Sword Almighty

"Standing before the sword you long sought after, I can only wonder at what thoughts must have passed through your mind as you learned the truth of its awesome, terrible power. Soul Edge's legacy lives on to this day. It most likely will live on forever, for humans will always desire the ultimate weapon."

- Tristy, Soul Calibur 2

There's always that one rule in fantasy worlds that no matter what other, more potent weapon types that exist, the sword is the one weapon type that is always held as the standard by which the others are judged, usually due to some ancient Infinity+1 Sword that just so happens to exist. Yeah, that's right, even compared to a powerful Wave Motion Gun or a crossbow shooting explosive shells, the fine blade always comes out on top. It becomes all the more persistent in a world where Heroes Prefer Swords and corresponds with the main character being a sword user, in cases where the overall weapon type roster is of limited availability to characters.

This is mainly due to the Good Weapon, Evil Weapon principle making it the norm to have the Infinity+1 Sword or the swordly MacGuffin be in the hands of the Hero, (because straight-edged longswords are considered heroic weapons, and everybody likes to see the best stuff in heroic hands), so the end result is that all Infinity Plus One weapons must be swords.

See also Katanas Are Just Better for when it applies to, well, katanas. Related to Rock Beats Laser, with the sword being the rock.

Anime & Manga

 * Slayers normally plays this straight, but it's averted by the TRY season of the anime - the "Bow of Light" is the most powerful of the five Darkstar weapons.

Literature

 * Michael Moorcock
 * Stormbringer in the Elric of Melnibone stories.
 * The Sword of the Dawn in the Hawkmoon stories.
 * Dyrnwyn in The Chronicles of Prydain.
 * Lightbringer in A Song of Ice and Fire However,
 * Almost all Valyrian steel weapons in Westeros are swords, owing to the setting's High Fantasy roots. Each is considered an Ancestral Weapon to some family or other, so even if a newer, more efficient design came along, it's unlikely they'd have it reforged.
 * Callandor in The Wheel of Time
 * The Sword of Truth.

Mythology

 * Excalibur in the King Arthur stories.
 * How Almighty is a sword that breaks during the first war it's used in?
 * Also, the scabbard was mightier than the sword.
 * While Caliburn made a lot more sense, back when Arthur was the leader of a band of warriors, not a King with a bunch of knights, Excalibur ends up being mostly symbolic. Pulling it from the stone (a common theme throughout the stories, lots of knights pull swords out of stones) represents him being King by Divine Right, and being handed the new sword by the Lady of the Lake... is mostly included to make the two versions coexist, but fits in with Merlin's arch. Point is, most combat from Malory on has knights fighting with lances, halberds, and other more knightly weapons, and Arthur not actually using the sword to often (he is King, not a knight).
 * Even on TV Tropes, Excalibur in the Stone. Excalibur, the sword(+scabbard) King Arthur got from the Lady of the Lake never breaks. It's the sword he pulls from the stone (often called Caliburn) that breaks by itself because King Arthur is about to use it against the code of chivalry.

Video Games

 * As far as video games are concerned, both Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy helped codify this concept to a T, right down to having swords be the weapon type that helps strike down the Big Bad (alongside some Last-Disc Magic, of course).
 * Averted by Final Fantasy XII with the Zodiac Spear, surpassed only by FFXII International's invisible bow, the Seitengrate. In storyline terms, however, the Sword of Kings and the Treaty Blade are still considered ultimate weapons for their ability to.
 * In pretty much every Shining Force game, the weapon with the most attack power is always a sword and only the hero (provided he's promoted to his Hero class) may wield it.
 * The Material Blades in Tales of Symphonia.
 * Falchion, Durandal, Sol Katti, Ragnell, and Alondite in Fire Emblem. All legendary weapons, only usable by one character each, and (often) the only weapon that can damage the final boss.
 * In Morrowind the best weapon in the core game is between an Easter Egg long sword (the normal powered version is good too though), the main quest important hammer (which requires a special glove be worn with it so it doesn't kill you and drains your fatigue even if you have the glove) and a dagger that does 1.5 the damage of either, but needs to recharge after 11 hits. The limitations make the sword the best choice.
 * The first expansion pack ups the power by giving you 2 unique uber swords that have 20-75 damage (plus 30 fire damage) and swing fast but no other high end weapons (oh and one of the swords ). The 2nd expansion pack gives a spear that is blatantly inferior doing only 40-60 damage with some gimmicky enchantments that often backfire thanks to the reflect on high level foes (and is a two handed weapon!) that isn't very fast to attack with.
 * Neverwinter Nights 2 allows your character to use a wide range of weapons, but in the end you are stuck with the Sword of Plot Advancement, even if you are a mage (thankfully the sword gives abilities more along the lines of "boost intelligence" and "more spells" if you are one).
 * In Hamumu Software's Kid Mystic, the Armageddon Sword is the strongest weapon you can get despite the fact the main character's Weapon of Choice is a staff that shoots fireballs.
 * The Disgaea games have had a bad case of this. There's always a long list of weapons available, with a variety of advantages and disadvantages, but swords always stand out as the best one way or the other. It was particularly bad in the first game, where the most powerful sword available (The Yoshitsune) had more attack-power than the most powerful axe (so much for being considered raw power) AND had a range of 5 panels, far more than any other non-ranged weapon with none of their handicaps. On top of that, the sword's special-moves cover a wide variety of areas - from large fields to long lines - making them useful in a wide variety of situations (meanwhile, axes only have range-1 single-target specials). Later games tried to balance things. By the third game, it would be fair to say that swords aren't ahead by MUCH.
 * In Secret of Mana, the only weapon that can be and therefore the only weapon that can harm the final boss is the sword.
 * The best recurring weapon in Avernum (and usually the Sword of Plot Advancement) is the greatsword Demonslayer, both because of its high damage, and because a lot of the nastier boss monsters are demons. On the other hand, there are occasional one-off weapons that are more powerful (like Bloodthirster, a spear made by Lizard Folk that does bonus damage to humans.)
 * The Soul Series has Soul Edge and Soul Calibur. The plot of the games is driven by the swords and those who seek them out. While Soul Edge and Soul Calibur can transform into other weapons to suit their wielders, their default forms are swords.

Western Animation

 * In season two of the Jackie Chan Adventures, guess what weapon is the symbol of the Immortal who originally defeated Shendu? Go on, guess! Hint:
 * The new Thundercats series treats the Sword of Omens as one such weapon. The Evil Weapon the Sword of Omens was forged to fight against is also a sword, namely the Sword of Plundaar.