Like it or not, weakening a character or weapon to make them weaker on purpose is a necessary evil in video games. A recent Reddit thread wondered who the most weakened character in history is, which yielded answers ranging from live service games to massive RPG sequels.
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The original poster of this question claimed that Spider-Man/Peter Parker was weakened in the spin-off Spider-Man: Miles Morales because he was unable to defeat supervillain Rhino in the latter, while he had little trouble in the original Spider-Man game. Users have responded with their own interpretations which include a mix of both story and gameplay weaknesses. Some of these examples include Gale from Baldur's Gate 3, Death Claws from Fallout, Brigitte from Overwatch, and Jedis from Star Wars Galaxies. Character specific weaknesses in games like these are usually made to remove overpowered mechanics and make playing against them less of a chore.
Fighting games have also been known to weaken characters between installments or patches. Examples cited by users include Kirby's switch from the original Super Smash Bros. to Super Smash Bros. Melee, Bayonetta's switch from Super Smash Bros. for Wii U/3DS to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, and Leroy Smith's weakening from Tekken 7 to Tekken 8. Characters in fighting games can become weakened for a variety of reasons, whether it's because they're deemed "broken" by the community due to easily exploitable moves, or additional mechanics and system changes that introduce unintended weakenings.
Outside of the more character-specific answers, one of the most common responses to this question was that a main character becomes weakened when they go from having powerful weapons at the end of the previous game to having virtually nothing in the sequel. Whether it’s Kratos from God of War or Link from The Legend of Zelda, no protagonist is safe from having their stats and weapons whittled down between installments. While this practice may not make sense within the narrative of the games they’re set in, it’s necessary from a gameplay standpoint. Starting a new game with extremely high stats and weapons robs the player of any real challenge or sense of discovery.
