLord]

Odd example, but I was recently playing My Time at Sandrock and did a critical hit on one of those low-level Bumble Ants near the player's workshop...and did something like 80,000 points of damage. And I thought for a second about how at the beginning of the game, it takes multiple sword hits at like 20 or 30 points a pop to finish off one of those pathetic little bugs...and I just laughed and laughed for like five minutes.

[@EggSlashEther]

Funnily, I think this is something the Disgaea developers learned the hard way. Disgaea's an RPG series known for letting you grind and break the game to its limits, starting you off weak and asking you to find your own way to ridiculous heights. You go from dealing some 12 odd damage to one target, to billions across the entire map However, for Disgaea 6, the developers wanted to ease newer players who only played the story into the true endgame (where most of the meat is on the proverbial bone). So, to make it less intimidating, they multiplied all the numbers by 1,000 at the start of the game. What would normally do 30 damage in any other game deals 30,000 in Disgaea 6. Of course, EVERYTHING was scaled by this amount, so it didn't actually end up changing anything. The numbers got quite bloated early on and it ended up having the opposite effect. The power fantasy the Disgaea series is known for was lost for that game in particular - even I haven't gotten to the endgame of it yet because it just feels so dull (autobattle notwithstanding). It's an interesting anecdote I thought I'd see in this video because it's such a good story and I know Adam's shown Disgaea before, but ah well. here it is anyway

[@ThunderShock68]

This is almost a haiku

[@thepotatoportal69]

Me want number go big, not number big!

[@grfrjiglstan]

One thing I thought of during this video was the fact that Devil May Cry 5, despite being a game all about growing stronger than the foe you face at the very start, has zero damage upgrades for the player. More health? You got it. New moves? Absolutely. More damage? Not on your life. The reason for it is, if you could deal twice as much damage, that means you have half the opportunity to style on your foes. You'd be stronger, but feel weaker.

[@ArchitectofGames]

This is an excellent point - I wondered that when playing!

[@Zero0mtk]

It's interesting because in some ways, the lower difficulties are actually harder for DMC - enemies dying faster means you can't continue the combo enough to consistently get SSS. It forces me to play defensively (doing perfectly timed dodges, parries etc. give quite a lot of style bar), which seems antithetical to the game that supposedly gives us a power fantasy through our execution of combo.

[@Zetact_]

Don't forget that the greatest powerful abilities in the game such as Royal Release and Quad S and even Red Hot Night (or to a lesser extent the Devil Breaker Break Ages) if you want to cheese bosses directly require you to play masterfully to make use of them. Yes, you CAN cheese DMD Vergil with Red Hot Night to get an instant S Rank but it has such a long windup even that requires a few resets to pull off so it's still satisfying when you get it. It's partially why playing as Vergil isn't as satisfying, because the game just gives him flat out better damage and free invincibility all over the place, and like just doing a regular-ass combo string on the ground with him pushes you to SSS.

[@dragon1130]

That actually makes a lot of sense to do it that way with games like DMC or Bayonetta. Wonderful 101 also did this to some extent. You didn't get physically stronger, but instead, was givin more ways to build your team and dish out damage

[@brotbrotsen1100]

Yes that's the case for all character action games as far as i know.

[@Arexion5293]

"What is the most powerful a video game has ever made you feel?" I created a rocket powered washing machine in Little Big Planet 2 that moved with such high velocity it outran the camera. Also gave a bot super powers that broke the frame rate.

[@SimuLord]

The most powerful I ever felt? 1989, when 12-year-old me beat Mike Tyson in Punch-Out! for the first time. Watching him stagger back and hit the deck as Mario came out and said "buh uh uh" as the screen subtitled "TKO", followed by the music and the credits...at risk of sounding like the old man that I am, that "earn your fun" moment made me feel _awesome_ in a way nothing else had or has before or since.

[@Buttersaemmel]

that was 35 years ago...just saying as retaliation for making me feel old.

[@alandtic4616]

Earn your fun, is such a real thing it's the reason games line dark souls work, struggling hard to earn it feels awesome

[@SimuLord]

@@alandtic4616Soulslikes just make me feel old. I'm a guy in his mid-40s with a full-time job and a life. If I were born in 2007 and not 1977, I'd probably have a lot more time to "git gud". But man, I could tell _so_ many stories about the summer of '89. For some reason everything awesome in my childhood seemed to happen around the time I turned 12.

[@TeamBobbo6326]

the visual puns are honestly ridiculous at this point

[@iviktorius9408]

Are you saying Zote the Mighty is not an endgame boss that takes countless hours to learn how to defeat?

[@brainsmusic6119]

The greatest moment of power for me was having a god-run in Noita. In the sandbox roguelike, most runs only lasted around an hour for me, but just once, I had a run that lasted 7 hours. I traveled all throughout the map, one shotting bosses, and traveling to parallel worlds. Through alchemy I mixed up a healing potion that I could make loads of, and it was incredible

[@Dindonmasker]

But with great power comes great responsibility. One does not become a god without protecting the fish friends.

[@skua675]

Noita really deserved more than a mention in this video. You go from doing single-digit damage and having 100hp to annihilating half the screen with auto-homing shots and being immune to half the damage types in the game. Your own ingenuity and understanding of the game is the biggest source of power, but on the other hand there is NO amount of power that will make you truly safe, so you keep pushing to get even more powerful. The game fully expects you to exploit and break its systems, even demands that you do so to prevail.

[@FireTrtl]

I made almost this exact same comment. Noita gives a power trip like no other to be honest.

[@theworld6710]

I found one of the best power fantasy scenes is, ironically, one that makes little effort to make you feel powerful; the Don’t Fear The Reaper ending of Cyberpunk 2077. It’s especially satisfying if you’ve done the other endings and know how difficult taking the tower is. Yet with only one life you go in, bring down a small army, take down a legend, and claim the ending all by yourself. It’s unforgettable.

[@frankcl1]

Johnny's comments and the music also contribute to this feeling

[@superspider64]

I love the dedication to actually make a shocked yelp instead of just saying Aaah!'s name blankly

[@frankcl1]

Learning to wavedash in Celeste made me feel super powerful. The tutorial is in chapter 9 after completing every other level and it really feels like you unlocked the power to break the game by doing so

[@solsystem1342]

Golden berries in celeste ❤ They just make you feel so absurdly competent compared to when each screen felt impossible (I'm at 190 berries I'm not *that* crazy

[@stsenjoyer5650]

​@@solsystem1342as someone who got all 202 berries I think the last one isn't worth all of that time required to get it😅

[@JonathanScarlet]

@@stsenjoyer5650does that include the golden or do you just mean the regular? If you mean the golden, too, and are specifically referring to Ch. 9's, then yes, I agree whole-heartedly. Ch 8's, however, seems like the perfect pinnacle to your skill at the game (and to a lesser extent the B-side and MAYBE C-Side). Considering that reaching the peak was your goal the whole time, getting up there in one single go (I presume there's no checkpoints in Ch. 8, and please don't spoil me on that), knowing more about how the game works compared to your first attempt at it, is bound to feel just as good as when your novice self got up there the first time.

[@muchtooseriousdude7045]

@@JonathanScarletThey definitely mean Chapter 9 golden, which is an insane achievement since it's basically a combined A-B-C side level, each longer and harder than anything else in the game. I mostly agree about chapter 8, except for the C-side. 8 C-Side screen 3 is such a gauntlet already that Screen 1 and 2 combined are faster and easier. Conceptually you're just slightly extending Screen 3 with a warm-up. Just practice screen 3 for a while until you can get 2-3 consecutive clears then try the whole thing. It's way less of an endurance challenge than 8 A or B deathless, much more a technical challenge

[@burnttacoconspiracy5786]

I can't believe you talked about the empowerment of breaking games without touching on progression skips or mastery of hidden mechanics. I never felt more powerful than when I managed to shinespark to Super Metroid's crashed ship to get the Gravity Suit early, effectively mastering shinesparking and walljumping in the process. For me I think that's the most fun way you can break a game!

[@LillyMannhal]

I feel like this also plays into why speedruns are so entertaining to watch. Since in speedruns the runners take control of the game and show their audience what is possible with total mastery over a game.

[@Beregorn88]

Baldur's gate 2 as a sorcerer, was a constant power trip: you start with melf's minute meteors, then you get chain lighting, then Abi-Dalzim's Horrid Wilting. Then you kill a dragon with a level 1 spell.

[@paultapping9510]

I recently very much enjoyed a gamejam indy called Pseudoregalia. It's a small metroidvania with really fluid and fun traversal mechanics unlocked by collecting four or five powerups scattered throughout the map. What I really loved about it was that it was designed in such a way that you can collect any of the four in basically any order. You can "misuse" all of the powerups to, at least apparently, do things and go places you aren't meant to, scrambling up walls with the wall kick or using the slide to bounce over a wall. So throughout the entire game you often feel like you achieved something in a non-standard way. Which, as is pointed out in this video, gives a very satisfying sense of agency.

[@devinward461]

Plus the player character is packing a whole bakery

[@Gortanckla]

Pseudoregalia is so good

[@paultapping9510]

@devinward461 as a family man, I felt obligated to put on the Big Pants 😂

[@screej1088]

I absolutely love Risk of Rain 2, the best “power fantasy” example I can give is from my recent beloved fireworks build. You take artefact of command (you can choose items) then absolutely all white item you get should be fireworks (shoot homing missiles every time you interact with literally anything) and any red items you get should be I. C. B. Ms (all missile items shoot more missiles) and you can quickly get to the point where simply activating the teleporter fills the screen with fireworks, ranking your fps to an almost painful degree, killing absolutely everything on the map, including the teleporter boss ofc (Side note if you wanna do this make sure to get at least some movement items so you don’t die horribly, also make all your purple items safer spaces for obvious reasons, also also you can kinda take anything for your green items (hopoo feather), also also also your equipment can kinda be anything but make sure to swap to remote cafinator so your not useless against Mithrix)

[@ivanbluecool]

When you figure out a game combo and it starts breaking enemies. That's what makes games the most fun. Examples. Bug fable poison comp. Get everything together and start destorying bosses so fast the game can't keep up. Fire emblem anytime you can train in arena or nosurafu combo. Break enemy systems in Xenoblade Chronicles or such. It's all so much fun

[@nevisysbryd7450]

Surely your favorite example is Spishtar omnilooping?

[@0cellusDS]

Cinematic games never really make me feel powerful. They usually make me feel like I am just along for a ride. My biggest power phantasies usually come from mastering a game in some form or another. When you asked about it at the start, three things came to mind: Hollow Knight's Pantheon of Hollownest, Aria Low% in Necrodancer and Celeste's freaking 6b and 7b golden strawberries.

[@Atlessa]

Beating Aria AT ALL (a feat that I managed exactly once) made me feel like a goddamn queen. Good pick indeed.

[@solidjb]

Although there were probably more impactful, the moment that comes to mind for me is getting construction robots in Factorio. Suddenly, everything kicks in a gear and really starts going exponential, not limited anymore by your own set of hands.

[@GreenlandRobot]

When you realize your robots can replace items as fast as the bugs can destroy you know the factory has become truly unstoppable

[@JonathanScarlet]

You might argue that this can be dampened if you have a mod like Long Reach (which functionally make your placement range infinite), but I agree that being able to have robot that can place down your stuff for you (and far faster than you can switch items once they have enough speed) is a huge step up. And as Greenlandrobot says, once they can outpace even Behemoth bugs in replacing what's destroyed (including themselves, I hope!), then you're real golden.

[@enhorning6251]

"What is the most powerful a video game has ever made you feel?" For me, it's when in a stealth game, I complete a level entirely undetected, successfully stealthing my way past all the guards and hinders. I don't think that fits neatly into the kind of power fantasies this video describes, but for me, that is my favourite power fantasy in gaming.

[@triphazard2906]

Very glad you used Territorial Rotbart as an example for games with fixed levels. I have a distinct memory of seeing him for the first time, seeing his high level, totally bricking it and running the other way. A mere 60 hours later and I was spanking him like it was nothing

[@roycosta6878]

Beating Ishin at the end of Sekiro was by far the most powerful I ever felt.

[@mathieupr6391]

Back when the Ringed City DLC came out for Dark Souls 3, I spent a lot of time helping people fight Midir. At some point in that process, I came to the realization that I just *knew* Midir. How to move, where to place myself, to attack, dodge, do everything perfectly to smash himù in the face with a big sword. It was more of a dance than a fight, you could say. That was really one of those "feeling powerful" moments, despite technically being quite the opposite, since a couple wrong moves would be the end. One of the many reasons I love those games, those feelings come despite everyting Similar thing happened with the Sisters of Battle from the Hollow Knight Godhome DLC fights. Just perfection to realize that you can do that dance

[@brotbrotsen1100]

Midir gave me problems after 2 days of trying i finally beat him in a fight that felt like it lasted an hour because i was super careful. The sister i beat on the second try though and never lost again in further playthroughs , they just clicked very fast for me.

[@Quasar_Hoik_guy]

This is going to be a weird one, but for me, the biggest power trip I had was desining an invincibility machine in terraria. Learning all there was to learn about a bug/feature to move your character quickly, expanding on it with my own experimentation, decrypting strange I frame exploits that were powerful but impractical, and after weeks of theorising and experimenting finally figuring out the right blend of old and new tech to not only make said exploit practical, but make it reach its theoretical potential, that's not something I'll soon forget.

[@wmonohon]

games that let you alter the terrain are some of my favorite, going from this rugged landscape to nice efficient pathways and tunnels with maybe some farms set up always feels great

[@JoeSmoPedro]

I played the noise update of pizza tower recently, and the way he cheats around most of the level gimmicks made him feel so much more powerful, the pig cops having no negative effects on him, a certain spoiler for fake pep, and phase 3 of the final boss in general. Kinda surprised the game wasn't mentioned it at all here! Also getting a godrun in Streets of Rogue where the items and mutators I find synergize very well. For example, my robot win where I got into a very bad situation near the very end and had enough healing beer (42 of them) saved throughout the run to survive gave me such a rush!

[@Great_Olaf5]

In a game in general, the most powerful I've ever felt is a close contender between two incidents, one in a friendly rules game of Magic the Gathering, and another in a modded run of Europa Universalis 4. Since I've is a tabletop game and the other is a video game, I'll count them separately. In that one moment of MtG, I was playing Agaistín three of my cousins, and it was everyone for themselves, no teams. I had both Chandra Nalaar and Liliana Vess on the field, and had been building up to use both of their ultimate abilities on the same turn. With Chandra, i wiped one of my cousin's entire field, with Liliana I raised all creatures from all graveyards onto the field under my control. My cousins _never_ let me get away with that again after I won that game. In EUIV, I was playing Japan. I'd united the islands within fifty years, and so 8 went for China and Korea. Very little hard made me feel quite as powerful as, after a series of wars, with hundreds of thousands men dead in each one,, finally standing victorious, seeing Japan stretch across the map, controlling all of China, Korea, and Manchuria.

[@unoriginalusername4416]

Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope has a lot of really cheap ways to do massive damage if you pick the right character/spark combos. For example: Rabbid Mario has pretty insane damage, with trash range. He has the game's interpretation of a melee weapon, which allows him to attack ALL enemies within a semicircle in front of him, rather than getting to aim at one enemy from a distance. You can easily deal with his range issues by equipping him with one specific Spark - equippable Rabbid-Luma hybrid characters that all have some ability when used - which attracts all enemies within a certain range to his location. This Spark is also incredibly powerful when used with Rabbid Rosalina's ability to put enemies in stasis for one turn. She can do it to 1-3 enemies using her first dash on a turn, but also has an ability to do it to all enemies within a relatively short range. A relatively short range which is less of a problem when you can bring every enemy within a much larger range directly to her location. Best of all is combining all of these abilities into one. First you can use another character equipped with a spark that increases damage for all allies nearby. Then have Rabbid Mario call enemies to him and punch them. Then have Rabbid Rosalina and your third member attack, then Rabbid Rosalina freeze them. Nothing can move for the turn, so you immediately get to attack with all 3 characters again, and freeze at least one remaining enemy using Rabbid Rosalina's dash. Assuming they didn't already all die at some point in this process - for random encounters just getting to the point of Rabbid Mario punching them is enough.

[@claytonsanchez4956]

Rabbis Rosalina is absolutely busted in that game. I upgraded her crit chance to max and then put on a Spark that increased her crit chance even more. So her crit chance was 100% and she shot I think 18 bullets. Pair that with a Spark that passively increased weapon damage, a Spark ability that can increase all damage, and and upgrade where you deal extra damage on an enemy you froze with her, she could easily halve if not one-shot late game bosses.

[@Crotaro]

It might not be quite applicable, but finally being able to pull off a sicc combo in the heat of combat (that I practiced a lot beforehand in a training environment) and beat your opponent with it in RUMBLE makes me feel super powerful. Since it's a VR fighting game, it means you're actually performing the techniques correctly and with the right timing using your own body. For a couple moments you'll feel like frickin Toph, Grandmaster Earthbender... until you accidentally launch yourself out of the arena with a miscalculated punch.

[@chickenmonger123]

I used to get bored, and want to know what would happen if I got as good as I possibly could. I had done the mastery thing on a game or two. Failed at it in others. Grinded as much as I could. So I just figured out how to break programs with whatever I could find. Cheat Engine. Modding. Even writing scripts. Frankly it’s the best game I ever played. And makes you imagine how you could make something new, after seeing that it was not actually all that fun to be overpowered. The fun is always getting overpowered.

[@kori228]

Bravely Default: - have everyone with Time Mage's passive "Hasten World" to regen 4 BP per turn - Valkyrie's Super High Jump every turn (uses BP, but you're getting 4 a turn so it's infinite) - while in the air from Super High Jump, all enemy attacks miss - to ensure you go first (to jump in the air), equip Ninja main job - to maximize damage, Dual Wield Axes

[@Cman04092]

Terretorial Rothbart from XBC series, and similar out in the open super boses, are power fantasy done so damn well. You usually run into them super early, and get friggen destroyed. You then have to run/hide from them if you see them again. They are super strong, stronger than end game bosses, so its post game content, but when you finally get revenge, you feel like a god.

[@ivanbluecool]

It's always fun when a game is open enough to let you experiment on builds and find the best way to defeat foes. I'm fine with games that have numbers with levels but give us the freedom to learn Every part of the game to really have fun

[@MsArtz]

The most powerful I've ever felt playing a game came from reaching the wizard/special mode in a (virtual) Theater of Magic pinball machine in The Pinball Arcade. I felt like I was, even if just for a few moments, triumphing in an unexpected way over a machine that was designed to try and make me fail. The knowledge that that moment would be forgotten save for three initials and a high score made it all the more exhilarating.

[@bibbobella]

I remember playing Skyrim. Killing dragons with ease, destroying bandit camps without even having to look at my healthbar, fighting 4 bears at the same time with a simple iron sword!....and it suuuuucked! It was so freaking boring! The second I got powerful enough to where literally nothing was a challenge (Happened the second I got a weapon tbh...I am not sure that game is not made to be played on normal difficulty) Now, when I cranked the difficulty up (ahm...and added a few mods) and the enemies actually started feeling like a threat it started to feel like a proper power fantasy game. Slowly making my character stronger, being really happy that I found some loot that was just a tiny bit better than my current loot, barely managing to take down a bear with half of my potions gone and another quickly running towards me was way more interesting and fun! Adversity and overcoming said adversity is needed for me to really enjoy the game. I am not especially good at games, but I still want to be challenged. Doesn't have to be a soul game level difficulty, but it needs to have something for me to overcome, otherwise I wont be invested in the game in the slightest.

[@Fixti0n]

My ultimate power fantasy moment has to be from Monster Hunter 4u. There are two specific boss fights that gave me this feeling. The first has to be Dalamadur, a mountain sized snake, with a mouth large enough to swallow a town, so long that when you are at his face, you can see his tail on the other side of the mountain, half a mile away from you, and there you have you, your hunter, striking this leviathan with what might as well be a prickly rose thorn, but slowly and surely you whittle this giant down, until you hear proof of a hero start playing, and as the big brass horns shout the voices of victory, you scale the mountain until you look down on the serpents head, leap off, then strike the final blow, planting your sword in the head of the might black dragon Dalamadur. The second is the walking calamity of tar and gunpowder, Gogmazios. At the doorstep of the guild, you fight this towering skyscraper of a dragon, dripping with scorching tar and the weapons of all who came before you, but failed at slaying this behemoth. But unlike all those who have failed at slaying this dragon, you cannot run, you cannot hide, if you fail, society will fall to this disaster. So you and your companions face this monster, so large you need to scale buildings to even have a chance at hitting him somewhere it would even remotely hurt, carrying these heavy cannon balls only to tickle him, shooting these lances of arrows from your ballista, only to add to the pile that is already there. But after some time, avoiding the hellfire and fury, you can loosen the weapons and tar that has been shielding him until now, and that is the time to strike, as a monster slaying spear called the Draginator that once failed its task, falls down to the ground, poised to fulfilling its long lost purpose, by striking true and piercing this dragon. These are both really hard optional super bosses that not all would play, and since its from one of the classic Monster Hunter games, they werent spoiled, nor were there any guides or content creators showing these fights off, unlike how it is now. When you finally slayed these monsters, you did it on your terms and it was your victory. I dont know if they were objectively harder fights then the modern Monster Hunter super bosses, or if i was just worse at the games back then, but i can say for sure that no game so far has given me the blend of huge boss fights that was as threatening as these two were, yes Bayonetta and Metal Gear rising had the scale, but the threat wasnt there, you were given the spectacle on a platter and you could lean back and enjoy the show, and games like Dark Souls, Elden Ring and modern Monster Hunter have the threat, but there are no bosses so large and spectacular that climbing the environment around you were mandatory to even stand a chance. There is more in the power fantasy moment indeed, and i hope that Dragons Dogma 2 and Monster Hunter Wilds has some boss fights fit for this yearning of slaying something so large and dangerous as Dalamadur and Gogmazios.

[@valdonchev7296]

I just played through Doom 2016 the other day, and I find it interesting that the weapon that feels the most powerful is NOT the BFG. It is a screen clearing weapon that feels very boring to use - I don't have to aim it, or even know about half the demons I kill with it. My favorite weapon is the minigun with the turret mod and the ultimate upgrade that prevents it from overheating. The Baron is the toughest basic enemy in the game; it takes whittling one down with shotguns and rifles over some time to bring one down. With the turret minigun, I can stare one down, and fill it with lead before it can do anything to me. It feels far more visceral than the BFG, and still takes enough skill and courage to use to feel earned.

[@alecchristiaen4856]

I still love the type B lanius cruiser in FTL, because I discovered you can use the teleporter to extract brainwashed enemies. Kidnapping the enemy one by one and suffocating them within my own ship isn't terribly powerful, but it's nice because it's an inobvious use of your tools.

[@marykateharmon]

Beating Apollo in CrossCode. He quickly proves a tough fight that you want to win and it was so satisfying to manage to do it.

[@LimeyLassen]

Everything in that game feels like rebellion: either you're beating the tyrants who make the rules, or you're rebelling against having to do that by just running around playing the MMO instead.

[@luk4aaaa]

A short hike is genuinely a top 5 game of all time for me. It’s such a nice and comfy game and the pay off for making it all the way to the top and gliding down is super fun and makes you feel really cool.

[@NoManOdysseus]

Re: the end recommendation of Quinn's Quest, I would also recommend Notepad Anon for his RPG reviews touching on "yes, but what do you actually *do*" and "This thing says 'Just Wing It lmao' HOW often?"

[@Mlurd1]

Another memorable power moment: Using Apple of Eden in AC:Brotherhood and Revelations.

[@parchmentengineer8169]

I think one of my favorite power fantasies in any game is actually a board game - Aeon's End. It's a cooperative deckbuilding game that pits you against a Nameless - a giant, titanic monster that can and will kill you. Every single one feels like an uphill battle, and my win rate even after nearly 30 full games is still around 50%. However, the best feeling in this game is looking at the cards in your deck, looking at what the Nemesis is doing, and going "Hold up. I think we can actually win this." It's similar to a lot of Soulsborne power fantasies in a way, where you're able to understand your opponent and refine your strategy to overcome impossible odds.

[@MateusAntonioBittencourt]

One that comes to mind, is Starwars The force unleashed. Having you play the first level as an unstoppable Darth Vader, against the wookies, which we know are the good guys. Was a awesome way to make you feel powerful, yet understand you're not "cool". Also... any game that in the final battle, you have the assistance of all the friends and allies you've made throughout the game, just give me chills. Because you feel all that work pay out, doesn't matter the final battle is easier because of it.

[@kacperdrabikowski5074]

I have two moments I want to mention. First was my first test of Assimilator Colossus in Stellaris - in essence, pulling a Borg on an entire planet with a Death Star-esque supership. It was indeed a sensation of achieving a level of invulnerable dominance and cool in a 'kid with a magnifying glass' way. The other was in Age of Wonders: Planetfall. Got caught out of position and 2 solid midgame armies attacked me and I only had provincial garrison to defend. Thanks to effective utilization of tactical operations (effectively spells), couple good rolls in clutch moments and (ab)use of no healing cap I had wiped them to a man. I had felt like a god, because I managed to pull through an impossible victory thanks to a one-in-a-milion combination of luck and skill.

[@shadowdahuman]

A.."recent" one that comes to my mind is NG+ in Sekiro. My playthrough took weeks with breaks of self reflection in between to unlearn Dark Souls and get into the flow of this new system. Then after finally beating Isshin going straight into new game+ I was beating the everloving shit out of Genichiro on top of Ashina castle within an hour or two and a wave of "Oh how far I've gotten" came over me.

[@sarahfay5280]

I love that you included footage from Terra Nil; that game's demo helped me survive a really awful hospital stay in the middle of 2021, and the game, itself, is deeply meaningful to me, gorgeous in terms of graphics, and the sheer feeling of *power and control* over the world it gives me is so amazing, and the main purpose of that power and control is to make the planet better for everything that lives there? It's amazing!

[@dennod5025]

mine was in Arma 3, where i only play drone operator for two of my friends on the field. Finding every threat for them, assisting them, playing along to help them make well timed operation, that is a very good feeling. You are the eyes in the sky, and it's so powerful.

[@FisOffline]

Personally I feel most powerful when a game stops being a challenge and becomes an exercise in creativity, instead of "how do I beat this?" you go to "in which way do I want to deal with this"

[@ritwikism]

This is so well put. I was trying to think of why Hades gave me a power fantasy and it's exactly this. First few runs I needed Athena to even get to Meg. Eventually as I got better, I could make insane combos work even at high heat. What a game!

[@AgentUltimate7]

When you mentioned Balatro, i remembered that one my most exciting moments in Magic The Gathering was when I striked a player with 210 damage points using a combo with non modified Riders of Rohan precon commander deck. Especially because I was playing against non-precon high power decks.

[@SomeOtherTroper]

I think for me, the most important part of the 'power fantasy' is when the triumphs come more from the improvement of my own skill as a player than from anything the game gives me as a mechanical advantage. Fighting Games are an extreme example of this, especially when played against the same set of friends/rivals: there are no buffs, there are no new moves, there are no health/armor/damage/weapon/whatever upgrades. You go into every match with exactly the same toolbox as anyone else going into that match with the same character. Whether you win or lose, that progression to the reward, is all on your personal skill and knowledge of the game. While you touched on it a bit with player agency and building ridiculous combos of items/powers in roguelikes, I think the idea the the player themselves is getting better at the game, instead of merely having gotten more mechanical enhancements within the game, is one of the key differences that makes some games engaging and rewarding while others ...not so much, even if both are providing similar levels of spectacle and "power".

[@Zyckro]

Love the feeling of destroying demons in Doom and Ultrakill

[@robertwiesner6825]

To me a huge power fantasy was in Baldur's Gate 3 the whole House of Hope area. You come into the home of a devil - an insanely powerful lawful evil being who can do pretty much anything for anybody as long as the price is right (usually their soul). You spend some time sneaking around, possibly destroy some contracts, free a poor victim of his who had been tortured by him for centuries and then as you're almost out of his place, he returns. And with him comes "Lives, all mortal lives, expire" an absolutely epic song and a pretty challenging fight against him.

[@logixindie]

Balatro is gonna easily be my most played game this year.

[@dread46]

Wether you want to or not, there is no escaping it. Cause Balatro is love, Balatro is life!

[@Deantwo]

So this is why I always love playing anti-tank classes in Battlefield-like games? Never thought of it like a power fantasy. Interesting perspective!

[@hansgomez1317]

Persona 5, being an introvert student with a big social circle living in the attic of a coffee house, with a succesfull academic life, more money to spend than i could need, and aby possible romntic interest avaible to me is not seeking or being seek by anyone. With a complete heroes journey to achive my desired personal futur...

[@thejotak2431]

The most powerful I have ever felt in a game was glitching my way as fast as possible through Portal (yes I mean speedrunning). You talked about feeling like breaking a game makes you feel powerful, but actually breaking the game made me feel like mastering the game quite literally. You control something that at first had you follow its rules. Of course it will not work for every game, but the way the speedrunning community still is breaking the game even more makes for a very powerful feeling. Great video!

[@gloky.]

My greatest power fantasy game, is Morrowind. When you know the systems, magic, custom spells and the like, you can go absolutely ham. I recently finished a lvl 1 naked start of Bloodmoon. It was tough early, but couple hours in, I was slapping everything down, even tho I should be mulched by the enemies, being just lvl 7 in an area designed for lvl 30+. That gave me the true sense of power fantasy, because I used the mechanics to the point, where even much stronger enemies, could not withstand me.

[@greatestcait]

Top 3 Power Moments for me would be... * The end sequence of Metroid Dread, where you get the Hyper Beam and the ultimate suit * Elden Ring, facing off against Praetor Rykard with the Serpent Hunter * Dark Souls 1, getting the Balder Swag Sword and just breezing through the latter half of the game at 40 Dex (including a good chunk of the DLC).

[@ultramegax]

What comes to mind right away is the absolutely epic boss fights in Final Fantasy 16 and some of the fights in my playthrough of Stellar Blade. Getting every parry off while chaining long combos together is great. When you manage to do it all without taking any damage... That's so much fun! I agree with your reference to Death Stranding, too!

[@StompinPaul]

I'm kinda fascinated by how we differently define 'power fantasy'. From what I tried of Balatro, it never made me feel powerful per se, what it made me feel was clever, and I think of that as a different thing. If the goal is power specifically, I still think some spectacle is needed. I'm glad you mentioned the idea of power by comparison though, because when I was thinking about it that seemed to me the key point, at least one that games might miss. The games that came to mind when you put forth the question at the beginning were Helldivers 2 and Furi, and both of them have kind of a curious mix: glorious visuals, capable but vulnerable player characters, and impressive enemies for them to go against. And I think that's an important part, if the enemies don't feel capable, it starts to feel too little like glorious success, and kinda like you're bullying the NPCs. Also, for me at least, controlling a character that's intuitive to control and fun to play is an important part. I think there's something to be said for a character who feels capable even when you're getting your butt kicked, as a way to keep the feel of power.

[@FireTrtl]

Getting my first god run in noita which lets you completely break the boundaries of the game by going to parallel worlds. Stack up thousands of health. One shotting every boss I came across after spending hundreds of runs afraid of them. Just to die to a speck of polymorph while traveling at light speed

[@noahforester7715]

The games that make me feel the best are games like arma reforger and tarkov. Leading a push, lighting up a transport truck stocked full, ambushing a group of enemies that never knew I was there. Things like these are why I play games.

[@AT7outof10]

From the beginning, Disgaea is a tactics rpg that gives you tools to become overpowered. The level cap being 9999, and letting you dive into your items/equipment to increase their power and bonus effects. But they also give you bonus levels to challenge how broken you are by fighting broken enemies right back. lol

[@pfm57]

Noita (mentioned at 15:20 as an example of games where the power fantasy comes from breaking the game) does something really special. The Noita devs made a genius design decision for preventing you from acclimatizing too much to being all powerful after "breaking the game". In the game there is a pink liquid (Polymorphine) in the game that is really hard to get rid of or avoid completely which temporarily turns you into a defenseless sheep that will get one hit killed no matter how much HP you have accumulated or how many imunities you have collected. This means that the further into your game breaking run you go, the more powerful you become, but at the same time with the threat of loosing it all from stepping in 1 pixel of Polymorphine makes the tension of loosing it all ever present. This is just something I have never seen another game do.

[@GambitRaps]

The most cracked I’ve ever felt was in Risk Of Rain 2, stacking corrupted Lensmaker’s Glasses giving me a 10% chance of auto-killing enemies on each shot, with the Commando who has dual SMGs. Basically auto-killed every enemy I saw in a huge purple explosion by the end of the run. Few games have let me feel like I’ve completely abused their systems like that before lol

[@CaptainCorneliusArgo]

One of my favourite examples of the "places we don't expect a power fantasy", is Endless Space 2. This is a somewhat slow sci fi 4x game, where each playable race is just stupidly broken in some way, which is how the game is balanced. Adding further to that is the scaling over the course of the game, where you start of in the tens of food production or similar, and end up in the ten thousands. And you really feel it in how fast you can develop planetary systems (literally terraforming the entire thing and flying in billions of people), to the science cost of the end game techs (they scale so can end up costing half a million science), to your navies that are now so advanced that a single ship could have wiped out the entire galaxy at the start of the game (note that the smallest ship costs 75 and the "largest" 1250 as a base price before components). From dying to pirates at the start, to exploding stars and rebuilding planets at the end, it's a pretty fun game.

[@GolanLP]

Among Us, being the impostor, three players left, and the two remaining innocents start accusing one another. Never felt more powerful.

[@AaronQ64]

My greatest power fantasy was in Everquest, coming back to Qeynos Hills on my human SK after reaching max level on my unholy steed and enacting revenge on the kill stealing Guard Nash. It was both cathartic and made me feel like such a badass.

[@AnthonyKeydel]

On my favorite things about game design KZbin is when RoR2 is mentioned, for one of its many brilliant design choices, and the video Creator unerringly puts a track from the wonderful soundtrack in the background

[@SirCalalot]

Fantastic video as always. The editing, scripting and content is on-point. Keep up the awesome vids, mate.

[@Anaicyl]

One of my favorite ways to create power fantasies is to reuse an early game boss as a regular enemy in the late game - especially if the boss was really tough. You remember how many tries it took to finally beat the Capra Demon, so you feel how far you've come when you take them down in two hits towards the end of the game.

[@LuvzToLol21]

Most powerful I've ever felt was defeating Valstrax in Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate. Valstrax is meant to be the "final boss" of the game and the final exam of G rank. The first time you fight the jet powered dragon out seems impossibly fast and chaotic and can easily kill you in a few seconds. And it's signature divebomb attack can one hit kill you nearly anywhere on the map, so as soon as it takes off you know you have about 3 seconds to get as far away as possible. But slowly as you keep fighting it you realize that it's a monster like any other and follows the same rules and rhythms, it's just faster and less forgiving then you're used to. The most powerful I've ever felt in a game was the moment I realized that Valstrax's infamous divebomb worked the same way as any other attack in the game, and I successfully parried it.

[@Jakepearl13]

Balatro makes you feel like you’re in an anime about bending luck to your will and fighting the house

[@Tohlemiach]

It's funny, listening to you describe Balatro just sounds exactly like the experience of playing Queen's Blood from FFVII Rebirth. Beating the computer player and then spending the next 5 minutes without cashing in just to further play every single card in your deck to win by a 100 to 0 landslide was the biggest power fantasy in that entire game to me.

[@matlabninja]

Factorio is a fantastic gradual build power fantasy up until you get the robot network. Then it is a huge step change that very much feels earned.

[@blcstriker9052]

10:55 I've been playing so much Helldivers 2 that I thought I was finally going crazy and hearing the theme while off the game.

[@_kalia]

I am _incredibly_ surprised you didn't mention Warframe, because it's pretty much the exact same thrill as Balatro; taking a normal movement shooter, and twisting the mechanics and numbers until you're a walking god.

[@hitihautriponel419]

The most powerful I've felt lately is making my own Path of Exile builds and learning crafting. Finally getting that one build that deletes the entire screen, or that one build that can stand in the middle of 100 enemies, or that one build that has 10x more damage that all of your other ones just does it for me.

[@MrE987]

The most powerful I've ever felt in a game was stumbling across some ridiculous synergies and strategies in Slay the Spire. I feel like it's a good example of everything you said, because you start out weak and vulnerable to the point where almost every combat could kill you. But then the pieces fall into place in just the right way and now you can stomp on enemies way stronger than you ever thought possible. And it's all because you were so clever (and lucky).

[@Trixter9000]

In my personal experience, Baldurs Gate 3 and Helldivers 2 feel like power fantasy to me. The first one is because I myself am responsible for building up the right party to obliterate enemies. It's also quite empowering to know that while I am used to solving situations with dialogue, I could as easily wipe out a small city. In Helldivers it feels amazing when you find an experienced party and just sweep through the ranks of bots/bugs that were quite a challenge in the beginning. And occasionally being destroyed after making a single mistake only reinforces this feeling. Like a confirmation that the game didn't become easier, but I am become death

[@redtaileddolphin1875]

A game is like to mention that got me thinking about something similar is Supraland, a sort of metroid prime spriritual successor of a 3D metroidvania, and at the end of its game it does something I think is very cool Once you’ve collected every coin that exists in the game, you can purchase a super jump that makes your regular jump height almost go to the world ceiling. This lets you go anywhere you want, see anything, and even go some places that aren’t normally possible, but all this is only allowed once you’ve already proven you’ve mastered the game I even would go as far as to say I think more games should do this, or at least I wish they did, because cracking the game wide open and getting I see whatever you want is a great reward for loving a game so much you 100% it

[@jonathanstark9147]

All good points -- I do think it reveals in some games mentioned, like God of War, that they were designed with the higher difficulty levels in mind. I recently completed a hard mode playthrough of that game and every little stat boost and bonus felt so satisfying because the fights are so hard. I think pattern recognition also becomes a part of this build up. Sure, your POWER might be about as high from the start as it ever will get, but your SKILL and knowledge of the enemies is what improves. Especially when you go up against Sigrun and finally after thirty tries know her patterns well enough to pull off essentially a no-damage kill. Brilliant. But I only felt this when going back and playing on the harder mode.

[@eyvahehyeh8927]

My first thought was also a deckbuilder - slay the spire, as a BEGINNER, on lower difficulties, feeling as if I was the first one in the world to break shit apart the ways I did. :D Playing Baldur's Gate 2 with mods that made it even more difficult (tactics) whilst playing solo (only with the player character) 20 years ago is probably still the most "power" I felt - in direct contrast to how little focus and power I felt I had in my life in general.

[@LogicalKip]

Cube chaos is the perfect embodiment of that concept. I wish you would have mentioned it.

[@TheDeadmanTT]

13:55 Until X-Com shown

[@DanielS-gv5nj]

The most powerful I ever felt in a video game was in Path of Exile when I managed to design a build from scratch and it ended up being so powerful I just cruised through T16 maps like it was nothing. Those are still fond memories even though I long stopped playing the game.

[@anantray6785]

Man I was waiting soo long for your video Great work man Literally shows the work you put into this one

[@Siinory]

My favorite power fantasy is still Final Fantasy V, the jobs opens so many possible parties and just using the absolute best one makes you literally unstoppable. I love this game so much

[@koltonkulis4763]

Regarding control and agency contributing to the power fantasy, I think this is why I fell in love with Warframe. You have so many build options with the modding system, and you can make some truly busted combos. In addition, even though your Warframe's level is important, the build decisions you make are far more important. Your strength is a reflection of how well you understand the systems.

[@bane2201]

Rogue Legacy 2 has given me some awesome moments like this. When you start out you'll die often, but as you get better (and get upgrades) you'll have more chances to take relics, change your weapons/spells, get max HP boosts, etc. during a run and become OP. Usually when I make it to the final boss it's just a matter of time until I defeat him. Incredibly underappreciated game.

[@DiabolicCrusher]

Now we're talking. I just love breaking games and stomping everything, especially satisfying after a long grind. Risk of Rain 2 when able to get a long run going and Shadow Of War are probably the most memorable ones to me when it comes to games making player feel powerful. There's also something satisfying about just seeing ingame characters becoming gradually stronger.

[@Lucifers-Stepdad]

In tales of symphonia there's a scripted loss against a boss called Yggdrassil that has 40,000hp. At that time of the game you should be getting 1 shot and dealing about 4 damage to him per hit. You can actually get his health to 0, though, if you play perfectly for about 20 minutes in a row. That was a thrill.

[@tirex3673]

One thing I think of, is a mod turned cheat code in Age of Empires II Definitive Edition, that makes it possible for everyone to research every technology 256 times, turning trebuchets into ICBMs and in the case of a certain civ, nuke launchers.

[@user-ep5ve3hf8g]

I just started replaying Age Of Mythology (2002) and those games I feel have a great power fantasy balance. First time on hard and they keep throwing attacks at you while you're trying to grow an army to overwhelm them before they overwhelm you. It's quite thrilling to feell powerless and annoyed and then stomp them with lots of army that you worked hard to get and mantain I'm too anxious to play online but the campaign and random maps are a blast

[@FenexTheFox]

My favorite power fantasy moments are CrossCode's Gastropolis fight, and the entirety of Copy Kitty.

[@semtakjunz786]

On my PlayStation 2, the legend of Spyro: Eternal Night, you get a super breath attack along with the light and heavy breath attacks. When you first learn the fire one you hear a bell toll and summon a literal fire storm. And while I have fought all manner of human, mutant, zombie, robot, beast and everything else in as wide a setting I'll never forget the first time a video game made 12 yo me FEEL powerful.

[@xdarkjimmyx]

The most powerful I ever felt in a game was giving Kuro back his charm in Sekiro, ringing the demon bell, and still absolutely OBLITERATING Genichiro, when three months earlier it had taken me three whole days of grinding to defeat him, and mostly by getting extremely lucky. Also, my second run of The Hong Kong Massacre, feeling 100% like John Wick

[@mistermonarch297]

Never thought I'd hear about Quinns' Quest on an Architect of Games vid - I love all of Quintin Smith's stuff

[@Andreas_42]

Using bullet time for the first time in the original Max Payne felt like a power fantasy to me.

[@Boglorio]

Dismantling the Holy Nation in Kenshi was pretty gratifying. They're not pushovers like the United Cities is/are. The big fight against the Phoenix himself was probably my greatest test of strength, outside the Mad Emperor.