LogFAQs > #922237931

Today's trope is Crutch Character. Here is the link: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CrutchCharacter

Crutch characters are player characters (typically available early on) who start out powerful enough to carry your party to victory on their own, but the player cannot rely on them indefinitely. This could be because they Can't Catch Up with the increased powers of newer enemies or their fellow characters, or because they simply leave the party at some point (possibly because they are The Mole), or they are killed, thus forcing the player to somehow come up with a replacement. Worse, without Leaked Experience, the crutch may actually cripple your party if you lean on them too heavily if they leave, or if their diminishing returns make their levels empty, then you've functionally wasted experience points that could have made other characters powerful. In short, they are the character equivalent of a Disc-One Nuke.

There are six reasons for this trope occurring:

The character is forced to Level Drain.
Weaker enemies give less EXP to more powerful characters, so the character Can't Catch Up.
The character is a Guest-Star Party Member.
The character leaves, and doesn't come back until everyone else has caught up.
The character is meant to be A Taste of Power that lingered for too long, who later leaves or dies.
The character simply has bad stat growth; they don't gain as much from leveling up as the other characters do.

Thus, they are like a crutch you can lean on them to overcome a weakness early on, but eventually, the game will kick the crutch out from under you, and your other characters must have learned to stand on their own two feet by that time, or you are doomed to fail (and if you still have it by the time you're fully healed, it will be much more of a liability to carry around).

TL,DR: A character or item that is available early in the game and is very powerful for when you get them, such that you risk becoming overly dependent on them, and getting into trouble because of that when you lose them and/or the enemies catch up to them.

Nominations:
Vinceborg (Barkley Shut Up and Jam Gaiden)
Salamence (Super Pokemon Mystery Dungeon)
The Angel of Valhalla (Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII)