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The Power Of Love

The Power of Love in video games.

• Alpha Centauri deliberately invokes this with the Children's Creche colony facility, with the description noting that aside from providing children with security and education, the fact that parents' children are close at hand will drive them to fight to the death to protect them (in-game, this means that all defending units in that colony will fight at Commando-level morale, giving them major defense bonuses).
• In Anchorhead, this comes up in the game's best ending. Showing your wedding ring to Michael is ultimately what drives Croseus Verlac out of him.
• One of the arcana powersets in the fighting game Arcana Heart is Partineas, the Arcana of Love. It revolves primarily around projectile attacks (and defense). Naturally, it's the default Arcana of the resident Love Freak Idiot Hero, Heart Aino.
  • In fact, this arcana is statistically so balanced that any character can use it skillfully without any major stat dampeners. This will leave you out of a few perks like extra power, healing, speed- In fact, the Extend force is just a normal cancel without using up your super bar.
• In Asura's Wrath, Unstoppable Rage and his hate for those who betrayed him aren't the only things driving Asura. His love for his daughter Mithra is arguably the greatest strength he possesses, and what sets him apart from his former comrades with the exception of Yasha, who eventually sides with Asura believing they can save the world without sacrificing Mithra or anyone else.
• In Azur Lane, having high Affection ratings with a shipgirl can increase her stats by up to 12%. It is theorized that shipgirls becoming stronger the more they love their commander is down to them becoming closer to human (Humanity is Infectious plus Humanity Is Superior). A lot of the gloomier girls also become warmer and kinder with a high Affection rating.
• Blaster Master Zero 3: When Jason is given the Elemental Blaster, he's told he'll need to pour all his "heart" into using it to free Eve from the mutants' influence, something he remains determined to do right up to the end. And then it fails. As gets pointed out to Jason, as well-intentioned as he was his goal was entirely one-sided and didn't take Eve's feelings into consideration at all. In order to get a happy ending, he has to swallow his pride, listen to her, and think about what they both want.
• It's strongly implied by the many endings of Brass Restoration that the only way for Ryo to recover emotionally from losing his arm and being unable to fulfill his dream of being a drummer is to find a girlfriend.
  • The exact phrase is even used in one of the routes.
• Parodied in Breath of Death VII, where late in the game Sara randomly decides that Dem loves her, with the two gaining the Unite technique "True Love". In contrast, when Lita brushes off Erik's advances, they gained the "Scorned Love" technique.
• Chaos Rings uses this trope a lot. 4 couples are kidnapped to fight in the Arc Arena. All 4 couple's stories involve them inevitably falling in love or have them in love at the start. In the ending, it is revealed that the purpose of the battle arena was to pick the strongest couple, now with the best Power of Love has to propogate the human species and save the world against a Cosmic Horror. It also gets reflected in the battle mechanism, where a couple attacking together is inevitably stronger than a solo attack, and has less chance of missing.
• City of Heroes has one mission where the reward is a temporary power; a wedding ring, filled with the love of a woman for her dead husband, that can give you resistance to all kinds of damage for a limited time.
• Ironically enough, in Devil May Cry, this is something of a recurring motif. One of the points that comes up often throughout the series is the idea that strength isn't enough; to become truly strong, yes, strength is necessary, but love is equally necessary in order to channel that strength. Dante alludes to this in the fourth installment, telling Agnus, after he defeats him, that while humans lack the physical strength that demons do, humans possess something demons don't (i.e. love). It's also shown, however, that beings of demonic nature can awaken to love and compassion, and in doing so, become so much stronger.
  • The series began due to an example of this. The legendary Dark Knight Sparda, in the distant past, awakened to love thanks to the human Eva (Dante and Vergil's mother). As a result, Sparda became a heroic figure and turned on Mundus, the ruler of the underworld, imprisoning him and separating the underworld from the human world, setting the events of the series in motion.
  • The Devil Sword Sparda, Sparda's original sword and one of the often targeted artifacts of the series, actually works through this. While the sword can only be wielded by beings of great strength, it is, in truth, an Empathic Weapon, and will only release its true power in the hands of people with great strength and love. Dante was able to release the sword's full power in Devil May Cry (2001) not simply because of his strength, but also because of the love he held for his family, allowing him to defeat Mundus. Trish, while being a demon, awakened to love and compassion because of Dante, and thus is also able to wield the sword fully.
  • The villains who seek the power of Sparda and demonic power in general throughout the series are called out as failing in their quests and lacking true strength because they lack the ability to love:
    • In Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening, when Arkham successfully gets his hands on Sparda's power, he quickly loses control of it, as Vergil rightly points out, devolving into a monster. Since Arkham has absolutely no love or concern for anything, he's unable to handle the power of Sparda.
    • In Devil May Cry 4, when Sanctus questions why he is unable to wield Sparda's power, even though he wields his weapon, Nero tells him it is because Sparda had the capacity to love another person, even a human, and this is what Sanctus lacks.
  • In Devil May Cry 5, this comes up when Dante fights Urizen for the final time. Urizen (who's actually the demonic half of Vergil as an independent being) is aghast at how Dante is able to oppose him even after Urizen ate the fruit of the Qliphoth tree, becoming inordinately powerful as a result. He questions how Dante can have such strength, saying that he never lost anything in seeking power. Dante calls out Urizen on this, saying how strength doesn't come from loss, but rather, for fighting for what you love, for the things that matter. Urizen, in having sacrificed all he had, therefore has no true power at all.
  • In the finale of Devil May Cry 5, it's implied that this is how Nero gained his Devil Trigger, out of love for his father and uncle, Vergil and Dante respectively as he attempts to stop the brothers from killing each other. It's also implied that Nero's love for Credo, his adoptive brother, is what also pushed him to produce such strength. Nero admits to himself that he's always hated himself for being unable to save Credo and resolved not to let history repeat itself with Vergil and Dante.
• In Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth, Nokia Akkino's love for Agumon and Gabumon is what allows them to Digivolve straight away into their Mega Digivolutions as Wargreymon and MetalGarurumon.
  • Discussed in Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth - Hacker's Memory prior to the above. She secretly takes the Sistermons' training but fails to do any progress because she simply lacks the love to support both Agumon and Gabumon. So when she grows a bit of a spine, they both manage to Digivolve to Greymon and Garurumon (albeit temporarily).
• Subverted in Disgaea: Hour of Darkness. Love Freak Flonne points out that an Alternate Universe Overlord couldn't possibly defeat the Anti Heroes, because his power of love is divided among his ten (still very massive) copies. Oh, how very, very wrong she was...
  • If you're on a New Game Plus, the Prinny commentary will lampshade this.
    Prinny: Note to Self: Love is not a battle stat.
  • Flonne isn't the sharpest knife in the drawer. Regardless, at the end of the game the Power Of Love does factor in: After Master Lamington turns Flonne into a flower, Laharl goes insane. Depending on your actions, Laharl will not kill Lamington, and Flonne will be healed. It was all one big Batman Gambit to make Laharl into a good person and to unite the Netherworld and Celestia.
  • "Power of Love" is also the name of Flonne's technique that heals everyone in the eight adjacent cells.
  • Actually, it turns out Flonne's completely right about The Power Of Love. It's just that she's not playing for the good guys, so it doesn't come into play. It's a few games later, in Zettai Hero Project, that Love gets its chance to shine as a main character ability...
  • Spoofed in Disgaea 3: Absence of Justice. Mao is entirely aware of the trope and tries to exploit it, but quite frankly has no idea how. His servant Almaz spends a good deal of time politely informing him that love does not work that way.
  • Flonne finally gets to demonstrate the real Power Of Love in Disgaea 4. And by "The Power Of Love", we mean "giant, moon-stopping robot".
• In Disgaea 5, the literal driving force behind the secret technique Macrocosm, the strongest attack in the universe, is caring about other people and wanting to help them. You can, quite literally, blast the evil out of a target by properly hitting them with this technique, and the attack animation is freaking brutal in execution. This is ultimately what saves Liezerota.
  • Seraphina's Balor Gaze allows her to control any male target, including her father, by simply using it within their vicinity, and no matter what the target is unable to resist her demands and praises her as a goddess... except Killia, who is completely immune to it because he loves Liezerota so much, his heart cannot be affected. This extends to his game unit, if you make a custom map with Seraphina as the enemy, and she uses Balor Gaze or True Brionic Gaze, Killia is immune no matter his evilities.
  • Every main character in Disgaea 5 basically gets an upgraded Overload by caring about others. This is especially true for Red Magnus who can use Super Universe by simply learning to care about the health and safety of his servants, or Usalia, who straight up gains a Superpowered Evil Side from learning to face her fear instead of crying.
• At the end of Dragon's Lair 2: Time Warp, Dirk the Daring apparently brings Princess Daphne back to life with True Love's Kiss.
• Dragon Quest:
  • Dragon Quest: Once the Hero has rescued Princess Gwaelin, he can take Gwaelin's Love with him wherever he goes, and use it like a GPS. This comes in handy for finding one particular quest item.
  • Dragon Quest XI: When Ryu is defeated as Tatsunaga and reverts back to his normal form for a brief moment, it's implied that the love of his mother is what broke his curse in the end. Jade also theorizes this when they successfully cure him sooner in the post-game changed timeline.
• In Drakengard 2, Nowe receives a kiss from the White Mage and this activates his Super Mode for the final boss fight. Caim however is driven by The Power of Hate.
• In The Elder Scrolls series' mythology, this trope falls under the sphere of Mara, the Aedric Divine Goddess of Love. She is a Love Goddess focusing more on the familial, matrimonial, and fertily aspects of love (compared to Dibella, the Goddess of Beauty, who focuses more on the sexual and carnal aspects of it). She gave the gift of love to mortals and her teachings indicate that it can change their destiny. Also covers Love Redeems, as her teachings state "those who offer their love to the Divines will never be forsaken."
• Esper Unleashed: After the first boss, Axephus remembers his daughter Seda, which grants him a memory orb that fully heals his HP and MP.
• In Fallen London, it is eventually revealed that the Bazaar is fueled by love, or more specifically, love stories. As such, the Masters have worked for centuries in order to create better and better love stories to "feed" the Bazaar.
• Joshua Graham of all people attributes his survival from being burned alive and tossed down the Grand Canyon in Fallout: New Vegas to the power of love of the New Canaanites and God burning brighter than his own scorching pain. This ties into Joshua's story of being "the Prodigal Son" and his possible redemption while he struggles with his inner demons.
• In Fate/Grand Order, the Final Ascension picture of Assassin EMIYA, a Kiritsugu who never met Irisviel, shows Assassin EMIYA being embraced from behind by the ghost of Irisviel, who is one with the Holy Grail. In other words, Irisviel's love for Kiritsugu transcends beyond space and time. This is also why Assassin EMIYA has the "Affection of the Holy Grail" skill, even though he doesn't know who Irisviel is nor does he care.
  • In his true "Super" form, Orion's Noble Phantasm "Artemis Agnos" is a blessing representing the love that the Goddess Artemis has for him that enhances him to the point that it is ranked as "Anti-Army".
• Final Fantasy:
  • In the DS remake of Final Fantasy IV, the augment system is introduced, allowing the player to grant varied abilities and buffs to their characters. One of the abilities on offer is the native-to-Palom-and-Porom Twincast, wherein two characters begin casting on the same turn and get a (near, in one case) exclusive spell cast depending on the combination of characters casting. Rosa and Rydia? Faith, which increases all allies' magical power. Kain and Cecil? Bubble, which doubles all allies' HP. Cecil and Rosa? Ultima, strongest attack magic in the game bar none, apparently pure weaponized Love Power.
  • It's powerful enough in Final Fantasy V to let Galuf continue fighting at 0 HP against Exdeath, who is completely baffled by it. Exdeath incorrectly assumes that it's The Power of Hate that's fueling Galuf.
  • In Final Fantasy VI, both Shadow and Relm can equip an accessory called the Memento Ring, an item which protects against instant death attacks due to a departed mother's love. Some hidden cutscenes reveal that Shadow is Relm's father.
  • During the Last Stand at the end of Crisis Core, Zack's DMW breaks down as he accumulates damage. First, he loses access to his memories of his hero Sephiroth, his comrade Tseng, and his friend Cissnei; then his mentor Angeal and his legacy Cloud. Finally, the only thing keeping him in the fight is his desire to see his love Aerith one last time. Tragically, it's not enough, and he is cut down by the Shinra forces (although he does manage to save Cloud in the process).
  • In Final Fantasy VIII, The Power Of Love is what allows the heroes to travel through Time Compression, where only Ultimecia can technically exist, so that they can beat the crap out of her. While it's not specifically stated, it's probably also what enables Rinoa to find and save Squall after he gets lost in Time Compression after the final battle.
  • In Final Fantasy X-2 it's explicitly Yuna's love for Tidus which kicked off the quest and got her to that point that allows Bahamut to do his thing. Right before the climactic boss battle, Yuna convinces her Nakama to let her give the power of love a shot at stopping him. You still have to kick his ass though.
  • Final Fantasy XIV brings this up in one of its Job questlines: The Dark Knight derives their strength from The Power of Hate, hatred for injustice, hatred for those who abuse their power to torment the weak. This, however, is only half of the equation: to unlock their full power, a Dark Knight must also embrace the Power of Love, love for one's charges, love for those whom the Dark Knight would lay down their lives to protect.
• In Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War, having a character attack an enemy with their lover standing beside them can activate a critical hit, going so far as to do a little spinning heart animation before the actual attack sequence.
  • A similar thing occurs between family members, though without the heart animation.
  • In some other games in the series (namely those with Support Conversations), lovers who stand next to each other get bonuses to certain stats, which vary from character to character. This also applies to anyone with support levels, not just lovers (ergo, friendships and rivalries are equally effective).
  • In Fire Emblem: Awakening, the Avatar is taken hostage by Grima, but is brought back by the voices of all the deployed party members. Party members typically include the Avatar's spouse and children, making it a straight non-gameplay example of this trope. (Especially if Chrom or Lissa is the Avatar's spouse.)
• In The Force Unleashed II, Juno Eclipse comes back to life from being hit by a force pulse from Darth Vader for no other reason than it being The Power Of Love that brought her back.
• The Power Of Love plays a very important role in the Galaxy Angel gameverse. The Angel's Emblem Frames performance is linked to the pilot's state of mind. In Dating Sim's terms: the more they like you, the better they fight. It's even used to the extreme in the second game's final missions: Tact and his chosen Angel must pilot Unit #7 together, since Tact's presence brings the Angel's mental and emotional state to the max to power up the H.A.L.O. system. The same applies in the Galaxy Angel II trilogy between Kazuya and his own choosen Angel, as their bond is capable of bringing forth miracles during the climax of the three games.
• Your main goal in Hamtaro: Ham-Ham Heartbreak is to fix the relationships broken by Spat. You even have a "love meter," which fills with each relationship you fix.
• Inazuma Eleven GO 2: Chrono Stone has a pair of Avatars called Passionate Lovers ♂ and Passionate Lovers ♀. They each have a passive skill called "Lovers' Call" that greatly powers up their users if both the male and female version are active at the same time.
• Karoshi: Mr. Karoshi has a girlfriend and getting in contact with her causes Mr. Karoshi to be happy, as well as making him able to jump higher. It's also averted as it turns all spikes into flowers, which could be a problem in a game where you have to kill yourself to win.
• Kingdom Hearts:
  • Kingdom Hearts:
    • A major one towards the end of the game: After Sora commits "suicide" to save Kairi, who was locked within him, his heart is changed into a Heartless. Kairi, however, recognizes him and just by yelling his name and hugging him, she somehow manages to return him to normal. Sora later explains to Kairi: "I was lost in the darkness, couldn't find my way. As I stumbled through the dark, I started forgetting things: My friends, who I was... the darkness almost swallowed me. But then, I heard a voice. YOUR voice. The light of our hearts broke through the darkness. I saw this light. And I think, THAT'S what saved me!"
    • Also in the first game, the Beast manages to make it to Hollow Bastion (an entirely separate world from his own) with no special equipment or fancy magical powers, solely because he loved Belle and wanted to rescue her that much^note According to the creators, what Beast technically did was open a Corridor of Darkness by sheer force of will. But he could not have done that without his love for Belle, which is also what protected him from the Darkness as he traversed it.
  • In Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep, in Aqua's final battle, she desperately begs Ventus and Terra (neither of whom are present) for strength, and all of a sudden her Keyblade glows with extra power, allowing her to break the χ-Blade and defeat Vanitas. Later, when she is trapped in the Realm of Darkness, and is about to give up, both Ventus's and Terra's Keyblades appear and mow down a few Heartless, encouraging her to continue on.
  • Kingdom Hearts 3D [Dream Drop Distance]: After returning to the Mysterious Tower with a comatose Sora, Yen Sid reveals someone must take one last dive into Sora's heart to wake him up. Mickey volunteers to do it, saying it's too dangerous for Riku. Yen Sid then states that Riku actually has the better chance of rescuing Sora, as he'd already been in his dreams as his Dream Eater. Following a moment of thought, Riku thanks Mickey for his offer, but tells him he needs to be the one to wake Sora up— because he's the only one who can. Riku dives into Sora's heart and defeats the Armored Ventus Nightmare trapping him in darkness. Once he answers three cryptic questions from the residents of Sora's heart (Roxas, Ventus, and Xion), Sora awakens in the real world. Yen Sid later awards Riku the title of Keyblade Master specifically because he went above and beyond the call of duty for his best friend.^note There's also a slightly different meaning to some of what Riku says during his speech before he dives back into Sora's heart in Japanese; instead of "I'm doing it for me, too." he says, "I have to be the one." A more word-for-word translation is "It won’t work. / He won’t wake unless I go." Meanwhile, "He needs me." is "I WANT to go." It's more or less a direct parallel to what Prince Phillip says about Aurora in Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep.
• In King's Quest IV, Rosella assassinates an evil, hateful fairy by shooting her with one of Cupid's arrows of love.
  • It's also what prompts Edgar's Heel–Face Turn, and breaks his More than Mind Control in King's Quest VII. It also sets into motion the plots of King's Quest II and King's Quest VI. In the Fan Remake of King's Quest II, it's also the last anchor Caldaur has to humanity — love for his wife and granddaughter.
• Knights of the Old Republic. You can turn Bastila Shan from the Dark Side with this. Also discussed by Jolee Bindo, who thinks that the current interpretation that the Jedi Code bans falling in love is wrong.
  Jolee: Love doesn't lead to the dark side. Passion can lead to rage and fear, and can be controlled, but passion is not the same thing as love. Controlling your passions while being in love, that's what they should teach you to beware, but love itself will save you, not condemn you.
• Deconstructed in The Last of Us Part II. Love leads both protagonists to commit some truly odious and sadistic acts throughout the story. Love may mostly be a positive force but that doesn't mean all actions stemmed from love are good.
• The online game League of Angels has a potent game mechanic for this. If your character helps out another character of the opposite gender enough that their Affection Points between them become 1999 or more, they can "marry" in an official partnership that gives both players bonuses to their stats. From that point on, the married partners have access to several Power Ups that unmarried couples don't. It's even possible to use Voucher Points (in-game currency) or Diamonds (currency from the online store) to throw a wedding ceremony once per day (presided over by Amora, the Angel in the game who embodies love) and not only does this increase the abilities of the two partners, but it distributes gifts to any players who attend as guests.
• League of Legends has a variants on the concept:
  • Viego the Ruined King exploits a twisted, villainous version of it in that his power over the undead horde of the Black Mist is driven by his love for his fallen queen, with his vain attempts to bring her Back from the Dead forming the Shadow Isles and one of the biggest threats in the game. Even worse, he can use the Black Mist to corrupt and bend people to his will by exploiting what THEY love and value.
  • A straighter example has to do with Gwen the Hallowed Seamstress. Gwen was originally just a doll sewn together by Isolde (Viego's aforementioned queen) who centuries later was magically turned human thanks to sharing a fragment of her soul, representing Isolde's youthful joy. While Viego is marked with the harrowing Black Mist, Gwen is powered by the opposing Hallowed Mist, which brings the warmth of safety and life.
  • A semi-split take on this occured regarding the Varus, the Arrow of Retribution, a champion that actually consists of three individuals merged into one: Varus (an ancient Evil Weapon seeking human flesh to demonically possess), Valmar, and Kai (a mortal Battle Couple that both merged with him). The amalgam is mentally split between Varus' Unstoppable Rage and desire to destroy the world and the couples' love and desire for peace attempting to steer him away from it.
• The Legend of Spyro: Spyro and Cynder's love for each other is ultimately the one thing that Malefor hadn't planned for. It frees Cynder from her Superpowered Evil Side, preventing Malefor from using her to kill Spyro.
• The Legend of Zelda:
  • The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess: Yeto and Yeta create the Snowpeak Ruins' Heart Container while they're all cuddly. An extraordinary amount of Recovery Hearts are generated from the sequence as well, but most of them won't be necessary. Also, Fanadi the fortuneteller seeks out Pieces of Heart when asked to find "love". This implies that Heart Containers, and probably Recovery Hearts, are formed from the very essence of love.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild: Kass, the Rito minstrel, believes that it was Princess Zelda's love for Link that finally awoke her dormant powers in order to save him. Also, Mipha tells Zelda that when she uses her healing magic she thinks of — Calamity Ganon attacks before she could finish her sentence, but it's strongly implied to be Link who she was intending to marry.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom continues with the idea of how powerful Zelda's love for Link, as despite being turned into a dragon, with no trace of the person she once was, the Light Dragon flies to Link's rescue after Ganondorf turns himself into the Demon Dragon, saving him from falling whenever he's falling. After she's changed back to normal, she tells Link that what woke her up was a "warm and loving" embrace. The only person to have held her after she changed back was Link.
• Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime uses this as both a constructive force for the cosmos and a force that counteracts the Anti-Love Forces.
• In Luminous Arc 2, it's the basis behind the Final Bond Roland can form with one of his love interests, depending on the player's dialogue choices throughout the game. With Althea, it saves her from her self-inflicted sword stab and sealed away her Beast Fiend side. With Fatima, it guides back her soul to her body after doing a realistic-looking suicide to calm down a crazy Althea. The strength of Roland's love for one of them saves them.
• This trope saves the world more than once in the Lunar series.
  • Lunar: The Silver Star has two very good examples: Alex restoring Luna's memory and personality by playing the game's theme on his Ocarina and Kyle breaking out of solid stone to save Jessica.
  • And in Lunar: Eternal Blue, the Power Of Love is what gives Hiro the strength to overcome the Star Dragon and travel to the Blue Star to be with Lucia.
• Mary Skelter 2, taking place within a living prison that responds to desire, has fun twisting this trope for maximum despair:
  • Like the first game, Jack is slashed by his childhood friend Alice, who has fallen into Blood Skelter. However, in this game the slice is fatal; while he was able to protect new protagonist Official Couple Otsuu and Little Mermaid, he dies lamenting the fact that he failed to fulfill his Declaration of Protection for Alice. The Jail picks up on this and revives him as a grotesque Nightmare.
  • The Omnicidal Maniac Mysterious Nightmare is Alice, with the Alice that eventually rejoins the party being a mimic. Otsuu, through her inexplicable connection to the Jail and its Nightmares, reasons that the thought of killing Jack was too much for Alice to bear, and simply reviving him wouldn't be enough as it wouldn't erase that the deed was done. The only way that Alice thought that she could completely make things right, according to Otsuu, is to destroy the world that would make her kill Jack. The Jail responded by transforming her into a Nightmare. Upon hearing all of this, Nightmare Jack is unable to process there being two Alices to protect, each on opposing sides. The Jail responds to this by swallowing Nightmare Jack and Nightmare Alice, releasing a fusion of Nightmares Jack and Alice titled Nightmare Love alongside a humanoid mimic of Jack that joins the party. Cue the final boss battle.
  • The entire premise of the game, which is revealed after the aforementioned final boss battle ends with the upper Tower Nightmare (who was fought in the original game but not here) ambushing the Blood Team and killing the entire party save Otsuu and Little Mermaid, is that Otsuu is the Superboss Nightmare from the first game, who grew fond of Little Mermaid as a child and had been searching for her for more than a decade. Little Mermaid was killed in self-defense by Red Riding Hood in the first game's prequel novel; when Otsuu learns from the first game's Blood Team that she's dead, she uses a Jail core to travel back in time and insert herself into the timeline as a Blood Maiden. Not only does this screw the first game's Blood Team out of the victory that they earned over Snark, but the new timeline is much worse off. Otsuu and Little Mermaid ultimately opt for a Reset Button Ending, correcting the timeline back to that of the first game at the expense of their relationship.
  • After the many ways that this trope goes wrong, the Embedded Precursor version of the first Mary Skelter: Nightmares finally features some straight examples. Little Mermaid's microphone, against all logic, finds its way into the original timeline. Jack comes across it and it triggers his memory of the Mary Skelter 2 timeline, who in turn stops Nightmare Otsuu from resetting the timeline and helps her bring Little Mermaid's corpse to the Jail core. Nightmare Otsuu's desire to revive Little Mermaid not only brings her back, but transforms them both into their mostly-human Mary Skelter 2 incarnations.
• In Mischief Makers, a major enemy attacks you with hurtful words; words like "sad," "fear," and "hate" are actually being shot at you. You beat the enemy by grabbing the words, shaking them until they become positive words like "happy," "courage," and "love," and then throwing them back.
• Miitopia: The Pop Star has a skill called "Love Song", which can be used on the whole team causing them to get hearts in their eyes and love them so much that it raises all the party members' relationships to the Pop Star to whatever the highest level relationship in the party is temporarily. They also have "Love & Peace", which can be used to end a quarrel between two Miis; however, it can only end one side of a quarrel, and they cannot use it on themselves.
• The Mother franchise revolves around Empathy!
  • The lyrics in one of EarthBound Beginnings's songs are "Love is the power, love is the glory, love is the beauty and the joy of spring. Love is the magic, love is the story, love is the melody we all can sing!" You also defeat the Final Boss, Giegue, by singing him a Melody that the Human woman who raised him, Maria, used to sing him as a child, causing him to flee in tears from remembering what he did to her and how she cared for him.
  • In EarthBound (SNES) and Mother 3 (GBA), one of the defaults for the name of the main character's signature move (and Canon Name in Mother 3's case) is "PK Love". It's an excellent general-use psychic attack when you get it, and the upgraded versions work well until the end-game (where the main character's MP is better spent on buffing and healing his party members).
  • In Mother 3, Lucas manages to stop his brainwashed brother because the ghost of their mother pleads with them to stop fighting. Claus regains his senses long enough to zap himself with his own PSI and end the battle.
• It is possible to get Aribeth to turn back to the light side at the end of the original Neverwinter Nights campaign using the Power of Love.
  • In both the original Neverwinter Nights and the first Knights of the Old Republic, the most foolproof way of getting your love interest to turn back after her Face–Heel Turn is to tell her that you love her. (Sorry, female characters have to do it the hard way).
  • But it's equally possible that a female Player Character can get this invoked on her. There was a cut ending from KOTOR that involved a heavy dose of it.
• Hagspawns always look like this◊. Gann, the female protagonist's love interest from Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer however, looks like this◊. Why? Hags normally reproduce by raping a suitable male, but his mother and father actually loved each other.
  • And completing the Romance Sidequest with either Gann or Safiya will give you a bonus feat.
• Partially applied in Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors where the power of love allows the protagonist to transcend time in order to save his childhood friend from being burnt alive (while ironically, it also played its part in bringing about the childhood friend's calamity in the first place). It seems to be the power of romantic love that allows him to do this, but Word of God reveals that he would have done it for anyone, even a stranger.
• Octopath Traveler II: For years, heroic scholar Osvald V. Vanstein has been researching the One True Magic, a seventh magic separate and unique from the other elements of Fire, Ice, Lightning, Wind, Light, and Darkness. His pursuit involves many complex equations to understand magic at a fundemental level. However, his friend Harvey grew jealous of Osvald and destroyed the man by burning his house, killing his wife and child, and framing Osvald for the crime. Years pass before Osvald escapes and hunts down Harvey where Osvald discovers his daughter Elena wasn't killed. She and her mother were held captive with Elena's memories being rewritten to think Harvey is her father. While her mother is dead by the time Osvald finds Elena, finding her changes his quest from one of vengeance to saving Elena. When Harvey uses Elena and her blood in a dark ritual to access what he believes is the One True Magic, but is from a darker, evil force, Osvald reflexively defends his daughter and all the calculations click in his head, awakening in him the One True Magic, with which he uses to defeat Harvey once and for all. When Osvald discusses this "Eureka!" Moment with his friend and former research assistant Lady Clarissa, she identifies this emotional response and the power it generates as Love. The seventh magic is Love.
• In Ōkami, Amaterasu is able to defeat Yami, the God of Darkness due to a particularly awesome instance of this trope. The many people you helped during the entire game pray to her and the collective power restores her to full godhood, taking on her Shiranui form.
• In Planescape: Torment, this is why Deionarra keeps haunting The Nameless One even if he has no idea who she is; The Power Of Love won't let her die. The incarnation of The Nameless One she loved invoked the trope: He never loved her, but he needed her ghost to stick around as a Spirit Advisor for one of his backup plans. Thus, he manipulated her into feeling True Love, which keeps her bound to The Nameless One even though she knows he will never remember her again.
• Canonically, in Pokémon, Gardevoir bears infinite devotion towards its trainer and would sacrifice itself for them rather than see them hurt. The happiness-detecting power it had before also became a full-fledged psychic bond. Seeing its trainer in danger is what causes a Gardevoir to unleash its full power.
  • An interesting take on this trope comes in the form of Attract, which has a 50% chance of immobilizing a Pokémon of the opposite gender each turn after affliction.
  • Then there's the move Return, which becomes more powerful based on how much the user likes its trainer.
    • Which leads to some Gameplay and Story Integration and Fridge Brilliance — although the lore suggests a Return used by a Gardevoir should be, on average, much more powerful then any other Return, Gardevoir is a Squishy Wizard and does not specialise in physical attacks, even with its Mega Form's Pixilate ability, Return wouldn't be too useful when Gardevoir uses it.
  • From Pokémon X and Y onward, a Pokémon with a high enough affection (or friendship) will try that extra bit harder in battle, leading to effects like scoring extra critical hits, dodging attacks it otherwise would not have, hanging on by 1 HP against attacks that should have KO'ed it, or even shaking off status effects (even those that are generally permanent until healed).
  • Certain Pokémon will only evolve if the player showers them with love and affection. Most of these evolve with the "happiness" stat (the same one which powers Return), which is built by working with your Pokemon in battle and treating them outside of it. Sylveon does it slightly differently, instead evolving with the "affection" stat that gives in the in-battle bonuses mentioned above, which in practise means petting and playing with your Eevee until it adores you.
  • In-universe, Mega Evolution is powered by the bond between Pokemon and trainer, allowing a Pokemon to take a powerful new form temporarily with its trainer's help. Special mention goes to Mega Kangaskhan (which is partially powered by the love between the Kangaskhan and her child), Mega Lopunny (since even getting a Lopunny requires you to bring the happiness stat from 0 to over 200), and Mega Rayquaza (the most powerful Mega Evolution and the only one powered by divine love).
• In Project × Zone, Ichiro Ogami and Sakura Shinguji proclaim their love for each other when they use their MAP attack to their enemies (and it does decent damage, like all other MAP attacks in the game). The very first time they do it? It empowers the Fujisaki Tree.
• In Chapter 4 of Puyo Puyo Tetris, Arle uses Rulue’s love of the Dark Prince to free her from mind control.
• Remnants of Isolation: Referenced in the Flavor Text of one of the final spells, Melchior's, "Loyal Melody":
  Love can reach across any distance, any world, and any dimension.
• Rogue Galaxy's Fated Passion. In this attack, Jaster and Kisala's love for each other can cause the whole galaxy to explode. At 22 AP.
• Parodied in RPG Shooter: Starwish. Resident Mad Scientist straps Deuce to a weird device called "love extractor" and asks him to thinkdrawn in a Shoujou about a girl he likes, claiming that since love is the most powerful force in the universe, it can be harnessed to create weapons of mass destruction. It doesn't work.
• Rune Factory 4 has "love" as one of its elemental types, which means you can add love-type damage to your weapons and battle enemies with the power of love.
• In Sandwalkers, the Protector class' only way of increasing their Shield points is to take all hits meant for a teammate that turn. They are literally stronger when they are protecting other people.
• There is a pathway in Shadow the Hedgehog called "The Power Of Love" that goes like this: Westoplis (Dark), Digital Circuit (Hero), Prison Island (Normal), Sky Troops (Hero), Air Fleet (Hero), Final Haunt with Black Doom battle (Hero). Rouge is the first Hero character Shadow teams up with. Essentially, in this pathway, Rouge redeemed Shadow. Aww...
• Twisted in a horrible way with the Shin Megami Tensei series. Alice was once a normal human girl, until she befriended Belial and Nerberos. Exposure to their magic drove her insane and eventually killed her. The Demons loved her so much that they resurrected her as a newfound demon, so she could be perpetually young and innocent forever. Unfortunately, she retained her insanity and the events afterwards were... less than pleasant.
• In Silent Hill 3, the power of Harry Mason's paternal love for Heather aka Cheryl aka Alessa reborn kept the "god" of Silent Hill's Order dormant in her body, since it needs pain and hatred to grow. It's one of the major reasons why Claudia has Harry killed — to evoke Heather's hatred.
• In at least The Sims 2, pleading with the Grim Reaper appears to be a game of chance, but in reality it depends on the relationship values. If two sims love each other enough, there's no way to possibly fail at this. One can even keep a vampire sim through the day if he's married to a human, let him dust, have his love plead, rinse and repeat until nightfall.
• Wonderfully subverted in Sin and Punishment — the villain orders the hero to use the power of love to regain his human form but the hero refuses because although he knows he will love his girlfriend some day, they both still need time to open up to each other. The two of them then proceed to keep his monster form and use it to defeat the villain. Despite that, the power of love is still what allows the protagonist to remain sane while in his monster form. This applies to the sequel too.
• In Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves, Penelope utilizes the power of love to gain mad sword fighting skills against Captain LeFwee to save Bentley.
• In South Park: The Fractured but Whole, one of the sidequests involves helping Tweek and Craig fix their relationship, which turns both their Ultimate Attacks into a single combined Ultimate, "Eros Eruption", in which they hold hands and overwhelm their enemies with a public display of their love while "Let's Fighting Love" plays in the background, while both of them are drawn in a Shoujo Manga style a few moments before then. Their unlockable character sheets also list both of their power sources as "Love".
• This is the only way to stop being a shinigami in Suika. And it can't be unrequited love, either.
• The opening narration for Super Paper Mario introduces it as a story "of love":
  • The Void created by the Chaos Heart is finally destroyed at the end by Tippi/Lady Timpani and Count Bleck/Blumiere renewing their vows of love towards each other. This is an almost exact reversal of the forced wedding between Peach and Bowser from the beginning of the game which spawned the Chaos Heart in the first place.
  • The Pure Hearts are physical embodiments of love themselves.
• Present throughout the Super Robot Wars franchise is the Spirit Command aptly called "Love". Despite its high cost in Spirit Points, an incredibly rare resource for pilots, it features just about every useful Status Buff imaginable that is activated all at once: "Accel(erate)", "Strike/Bullseye", "Alert/Flash", "Valor", "Spirit", "Gain" and "Luck/Fortune". However, the only characters who usually get this Spirit Command is one person in an Official Couple.
  • Super Robot Wars: Original Generation occasionally plays with this: the Super Robot Wars Compact 2 protagonists have a Combination Attack called "Rampage Ghost", but the faux-Hard-Drinking Party Girl refuses to call it anything but the "Love Love Attack". In another pairing from Super Robot Wars 4, the male's "Ace Bonus" lowers the cost of the Love Spirit Command by half, but Irony abounds when he and his Love Interest are Amicable Exes. Finally, due to Original Generation using a Relationship Values game mechanic (which is also present in some licensed Super Robot Wars titles), a character in love with one another gains a damage bonus if placed adjacent to them on the map, even if the latter never reciprocates for the former at all in the narrative!
• Tales Series:
  • The Central Theme of Tales of Legendia is deconstructing this trope. Main character Senel's love for his lover Stella is so strong that he rejects Shirley's Anguished Declaration of Love, even after Stella ends up dying halfway through the main story. Shirley doesn't take this well at all, becoming a Love Martyr and an Apocalypse Maiden. Part of their Character Development is learning that love can take many forms, it doesn't have to be romantic love to make someone care about you, and that it doesn't justify their overreactions.
  • Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World:
    • There's Decus. He uses The Power Of Love AGAINST The Player, and it powers his Hi-Ougi, Storm and Stress, as seen here.
    • Also parodied in this victory quote:
    Marta: There's no victory without love!
    R.Emil: So you lose if there's no love?
    Marta: Yes, so please say you love me!
    R.Emil: We can lose next time...
  • In Tales of the World: Narikiri Dungeon 3, certain characters, who are Official Couples from their respective games, get the ability "Love Love" which doubles the effects of items.
• In Tales of Monkey Island: Rise of the Pirate God, to solve the final puzzle of the game, Guybrush needs to use Elaine's wedding ring at the Crossroads in order to come back to life for good. This is because the spell he used earlier to open a portal back to the mortal world requires one to "gather a guide, an anchor, courage, and sacrifice in a ring at the center of the Crossroads".
• A prevalent, if not the most prevalent, theme of the Tokimeki Memorial series, a Dating Sim franchise known for being at the extreme end of the idealistic side of the Sliding Scale of Idealism vs. Cynicism. The Power of Love is extremely strong in there, creating true and sweet romances that last forever, helping out the few depressive characters out there, and making Long Distance Relationships work.
• Top Banana contains an unusual example. In the manual, it's explained that KT is saving the environment using the power of love, but in-game, this translates to you using love-hearts as ammo.
• The full name of Touhou Project's Marisa Kirisame's "signature" Kamehame Hadoken is "Love Sign: Master Spark". (The spell is actually power-copied from Yuuka Kazami.) In general, all her laser attacks get folded into "Love Sign". The description of Love Sign: Master Spark includes "Whisper tenderly into the magical reactor, point it at someone you don't like, and release the Annihilation of Love!" There are two major reasons why Marisa would declare herself powered by love: The first is that it's part of Marisa's desire to be a "Magical Girl", even though she is technically a witch of human blood. The second is the sheer subversiveness of declaring herself a heroine of love, even though her only motivations in any of the games seem to be to kick in the teeth of as many powerful people as she can, show up Reimu, and maybe steal even more magical powers (or anything else, for that matter,) from whatever victim she is currently harassing. It's worth noting, however, that Defeat Means Friendship in this game, and she has a lot of "friends" over years of adventuring, so there may actually be something to the name, after all.
  • With people like Remilia (power over fate), Kaguya (power over the eternity and the moment) and Suika (power to manipulate density), it's only a matter of time until a literal power of love incident breaks out.
• Umineko: When They Cry has the recurring Arc Words "Without love, it cannot be seen." Multiple characters offer their take on what this really means, ranging from the romantic to the bloodcurdling to the outright metafictional.
  • This is also deconstructed with a line Erika uses, saying "Because of love, you see things that don't exist" which also gets used. This is exemplified, and horribly deconstructs the trope in EP7 with Kinzo who believed his daughter was the reincarnation of his mistress, Beatrice Castiglioni, which lead to him raping her. Basically everything goes downhill from there.
• The LOVE from Undertale appears to be this, except it is everything but love and is in fact The Power of Hate. LOVE is an acronym of Level Of ViolencE, a power gained by your killing instinct. You do have an actual power of love by default, as long as you don't kill anyone.
• Welkin from Valkyria Chronicles has this as his hidden potential. That's for the gameplay side. On the plot side, his love for Alicia is what convinced her to not let the Valkyria power overtake herself and win the war in conventional means — a possible hidden anti-nuclear warfare message.
• Warframe: This is what really gives the Tenno their incredible power; thanks to their nature as human-infested hybrids and the abuse heaped on them by the Orokin, the Warframes are mentally broken and in constant pain... something the Operators can treat through a mix of Psychic Powers and simple human empathy. This allows the Warframes and Operators to work in tandem with each other, thus becoming Tenno. It’s also why the Orokin themselves couldn’t control the Warframes; as an entire race of sociopaths, the idea of emotional therapy and rewarding good behavior with kindness was utterly alien to them.
• Lampshaded by one of Geralt's narrations in The Witcher where, as in the original novels (see Literature), love has potent magical power. The love between a prostitute and a Temerian guard captain suppresses the latter's lycanthropy.
• World of Warcraft makes a pretty big deal out of this, at least in the novels (and some parts of the game itself).
  • A perfect example is in the Ashbringer comic. Darion Mograine asks if there is any way at all to free his father's soul from a cursed item. The person he is talking to is a Magic Knight, Tirion Fordring, who also happens to have extreme knowledge of the power of love, tells Darion that only an act of love greater than the evil that cursed his father would be enough to save him. It works. Darion kills himself out of love rather than to see his father's soul suffer. Darion is, of course, later freed by Tirion from the curse.
  • Thrall is another example. He REFUSES to back down, even when insulted and belittled by Aggra, his trainer, because his love for Azeroth is so great that he will stop at nothing to protect it. He also succeeds, as does Aggra, who warms up to him and eventually marries and has his son.
  • A mad/obsessive love can be seen with Kel'thuzad and Arthas. Kel'thuzad is SO concerned with Arthas' well-being that he stole his corpse and his magic sword to try and revive him. BOTH of these people are irredeemably evil, but at least KT understands SOME parts of love.