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Too Awesome to Use: Difference between revisions
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(Import from TV Tropes TVT:Main.TooAwesomeToUse 2012-07-01, editor history TVTH:Main.TooAwesomeToUse, CC-BY-SA 3.0 Unported license) |
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'''Hector:''' I'm bleeding to death ''now!''|''[[Awkward Zombie]],'' parodying ''[[Fire Emblem]]'' in ''[http://www.awkwardzombie.com/index.php?page=0&comic=072709 "Unnerving Conserving"]''}}
So, you've been toiling through the game for many an hour. You've scoured the sprawling dungeons, killed menacing bosses, and effortlessly solved every puzzle presented to you. When suddenly... you stumble upon some kind of super secret item room that must have otherwise been impossible to find without help from [[Guide Dang It|GameFAQs]]. Inside the room is a single treasure chest. You open the chest, and receive your reward: The ultimate attack. The weapon that can [[Conan the Barbarian|crush your enemies]] [http://www.barbariankeep.com/ctbsecrets.html and drive them before you] [http://www.archive.org/stream/genghiskhantheem035122mbp/genghiskhantheem035122mbp_djvu.txt as you hear the lamentations of their women]. The spell which channels the power of the gods and rends the earth ([[Slap
It's flashy. It's unstoppable. It's awesome ''and'' practical.
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...Yup, it's going to end up sitting safe and sound in your inventory until the very end.
Games such as [[RPG|RPGs]] featuring an inventory system are prone to giving you items that are [[Too Awesome to Use]]. It could be an item that heals all your stats and makes you invulnerable for an extended period of time. It could be a special power that lets you fly, or a [[Status Buff]] that lets you destroy the universe with the snap of a finger. It could be a [[BFG|Superweapon]] with an extremely limited amount of ammo, or an [[Infinity
It's useful, awesome, and practical - unfortunately, you're never going to see the item in use outside of maybe the last boss (as you wouldn't need it afterwards), either because you're afraid to [[What Measure Is a Non Unique|waste such a valuable treasure]] and will be waiting for that one good opportunity to use it, or maybe because it simply pains you to imagine having it [[Hundred Percent Completion|missing from your inventory]]. Of course you may save it until the last boss only to realize [[Contractual Boss Immunity|you can't use it during boss fights]]...
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Consequently, if there's an [[Game Breaker|item duplication]] [[Good Bad Bugs|glitch]] in the game, then of course you're going to be using it all the time.
{{examples
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** Averted in ''Tomb Raider Chronicles''. Every chapter has their own set of levels and each chapter are separated from each other, so progress between chapters are not saved. This encourages players to use up everything they find rather than hoard them and find out that the items don't carry over between chapters.
* The Heart Pot you receive from Jenka in ''[[Cave Story (Video Game)|Cave Story]]'' would certainly fall into this category: using it completely refills your [[Life Meter]], and then it's gone. It does turn out that [[Guide Dang It|you can later go back to Jenka to get another anytime you want]], but soon after getting the first one comes a ''long'' period where you can't return to Sand Zone. On top of that, there are often sequences where you can't freely grab Heart Pots without resetting the level. And to a lesser extent, just going out of your way to go back to Jenka's house is a minor annoyance in general.
** As good as everyone will agree that the best situation to save the Pot for is the [[Bonus Boss]]. Before the game's [[Point of No Return]], the best situation to use it otherwise is probably the boss fight at the very end of the Sand Zone/Labyrinth itself, just before you get access to said refill; since if you are going for the [[Bonus Dungeon]] you will have skipped {{spoiler|the first jetpack version, which you will later get a vastly superior upgrade of instead}}. The reason for skipping it is that otherwise {{spoiler|the inventor will die after being unable to save himself with its parts}}, but naturally [[Self
* ''[[Spiral Knights]]'' has the Mist Tank, which you only get once after passing the tutorial and refills your Mist Energy once, i.e. the "currency" you need to enter levels and craft equipment.
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== [[First
* ''[[Doom]]'':
** The trademark Heart Artifact from ''[[Doom]] 3: Resurrection of Evil'' could stop time, turn the player invincible, and boost the damage of their weapon all at once. It was such a cool effect that the player is commonly tempted to conserve the artifact's energy and rarely use it, even though it could be recharged just about everywhere.
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* In ''[[Galactic Civilizations]] 2'', it is possible to 'get lucky' and find a rare Precursor battleship early on which is generally much stronger than anything currently out there. However, between fleet limits (a player at that point can generally only afford to field -only- that ship in a given battle) and a rather adaptive AI, those ships may be held in reserve until they get surpassed by normal researched ships. Ironically though with the proper civilization traits, one can end up finding quite the number of such ships very early on.
* In 4X game ''[[Space Empires]] V'' there is a special Ancient Ruins tech you may find if you colonise a planet, called Shield Imploder. It will bring down the enemy shields and cause damage to the enemy ship (Best description is the Breen weapon in ''[[Deep Space Nine]]''), however it is rather weak at first, but eventually it will destroy with one shot ships relying on shields. So you end up keeping it secret so as not to let other players know you have it. A game can actually end before you get to the stage where it is a one shot kill weapon. Meanwhile it would have been quite good as it is to instantly remove enemy shields if you hadn't wanted to keep it a secret for later.
* The console-only (later ported to iOS) game ''[[Civilization Revolution]]'' gives you an [[Nuke
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== [[Platform Game]] ==
* P-wings in ''[[Super Mario Bros 3 (Video Game)|Super Mario Bros 3]]'' gives you infinite raccoon flight. This game also had some other items that fell prey to this effect, like the Hammer Bros. Suits and the Tanuki suits. They were just too cool and rare to use anywhere. They're more usable in the ''All-Stars'' remake, where you can save items and regain items earned from beating worlds, meaning you can easily farm P-Wings by repeatedly beating World 1. The same goes with Lakitu's Cloud, which allows you to automatically skip a single stage.
* ''[[Mega Man (Video Game)|Mega Man]] 9'' gives us a few of these, with shop items that are expensive, or of which you can only have one at a time. Eddie Call can give you items, including 1-ups. The M-Tank acts like the Megalixers described above; it refills your [[Hit Points]] and all your [[Mana|Weapon energy]]. But the biggest user of this trope ''has'' to be the Guard Power. It grants double armor for 1 level, but though you'd be tempted to use it against the [[Cluster F
** This is generally true of all games. With some minor exceptions (such as ''[[Mega Man 2 (Video Game)|Mega Man 2]]'s'' [[Game Breaker|Metal Blade]]), special weapons are too costly to use willy-nilly especially when the end boss might have a vulnerability to it. Plus in a lot of cases, it's simply too much work to go through the weapon select screen (they didn't figure out that Select was a viable button to switch weapons until much later).
* ''[[Bunny Must Die]]'' has both Bunny and Chelsea dolls. Bunny dolls are optional uses when Bunny bites the big one, and can reload the entire room with Bunny at full health. Chelsea dolls are automatically used when Chelsea gets slagged, and restore Chelsea to full health and Mana. Naturally, players will preserve as many of both of these as possible for the [[Final Boss]] battles in each game -- Chelsea for Bunny, and Septentrion and {{spoiler|Bunny and Dechronos}} for Chelsea.
* In the second and third ''[[Jak and Daxter]]'' games, it took so long to charge up your Dark Eco meter to use your [[Super
* In ''[[The Lost Vikings]]'' and its sequel you can find an item that kills every enemy on the screen. However, this item rarely comes into play as you can usually take out your enemies easily enough with your normal attacks.
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** Ethers and Elixirs can't be bought in stores, and are only found on the maps. Therefore, they are usually conserved for the right time. In the later games, Mysteryberries and Leppa Berries had the same effect, but you could replant them for more, thereby rendering Ethers [[Vendor Trash|yet another useless thing that garnered lots of cash]].
** Rare Candy, a free level-up, is another example. However, since the higher a Pokémon's level is, the more experience it needs to level, saving them for later leveling lets you get the most bang for your buck.
** ''Pokémon'' games have a large list of TMs (items that teach attacks to Pokémon), some which can be bought at markets and Game Corners, others that you only get one of... ever. And if you're the kind of Trainer that switches up his/her team a lot, you may have just wasted a strong attack on a Pokémon you'll never use again. Earthquake is a particularly big offender, given its high power, high accuracy, and [[Elemental Rock
*** ''[[Pokémon Black and White]]'' changed the rules for TMs to allow them to be infinite use like HMs, [[And the Fandom Rejoiced]]. Interestingly, this was because Game Freak took notice of this exact trope, realizing that some people refused to use TMs at all due to this.
** Sacred Ash. In most games, there's only one legal way to get it (two in ''[[Pokémon Gold and Silver (Video Game)|HeartGold/SoulSilver]]''), which is usually by catching Ho-oh, who will be holding it... but the item's power is ridiculously awesome - it can revive all of the Pokémon in your party to full health (albeit only on the field).
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== [[Shoot
* The Grenades in ''[[Metal Slug]]'' are rather powerful. You'll want to keep them the first time you play the game, thinking you're going to find a good use for all that power... The game soon obliges, and you'll usually end up wasting those grenades [[Nintendo Hard|when you get killed]]. Of course, you get a fresh set on your next life, and hopefully a little extra insight on [[Averted Trope|how things work in the game]].
* Bombs are very useful in ''[[Star Fox (Video Game)|Star Fox]]'', and are instrumental in a few boss fights. You don't find yourself using them too often, though, do you?
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** ''[[Silent Hill Origins]]'' has one of the largest weapons' count in the series (including six kinds of firearms). Most of them, however, are commonplace depot appliances. The more powerful ones break after a single use, so players want to save them for boss fights and the like. But there's ''so many'' of them that Travis usually ends the game with [[Bag of Holding|dozens of TV sets, toasters, blenders and hammers in his pockets]].
== [[Third
* The Smart Bomb in ''[[Alien Swarm]]''. When you unlock it, you can carry only one. It's pretty much the same as the Hornet Barrage, but 5 of them. It fires so many damn rockets that a huge swarm can easily be dispatched with the item. However, since you can only hold 1, you'll have a tough time figuring out when is the best time to use it.
* Heavy weapons in ''[[Mass Effect 2]]''. You can only replenish their ammo at a handful of fixed points in the game, and you get money for all the heavy weapons ammo you pick up that would put you over your maximum ammo capacity. Most people only ever use their heavy weapons in the tutorial because of the monetary reward. Medi-gel had a similar role. This has resulted in heavy weapons being scrapped, and medigel was given a more vital role in ''[[Mass Effect 3]]'', being the only way you can regain health as opposed to the [[Regenerating Health]] of ''[[Mass Effect 2]]''.
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** In some games every weapon other than [[Boring but Practical|steel]] plus handaxes and javelins (and iron before that) ones are too expensive/fragile/rare/(In the GBA games) heavy to see much use on anything but bosses.
** ''Sword of Seals'' actually '''forces''' this behavior. You have access to the game's ultimate weapons very early, but they have few uses, and in order to get the [[Golden Ending|best ending]] they all need to be intact by the time you beat the [[Big Bad]]. Even though you technically CAN use them 1/3 of the way through the game, not players won't until the very end.
** Going for an overall A Funds ranking also enforces this kind of behavior, as it's based on the total monetary worth of ''all'' items in your posession. Expect the wast majority of Silver weapons to get hoarded in the convoy and never used. Also note many [[Serious Business|forum members]] consider this [["Stop Having Fun!" Guys|the only way to play.]]
* ''[[Sid Meiers Alpha Centauri]]'''s expansion pack introduced Battle Ogres. These are alien war machines left on Planet that really kick ass, especially the Mark 3. Problem? They are rare, and damage to them can never be repaired. So despite having very good weapons for when you pick them up, they tend to sit around as garrison units, because they have an ability that makes them better police. They're also good stopgaps in the case of mindworm swarms, as they have not only good defense but (in the mark 1 and 2 versions) additional defenses against psi attacks. Just be sure to never let them get into ''real'' combat.
* Completely averted in the ''[[Baten Kaitos]]'' games; thanks to the card-based battle system, you could use your most powerful Magnus on weak enemies, and they'd still be in your inventory.
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* In ''[[Grand Theft Auto]]'' games, getting a vehicle you want to keep generally means it will stay in the garage forever, since if you take it to do a mission, you will likely have to get out of it and risk it disappearing, and [[Every Car Is a Pinto|they are ridiculously easy to destroy]].
** This is taken to insane lengths in ''[[Grand Theft Auto III (Video Game)|Grand Theft Auto III]]''. Certain plot-involved cars are immune to certain things, such as bullets, fire, explosions, and wrecks. Most of these cars could only be obtained ONCE per game and often required hours of trial and error to get. Many players spent many hours collecting them, just to have them waste away in a garage, even though some missions almost require one to complete.
** Another notable mention of this trope are the combine harvesters in ''[[Grand Theft Auto San Andreas (Video Game)|Grand Theft Auto San Andreas]]''. These vehicles had the unique and delightfully sadistic feature of turning crops of pedestrians into [[Gorn|neatly bundled up bales of body parts]]. Unfortunately, the harvesters are rare, encountered only at certain times in rural areas. In addition, almost all of them are locked and can only be accessed by killing the driver of one already in use. Even after obtaining one, the size of the vehicle makes it difficult to move in populated areas and impossible to fit into a garage for safe keeping. Its slow speed and bad handling make the player easy for law enforcers (who inevitably start to show up after a few good mauls) to catch. Finally, if the player decides to exit the vehicle for any reason, [[Atomic F
* ''[[No More Heroes]]'' has Anarchy in the Galaxy, the most devastating [[Limit Break]] move in the game that clears the entire screen of enemies. It's also the ''only'' [[Limit Break]] that can not only be triggered at will, but ''stacks'' as well in case you get more than one over the course of a level, and you get a sizeable cash bonus if you make it through the level without using it.
** The cash bonus increases on subsequent playthroughs. It also does squat to bosses.
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* Blood type O-. You can donate to anyone you want because your blood doesn't screw with the immune system of others (which is why [[Captain Obvious|you can't donate to anyone with blood type B if you hold blood type A]]), but hospitals don't use it because no one can donate to others with blood type O- other than themselves, so they keep it to use it on people with blood type O-, or in desperate cases where they don't know your blood type. On the other side of the scale is blood type AB+: they can receive blood from anyone, but can't donate to anyone but themselves.
* This line of thought is behind the old pirate torture of "[[Leave Behind a Pistol|maroon your enemy on an island]] [[One Bullet Left|with one bullet left]]". The prisoner will initially save the bullet, planning to use it for killing a game animal, for self-defense, [[Designated Bullet|or for revenge]]. But after weeks of starvation with no hope of escape, [[Driven to Suicide|the strandee will eventually turn that saved shot on himself.]]
* [[Smelly Skunk|Skunk musk]] is so foul that even [[
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