Informed Equipment

A video game playable character has quite a few sprites (2D) / skins and models (3D) to deal with, which makes it hard to justify changing that valuable art for something as fickle as his equipment. Drawing a 2D hero in the starting armor and the most powerful armor alone would double the sprite count for every frame of the hero doing everything in almost every direction; this only gets worse with combinations of different types of equipment. Some 2D titles ameliorate this by superimposing sprites on top of each other, or relying on Palette Swapping. Three-dimensional models make this far easier to avoid, since you can simply change textures/skins, or bolt extra models onto the same skeleton, while reusing animations.

As a result, the hero you see on the game screen usually doesn't represent the hero you see on the equipment screen. It's become so ridiculous that some games will just skip giving the heroes any body armor at all, which is okay because they're heroes and heroes are Made of Iron. Still, by the end of the game, it can be hard to excuse your hero bumbling around in his civilian clothes as he goes up against the 10-story Bonus Boss.

This trope seems to be fading as 3D graphics become more common, space becomes cheaper, and game engine-rendered realtime cutscenes become more prevalent. 3D models are completely free of the exponential increase in artwork that plagued games with single-sprite 2D models, as each additional piece of equipment can be simply added rather than having to re-create every permutation of animation; on the other hand, weaponry and equipment not currently in use are often ignored in third-person games so a player character doesn't look ridiculous having four full-size rifles dangling off various parts of him. On the other hand, armor is often intentionally left Informed Equipment to maintain a recognizable image associated with a character and avoid hiding their face.

Compare No Cutscene Inventory Inertia, where occurrences of Informed Equipment are limited to cutscenes, and the more general Limited Wardrobe. Contrast Rainbow Pimp Gear when every outfit change you make is visible...and you really wish you'd thought it out more.

Adventure Games

 * The first four games in the Quest for Glory series did this: your character's sprite was always shown wearing a leather jerkin, despite the fact that the Fighter class was supposed to sell the jerkin in the very first game in exchange for a chainmail vest. In the fifth and final game, which was the only one to use 3D models, the hero's in-game appearance changes every time he puts on a new piece of armor.
 * Usually played straight in Castlevania, even the DS games such as Portrait of Ruin and Order Of Ecclesia. Even though the best armor for female protagonists is typically a wedding dress (in fact, several fancy dresses tend to be superior to plate armor once you start getting the high-end gear) Shanoa and Charlotte remain in the same outfits they start out in, perhaps because the Fetish Fuel would not overwhelm the Narm of someone kicking vampire ass in bridal gear.
 * Party members in Fallout 2 have static sprites that doesn't change when you give them new armor. This is to make them more distinct, since they (mostly) have unique appearances (Cassidy uses the standard "guy in leather armor" sprite). Averted with weapons, which are shown properly.

First-Person Shooter

 * Infamously present in many early shooters: The marine in Doom netgames was always shown carrying the same rifle normal zombies used, making it impossible for other players to tell what they were up against.
 * There are some people working on combating this, for some Doom source-ports.
 * A variation on this is the inability to tell what items a multiplayer opponent is carrying in reserve, allowing someone to romp around seemingly helpless with a pistol only to whip out a three foot long BFG at the last moment. Halo 3 and Call of Duty post-Modern Warfare has fixed this to an extent by showing carried weapons (although not grenades and ammo).
 * In Duke Nukem 3D, the sprites did not update to show you what gun the player was holding. However, there was a toggle key which would make an icon appear over their head to show you, making it appear as if Duke was having a very violent Idea Bulb.
 * The Quake and Unreal series only make distinctions when the character is powered up (or has shielding in Unreal). Otherwise, their poly model appears the same regardless of their armor state or health. Toss in a few custom skins, and the trope is in literal, sexy effect.
 * Unreal, and Quake from the second installment onward, had proper weapon models in the hands of the player(s). Quake 1, on the other hand, showed the player always with the same gun, though at least there was a separate model for when the player was wielding the axe.
 * This is also usually the case for the first-person view itself; games like STALKER and Unreal Tournament assume your character is always wearing fingerless gloves, no matter what armor in the former or model in the latter you're using. Later games have managed to avert this in various ways - some (Unreal Tournament 2004) don't show any hands on your gun at all, while others (Left 4 Dead) change the appearance of the arms holding the gun depending on what character you play as.
 * Even with the Arm A series' focus on realism, this can happen on occasion - Operation Arrowhead adds a few guns that can load different types of magazines, from normal 30-round boxes to 100-round dual drums. However, the game doesn't make a physical distinction between the two and will appear to load the standard 30-round magazine at all times.
 * Command & Conquer: Renegade tried to avert this, wherein while holding one weapon, the next one in sequence would appear on your character's back. Of course, that ignores that you're still lugging around upwards of ten weapons at any one time. Averted further for enemies in singleplayer, however, who typically only have their one weapon, and will wear it on their back while at ease if you manage to catch them when they're not armed and ready.

MMORPGs

 * City of Heroes followed the trope by making the player's appearance almost completely independent from their superpowers. While you may be wreathed in flames or partial covered with stone when certain powers are active, you never have to compromise between wearing a cool outfit or effective armor. Most players of the game love that they can look how they want no matter what level they are and what powers they took.
 * And now the game allows you do even chose the colors of most powers, select from different weapon models, and in some cases different attack animations.
 * This of course leads to some rather interesting events in game, such as "Task Force: Fabulous", in which the entire party runs a Task/Strike Force in Cowboy Boots, Swimsuits, and Glitter.
 * World of Warcraft does this for Tauren and Draenei boots, since both races have hooves which would requires separate footwear models to look correct. Trolls also have informed boots, but that's only because they like to go barefoot.
 * Additionally there are options to hide your character's helmet and cape which, if used, make those Informed Equipment.
 * Kingdom of Loathing semi averts his. Most of the time, your character image is the default for your class and gender. However, if you assemble and wear an entire outfit, it will change to that one. This is used in game to disguise yourself to infiltrate places.
 * Vindictus both averts this and plays it straight. Major equips such as armour and weapons are fully present and modelled; not only in-game, but also in cut scenes and the character loading screen. Minor equips such as earrings and belts, by contrast, are never visible. This despite the fact that armour and weapons are often covered in all sorts of little dangly bits that fully utilize the capabilities of the physics engine, as do nearly all hair and fur (but not water) effects for both PCs and monsters.
 * Eden Eternal has entire sets of cosmetic armor unlocked as a character reaches certain job levels. The character's appearance is determined by said armor rather than what he or she has equipped. Cash shop items do show, however.
 * Dragon Nest has some kinds of armor show on the character while others are invisible. There are also many armor pieces that show on the wearer's model but look completely different from their icons.

Platform Games

 * In Wonder Boy III the Dragons Trap, Wonder Boy's sprites show the same sword, armor, and shield no matter what he has equipped... except in his Lizard-Man form, when he had no visible equipment and his inability to use or sword or shield was relevant to gameplay, but he could still equip them normally and still got stat boosts from them.

Role-Playing Games

 * Goes all the way back to Dragon Quest I. The first armor in the game? "Clothing". And you can go into battle without it. Despite this quite literal fighting in the nude, the sprite nonetheless showed the hero wearing a full suit of armor.
 * The MSX version of Dragon Quest II has an Easter Egg where one NPC will reference the princess being naked and give you a skimpy costume for her to wear, complete with a cut-in to show you the outfit. This is referenced for Fan Disservice in La-Mulana's reward for completing the Hell Temple
 * Taken to an extreme in Lufia and The Fortress of Doom and Lufia 2 Rise of the Sinistrals. While even the most basic games in the NES era made at least slight changes to weapons so that someone with an axe would attack with an axe, the characters in Lufia II would be still be holding a sword as they attack with a bow, or a whip as they attack with a sword.
 * Improved - slightly - in Lufia: Curse of the Sinistrals: Dekar is now the only person who can wield multiple weapon types, and it does show him equipping different types, but all weapons of a type still look the same during combat.
 * The Final Fantasy Legend games let you wear up to eight pieces of heavy equipment, but no matter what you wore, your humans would still look heavily armored and your mutants would still look bare.
 * Final Fantasy has shown different appearances for weapons in battle since I. Not armor though, at least until X on. And even then only shields get displayed in the non MMO games. This means characters could be wearing Diamond equipment over their whole bodies and still be shown wearing their street clothes. The 8 and 16 bit games are the worst offenders naturally, since various characters' sprites could show them wearing full plate armor yet having nothing actually equipped.
 * In Crisis Core Zack's outfit doesn't change with his materia and equipment loadouts either. Though he does change his uniform appearance partway through the game, as well as his weapon later.
 * Final Fantasy VIII doesn't even have different armor, as the characters use junctions to boost defense and everything else. In the only cases where changing clothes was important (the formal SeeD attire and the Galbadian uniforms) visibly different models were used.
 * Final Fantasy X-2 took this to a further extreme, as the characters never changed weapons - only character class, as embodied via Dresspheres. Of course, they were their normal selves outside of battle...
 * While Final Fantasy XII allows you to change weapons as much as you please, without even restricting which characters can use which weapons, and even allows you to equip armor and hats, the characters keep their default clothing models through the entire game. This is taken to absurd levels when your characters, who start off in rather minimal clothing in the middle of a desert, use same clothing in the middle of snow storms. It's also unfortunate, in that Final Fantasy XI had selectable models for your weapons AND hat, body armor, pants, shoes, and gloves.
 * In Final Fantasy V and VI the shields (and Elf Capes) actually do get shown... but only when the character is actually blocking an attack with them. Surprisingly, they don't all look the same, given the small 16-bit sprites, but the variation is mostly just color.
 * Played painfully straight in The World Ends With You, where fashion is one of the key themes in the game. You could have Neku clad head to toe in punk clothing, bargain bin quality threads or even wearing a pink frilly dress, but he'll still be wearing his normal garb ingame and in cutscenes.
 * In Eternal Sonata, neither weapons nor outfits make any visible changes on the characters, despite the fact that said weapons and outfits are often specifically described in terms of their colour and general appearance.
 * Ultima VIII, one of the last games released on disks rather than CDs, had only room for one isometric sprite set for the hero - which came with a pot helmet all the time.
 * Ultima VII, on the other hand, didn't have separate sprites for the various kinds of armor and cloaks one could wear, but did have an actual nude sprite for characters.
 * Ultima VII Part Two: Serpent Isle did have a potent paperdoll system that depicted every piece of armor and almost every other item equipped, but the sprite showed no differences other than the weapon equipped. The Exult engine allowed this function for the previous The Black Gate too, which had one humorous side effect; if you recruited thirteen-year old Spark, his paperdoll was still the default "huge muscular guy", with the head of a small boy.
 * In Persona 3 most armors or certain clothes won't change the characters appearance. Besides the bikini.
 * The Tales (series) usually displays weapons and, if the character wears any, shields. The original SNES Tales of Phantasia would show only the type of weapon Cless was wielding (sword, axe, spear or halberd) and just the presence of a shield, but the remakes changed that.
 * In Tales of Symphonia the character's equipped weapons would be displayed in battle, but cutscenes would show the same ones they'd started with. The Hero gets his cutscene-weapon upgraded from his initial wooden swords to metal ones and later the Swords of Plot Advancement, but it's still not affected by what he's got equipped.
 * Then, in Tales of the Abyss, the weapons would change in the cutscenes to the ones that are equipped.
 * Back to straight in Tales of Hearts. Each character just has one evolving Empathic Weapon, but despite the shape of the weapon changing as it goes up in tiers, the battle sprite remains the same until you reach one of the final postgame forms.
 * Tales of Vesperia displays the character's weapon and special equipment (Rita's spellbook, Karol's bag, etc) but still no armor, headgear or accessories.
 * The Play Station 3 port of Vesperia featured DLC that changed the characters' costumes, so they would look like they were wearing their most powerful armors. This is still only cosmetic, however; you can still have crappy armor equipped with this costume on.
 * Planescape: Torment plays this straight with two characters and averts it for one. If you put a robe on the Nameless One (who normally wears what seems to be a combination loincloth-toolbelt-backpack and a pair of boots), or get him made up to look like a zombie, it will show up on his in-game model. However, if you put different outfits on either Annah or Fall-From-Grace their appearance will not change; even though the only difference between their various outfits is a palette swap you will not see a change in the color of their rendering.
 * While you can equip armor and equipment in Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood, none of it actually shows up on the model. This gets somewhat ridiculous when you equip a hammer, but it still doesn't show up. Only equipped Chao can be seen in battle, where they float behind the characters in your party.
 * Chrono Trigger falls into this trope as well. While weapons change and the characters actually draw them when they start a fight, armor is still non-existent. I'll be damned if the game can show you Crono and Frog equip the same Nova Armor... And Crono's mop still shows up as a Katanas Are Just Better when he uses it.
 * The main characters from the Final Fantasy Tactics series will still be in their artwork clothes, even though they change their job classes.
 * In early versions of Neverwinter Nights, the only equipment that appeared on the character's model was the weaponry and armor. They later released a patch to make the cloaks appear too.
 * Neverwinter Nights 2 shows everything except jewelry (and a backpack for your inventory).
 * Pokémon: Until the third generation of games, all Pokemon on the Party menu were represented with rather generic sprites (with the exception of Pikachu in Yellow, and Gyarados in Gold and Silver). Starting with Ruby and Sapphire, each Pokemon had two sprites of their own for the party menu.
 * The use of held items and special abilities. If the battles were perfectly realistic, it would be incredibly easy to determine whether your opposing Pokemon had a special pair of glasses which boosted Special Attack or was holding a berry which constantly restored health; in the games, there's no way of knowing without the use of a special ability or a move. Similarly, while it should be easy to tell if a Bronzong has the ability to levitate (which makes it immune to Ground-type attacks), there is no indication of its ability.
 * Dubloon is rather egregious with this. Not only are any helms or armour equipped invisible, so are the weapons.
 * In the Baldur's Gate series, multiclass fighter/mages use the fighter model, but can still equip mage robes because of their experience as a mage. This isn't shown on their character model, and fighter/mages end up standing around casting spells in their underclothes. Same thing happens when you equip a thief with the use any item ability with armour heavier than studded leather.
 * By virtue of being able to sit safely on cockatrice corpses, players have deduced that Nethack heroes wear pants which are not indicated in the inventory. (We think it's the circle around the 'a' in the @.) Oddly, this is also true of all other monsters in the dungeon as well. There's also the Backpack and the Purse, neither of which exist independently, but the former of which can be "stolen." Possibly several times in a row if you made a point of it.
 * Exit Fate. Whether it's fighter types depicted with heavy armour (including females in a rare aversion of Chainmail Bikini) regardless of daytime and occasion, mages wearing robes, a dancer turned mage wearing a skirt and bikini top, and plenty of people wearing casual clothes or fine dresses, they'll always wear that on their portrait and sprite regardless of what they have actually equipped in gameplay terms.
 * This appears in Dungeons of Dredmor, too: During the animations, regardless of what they look like in the inventory, all swords look like normal iron long swords, all potions and drinks are in the same red bottle and the hero is always wearing a leather cuirass over a white shirt. The last point is a bit odd, because you can't equip more than one torso armor piece, and you might not even start with either of those things.

Simulation Games

 * Ace Combat X: Skies of Deception allows you to customize certain planes by adding parts to them, but the changes are not reflected.
 * Maybe because you were attempting to deceive your enemies about your plane's equipment.
 * Animal Crossing series averts this with clothes but plays it straight with tools: carried but unequipped tools are invisible.
 * X-Universe: When you fit a gun to a slot on a ship, a cannon appears in a corresponding spot on the ship's model. It looks exactly the same no matter what gun you put there. Other equipment doesn't even do that much.
 * Due to the game using sprite-based graphics, nothing you fit to a ship in Escape Velocity ever appears on it.

Survival Horror

 * While Resident Evil 5 allows your characters to wield a variety of weapons and outfits, only their outfits will change in cutscenes. Throughout the game, Chris and Sheva are shown wielding only their default handguns.
 * Which sometimes leads to unintentionally funny scenes, such as Sheva holstering her pistol on her bare thigh.

Tabletop Games

 * Dungeons & Dragons figures rarely look much like the player characters they represent.
 * In fact, this is largely a given if you're using miniatures for any RPG. Players strapped for cash might even resort to using whatever's on hand in place of minis, sometimes leading to cries of "Don't eat the army!" as a player absent-mindedly reaches for a candy.
 * Any table top game using miniatures, like Heros Quest, Warhammer 40,000 or Warhammer Fantasy Battle has this unless you customize the miniatures. A pack of clanrats holding swords can be upgraded to have spears but will still be holding swords, obviously.
 * Though at least in Warhammer (Fantasy and 40k) the tournament often has rules that says that the models must have the equipment that you have upgraded them with (the rule is most often called WYSIWYG or What You See Is What You Get), you can get away with some exceptions to the rule but not a whole lot. The most notorious being the rule that red Ork vehicles go faster - there's a point cost to it, but the real cost is that, in order to invoke this rule, your models must actually be red.

Web Comics

 * Lampshaded in this Adventurers! comic.

Action Adventure

 * The Legend of Zelda. Not only the 3D games, but even the 2D ones had different sprites for most equipment.
 * However, all items other than swords, shields, and clothing items are still hidden until you take them out. Link has a quiver for his arrows, but you can't see it - you only see the bow itself, and the arrow currently in use. This trope is particularly obvious when using the Skull Hammer in The Legend of Zelda the Wind Waker, as the hammer is not only invisible when not in use, it is as big as Link and cannot possibly be carried on his person unless he has Hammerspace pockets.
 * Though The Legend of Zelda cartoon show actually showed in one episode that they DO have Hammerspace pockets, with the items shrinking in appearance to fit inside, then growing when they were taken back out.
 * Title character of Legacy of Kain Blood Omen - the first game in the series, made by Silicon Knights for PlayStation and PC - had a rather extensive collection of visually distinctive weapons and armor suits each of which altered the way Kain looked, despite the game being completely 2D.
 * Played straight in the pre-rendered cutscenes, though(obviously), Kain would always be wearing his starting equipment, the iron armor and sword. Kind of justified in certain instances; walking into the court of the king wearing a suit of armor made out of bones would probably look suspicious.
 * Averted in Okami about half the time and played straight the other half, bizarrely. In some cutscenes, Amaterasu will have whatever weapon she has equipped, and in others, she'll have her default weapon. The cutscenes are all in-engine, so this doesn't make very much sense.
 * Sometimes averted, sometimes not in Castlevania. In Symphony of the Night, almost everything Alucard can equip will show changed art on his model. However, even if you completely unequip his cloak, he's still visibly wearing one. Since it's much harder to avert this trope with Game Boy hardware than PlayStation, the GBA games tend to only show changes to characters' weaponry.
 * Secret of Evermore averts it for weapons (though different weapons of the same type just show up as Palette Swaps, looking nothing like their icon) but doesn't show armor.

Fighting Games

 * Soul Calibur IV averts this, modify a character and take the armor away, and they'll be fighting in historically questionable undergarments. As you gain major bonuses from armour and clothing, this makes things a hell of a lot harder. Try it combined with the joke items on hard mode and you'll be seeing the "Stage Failed" screen a lot.
 * The Warriors plays the trope in both ways. If your character is holding a weapon, it won't show in a cut scene. However, any hats that they happened to pick up and wear will always show up in a cut scene.

First-Person Shooters

 * The sprite-based Marathon games featured a peculiar solution to the problem in the form of split sprites: there was one set of sprites for the legs and lower body, and another for the torso (including the weapons carried thereon).
 * In XIII, many enemies wear body armor of various styles, which magically vanish when they soak up too much damage. This makes it imperative to sneak up behind and take them down silently, so as to loot their unblemished armor.
 * Mass Effect. Every armor suit and gun is individually rendered. However, your squadmates do still show up in their starting armor in a few cutscenes when they are not currently selected as active party members. Some of the alien squadmates will also show up in default armor while on your ship, the others wear either civilian clothes or crew uniforms.
 * However, Jenkins' model doesn't change based on his equipment. Given that the only ways you can have different items to give him are a New Game+ (where you know not to bother) or using cheats, this is definitely reasonable.
 * Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex (PSP): The currently selected weapons for each Tachikoma also appear in cutscenes throughout the game.
 * In Team Fortress 2, a Spy disguised as you will reflect your loadout, including accessories and/or Nice Hats.
 * Averted in some cutscenes in Golden Eye 1997 for the N64. The end of the trainyard level has Bond (James Bond) killing two guards on the train itself. It's a bit of a different action for whatever gun you are weilding. In other cut scenes, the game keeps track of grenades.
 * Also averted in the ARMA series - one of the above-mentioned guns that can load different types of magazines is the G36 series, which normally use transparent magazines. One can clearly see the number of rounds within decrease as it's fired, though after about 15 shots they're obscured from view by the gun itself.

Hack and Slash

 * In Diablo, there were very few models, though there were some different ones for different kinds of armor: specifically light leathery armor, medium chain-y armor, and heavy plate armor. Diablo II made a branch between early games with no or few extra models and later ones with piles of them, where each class had its own style of armor, and different types of armor each had a different look on each class. Items with abilities that associated with a particular - such as deep green for poison - reflected those colors on the character's model, as well.
 * Handled ingeniously by splitting the models into different sections and sprites to have more combinations of equipment.
 * Which ends up causing different parts of the character's body to be dyed in accordance with the item. Masks specifically end up dying your Necromancer's normally white hair various colors, and certain one-of-a-kind items will turn a Sorceresses hair into something that looks like a giant bleach-stained towel taped to her head.
 * Totally averted in the Diablo-II-inspired Titan Quest. Every individual piece of equipment appears on your in-game character. In fact, Titan Quest takes it one step further, if a particular monster has a unique item in its inventory to be dropped upon its death, the monster will be shown using that piece of equipment, with the item's model appropriately placed.

MMORPGs

 * World of Warcraft (and many other MMORPGs): Every weapon, piece of armor, and clothing is rendered fully on each character in the game. Indeed, there is a certain type of player that wears certain combinations of armor, not because they're more effective at protection, but because they look cool. Or rather, not like Rainbow Pimp Gear. (The next patch is introducing the ability to alter the look of gear specifically to avoid this look)
 * This does have one negative effect. Any new character models (a new race, or a new body type for an existing race) must be run through every single visible piece of equipment in the game. Any new gestures or poses must be run through ten races times two genders. Understandably, the designers are extremely reluctant to add new character models, gestures, and poses. Let alone new abilities, such as crouching, crawling, or hanging from a ledge.
 * However, shape shifting forms (such as the druids animal forms and several gag items) have a preset appearance that only changes the currently equipped weapon (and for the druid forms, with the exception of the moonkin, not even that). They also have a drastically reduced range of gestures, with the exception of those that are based on a existing race.
 * One amusing consequence of this very good feature comes about each expansion to WOW (and presumably other MMOs). Players will have worked strenuously to equip their characters with all the best "tier" armor, which generally have been designed to blend and harmonize to create a stunning effect on a fully equipped character. When a new level cap opens, however, even the best gear will soon enough be replaced with a motley mix of semi-randomly generated items and quest drops which will have been designed to no particular theme. The horror generated in the fashion-conscious player is demonstrated in this Penny Arcade cartoon.
 * Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures. Also you can literally fight in the nude, being able to strip male or female characters down to skimpy (and anachronistic) thongs. Yes, you can see nipples.
 * Yahtzee had quite a bit of fun with this feature: Determined to see how long he could go without ever putting any armor on at all, he picked the necromancer class, set all the character sliders to their minimum possible values and dubbed his character Thinderella the Necromantic Naturist.
 * NeoQuest II updates your characters' appearance (clothes and weapons), on the field and in battle, to reflect what armor they're wearing.
 * Dream of Mirror Online (DOMO), allows to see your character weapon, shield and armor any moment, cutscenes included. When naked, characters still wears underwear (very skimpy for the Shura/Felin race). anyway, the exact look of an armor changes due to race or gender. Most notably the "newbie clothing", that change from a bathsuit to a formal man robe, based on your character creation.
 * Mabinogi. Player characters are fully modelled with all their gear (except accessories, which are effectively too small to see at game resolution), even in cutscenes.

Platform Games

 * Metroid, suit upgrades are visible on the model in all games. In the 3D games, the model even changes for weapon upgrades, and in Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, the suit also reflects Samus's Phazon corruption.
 * The Mega Man X series utilized sprite overlays for each of X's armor upgrades, in addition to the traditional palette swaps for his alternate weapons.
 * The two Sonic Adventure games show any bits of equipment collected on the character's models. Since the gear cannot be removed, it's completely impossible, for eg, to get Knuckles to take off his sunglasses once he's picked them up.
 * Wonder Boy in Monster Land had separate palette maps for armor, weapon, shield, and footwear (but they all behaved exactly the same in relation to the frames of animation).
 * In the Genesis version of Wonder Boy in Monster World, most weapons and shields have unique sprites. (In the Master System version, swords have different sprites from spears, but that's it.)
 * All games in the Ghosts N Goblins series will show Arthur running around in his boxer shorts if he's not wearing any armor (i.e. got hit).
 * Their Spiritual Successor Maximo does the same thing.
 * Terraria shows your character with whatever armor they have on, and there are also social slots now. If armor is put in these slots, that's what you see your character in, but gameplay-wise you are still wearing the non-social armour.

Real Time Strategy

 * Command & Conquer: Generals, where the 3D model was updated depending on upgrades. A missile upgrade for a jeep resulted in that missile showing up on the side of the jeep, etc.
 * In Warhammer 40000: Dawn of War, any equipment added to your troops is reflected on their models, including weapon and miscellaneous wargear additions. These changes are also visible on their persistent corpses (that can lay there forever, with the appropriate config menu setting).
 * This makes a lot of sense since some of the tournament rules for the tabletop game require that any wargear be shown on the plastic/white metal/resin models.
 * Units in Age of Mythology would be shown holding different pieces of equipment depending on the armory upgrades purchased and units with line upgrades would look different in each age the upgrade was purchased.
 * Units in Medieval II: Total War are shown in better armor and carry the better weapons that are researched for them in their cities of origin. Also, the individual units are semi-unique, averting the usual "clone army" look of the typical RTS.

Roguelike

 * Averted in Doom the Roguelike, at least as much as possible for a game with ASCII graphics, as the the color of the @ which represents you changes to match the color of your equipped armor.
 * Actually averted in the Roguelike Powder, which bolts images of whatever you're wearing to the image of your character. It helps that there isn't any animation to speak of.
 * And averted again in the PlayStation 2 roguelike Baroque. A full set of equipment consists of a coat, a pair of artificial wings, and a sword (or the Angelic Rifle), all of which show up over the nameless protagonist's normal clothing and are carried over into cutscenes.

Role-Playing Games

 * Neptunia won't show your armor (as they're just bracelets and other rings), but any changes to your weapon, accessories, outfits or processor parts for the CPUs will appear in battle.
 * Final Fantasy X had most of its cutscenes rendered via the in-game engine, and thus changes to weaponry were acknowledged; armor, meanwhile, was handled entirely via shields and other small items. Weapons rarely ever appeared in the prerendered sequences.
 * But when it, it's almost always a Crowning Moment of Awesome. Just imagine Auron fading to Pyreflies with the Masamune on his back, or Tidus facing down the Final Boss with the Caladbolg. Or any other weapon you have equipped.
 * In Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles Echoes of Time this trope is averted, as any armor, helmet or weapon you equip on any character actually shows, although you can't remove any of these, so no running in the nude or fighting barehanded. However no matter what a character is wearing, the icon of their face (next to their HP and MP on the top screen) remains the same.
 * Seen in the Kingdom Hearts series:
 * Kingdom Hearts: in the in-game cutscenes, Sora will be holding whatever Keyblade he has currently equipped (occasionally causing problems with clipping if it's one of the larger or oddly-shaped ones).
 * In Kingdom Hearts II, it'll also show whatever combination mode he's in.
 * Played straight in the scene before the Thousand Heartless battle and the pictures in Jiminy's Journal, where he's shown with the original Kingdom Key, and in Kingdom Hearts 358 Days Over 2, where Roxas always has the Kingdom Key in cutscenes despite the Gear you may have equipped on him.
 * Also played straight in the first game's ending; Sora is shown to be using the Kingdom Key regardless of which Keychain you have equipped.
 * Dungeon Siege, by giving every item its own 3D model.
 * Neverwinter Nights 2, most, if not all, equipment appears on the characters, and magical weapons will usually have a relevant magical effect. Certain pieces of head equipment, such as circlets, also appear on the character portrait.
 * Fallout is notable, being fully sprite-based. Every armor in the game has its rendering for each of the available the player models, and each weapon is represented by the class model (small arms, spear, big arms, etc.) visibly wielded by characters. NPCs in the game are generally rendered according to the armor they wear; NPCs in the party, however, never change their looks.
 * And averted in Fallout3 and Fallout: New Vegas where every armor used, even on NPCs will be shown and the same thing with the currently used weapon.
 * Seems indeed to have faded with regards to The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion: clothes, weapons, armor, and jewelry are fully visible and changeable.
 * Also prevalent in The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, where, like Oblivion, it stopped short of Nudity with a loincloth. NPCs didn't seem to notice this. In Morrowind, people would tell you to put some clothes on if you were naked, and in Oblivion they were oblivious (pardon the pun) to you running around starkers.
 * Add in the fact that some creatures are actually modeled with something under the loincloth...
 * The Hentai RPG Knights of Xentar takes the aversion to the logical extreme. Not only do the various types of armor, shield and weaponry you can equip show up on your character in battle (and, for that matter, when wandering around the map) - but if you de-equip everything, your characters do, indeed, Fight in The Nude. Including that cute sorceress. It's little quirks like these that help to make the game a perfectly valid RPG, if you can get past the fact that every five minutes you'll be staring at a pair of badly drawn breasts.
 * On the other hand, Ultima VII (and part two, and the expansion, and part two the expansion) have nude sprites available for the protagonist, which are shown at certain points as required by the plot, but cannot be accessed by simply removing all of your gear.
 * The game series Kouryuu Densetsu Villgust - when a character gets a full set of next-level equipment, their battle sprite changes (usually just colors, but in some cases a headband or extra armor gets added) to reflect it. However, only in the equipment screen is each piece of equipment rendered (in a Paper Doll style) - in battle, if you have all the members of the "blue" set and a "green" helmet, for instance, you usually still appear green.
 * Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura - not only does equipping no armor or clothing leave your character running around in his or her underwear, but most people you meet refuse to talk to you until you are decently dressed.
 * Dark Cloud 2 avoids this by not having armor; the characters clothing can be changed, but it bears no stat advantages. Similar to the Grand Theft Auto example above, the clothing differences are worked into the cutscenes.
 * Continues into Rogue Galaxy.
 * Fable. Your character will always appear to be wearing whatever clothing or armor he currently has equipped. If you unequip everything, he will be forced to run around the game world clad only in his underpants. Almost every quest has a bonus if you do it without any equipment, in fact.
 * Likewise in Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance, and since Armor is pretty much useless in both. You'll often find players doing "naked runs" (especially with the Baldur's Gate ladies).
 * Despite being an NES game, Crystalis altered your character's look depending on whether he had shields or armor equipped.
 * However, there was no difference based on what armor you wore, or what shield you had, so other than the beginning of the game, you were almost always wearing fur armor. Similarly, all four swords look the same in combat, even though the item screen implies them looking rather different (especially the water sword)
 * Legend of Legaia. Every weapon and armor was represented. In fact, you had numerous different types of armor along with those weapons, so as you progressed through the game, you got to see the characters in constantly changing outfits, though these outfits would mostly match the base clothes in style. You didn't get anyone in the nude, as the default armor was what they wore outside of combat, but considering how old the game is, it was a refreshing change to see all the different armors and weapons shown in battle. Not to mention that the equipment could look genuinely intimidating. Yes, even Gala's battle earrings.
 * The sequel, Duel Saga, only has different models for the characters' weapons. Characters who don't use weapons have no changes whatsoever.
 * Gothic, where the player character's changes of clothing show up in-game and in cutscenes, and the Mentors putting on his old armor is a FanServicey nostalgia moment in Gothic II. Unfortunately, if the player for some reason decided not to wear the magic armor during the final boss fight in Gothic, this created a plot hole at the start of Gothic II where it's revealed that the armor saved his life when the cave collapsed.
 * Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles has a semi-aversion with its weapons, but much like the above the clothing does not change. However, this was changed in the sequel Ring Of Fates, the first DS entry. Every piece of equipment you equip changes how the on-screen characters look.
 * In Dragon Quest IX, every piece of equipment has a unique look to it. This can lead to some rather strange looks as you mix and match the things with the best stat gains.
 * Dragon Quest VIII has unique weapons for each character, but mostly plays the trope straight as far as armor is concerned. A few armors or armor combinations do change the character sprites, though (though most of these are for the one female character, for some reason.)
 * This is mostly the case in Persona 3 during mission sequences (outside of missions they wear whatever is appropriate), but every character has a couple of outfits that change the character model's clothes as well. For instance, females can wear the High-Cut Armor, and each also has a separate maid outfit. Lampshaded; when you assign these armors to the characters, they tend to get a bit flustered. Some of the unique male armor also gets a less dramatic reaction (since none of it is anywhere near as Fan Service friendly). Note that this only happened in the FES version - while the outfits do exist in the vanilla game, you can only get the reactions from the characters while their clothes stay the same.
 * Persona 4 is only a little better; while the characters in Persona 3 have seasonal school uniforms and summer vs winter day clothes, they always go adventuring in their winter uniforms. However their weapons are all unique, with the ultimate weapons being extra cool-looking. The cast of Persona 4 actually do go adventuring in their summer uniforms if they're wearing them in the game (though you still can't go adventuring in their holiday clothes).
 * 4 is pretty good about this: all the armor is usually magical or wearable under clothing, and most of the party members carry weapons that can be easily concealed. Nevertheless the Protagonist somehow sneaks enormous swords/baseball bats/golf clubs into Junes and Kanji is even worse. His first buyable weapon is a DESK.
 * Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology averts this to such a degree that equipping a piece of armor that would theoretically cause major overlap issues on your character automatically de-equips the offending piece(s) upon equipping the new one - with each change shown on your character's model, remembering how large each piece actually is comes in handy.
 * Sudeki averts this completely, partially by virtue of each character only having 3 sets of armor (that are awarded at fixed points in the plot, no less), but each weapon has its own unique model, appearance, and in the case of ranged weapons, projectile. Some, like the Chainsword, even have their own noises.
 * Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light boasts an aversion of this: weapons and armor equipped will change the character's model to match.
 * In Radiata Stories, every armor changes the character's appearance (at least one also change the hair), including cutscenes.
 * Knights of the Old Republic shows different types of weapons and armor as different models, though some are just different-colored versions of similar armor or weapons. You can, in fact, strip your character to their undies, and it happens at least once in each game whether you want it to or not. You even start both games in your undergarments.
 * Siege of Avalon shows every piece of equipment you put on your character except for the Hand equipment slots, which are presumably either worn under the Gloves slot (and too small to see when not wearing gloves) for rings, or just not shown for books and scrolls. There are a couple dozen different garments and pieces of armor for each armor slot, and at least twice that for the weapon slot, even ignoring the ones that look the same but have different stats.
 * Wild ARMs 5 has pieces of armor which will change the character's model.
 * In Mount & Blade and the CRPG mod, all the different types of weapons and armour are clearly or somewhat distinguishable, considering there are hundreds of each this starts to matter very little, as most of armours or weapons of the same class tend to be pretty much the same with only slight differences. Its again not as helpful in multiplayer and even worse in CRPG as anyone wearing armour which has a metallic colour on it is probably too armoured for you to have hope of beating with your handful of rocks and pitchfork. All the horses have different appearances but are all the same to a player on foot as they attempt to dodge the instant kill lances.
 * Zig-zagged in the Inazuma Eleven series. Each character has a 3D model for close-ups and a separate miniature (2D sprites in the first three games, replaced by 3D models in Inazuma Eleven GO) for more distant camera angles. The miniatures play the trope straight, but the close-up models avert it; shoes and goalkeepers' gloves are all texture swaps, and accessories are added to the model.

Stealth Based Games

 * Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, wherein Snake keeps his currently selected camouflage for any given cutscene, including his "shirtless" outfit and the Raikov mask. Your Voice with an Internet Connection will even tell you to remove the mask before meeting certain people if it would freak them out.
 * Reportedly, Hideo Kojima included the "shirtless" costume in the game to get players to play through the whole game topless.
 * Also happens in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots with the OctoCamo and various outfits, leading to various amusing situations where Snake is covered in polka dots or smoking through his mask.
 * A perfect and hilarious example is this.

Turn-Based Strategy

 * X-COM: UFO Defense: character sprites show the armor you equip on them and the weapon they've used most recently.
 * Jagged Alliance games altered the characters' appearances based on the weapon types they were equipped with although pistols and SMG's looked identical, same as shotguns and rifles. The armor equipped, however, had absolutely no effect on appearance, which became rather ridiculous when the mercenaries were technically wearing full Spectra outfit, complete with a helmet and a gas mask, yet still appeared to wear the same t-shirt they had at the beginning of the game
 * Weapons-only aversion in the Disgaea series. Armor isn't shown, but every single weapon (except the Fist-type and monster-type weapons) has a unique sprite. Also, each weapon can be either legendary, rare or normal, and the sprites are recolored to show this.
 * Played Straight and Averted depending on which Fire Emblem game you're playing. Some of the Fire Emblem games use one or two sprites/models for all weapons (Fire Emblem doesn't have "armor" as an item, basing defense purely on a character's stats) of each type in-battle, while others have unique sprites for each weapon. The first two games and portables generally fall in the former, while the SNES and later(non-portable) games fall in the latter. Interestingly, in the games where a single design is used regardless of the particular weapon a character has, the design itself tends to be different according to the class of the character using it, leading to two characters using the same weapon having it appear completely differently in-battle.

Wide Open Sandbox

 * Excellently avoided in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, in which you can change the main character's clothes and hairstyle, give him tattoos, and even alter his basic body shape (though this last is a long process, involving overeating to get fat or exercise to get muscular). Any changes to the character's appearance are worked seamlessly into all of the game's cutscenes. Body armour, on the other hand, is invisible, even if you are naked from the waist up.
 * Oddly averted in Grand Theft Auto IV. When Niko  Aside from that, the game works the same as its predecessor.
 * Similarly, when facing.
 * In the end of The Lost and Damned.
 * Similar to the San Andreas aversion above, Saints Row 2 incorporates ridiculous levels of character customization, including four separate layers on the chest alone, all of these changes will be visible in cutscenes along with six different voice sets for the player character. But, it does play this trope straight in one very bizarre way. Throughout the game you can obtain alternate handguns, shotguns, assault rifles and the like, but, while every cutscene will accurately depict your character in almost every way, their weapons are pre-scripted. This can (and does) result in the player character using pistols they aren't carrying on a fairly regular basis.
 * Scarface the World Is Yours. At one point you chase down and confront the evil . The death scene plays out differently depending on what you use but oddly, only three ways are available at this point. Using your opponent's clearly seen weapon is not possible, sadly.
 * The Godfather 2 averts this. Upgrades you get from owning certain business types, such as body armour and knuckledusters, are clearly visible on your character.