This week for Retro Game Friday I’m doing another list! It’s My Favorite Imbalanced Items!
The Pistol from Halo: This baby was given to you in the very first level, and if you ever dropped it in favor of something else without picking it back up after emptying the ammo of whatever you picked up, you were playing the game wrong. This thing had ammo almost everywhere, and except for the most annoying level The Library, could be used to devastating effect from the first level to the final level. It had a zoom function, could kill most enemies in a few shots (including the Hunter enemies) and in multiplayer had no trail like a Sniper Rifle had. This thing was stupidly overpowered and was nerfed in later entries, although Halo: Reach and ODST did bring it back to a somewhat decent level of power.
The Fierce Diety Mask from The Legend of Zelda Majora’s Mask: The only thing preventing this monster from completely breaking the game was the fact that it was only usable in Boss Fights, but with it makes the final boss completely powerless to stop you. The way to get this item was to get every mask in the game and present them to the Skeleton Kid in the final dungeon, so it’s really only useable in the final fight if you don’t plan on playing the game after beating the final boss.
Farsight from Perfect Dark: This gun let you see through walls and then shoot through walls to kill your enemies. Oh and it automatically aims at your enemies. Need I say more?
The Unrelenting Force Shout from Skyrim: Given how many mountains this game has, or cliffs, or something to push someone off of, this shout becomes completely unbalanced in any situation when you are at a location with a decent height and place to push things off of. Pretty funny to use on the Bandit’s near Whiterun on the bridge.
Knights of the Round from Final Fantasy VII: While it really required a clever mixture of materia to cast endlessly to be put to best use, it still was the main force behind the complete imbalance it brought to the game. Thankfully it was hidden towards the end of the game, and if you were focused purely on the story it wouldn’t even be possible to get it, but if you did and used the mimic materia on the next party member they’d cast it too, and so on.
Mehrune’s Razor from Skyrim: I’m not done with you yet Skyrim, this Daedric artifact had an incredibly overpowered proc ability that would instantly kill a target, which while having a low rate of success was increased if you delayed getting the artifact until you well above the minimum level of 16 to start the quest to get it. To make things even worse, it was a dagger, one of the fastest hitting weapons in the game. Needless to say, having this allowed thief build characters in Skyrim to absolutely destroy people, especially once they gained the ability to enter stealth in combat by crouching.
Crissaegrim from Castlevania Symphony of the Night: This is probably my favorite item in the Castlevania series, more because of the mythology behind the weapon, than the fact that it completely broke the game, and dear god if you had two of them it was devastating. Crissaegrim had no animation lock when using it, which means that you could use it while moving, and it would swing as fast as you could hit the button. The fact that a single press of the button would have the weapon hit 2-3 times in a split second wasn’t even fair at all. The only thing making this even slightly balanced, and it isn’t really at all, was the drop rate. However clever people would go to a certain room to farm the enemy that dropped the item over and over again, until it dropped. Even more clever people would then repeat the process once more with it in hand to get a second one, because it’s possible to dual wield the monster.
That’s it for this week’s Retro Game Friday, are there some favorite Imbalanced Items of yours that I left out? Leave a comment below with your favorites.
Windborne's Story Eatery 