Name a game game: "...and then it ends with you fighting A GOD."
Trope or not, gods just end up being a common target for games about heroes escalating in power while fighting increasingly world-destroying consequences.
So, for each post, name a game and describe it, with the assumption being that every description automatically ends with the phrase:
"...and then it ends with you fighting a god."
God of war?
I mean you fight all the Gods
And it starts with you fighting a God!
To some extent the majority of JRPGs fit into this trope. It's a long running joke that it isn't a JRPG if you don't end up fighting a god with the power of friendship.
In fact, there are particular reasons behind this that are influenced by Japanese culture and history.
This is exactly the kind of long form content I love watching. Thanks for sharing!
Hey hey hey, SPOILERS! I'm only ~8,000 hours into the game and haven't gotten there yet!
Morrowind
There is an argument to be made that neither Dagoth Ur not the tribunal are strictly speaking "gods" by Elder Scrolls' definitions. They have godlike powers thanks to the heart, but they are referred to as false gods by all the Deadric gods you interact with.
Heck, the main quest is basically Azura using you as her vessel to expose the falsity of the Tribunal's claim to godhood.
Although, if you go one level deeper and you buy into Vivec actually achieving Chim, then it could be argued he is at least as godlike as Talos (who used his understanding of Chim to retcon the actual history of Tamriel). Which is another can of worms, because his godhood is also questioned and the whole reason his worship was outlawed in the white-gold concordant....
Oh Elder Scrolls lore, how I love your convoluted nature.
And oblivion, and skyrim
Bayonetta invents an entirely new god in the last 10 minutes of the game that was never explained or alluded to before, and then has you piledrive it into the sun.
sounds neat tbh
I haven't seen it mentioned yet, but Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice is a great game...
Kirby Superstar: Milky Way Wishes. Ohh you think it's a game about pink ball stopping the sun and moon from fighting? NOPE, here's a jester with power of god.
Pokemon. Technically you don't end with fighting god but somewhere you're fighting a pokemon that's basically god of something.
Also does Hades count lol.
You can always spot a Kirby fan based on how they react to a butterfly appearing late into the game.
Even better for Pokemon, God (Arceus) lets you capture it in a pokeball
Even better, Arceus is given out for free like christmas in the og gen 4. Only in the remake they have you battle and capture it.
Path of Exile has you clearing out the entire pantheon. Then the main campaign is over and you begin the post-game part, which is what actually matters.
Hollow Knight is a game where you start out as a little bug discovering a bug's nest. Then you unlock some secrets, find the secret true final boss, and next thing you know, it ends with you fighting a god.
Another Crab's Treasure is a cute, fun, cartoony soulslike game where you play as a hermit crab whose shell has been stolen! He heads out on an adventure to get it back.
Pretty much any Final Fantasy game fits this to some extent.
The Talos Principle.
Elohim DESTROYED with Facts and Logic!
The original Baldur's Gate story (1 and 2 + expansions) begin with you being a barely trained orphan sent on an unexpected journey by your foster father...
Fantastic games. Irenicus while not the god boss you're referring to, is my favourite villain ever.
Persona 5 is a JRPG where you role play as a high school student, who was transferred to a high school far from home in Tokyo due to being expelled...
Pathfinder Wrath of the Righteous.
You start as a level 1 pf1e character and get thrown into a war against demons. This game is pretty hard if you don’t know 1e rules but completely viable, i played it before knowing any 1e. And you don’t end with a level 20 character, you end up much more powerful.
If you are good at making builds, you can have some wild combos, it’s great. It balances the power trip you can have with some brutal fights. Fuck those Bodaks.
I highly recommend it if you enjoy real time CRPGs. Turn based mode exists, but it makes some fights (cough cough tavern *cough cough) take multiple hours.
I would say anyone interested in the game a general rule of thumb would be trash mobs and easy fights = real time and bosses and difficult fights turn based.
One can luckily change that on the fly.
I mean if one is confident in their micro, then one can do most of the game in real time, but the game does have enemy encounters that just feel unfair when fighting real time while feeling better tuned in turn based.
Good game though as one journeys through one of initially 2 "ascension" paths that can eventually branch out into one of 10 different paths as one takes the fight against, technically, gods - but not in the heavenly sense.
Im about four months into my first playthrough of Wrath. Love it.
I've owned this game for years and I love RTwP combat in games like PoE and Baldurs Gate (first two). You've convinced me to give it another try!
Recently finished that game as an Azata and transcended. The story is great and the mythic paths are really quite fun, but I found combat to be a slog on the higher difficulties. Ended up turning it down to normal (from core) in act 4 due to the sheer amount of fights that take ages. The Defender's Heart battle took me almost 2 hours! I get they want to make it feel grand, but it just slowed it down too much. For any new players, I recommend picking a lower difficulty, and use liberal use of real time for easy fights, of which there are far too many. You also need some resilience against bugs, as there are many. Only a few are game breaking, but most are really annoying and cause you to lose actions or items or something. Despite all this criticism, behind all that is a great game and I do recommend it to crpg fans, especially if they like pf1e (which I hadn't played at the time).
No one has mentioned Noita yet? In Noita, killing a god is part of exploring the game.
Nier Automata gets really meta...
Breath of Fire 3. People find a dragon that had been dormant in a crystal for centuries. It wakes up later as a human child. That child travels the world trying to figure out who they are. And then you fight a god, or not it's your choice.
Persona 3, 4 and 5
I know it's not out yet but I feel pretty confident adding Persona 6 to this list too.
Fable
As a kid you get your village burned down but you're rescued at the last minute by a Hero.
You're raised in the Heroes Guild and become one yourself. You help people, kick some chickens, and learn magic.
And then you fight a god, twice.
And then I get the solus greatsword and berserk and win the game.
Shin Megami Tensei 2 and it doesn't just end with you killing a god. You get to kill THE God, YHWH, aka the Abrahamic God!
Most persona/smt games fit the bill
Terraria.
And Calamity mod.
In the first Witcher game, you fight a god from the Cthulu mythos (Dagon) on like a side quest, and he's not even that tough.
"Doom" is a pretty good one.
"Advent Rising" you find out you are a god.
"Dread Delusion" prisoner to decider of gods fate.
A lot of Kirby games.
Even with the weird Mormon allusions, I really wish we could've gotten an Advent Rising sequel.
I had no idea it had some basis in mormanism, but I also really wanted a sequel to it. It ended on such an interesting cliff hangar and with Orson Scott Card it seemed like the plot would actually go somewhere.
Earth Defense Force 5 ends with you fighting a god. EDF 6 basically starts and ends with this.
Final Fantasy Legends!
mass effect. Shepard kills many reapers, which are pretty close to eldritch gods in another setting.
You are in a theater group and steal a magical princess. Yada Yada Yada, you find out your twin brother is using magic life mist to build an army of dolls... Yada Yada yada, the princess turns a castle into a giant robot to fight the doll army... Yada Yada yada, you go to your alien space ship to find all of your other clones, yada yada yada your clone brother kills you and the only way to realive is to kill Necron the god of death and then the game ends.
Final Fantasy 9, the pinnacle of FF games doing this.
Another favorite for me though would be Breath of Fire.
You are a man, you become a dragon man, you find out you were always a dragon, find the goddess and have to chose between killing her or becoming a dragon god and killing your friends.
Firstly, I feel offended you reduced the giant mecha vs a dragon cinematic to robot vs a doll army :P
Ff9 did the "all powerful god" but it is really a wtf out of no where momement that can feel jarring with the themes of the game - a ludonarrative narrative dissonance, unless I missed some obscure reference to it somewhere
I would argue that ff6 wrote a less jarring "kill a god" fight:
Most Final Fantasy games and JRPGs in general.
The Age of Mythology campaign. It starts with you heading to the Trojan War because some pirates stole your statue's trident…
Immortals Fenyx Rising
Kid Icarus Uprising. You play as a goddess's right hand man, and end up fighting several other gods.
Final Fantasy 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 13
Haven't finished 1,2,3 but spoilers below:
Depending on how you define all powerful God, Fallout New Vegas
The entirety of Final Fantasy 14
Loop hero has you trying to rebuild a forgotten world as you traverse round a simple loop...
Silent Hill and Silent Hill 3 - both games revolve around a cult that is trying to bring about the rebirth of their deity. You play as someone who finds themselves in the town of Silent Hill in search of a person. You solve puzzles, battle monsters, and navigate the town… and then it ends with you fighting a god.
Yakuza 0 goes through all the emotions with its storytelling: you start by singing karaoke, then become a fugitive, you go bowling, lose a friend, watch a dirty video...
Also, holy shit, most of you guys missed the point. Edit: Wait, did I miss the point? I thought this post was about wrong games for funsies
Though you DO actually fight a god in Yakuza 5 as a sidequest.
Mario and friends find a secret door while on their quest to defeat weapon invaders from another dimension.
Most of the Dark Souls are like that, ain't they? I'm too weak sauce to ever reach those levels, though. Black Myth Wukong has you starting Heaven's entire army, so I guess that qualifies too (I'm assuming you end up fighting a god at the end, but again, I'm not worthy)
Monkey canonically kicks all the gods' asses, but then loses to Buddha, who is not a god. That's because instead of using force, Buddha preys on Monkey's ego by giving him an unwinnable bet. And THEN Buddha drops a mountain on him.
Final Fantasy Legend, on the Game Boy. There are multiple worlds, and in every world there's a giant tower, and when you enter the tower, each level leads to a different world. Eventually you get to the very top and you fight God, who is guarding the door at the top level that leads to paradise.
Grezzo 2 (you fight the actual Christian god)
Asura's Wrath, DMC1, Bayonetta
Grim Dawn.
One moment you're dying on the gallows, the next you're fighting the tongue of a long dead god trying to reclaim it's appropriated flesh.
And the stakes only get higher from there for the DLCs.
OG Chrono Trigger
I mean... Dark Souls is the game that essentially created this meme.
Your entire goal is to beat up God and take his place so you can keep things going as they've been going for an untold number of centuries. Though IMO that's one of the bad endings; the good ending is ending the status quo and becoming a new, different god. A god a humanity instead of... Whatever the fuck the gods before were (they are separated from humanity, even though they look like humans) 🤷🏻♂️.
For a much older game... EarthBound. Starts off just being a quirky, modern day (modern day being the 90's in this case) RPG; ends with you fighting a literal space god that looks vaguely like a fallopian tube.
I'm fairly sure the meme was popularized way back with old JRPGs; just that they tended to be the ones with long enough stories to gain that kind of path of progression.