Best and Worst Power-ups in Fiction

[Astaro]

Simply put, thread will be about the best and worst power-ups / transformations you’ve seen throughout anything be it anime, comics, video games, etc

Reason for either it being either awesome or lame are whatever you come up be it bad design or not living up to its hype, etc

Also alternate, if one brings up the best power-up, the next post will be the worst power-up and vice-versa

Because I love being negative, I’ll start things off with a crappy one

Naruto’s Baryon Mode in Boruto

It looks okay but damn this thing sucks in every other way. The weird scientific name and comparison to nuclear fusion feel out of place in a verse that runs on ninja magic. It only lasts a few minutes and the drawbacks are way too severe, between no jutsu, and needing to be perfectly still and making the least amount of movements, essentially waiting for the opponent to come to you first? Oh and regardless, once it wears out Naruto or Kurama die anyway

And for what? A boost in stats and a lame life drain with each hit that wasn’t even good enough to kill a guy who already only had a hours to live

Whole thing was lazily put together to both officially write Naruto out and set things up for Kawaki to finish off Isshiki and nothing more.

There’s a reason no one bothers with arguing this form in Vs Debates despite it being Naruto’s “strongest”, it’s so crappy for literally any other situation besides the one Isshiki that there’s no point to it over the far better Sage of 6 Paths

Only thing I can give credit for is the anime did it justice.



Here he can at least pull off a Rasengan and puts up a way better fight than in the manga

Next, Best Power-Up

 

[Cubey]

I thought Superman prime (1 million) was his best powerup

 

[OtherGalaxy]

Adult Gon and Gear 5 are some of my favorites in recent years. Both were really good extensions of the character arcs in addition to having really unique designs and I mean, the way the Adult Gon fight is drawn kinda speaks for itself

Spoiler

Gear 5 is just fun. It's everything good about One Piece. Luffy's just a silly guy, so his ultimate power being to become more goofy is good.

Spoiler

I'm not the biggest fan of how Wano ended but I reread this chapter like 10 times when it dropped.

This one's an odd pick for me because Vento Aureo is my least favorite JoJo part and Giorno's my least favorite JoJo, but I really love GER

Spoiler

At the time I'd never read about any power as ridiculous as this and the fact that it looks and behaves like a weird alien added to the mystique. It's the ultimate asspull but it's one that I can't help but find interesting.

Non manga related, Optimus Prime's super modes in the Unicron Trilogy shows

Spoiler

This was the most Transformers ever leaned into the super robot genre and I think they did it really well. A lot of people aren't as attached to Cybertron, but I think it's because aside from Megas XLR, it's basically the only western super robot show that actually feels like a super robot anime in existence. It's got saiyan auras and random powerups for no reason and cosmic stakes and God Swords. It's hard as hell.



Dislikes: Most western superhero alternate forms. Just think they tend to miss the point of the characters. I don't want to read about some alternate Batman or Wonder Woman going god mode for some reason. It doesn't have the same effect as when Simon did it to the Anti-Spiral. Works rarely with certain characters (Superman and Hal Jordan get off better than most), but in general they rarely iterate on the core character in an interesting way.

 

[Astaro]

@OtherGalaxy

Forget GER, the real GOATed powerup of JJBA right here

I love all of Araki’s art style but it’s a shame we’ll never get anything like this again with how skinny he draws characters, including Johnathan now

 

[OtherGalaxy]

it's really funny to me that no matter how different Dio looks, he still feels like Dio in modern drawings. Meanwhile Jonathan looks like a completely different character every single time, and none of them look like the original Jonathan

 

[B Rabbit]

Zoro's "King of Hell" and Vegeta's "Ultra Ego"

The names are so cringey, good lord.

 

[Astaro]

Zoro's "King of Hell" and Vegeta's "Ultra Ego"

The names are so cringey, good lord.

I don’t like Ultra Ego because of how lazy the form itself looks too. It’s recycles the eyebrow-less face of Super Saiyan 3 while just making Vegeta’s hair purple.

Good Power-Ups: Ultra Instinct both Sign and Mastered.

Really cool concept and these moments made the entire internet explode with the hype.





Really felt like Toriyama learned from his mistake with Super Saiyan God and Blue feeling underwhelming by comparison. Even better, Ultra Instinct was foreshadowed as far back as Resurrection of F to be the goal aimed towards Goku and Vegeta’s God Ki training

 

[Solar Sailor]

Zoro's "King of Hell" and Vegeta's "Ultra Ego"

The names are so cringey, good lord.

I always thought “King of Hell” wasn’t a power up.

just a new nickname to replace “Pirate Hunter”

Like how Mihawk replaced his marine hunter moniker to Hawk-Eyes

 

[Flowering Knight]

Ex-Aid's Maximum Gamer form looks like shit.

That's all I need to not like it. Way too big and clunky for my tastes, if this was a one-off form or something we'd otherwise only see a little bit of, I wouldn't mind as much, but you see this form a lot more than you think when it shows up. Fortunately they made up for it with Hyper Muteki, which is such a good design and a godly step up from the previous form.

It's so much better looking it's not even funny. Even if you don't actually see it all that much (for obvious reasons, it literally makes Emu invincible).

 

[Stocking Anarchy]

Best power ups, which I find to be inspiring, carthatic, unique, emotional, badass, unforgetable and more!

All the transformations and powerups from Gurren Lagan (for being badass and iconic, and personally formulate inspirational, as the heroes literally take on the Universe and show that humanity can be just as big and bold as any terror it faces).


Galo de Lion (for being a perfect call back to Super Galaxy Gurren Lagann as well as its own thing, and being a carthatic ending to one of the few things that's lived up to the hype for me).

Genesic GaoGaiGar (badass, and why courage always triumphs over villainry).

Nirvash Type-Zero during a Seven Swell (beautiful and sublime, just like the series it comes from)

Martin Septim becomes the Avatar of Akatosh.

And we'd be amiss to forget one of the greatest powerups ever...

Behold, I am not Gandalf the Grey, whom you betrayed. I am Gandalf the White, who has returned from death. You have no colour now, and I cast you from the order and from the Council.

 

[Gordo]

Zoro's "King of Hell" and Vegeta's "Ultra Ego"

The names are so cringey, good lord.

Ultra Ego is just a shorter localized name to match Ultra Instinct (which itself is also a shortened localized name)

The real name in Japanese is suppose to be “The Secret of the Self-Indulgent.” But of course that name is too long

 

[RavenSupreme]

While it’s the most powerful form of Raven and scales to the highest tier possible in DC (of course in that tier there are still a couple folks higher than her) the Unkindness has one of the worst optics I have seen in a very long time and takes a lot of the joy of following the character for me.

 

[OtherGalaxy]

Four Who Are One from Elric is a more recent all time favorite of mine
four guys can just become a bigger, more four-er, guy

 

[lokoxDZz]

Darsh powers up are definetly some of my favorites,not only they are cool they are also just overall broken

 

[Masterblack06]

One of the best?



The Worst power up?

 

[Stocking Anarchy]

Now, for the worst...

Strelizia Apus (lackluster).

Alan Sylvasta's true form (after being set up as a manipulator who uses his wits to survive in a city of superhuman beastmen, having him be the most powerful beastman ever felt kind of disappointing; it's technically not bad, but given a directer of another of my all time favourites was behind it, and it was written by the writer of another two of my all time favourites, I feel they really should have known better).

 

[OtherGalaxy]

One of the best?



The Worst power up?

come to think of it, 7DS I don't think had a single good powerup, besides Escanor's forms, but even then the mustache looks bad on him to me

 

[Astaro]

Mustache honestly completes Escanor if you ask me.

Galand also looked pretty cool in his Critical form. Too bad it was just done to show off how OP Escanor still is in comparison

 

[OtherGalaxy]

Galan got shafted so hard
he deserved to be in a better manga

at least he got to use that form in the angel flashback, which were the only good chapters in that absolute trash heap of a last 100 chapters

 

[Astaro]

Worst power-ups

Kubo’s obsession with ink blots hit its peak here between the design and being all Yhwach attacked with in this form.

Designs stupid and tries way too hard to be unsettling while failing. Found Yhwach’s fights much more interesting when he relied on advanced versions of Quincy techniques over his boring Almighty and this final form that looks like it was thought up in a few minutes.