The primary reason for me to play an FPS shooter - apart from the often non-existent story - is to explore the levels, play in coop with friends, get new guns & face new enemies. I seldomly play multiplayer and only with friends. If I face the biggest boss & largest gun in the beginning of the game - example: Duke Nukem Forever - I quit the game and play something else.
So which FPS games do you play?
It's a simple equation. If you meet Mind Flayers, Dragons and Nautiloids in the beginning, it's hard to raise the bar. Your story could quickly become anticlimatic and might be perceived as boring.
DBZ is starting small and getting OP. And sure, as soon as you get 'OP', it's hard to raise the bar. That's the point.
Indeed. Piccolo blew up the moon before Dragon Ball Z even started. It kept trying to "raise the bar" with every new arc in DBZ, and it got silly rather quickly. I still like DBZ, but this is something it struggled with and where turning super saiyan would be a big deal at the end of the Frieza saga, skip forward a bit and Goten/Trunks are turning super saiyan as children with barely any effort just so they can keep up with the constant escalation.
This was a mistake.
Action stories don't need escalating stakes or escalating power levels; they need novel or escalating challenge. This doesn't mean the enemies need to get more and more cool or scary looking.
The problem with something like Dragon Ball Z is that almost every novel or escalating challenge was overcome with a power-up.
In contrast, in a TV series like The Mandalorian, he normally finds a solution to the challenges he faces without just finding some new power-up. It's also common in action stories for the main character to get weaker as they're worn down by the challenges they face, not stronger. (It's a great way to escalate the challenge.)
It's a little bit harder to make the player weaker in a video game given it'd mean taking tools away from the player, but there's nothing wrong with it narratively.
