Bragging Rights Reward/Playing With

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Basic Trope: A reward that you get for completing an incredibly hard challenge - that is irrelevant is you were skillful / patient / powerful enough to complete said challenge.

  • Straight: In the RPG Legends of Troperia, beating the Bonus Boss yields an awesome reward. However, if your party was strong enough to win the battle, the reward really wouldn't mean much.
  • Exaggerated:
    • Every enemy in the game yields a reward that is irrelevant if you're able to beat them.
    • After fighting the humongous robotic demon bear ninja while unarmed you are given the instant atomization ray.
  • Justified:
    • By the time your party is strong enough to take down the toughest enemies, there's not a lot that the game can give you at that point.
    • The item can be used in the New Game+, where it actually HAS some use.
  • Inverted: The Bonus Boss gives you an awesome item that is incredible no matter how strong you are.
  • Subverted:
    • The item is still pretty good...
    • The item opens a Bonus Dungeon...
  • Double Subverted:
    • ...unless you're at, say, level 99.
    • ..Whose reward is a useless medal.
  • Parodied: The Bonus Boss gives you nothing but Vendor Trash, with the game giving you the justification that there's not much they can give you.
  • Deconstructed: No one fights the Bonus Boss because the reward isn't worth it.
  • Reconstructed: ...But video gamers love a challenge...
  • Zig Zagged:
    • How useful the item is is dependent on how you've set up your party.
    • ...Or how high a level you are. If you're at level 1 or 99, it's a Game Breaker. However, if you're at levels 40-60, it's useless.
    • The item opens a Bonus Dungeon whose reward is a (seemingly) useless medal. That medal actually has to be delivered to a father and son named Bug and Error, respectively. The reward for this quest is...a magnifying glass.
  • Averted: Either the item is relatively useful, or there is no reward.
  • Enforced: "All players love a really difficult challenge, we should add a boss just to mess with speed runners, completionists, and offer a chance for bragging rights.
  • Lampshaded: "Jeez, this Epic Sword of Awesomeness woulda been a lot more useful fifty levels ago!"
  • Invoked: Knowing that beating the game's incredibly difficult boss would give him bragging rights to his friends, the Glory Seeker of the party rushes in to do combat, and after the monster makes quick work of him, the party is forced to run in to help him. Naturally, he takes credit for killing it afterward.
  • Defied: Knowing the Legends of Troperia series' bosses give terrible rewards and are incredibly difficult, the game's characters blatantly refuse to fight anything with more than two heads and three arms.
  • Discussed: "You won the battle! You got...a useless medal!"
  • Conversed: "I finally beat B'onus Bahs after hours of fighting. And all the game gives me is a crappy Chalice of Ultimate Power? Like I really needed it."
  • Necessary Weasel In the Legends of Troperia series, there is a bragging rights reward simply because it is an RPG and its absence would be noticed by its target audience.

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