Villain Forgot to Level Grind/Playing With

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Basic Trope: Heroes get stronger through Level Grinding while villians don't get strong enough to match.

  • Straight: Emperor Evulz sends Doom Komodo after Prince Bob. Doom Komodo is at Level 27, while Bob is at Level 1, getting Bob into a Hopeless Boss Fight. Later on in Disc 2, Bob comes back with the Five-Man Band of Alice, Emily, Charlie, and Dave, all in their mid-30s, while Doom Komodo is still at Level 27.
  • Exaggerated: Doom Komodo is at Level 1, same as Bob, but uses an HP to One attack. He comes back later at Level 1, while the heroes have reached the Cap of Level 100 and got the best Mons.
  • Justified: Doom Komodo, just like the other enemies, can't increase in level, even though he's not one of the Mons.
    • Alternatively, Doom Komodo is the toughest being in his ecological niche; he has no reason to believe the hero will improve so drastically, and no good sparring partners to up his own game.
  • Inverted: The Sorting Algorithm of Evil is in play, but it's the heroes who remain static while their opponents steadily grow in power.
  • Subverted: Doom Komodo gets even stronger the third time around.
  • Double Subverted: After Bob defeats a lot of the enemy's resources, Doom Komodo stays static between the third and final fights.
  • Parodied: Doom Komodo is revealed to have been called back from his vacation for the second battle; he's literally been doing no training for the rematch.
  • Deconstructed: Emperor Evulz has a Xanatos Gambit going on - he drains the power of heroes that level grind. Doom Komodo was completely useless.
  • Reconstructed: They manage to defeat Emperor Evulz anyway.
  • Zig Zagged: Level 50 Lamia is easily defeated by the level 65 Five-Man Band. However she then becomes a level 80 One-Winged Angel. But then she sends down high XP minions and Alice and Bob Level Up to Level 90 and defeat Lamia in one swoop. But then she becomes a Level 95 Broken Winged Angel and defeats the heroes. But then Alice and Bob go off to find her and go into Level 100 and defeat her.
  • Averted: All major enemies scale in difficulty alongside the heroes' level grinding, so that they always prove challenging.
    • Doom Komodo gets stronger for the rematch.
  • Enforced: If the audience is not given some semi-plausible reason to believe that the heroes will beat the villain the second time around, they will simply give up hope and stop playing.
  • Lampshaded: "In the three years since we first met, I've been fighting monsters and training for combat while you have been watching TV. Do you really think you're going to win this time?"
  • Invoked: ???
  • Defied: Doom Komodo undergoes Training from Hell.
  • Discussed: "This Cannot Be!!" "Well, if you hadn't been sitting around all this time practicing your Evil Laugh..."
  • Conversed: ???
  • Plotted A Good Waste: The Empire has been in power for so long that their forces have grown complacent and overconfident; this is translated into gameplay by having most major villians never gain levels, while more Genre Savvy villians do scale to prove a greater threat to the party -- and to players lulled into their own false sense of security by their own victories.
  • Played For Laughs: The Five-Bad Band gang of Doom Komodo, Doctor Von Teslastein, Jason Bloodspiller, Lamia, and Violet pops up several times, but retain their same laughably low levels throughout the entire game.
  • Played For Drama: Bob only survives the first fight because Ichigo and Junpei save him. He makes sure to add Guest Star Party Members and adds Dave, Charlie, Alice, and Emily, not to mention the Training from Hell.

HERO strikes LAMIA for 487 damage! LAMIA realizes that the Villain Forgot to Level Grind!

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