Informed Equipment: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

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]].

 

 

 

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* 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.

 

* Infamously present in many early shooters: The marine in ''[[Doom (series)|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 (series)|Doom]]'' source-ports.

* 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.

 

** 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.

* ''[[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.

* ''[[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.

 

* 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 Folk|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.

 

* 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.

* 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.

* The ''[[SaGa|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.

** 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 ''[[Final Fantasy VI|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.

* ''[[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.

* In ''Persona 3'' most armors or certain clothes won't change the characters appearance. [[Fan Service|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.

* 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.

 

** Maybe because you were attempting to [[Incredibly Lame Pun|deceive]] your enemies about your plane's equipment.

* ''[[Animal Crossing]]'' series averts this with [[And Your Reward Is Clothes|clothes]] but plays it straight with tools: carried but unequipped tools are invisible.

* Due to the game using sprite-based graphics, nothing you fit to a ship in ''[[Escape Velocity]]'' ever appears on it.

 

* 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 [[Chainmail Bikini|her bare thigh]].

 

** 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 [[Law of Chromatic Superiority|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.

 

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* ''[[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|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 (animation)|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.

** 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 ''[[Ōkami|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 ''[[Castlevania: Symphony of the Night|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.

 

* ''[[Soul Series|Soul Calibur IV]]'' averts this, modify a character and take the armor away, and they'll be fighting in [[You Fail History Forever|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 [[Game Over|"Stage Failed"]] screen a lot.

* ''[[The Warriors (video game)|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.

 

* The sprite-based ''[[Marathon Trilogy|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 [[Everything Breaks|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.

** 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.

* Averted in some cutscenes in ''[[GoldenEye 007 (1997 video game)|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.

 

* 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.

* 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.

 

** 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.

* ''[[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 [[Nipple-and-Dimed|see nipples]].

** [[Zero Punctuation|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.

* ''[[Mabinogi (video game)|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.

 

* ''[[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.

* ''[[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.)

** 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.

 

* 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 ''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.

 

* 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.

 

* ''[[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.

** 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|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:

** In ''[[Kingdom Hearts II]]'', it'll also show whatever combination mode he's in.

** Also played straight in [[Kingdom Hearts (video game)|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.

** 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.

** 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.

* ''[[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]]''.

* ''[[Tales of the World|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 [[Chainsaw Good|Chainsword]], even have their own noises.

* ''[[Knights of the Old Republic (video game)|Knights of the Old Republic]]'' shows different types of weapons and armor as different models, though some are just [[Palette Swap|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.

* 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.

 

** Reportedly, Hideo Kojima included the "shirtless" costume in the game [[Self-Imposed Challenge|to get players to play through the whole game topless]].

*** A perfect and hilarious example is [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sg9cx_EOcdY this].

 

* ''[[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

* 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.

 

** Oddly averted in ''[[Grand Theft Auto IV]]''. When Niko {{spoiler|confronts Dimitri in the Revenge ending, the weapon he holds in the pre-execution cutscene is the same one you used to get the last hit. What makes this weird is that many players used the rocket launcher for its area-effecting ability to get around cover, so in the cutscene, Niko walks up to ''point blank range'' and waves the launcher in Dimitri's face like it's a pistol.}} Aside from that, the game works the same as its predecessor.

** In the end of [[The Lost and Damned]] {{spoiler|no matter what pistol you have when you reach Billy, Johnny will be holding the automatic pistol in the scene}}.

* ''[[The Godfather (video game)|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.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Acceptable Breaks From Reality]]

[[Category:Video Game Tropes]]