Tell us if this sounds familiar: you're on the final level of a video game, you've gotten through wave after wave of low-level enemies that have all but depleted your health, strength, ammo and power, but there's still one more enemy -- the final boss. Is this grim situation completely hopeless, or is there a way out? Hopefully you've gained, saved or discovered a secret weapon, an all-powerful power-up that gives you the strength you need to get through the big bad boss and beat the game. Whether it's the final battle, a tight spot, or just a desire to use excessive force against low-level enemies for laughs, ultra-powerful video game weapons are awesome to have. Sometimes they're hard to find, sometimes it's just luck and sometimes you earned it by grinding through countless hours of gameplay, but it was all worth it to get that power up to make the game more fun and interesting.
With so many games, and thus so many weapons, which among all the guns, swords and other sundry power-ups are the strongest of all time? While we can't say we've covered all the metaphorical video game ground, we think we've got a pretty good lineup of ultimate video games weapons for you here. From classic to modern, we are taking a look at the strongest video game weapons of all time, taking into consideration the power they have on their own, the power of their primary user, and the potential they have. With that, here is our official ranking of the 20 strongest weapons in video games!
20 SPREAD GUN
Often regarded as the best weapon to get in any Contra game, the Spread Gun, also known as the Spread Shot, is pretty much unstoppable, shooting projectiles in five different directions at once. It was semi-automatic in the original Contra but was capable of full-auto shooting in later games.
The Spread Gun is like a beefed-up version of a typical shotgun, which, while incredibly awesome, means that the gun isn't too far off from a real weapon. In other words, as cool as the Spread Shot is and as awesome as it felt to get the upgrade while playing the classic game, the weapon itself isn't all that special.
19 HIDDEN BLADES
They say don't bring a knife to a gun fight, but that's not exactly true when comparing the Spread Gun to signature hidden blades of the Assassin's Creed games. While the blades themselves don't have any special capabilities besides stealth and looking cool, their true strength comes from the highly-trained assassins who use them.
Members of the secret assassin organization are incredibly skilled with the use of hidden blades -- it is their signature weapon after all -- and are trained to use it for both stealth and in hand-to-hand situations, always striking with deadly precision. Again, the blades are rather ordinary, but the people who use them make them tools of great power.
18 BUSTER SWORD
We originally wanted to put Cloud Strife's secondary giant weapon, the Fusion Sword, on this list, since it is made of multiple swords and is thus an impressive upgrade to the original. However, since that weapon never actually appeared in a main Final Fantasy video game, we're going to go with his original, signature weapon, the Buster Sword.
The Buster Sword might just seem like an "ordinary" giant sword at first glance, but in the hands of a skilled soldier such as Cloud, it can be wielded with great power and force, the slots for Materia helping to enhance both Cloud and the sword's power.
17 SUPER HAMMER
Depending on whether or not you are playing Donkey Kong or Super Smash Bros., the Super Hammer can be a blessing or a curse. In Donkey Kong, the hammer is the best way to blaze past barrels and obstacles without taking any hits. The hammer also has the same effect for whomever gets it in Smash Bros.
The difference is that in Donkey Kong, the only thing getting hit by the hammer are barrels, while in Smash Bros. the other players are at the mercy of whomever gets their hand on this unstoppable weapon. Then again, sometimes the top comes off and it can be pretty easy to avoid, so it's not exactly all-powerful.
16 BLUE SHELL
The Super Hammer might not be all-powerful, but there is one Mario-related item that practically is -- that gosh-darned Blue Shell. For those who haven't played Mario Kart in a while, the Blue Shell is an item that, when thrown, will seek out whomever is in first place and knock them out of the lead, paralyzing them long enough to lose their position.
The Blue Shell has frustrated Mario Kart players for years, standing as the most annoyingly powerful items the game has to offer. But, since its only real application is in race situations, this video game weapon doesn't make it past the bottom five.
15 METAL BLADE
The Metal Blade in Mega Man 2 is a bit of an enigma; at first glance, it doesn't really look like it does anything more than the ability to produce infinite buzzsaws. Useful in a fight for sure, but the buzzsaws aren't exactly magic or anything... or are they?
The basic concept of the Mega Man games is that the Robot Masters work like a big game of rock-paper-scissors; one Master's power is strong against another Master's. However, the Metal Blade is effective against everyone in Mega Man 2, including Metal Man himself -- a strange paradox that makes it the strongest power/weapon in the game, and one of the strongest weapons in all of classic gaming.
14 ENERGY SWORD
What would a massively successful sci-fi video game franchise like Halo be if it didn't have a lightsaber-like weapon? The Energy Sword is not only iconic-looking, it's also one of the coolest and strongest weapons in the series. The Energy Sword is easily the best weapon to use in close-quarters combat, dealing crazy damage with ease.
In the hands of a skilled swordsman — the elite, noble few who are taught the ways of the blade — the Energy Sword can be a great tool. In terms of power, though, it is not much more than a simple energy blade; thus, it doesn't get too high of a ranking.
13 ULTIMA WEAPON
The Keyblade is the ultimate weapon in the world of Kingdom Hearts, a magical blade wielded by a chosen fiew that can use it to unlock the hearts of people and worlds. In terms of power, the Keyblade is a magical sword capable of great feats, and the greatest Keyblade of all is the Ultima Weapon.
Only available through a synthesis recipe that requires lots of grinding and material farming, the Ultima Weapon has the highest stats of any Keyblade, giving Sora a massive boost in magic and strength that makes even the strongest bosses seem like small fries. Plus, it looks awesome -- just check out that design!
12 'MERICA
Nothing mystical or magical about this weapon, it's literally just a bunch of powerful real-world weapons slapped together into a monstrosity of American pride and psychotic invention. Coming from Saints Row IV, the 'Merica is made up of eight different weapons all going off at once.
Only such a ridiculous and over-the-top game series like Saints Row could make a weapon that consists of a light machine gun, a sub machine gun, an auto shotgun, a heavy pistol, a minigun, a rocket launcher, a flamethrower, and a combat knife. It might not have any special abilities (and it definitely would have one heck of a kick in real life) but we still wouldn't want to stare down the barrel, or rather, barrels of this thing.
11 PORTAL GUN
While a Portal Gun isn't exactly a weapon per se, it does have combat applications, and "gun" is in the name, so we're going to count it. The Portal Gun is capable of, short-range teleportation via the use of, you guessed it, portals. These portals allow for some interesting fun with physics, which is where the combat applications comes in.
A portal gun can be used to to launch objects, energy blasts, bullets and even the user at whatever they wish. Heck, the target could be taken care of with something as simple as a portal shot below them. Suffice it to say, when you think with portals, the Portal Gun is one powerful video game weapon.
10 GOLDEN GUN
Maybe it's a bit of a stretch to say that Goldeneye's biggest legacy as a film was the N64 game that was based on it, but seeing as how it pretty much revolutionized the first-person-shooter genre and introduced it to console gaming, it might be a fair conclusion. Regardless, amongst the many weapons you could use in the game, there was the Golden Gun, which was a pistol that could defeat any opponent with a single shot.
However, despite this insanely useful ability, the Golden Gun could only carry one bullet at a time, thus a reload was necessary after every shot; a bit of a drawback for sure, but the one-hit-defeat is still an awesome advantage to have.
9 GRAVITY GUN
Much like the Portal Gun, the Gravity Gun is all about how you use it; it was made for heavy lifting and possibly to clear minefields, but players of Half-Life 2 know that it has a lot of powerful uses. By simply grabbing objects with the Gravity Gun, the user can lift things that would normally be too heavy for them, but the real magic comes from the ability to launch objects.
With great force, the Gravity Gun can shoot whatever the user is lifting with it at whomever or whatever they wish. The power of this application of the Gravity Gun depends on what you launch, be it heavy boxes or buzzsaws, but the real value of this weapon is how much fun it is.
8 THE BFG
Now we come to the namesake of this list, the BFG, an enormous projectile weapon that originated in the Doom series. "BFG" stands for Big "Freaking" Gun (well, not exactly, but you get the idea) and that's exactly what it is, a big freaking gun with lots of power to back up its impressive size and eccentric name.
The most powerful weapon in the game, the BFG shoots a cloud of plasma balls that destroy enemies in one hit. Even better, the player is unaffected by the plasma so the weapon can be used in both close and long-rage situations. There are some variations on the weapon throughout the various entries of the Doom franchise, but the fact remains that it's the game's most powerful weapon.
7 THE FAT MAN
The Fat Man isn't a complicated weapon, it's pretty much just a catapult that launches a miniature nuclear warhead. Well, the nuke itself isn't simple, but the mechanics of how it's launched at targets is, which is part of the fun of the weapon, of course. It's basically a slingshot that shoots nuclear explosions.
As for how powerful it is, the ammo tells us all we need, Mini-Nukes, a staple of the Fallout series that are exactly what their name implies, bombs with the power of a nuclear warhead, but on a smaller scale. But, don't let their size fool you, the Mini-Nukes are great for taking out a large group of enemies.
6 THE CHAOS EMERALDS
The Chaos Emeralds on their own are not quite weapons, but the way they've been implemented shows that they are capable of immensely powerful and destructive potential. In the hands of a genius like Dr. Eggman, they can be used as an energy source for powerful doomsday weapons or devices to get that darn hedgehog.
In the hands of living creatures like Sonic or the water-like creature known as Chaos, the Chaos Emeralds can also drastically increase the user's power, turning Sonic into Super Sonic and Chaos into Perfect Chaos. Furthermore, with proper knowledge, they can be used for things like teleportation in the case of Shadow's signature Chaos Control.
5 BLADES OF CHAOS & LEVIATHAN AXE
It takes a lot of guts, power and strength to take on gods, but Kratos has managed to defeat all those who have stood in his way, partially thanks to his powerful weapons, the Blades of Chaos and, more recently, his Levithan Axe. Kratos replaced the Blades of Chaos with similar blades throughout the original God of War trilogy, but we chose to focus on the originals, which were forged by the God of War himself, Ares.
Kratos changed his weapon entirely in God of War, switching from two blades to a single war axe, and a magical Norse one at that. The Levithan Axe was forged with power equivalent to Thor's hammer, Mjolnir, which is all you need to know about the weapon's power.
4 THE MASTER SWORD
What is there to say about the Master Sword that the name itself doesn't already say? It's the master of all swords, the blade of blades, a weapon passed down from great warrior to great warrior throughout the entire Legend of Zelda timeline/franchise.
As for the power of the legendary blade, the Master Sword is, in most incarnations, capable of great magical attacks like a Skyward Strike, or some other form of energy blast and/or slash. On top of this, the Master Sword can cut through magic, dispel curses and is immune to most effects of the dark arts, becoming a great weapon of justice in the hands of a pure-hearted hero.
3 FIERCE DEITY MASK
What's this? There's a weapon from Legend of Zelda that's more powerful than The Master Sword? Yes, and it comes from Majora's Mask. We are, of course, talking about the Fierce Deity Mask, which turns Link into Fierce Deity Link, which is just as awesome as it sounds.
In his Fierce Deity form, Link essentially becomes a god, which we think trumps a measly Master Sword in terms of power. In fact, Link's sword beams become exponentially more powerful, and he is capable of hitting with more powerful ranged attacks on top of gaining a massive increase in his strength, speed and durability.
2 INVINCIBLITY STAR
The Invincibility Star is another entry on this list that isn't exactly a weapon, but we're going to count it based on the fact that after gaining it, Mario or other users essentially become a weapon themselves, able to barrel through opponents and defeat them without taking any damage.
The effects of the Invincibility Star are rather short, but during the time of use, enemies in Mario's parth are completely powerless to his super-speedy assault of rainbow-colored destruction. Okay, that might be a bit of a colorfully extreme way of putting it, but you get the idea -- the Invincibility Star is awesome.
1 SMASH BALL
So, what beats literal invincibility? Another not-quite-a-weapon weapon from Nintendo, the Smash Ball was introduced in Super Smash Bros. Brawl and has been in the series since. Its introduction brought a whole new factor to Smash Bros. gameplay, since it could turn the tide of any fight when obtained.
The Smash Ball is able to unlock the ultimate power/attack of any player that breaks through its shell and accesses the energy within it. Depending on the power and the player using it, a Final Smash is almost always an instant win against all opponents, which is why we think it's the number one strongest video game weapon of all time.