Character design in all fiction, including in video games, often uses a series of shortcuts to communicate things to the player. Characters with beard are frequently depicted as wise, evil, or deeply masculine. Characters wearing primarily black are often portrayed as villains or antiheroes. Meanwhile, a burly and bulky character can be presented as either a good-natured hero or a vicious brutal villain.
Physically small characters are rarely portrayed to be fighters. Instead, these video game characters are written to be magic-users, scientists, or other non-combat roles. This isn't always true, particularly in more fantastical settings, and characters who appear small can prove themselves devastating in a fight.
10 Laharl Is Well-Designed To Kill Things In One Hit
RPGs of various stripes often support a disconnect between size and fighting ability, usually having young or slight protagonists who prove capable of fighting gods. Disgaea: Hour of Darkness takes things up to another level. Its protagonist Laharl resembles a small teenager, is under five feet tall, and has an unhealthy lifestyle that involves very little exercise.
Despite this, Laharl is one of the game's most powerful units. Late in Disgaea, he proves capable of smiting the immensely powerful beings his army goes up against in one shot. This applies in the game's fiction as well, where Laharl displays impressive feats of strength time and time again.
9 Edelgard Is One Of The Physically Strongest Characters
One of three potential Lords in Fire Emblem: Three Houses, Edelgard is one of the shortest characters in the game, standing at 158cm. As a Lord, she's one of the game's most dangerous units and quite possibly the most powerful Lord in the entire game.
In all Fire Emblem, a character's appearance isn't linked to their stats, meaning plenty of characters who appear small possess high stats. In the Edelgard's case, however, there's an in-universe explanation linking the two. She's one of the few characters to possess two "Crests," immensely powerful hereditary markers that in turn stunt growth.
8 Young Link Is No Less Dangerous Than The Older Versions
Link of The Legend of Zelda is never particularly old or well-built by the time he's inevitably called in to fight Ganon and save the day, but several games exaggerate this by having their incarnation of Link be a child. Informally known as Young Link, he appears in games like Ocarina of Time and Wind Waker.
In these games, Link is well off from adulthood, often not more than a child. Despite this, he proves himself to be incredibly capable. One of the best swordfighters in Hyrule, Link takes on knights, monsters, and ancient evils regardless his lack of height or muscles.
7 Rajang Is An Aggressive And Dangerous Beast
In comparison to the human hunters, Monster Hunter's Rajang is by no means small. However, compared to other monsters, Rajang cuts a distinctly undersized silhouette. Little more than twice a person's size, it stands out compared to the huge wyverns and gargantuan Elder Dragons of the world, to the point that being small is one of its distinctive physical traits.
At no point does this make a Rajang less dangerous. They are notorious for being one of the game's most aggressive and dangerous monsters, using densely-packed muscles and reservoirs of bad temper to threaten the player and much, much larger monsters alike.
6 Sora Is A Proficient Combatant
Neither Disney nor the Final Fantasy franchise are known for their exaggeratedly muscular characters, so it's no surprise the protagonist of crossover series Kingdom Hearts tends towards being thin. However, Sora goes further than many expect, being a young teenager who only just tops five feet tall.
Despite his lack of size — particularly in comparison to his game's villains — Sora has never once struggled to pull his weight. He shows himself to be perfectly strong and capable with his Keyblade, and one of the most dangerous combatants in the Kingdom Hearts universe.
5 Clank Deals Significant Damage To His Foes
Neither protagonist of the Ratchet and Clank series is particularly large, a fact emphasized when they come in contact with enemies and NPCs alike. As relatively short as Ratchet is, he towers over Clank, who's small enough and light enough to ride around on Ratchet's back during combat.
Even with small size, Clank is more than a match for the foes he and Ratchet come across, taking at least as much credit as Ratchet does for their victories. During the many sequences where he's controlled alone, he proves himself to be a glass cannon. He's capable of using special abilities to deal huge amounts of damage to enemies, but goes down quickly himself.
4 Kirby Is An Enormously Powerful Small Blob
One of the most notoriously powerful beings in all of Nintendo's library, the titular character of the Kirby series is one of the least-threatening characters in existence. A pink blob wearing boots, Kirby's official diameter is given as eight inches, although there are discrepancies between games.
Despite his height and generally gentle nature, Kirby is a terrible being to make an enemy of. He is immensely powerful, shown disrupting a number of apocalyptic-level threats. In addition, while friendly and forgiving, Kirby has shown himself to be viciously vindictive to those who attempt to fool him or reject his offers of redemption.
3 Rikku Is A Slight Thief Who Can Break The Damage Limit
The player characters in Final Fantasy X have a range of body types, from the leanly-muscular Auron, to the well-built Kimahri, to the slight caster Yuna. However, the smallest member of the cast by some margin is Rikku, the party's thief. She's shorter than the other characters and isn't portrayed as having a lot of muscle.
This doesn't stop Rikku from being every bit as dangerous as the rest of the party. She's no less capable in a straight fight than any other character in the game, particularly when the player makes headway in the Sphere Grid. Towards the end of the game, Rikku is entirely capable of breaking the damage limit and reaching the extended limit of 99999 damage in an attack.
2 Little Mac Can Duke It Out With The Strongest Fighters
Boxing is a sport carefully divided into weight categories as a result of how important size and muscle are for its competitors. These categories don't seem to exist in the Punch Out!! game series, which follow a protagonist explicitly named Little Mac as he goes up against a host of much larger opponents.
Mac should be at a significant disadvantage by all known boxing conventions. But with a sufficiently-skilled player behind him, he can topple his much-stronger opponents, up to and including infamous boxers like Mike Tyson.
1 Mario Is A Plumber Who Goes On Rampages
One of the most iconic characters and mascots in gaming, Mario is actually far shorter than many people think. Even after he's taken a size-increasing mushroom, he only stands at a hair over five feet, eight inches shorter than his brother Luigi.
As Bowser and his koopas have learned, this doesn't mean Mario is harmless. Capable of taking on entire armies of Bowser's followers, Mario's height doesn't present any obstacles. If anything, Mario makes it a strength. Even outside his games, he's depicted as being ready for the next fight, especially in series like Super Smash Bros.