History Main / FlawedPrototype

* ''[[VideoGame/AdvanceWars Advance Wars Reboot Camp]]'' gives us [[EvilKnockoff Clone Andy]], an EvilKnockoff of [[KidHero Andy]] who possesses a very limited copy of his personality as well as access to ''some'' of his powers. While he can use Andy's CO Power just fine, he can't use Andy's Super CO Power even when played under ''Advance Wars 2'' rules. Pretty much the only thing he can do better is he has a ''way'' more badass {{Leitmotif}} than his original, with a [[DarkReprise minor key sci-fi remix]] of ''Andy's Anthem'' for his turn music.

* Labrys in ''VideoGame/Persona4Arena'' was part of a line of prototypes that eventually led to [[VideoGame/{{Persona3}} Aigis]]. Unlike the later models, she and the others were largely lacking in actual individuality and when she did finally develop she was unstable. She was technically a success but viewed as too dangerous to use and sealed away.

* The Bat-Costumes used for ''Film/{{Batman 1989}}'' and ''Film/BatmanReturns'' were massive rubber monstrosities compared to later costumes in later films. The worst offender was the cowl as it had no flexibility at all, essentially cutting Creator/MichaelKeaton's peripheral vision to just 90 degrees straight ahead, forcing him to bend backwards to look up and spin around to look at others. The costumes worn by later Bat-actors were made looser and was even made a plot point in ''Film/TheDarkKnight'' to justify a change in costume.

* In ''Comicbook/{{Aquablue}}'', in addition to their regular "exo-tanks", the Legion has brought some prototype walkers for field-testing, and the general explains this practice helped eliminate some flaws in an earlier generation. The most notable "flaw" in these ones is that since they're not field-testing weapons yet, they only carry props.
* A while back, Marvel established that Steve Rogers was actually the second ComicBook/CaptainAmerica. Another more aggressive soldier, Pvt. Clinton [=McIntyre=], was treated with the SuperSerum the night before Steve received it. The general in charge did it because he didn't think the scrawny Steve Rogers was SuperSoldier material. The soldier went insane since he wasn't treated with Vita-Rays like Steve. He was put in cold sleep until A.I.M. woke him up and cured him of his insanity decades later. As Protocide, he initially tried to kill Cap because he was brainwashed into believing that Captain America, supposedly his wartime partner, had betrayed him and left him for dead. Protocide eventually realizes that Cap is too good a person to have done that, and in his last appearance saves Steve's life before leaving for parts unknown.

** The miniseries ''Truth: Red, White & Black'' introduced Isaiah Bradley, the sole survivor of a battalion of black soldiers who were administered a recreated version of the Super-Soldier Serum. He only served in one major mission and was promptly imprisoned in Fort Leavenworth for decades for "desertion". It's unclear whether his current disabilities, similar to the symptoms of Alzheimer's and steroid abuse, are a result of an unstable super-soldier formula or his treatment at Leavenworth. The story reads like he is in fact the human guinea pig for Steve's serum, with the racist US Army spending many "more disposable" black lives before giving the serum to a white man, and this was originally the author's intention. However, Marvel backtracked, so the story begins in 1942 after Pearl Harbor while canonically Steve was already Cap by then, and this is acknowledged in-universe.
* ''ComicBook/TheCloneSaga'' infamously revealed that Ben Reilly was not the first clone of Franchise/SpiderMan. Instead, it was Kaine, a psychotic, deformed clone with the powers of Spidey cranked up.
* In the Post-Crisis Franchise/DCUniverse, the first two Bizarros were clones of Franchise/{{Superman}} who were slowly crumbling due to their creators' inexperience with Kryptonian DNA. When Cadmus attempted to clone Superman following [[ComicBook/TheDeathOfSuperman his death]], they ended up mixing it with human DNA to get the person who'd be ComicBook/{{Superboy|1994}}, but only got it right on their 13th try, leaving 12 "failed" clones in storage including another bizzaro clone.
* It's probably easy to say that a lot of [[ComicBook/IronMan Tony Stark's]] armors fit into this category. His original armor was too bulky, nearly killing him when he was possessed by a voodoo practitioner, and another armor proved to be susceptible to control by Ultron. This is a result of his tendency to immediately attempt to use a new suit in the field as soon as he completes it, without bothering to properly test it first (In Tony's defence, this is mainly because most of his new suits are created to immediately stop whatever threat destroyed or damaged their predecessor, giving him very little time to test the suits before his foe causes more damage).
* Valentine Romanov in ''ComicBook/NikolaiDante'' was the first to get a weapons crest, and is horribly scarred and mentally disturbed as a result. The rest got off pretty easy.
* In ''ComicBook/SonicTheHedgehogArchieComics'', the first Metal Sonic, Pseudo Sonic, wasn't as fast as his later counterparts and was actually prone to being disabled by static electricity.

* ''ComicBook/WonderWoman1987'': Dr. Lazarus is trying to develop HardLight constructs with an artificial intelligence, and while he's succeeded they're physically unstable and prone to exploding upon physical contact. He never perfects the prototype because he goes a bit mad after his son is killed in such an explosion.
* A recurring plot point in ''Franchise/GreenLantern'' is that the Guardians went through a lot of prototypes to the Lantern Rings before perfecting the technology. The first ones didn't have batteries or safeties, running the risk of overcharging on their wielder's own willpower to the point of critical meltdown and blowing them up. Two later models were intended to tap into the full emotional spectrum; one constantly switched spectrum based on user mood and still inevitably overloaded while the other possessed the wielder with a mind of its own and was driven to replicate and take over more people. Another ring, this one managing to channel the full spectrum as white light, Batman encountered had a faulty AI and trapped the user's mind within it.
* In ''ComicBook/MightyMorphin2020'', Billy has Tommy and Kimberly test out the Metallic Armor. Despite its greater power, Billy notes it has too much of a drain to be feasible, explaining why it wasn't used until the end of Season 3 of ''Series/MightyMorphinPowerRangers''. [[spoiler:Then Kimberly pushes the power a bit too far, causing her and Tommy to be trapped in a pocket dimension and drawing out five future villains to attack them.]]

* While Cavaliere Angelo from ''VideoGame/DevilMayCry5'' may seem like a SuperPrototype to its successor Nelo Angelo, with defensive wings and [[ShockAndAwe electrical manipulation]]; in reality, it was inferior to the Black Angel. While its power over lighting is impressive, it can easily lose its energy, forcing it to recharge and leaving itself open to attack, and its defensive capabilities don't protect much against a skilled opponent. What's worse, while Nelo Angelo's armour [[spoiler: empowered the [[BrainwashedAndCrazy enslaved Vergil]],]] Cavaliere Angelo requires a LivingBattery in the form of [[spoiler: Trish]] in order to even function, making it clear why it was rejected by Mundus.

** The very first Mobile Suit in the UC Timeline, the [=ZI-XA3=] Crabman, suffered ''heavily'' from this. The machine was made in response to Zeon's request for mobile weapons that utilized Minovsky Particle technology. The resultant fusion of a space pod and AMBAC systems resulted in an extremely top-heavy and unwieldy machine, in part due to the fact that the unit had a full-size Minovsky-Ionesco fusion reactor onboard, as opposed to the then-not-invented Ultracompact variant seen on most contemporary units. The unit was noted to be extremely unbalanced to the point where trying to get the auto-balancer working was an ordeal on its own and wound up falling flat on its face when Gihren Zabi came to inspect it. It took five iterations off of this unit to produce the MS-05 Zaku I.

* TruthInTelevision: This trope is the very ''reason'' why beta testing a new unreleased game is an absolute necessity! And why when a company releases an ObviousBeta, it's very easy to tell.

** ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid'' has the Metal Gear REX, which is a powerful nuclear-equipped walking tank with one fatal flaw: because the cockpit is completely sealed off from the outside, it is reliant on a shoulder-mounted radome to see. If the radome is damaged, the cockpit is designed to automatically open, exposing the pilot to danger. [[spoiler:Otacon intentionally designed this flaw into REX, under the belief that [[GenreSavvy every mecha needs some kind of weakness]].]]

** ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolidVThePhantomPain'' has [[spoiler:Metal Gear ''Sahelanthropus'', a HumongousMecha that is distinctly humanoid in design. To adequately use such a build, ''Sahelanthropus'' was designed to use an advanced artificial intelligence. Controlling it with AI alone, however, resulted in poor performance, so it was redesigned to use a human pilot in conjunction with the AI. This, however, created more difficulties: in spite of downsizing the AI core as much as possible without sacrificing performance, creating a cockpit to accommodate an adult pilot made it too top-heavy to be practical. The size of the cockpit only permits those of particularly short stature to control it, like [[PoweredByAForsakenChild children]]. Furthermore, the back-mounted railgun can only be fired while ''Sahelanthropus'' is in its hunched-over "tank" configuration: attempting to fire the railgun while upright would cause it to topple over from the recoil.]]

* ''VideoGame/FiveNightsAtFreddys3'' gives us Springtrap, a failed version of the Bonnie animatronic. This version was meant to be a multipurpose suit with parts that could be cranked back and held by spring locks so that the animatronic could also be used as a suit. However, the springs tended to fail and the suit was abandoned. [[spoiler:However, the suit was discovered by the Purple Man and, in a desperate attempt to hide from the spirits of the children he murdered, hopped into Springtrap. The locks gave way and ''maimed him to death''.]]

* In ''TabletopGame/{{Eberron}}'', the first warforged were the titan variety, being heavily based on the template of an iron golem. They possessed physical strength that rivalled their golem forebears but backed it up with artificial intelligence that made them more independent and capable on the battlefield than their mindless forebears. However, construct design advanced considerably in the following years, and so the titans were swiftly swept away in favor of the newer models. While the average modern warforged is completely sapient and just as smart as the average human, a titan is about as smart as a well-trained dog. Standard warforged also have the Living Construct trait to reflect [[RidiculouslyHumanRobots their closeness to a living organism]], which the titan does not. In fact, because of this intelligence and ability to learn, a warforged can even take class levels, with there being quite a few high-level warforged that could crush a titan relatively easily, despite a titan being about four times their size and ten times their weight.

* The first forms of ''Manga/YuGiOh'''s Duel Disks were large, clunky devices with a decidedly inconvenient form factor and a lot of odd little quirks -- they even required you to ''throw' them like disks, hence the name. What was more, due to their generally strange operating parameters, they couldn't actually play the standard game, since they could only project one monster at a time and required the user to place all cards that'd normally go in their hand into the device. It's unclear how much of these issues are intentional, since Kaiba seems to view their clunky and unintuitive nature as a boon (it means his opponents need time to figure out just how to use them correctly), with several features designed explicitly to counter Pegasus. If so, it backfired, because Pegasus used their inconvenience to justify one of his crueler gambits. Either way, though, when Kaiba built them for mass production, he ironed out almost all of the above flaws -- they were more compact, could play the standard game, and lacked the weird gimmicks of the original.

** In the prologue of ''[[Anime/MobileSuitGundamTheWitchFromMercury The Witch From Mercury]]'', the Pre-Production Model Gundam Lfrith was an attempt to adopt the GUND technology for use in mobile suits. Problem was that controlling a whole mobile suit and all of its systems is a lot more complicated than just controlling a limb or two. As such the system tended to cause datastorms to affect the pilot leading to all kinds of unpleasant health effects. While a set of limiters were added as a patchwork fix, that also defeated the whole point of using the GUND Format system in the first place. The Gundam Lfrith proper was meant to find a way to fix this issue. [[spoiler:Later in the series proper, a predecessor to Lfrith is revealed in the Gundam Calibarn. An early prototype machine that lacked any of the safety features or fixes that the later machines had leading it to be dubbed a monster. If the previously mentioned Lfrith units were bad, this one is even worse. It was from this thing they even learned that the safety features were necessary in the first place]].

** In the prologue of ''[[Anime/MobileSuitGundamTheWitchFromMercury The Witch From Mercury]]'', the Pre-Production Model Gundam Lfrith was an attempt to adopt the GUND technology for use in mobile suits. Problem was that controlling a whole mobile suit and all of its systems is a lot more complicated than just controlling a limb or two. As such the system tended to cause datastorms to affect the pilot leading to all kinds of unpleasant health effects. While a set of limiters were added as a patchwork fix, that also defeated the whole point of using the GUND Format system in the first place. The Gundam Lfrith proper was meant to find a way to fix this issue.

** [=SMILES=] are an attempt to create artificial [[{{Animorphism}} Zoan-type]] Devil Fruits that can be mass produced. To call them "flawed" is an understatement. 90% of all [=SMILES=] grant no powers, but afflict their consumer with two permanent curses; the SuperDrowningSkills that plague all Devil Fruit users, and [[GettingSmiliesPaintedOnYourSoul an inability to express any emotion other than smiles and laughter]]. With the other 10%, the consumer gets to roll on a SuperpowerRussianRoulette where they will, at best, get a lame knock-off version of the normal Zoan's {{Animorphism}}, and more likely suffer all manner of animal-related BodyHorror, up to and including gaining a ''fully sentient animal'' as either a conjoined twin or a replacement for a limb. The lucky ones just get permanent mutations, which may or may not come with the RequiredSecondaryPowers needed to use them effectively.

** [[spoiler:both [[BigBad Nova]] and [[TrueFinalBoss Asimov]]]] can be considered this, along with SuperPrototype, compared to [[TheHero Gunvolt]]. [[spoiler:All three were part of the Sumeragi Group's "Project GUNVOLT" to create [[LightningCanDoAnything Azure Strikers]] and were the only survivors, but Asimov, the first success, while more powerful than Gunvolt [[PowerIncontinence couldn't effectively control his power output]] and Nova, despite having more power than even Asimov, failed to properly bond with the Septima and had to be bonded with an entirely [[MindOverMatter different one]] to survive]]. Gunvolt, while technically weaker than either of them, was the only one who successfully bonded with the Septima and could control his powers.

** Granted this may have been a problem with the development method, not the technology itself. The scientists seemed to think the best way to get the robots to develop a personality was to have them repeatedly fight to the death, and after they did develop a personality the scientists immediately tried to seal them away so they could be used as weapons. They were trying to get them to develop Personas, which are tied to the user's mind and emotions, without letting them develop ''healthy'' minds and emotions.

** Silver Sonic and Mecha Sonic from the UsefulNotes/GameGear and UsefulNotes/SegaGenesis versions of ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog2'' is this for Metal Sonic -– Silver Sonic only had a mechanical arm and curled up into an iron ball. Mecha Sonic got the Sonic Spin down right, but could only race around in small areas.

An antagonistic Flawed Prototype is usually a BetaTestBaddie who is jealous of the "perfect" hero, or is a PsychoPrototype who [[ForTheEvulz just wants to kill him for the lulz]]. Most commonly seen as a supporting character, the Flawed Prototype will usually act as a BigBrotherMentor for the hero, helping bail them out while they're learning how to use their abilities but (usually) [[MentorOccupationalHazard being unable to help beat]] the BigBad. For these reasons, the supporting flawed prototype is usually an EnsembleDarkhorse among fans.

By its nature, this trope also includes a SuperiorSuccessor, if not several. However, overlap with SuperPrototype is possible, because prototypes seldom have only one significant trait, and a given instance can have both flaws and superiorities. A prototype may be able to match or exceed expectations in one area, but experience flaws in another. After all, what is or is not considered a flaw is heavily dependent on intentions and persective. The PhlebotinumRebel, for example, is usually is both. They tend to have superior abilities to the intentional design, but inferior obedience as they refuse to follow their intented purpose. Also see ObviousBeta.

* The ''Grand Cross'' (full designation Mobile Battleship Grand Cross) from ''Literature/BodaciousSpacePirates'' may be an example of this. It is a fearsome foe, utilizing advanced technology beyond what is normally seen in the series, in particular a gravity control device that allows it to zig-zag and move as fast as a fighter. It also has large protective shields, powerful lasers, can unleash a deadly close-range BeamSpam and has an edge in electronic warfare. However, after significant displays of power, the ship completely powers down for a short period of time. Also, [[spoiler:its shields are not nearly as effective against physical bombardment as they are against beams]].

** The antidotes against APTX 4869 are just prototypes and their effects roughly 24 hours, but frequent use right after the original dose drastically shortens the desired effect (in episode 522-523, the second pill worked only for roughly 4 hours). Also, taking the antidote consecutively will cause the body to develop resistance against it.

* ''Literature/FullMetalPanic'''s ARX-7 Arbalest is equipped with the experimental Lambda Driver before its operation is fully understood: it often doesn't activate when needed, and when it does it tends to operate unstably (the fact that the designer burned his notes and committed suicide before the Arbalest's first deployment didn't help). This is a serious problem, because the Arbalest and its pilot are pitted against a faction who has a much better understanding of Lambda Driver technology, to the point the main villan can use it with complete reliability. Interestingly, its pilot Sousuke Sagara, a ConsummateProfessional soldier, frequently expressed distaste for the thing because of its unreliability, finding himself unable to trust it and once even writing it off as useless, although he warmed up to it eventually.

** From a logistics standpoint, the Lancelot also counts due to its heavy energy consumption and a lack of an ejection seat for the pilot. It's also mentioned that due its acceleration speed it needs a very capable pilot with good reflexes to not crash with the built momentum.

** The Tri-Core is considered to be a prototype for Third Generation Objects, having surpassed limits of the Second Generation. However its design had several weaknesses that prevented it from truly excelling and it was destroyed in battle. Despite this the nations are eager to study its design to further their own Third Generation development.
** The Broad Sky Saber is likely the first true Third Generation Object, having successfully integrated a laser space elevator and satellite into its design. However its paranoid pilot installed a poorly-designed set of safety features which compromised its targeting system. Qwenthur was able to exploit the vulnerabilities this created to make the Saber's satellite gun fire on and destroy the main Object.

*** The GM Cannon Test Type is a prototype for mass produced GM Cannon, it is essentially a normal GM with a [[SuperPrototype Guncannon]]'s head and two extra [[ShoulderCannon shoulder cannons]]. It doesn't take a huge guess to realize that the normal GM is too light for the shoulder cannons. The Earth Federation has to resort to rebalance the topweight of the GM and take away one of the two cannons, leading to the creation of GM Cannon, and its heavy armored dual cannons successor, the GM Cannon II, which comes with the very same Chobham Armor used by Gundam Alex as well as two [[BackpackCannon mounted beam cannons]] fed by two large drum-like E-Caps on the backpack.

*** The Guntank can't aim its cannons horizontally, because its can't turn the torso due to the Core Block system comprised of the Driver/Pilot's Core Fighter for the torso. The mass production model fixed this easily by simply by getting rid of the Core Fighter component for a traditional torso system with rotational capabilities, and the latter RMV-1 Guntank II mass production model further enhances it by making an enlarged head turret mount for the twin 120mm cannons, allowing it to carry heavier weapons on it's arms, and lower hull.

*** The first Apsalus was only outfitted with the Minovsky Craft System to test its flight capabilities. The system ended up malfunctioning and landing in Federation-controlled territory where the 08th MS Team attacked it. It was able to escape, but needed repairs.
*** The second Apsalus, Apsalus II, was outfitted with the mega particle cannon, but using both proved to be a drain, requiring the final unit, the Apsalus III, to be outfitted with two Minovsky Craft Systems, three Rick Dom engines and a massive expansion to its body.

*** The Gundam Mark II was an updating of the original Gundam but was mostly a testbed for the moveable frame technology. Unfortunately, while that technology was a huge success and lead to the MidSeasonUpgrade Zeta Gundam, it was otherwise just an update of the original Gundam and the LensmanArmsRace was [[SoLastSeason not as far behind as in the original series]].

*** Later series gives us the Mass Produced Nu Gundam, which was meant to be used by both Newtypes and Oldtypes with the help of MechaExpansionPack, either Fin Funnels or [=INCOM=]s. Very few are built, most of which is because the Quasi-Psycommu still isn't perfect and naturally born Newtypes are extremely rare.
** Even the powerful [[Anime/MobileSuitGundamUnicorn Unicorn Gundam]] suffered from this. First off, all RX-0 units have the Newtype-Destroyer System (NT-D System) installed on them, and it's noted that the system is unable to differentiate between Cyber-Newtypes and real Newtypes, and that's without mentioning the fact that the NT-D system may be based on the even more flawed EXAM system, which may explain another drawback to Destroy mode - if the pilot is not careful, the will of the System will override theirs, turning the pilot into a WetwareCpu. The Unicorn also has intense acceleration and mobility - requiring that its pilots wear a specialized pressure suit to avoid blackouts. If one happens to not be wearing this special suit while the unit's Destroy Mode is active, it will result in the pilot losing consciousness from G-LOC, as Banagher learns the hard way after his first encounter with the Kshatriya. There's also the matter of the mental strain that the system imposes on the pilot, meaning that, ironically, the best pilot for a machine designed to destroy Newtypes is, in fact, a Newtype. The primary weapon of the RX-0 series, the Beam Magnum, is very powerful, but also noted to be supremely energy-inefficient, consuming an entire E-cap per shot, limiting the number of shots to fifteen maximum, assuming that extra magazines are carried. Last but not least, there's also the matter that the fact that the RX-0 Units having an embedded Psychoframe throughout their entire body means that they light up like a Christmas tree when in Destroy Mode - making them very obvious targets the moment someone spots them.
** The titular Gundam of ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamNarrative'', the RX-9 Narrative Gundam, was designed to be a prototype of the Nu Gundam above, but since it was designed for just testing out the Psycoframe, it wasn't even fully built, leaving its upper arms, thighs and torso uncovered. Only with the usage of the various MechaExpansionPack that it was given did the suit become better.
** The very first Mobile Suit in the UC Timeline, the [=ZI-XA3=] Crabman, suffered ''heavily'' from this. The machine was made in response to Zeon's request for mobile weapons that utilized Minovsky Particle technology. The resultant fusion of a space pod and AMBAC systems resulted in an extremely top-heavy and unwieldy machine, in part due to the fact that the unit had a full-size Minovsky-Ionesco fusion reactor onboard, as opposed to the then-not-invented Ultracompact variant seen on most contemporary units.. The unit was noted to be extremely unbalanced to the point where trying to get the auto-balancer working was an ordeal on its own, and wound up falling flat on its face when Gihren Zabi came to inspect it. It took five iterations off of this unit to produce the MS-05 Zaku I.

** Many Mobile Suit Variants tend to be this. Among those, the Gundam [=GP00=] "Blossom" (precursor to the Gundams from ''[[Anime/MobileSuitGundam0083StardustMemory Stardust Memory]]'') tried to [[LightningBruiser do everything well all at once]] and as a result had extremely poor balance. Likewise the [[Anime/MobileSuitZetaGundam Prototype Gundam Mk-II]], which was utterly overpowered, had poor aiming skills and cost as much to make as a battleship.

*** The mass produced GN Drive [T][[note]]pronounced "Tau"[[/note]] are also faulty: they lack the filter found in the true GN Drives, meaning they emit [[ToxicPhlebotinum toxic radiation]]; one person who survives an attack by a Tau-drive mobile suit is told that medical science can't regrow her lost hand because of this. The final mass-produced version in the second season corrects this flaw. The Tau drives also lack the true GN Drives' ability to perpetually recharge GN Particles, and will run out and shut down; while a mobile suit equipped with a true GN Drive has effectively unlimited operating time. It reveals another flaw, in that when it's own version of Trans-Am is used. Unlike a True GN drive's Trans-Am, which just simply removes the limit on how much particles the Gundam's systems can draw from it's storage tank, (and leaving the Gundam's output somewhat lowered afterwards while it recharges those particle tanks), a Tau Drive's Trans-Am is more of an OverDrive that pushes it beyond it's recommended limits. When it's Trans-Am runs out, the drive is damaged beyond battle use until overhauled back at it's base, limiting the pilot to emergency reserve power. Pushed even further, and [[ExplosiveOverclocking well the mobile suit tends to explode spectacularly]], though it is used latter on in desperation by pilots for the purpose of TakingYouWithMe.
** Very briefly, the G-Series Mobile Suits of ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamSEED'' and the Astray series of ''Manga/MobileSuitGundamSEEDAstray'' were this: The Earth Alliance had absolutely no idea how to make an OS for [[{{Muggles}} Naturals]] and neither did ORB. Kira and the Le Creuset Team rewrote their OS on the fly[[note]]Since the Le Creuset Team were all Coordinators and had ZAFT's exsting OS as a starting point, they were able to modify their Gundams' OS into something that worked fairly easily. And Kira was a computer genius and had superior reflexes even by Coordinator standards.[[/note]] and Lowe Guele used his new AI computer, 8, to get them to work. Ultimately, both the EA and ORB used Kira's handiwork to make all of their suits work, with Lowe also providing ORB with assistance behind the scenes.
*** The Earth Alliance didn't learn their lesson afterwards. Following the Battle of JOSH-A, they launched their first contingent of GAT-01 Strike Dagger units. Sadly, no one bothered to make sure they were properly shielded and all of them were wiped out when ZAFT fired its Gunginr EMP device. This was followed by the creation of the Forbidden Blue Mobile Suit, an aquatic variant of the dangerous Forbidden Gundam. It worked wonders, but the only thing protecting the pilot from the crushing depths of the ocean is the Trans-Phase Shift Armor and when that goes... The later Deep Forbidden fixed this by reinforcing the cockpit with titanium.
*** The "Biological CPU" program started with the Boosted Men, also known as the Pre-Extendeds, comprised of Clotho Buer, Orga Sabnak, and Shani Andras, a trio of PsychoPrototype SuperSoldiers made to kill Coordinators in combat [[SuperPrototype (and damn near capable of it, too)]]. The problem? Their abilities came from brain surgery and massive amounts of combat drugs, making them mentally unstable, [[AxCrazy violent]], and fatally addicted. They were required to be dosed on the drugs ''twelve times a day'' just to keep their central nervous systems from collapsing like jelly in a hot bath. By comparison, the later Extendeds were altered by mental conditioning, brainwashing, TrainingFromHell and smaller doses of surgery and drugs. The net result was that while the Extendeds weren't ''quite'' as powerful in combat as the Boosted Men, they could at least fake normality and were less likely to have their neurons self-destruct in the middle of a mission.

* The Lost Numbers in ''Manga/{{Guyver}}'' are failed Zoanoids; they have useful powers and abilities, but recreating them is impossible and they're biologically sterile. They had a driving force to prove themselves as valuable, having neither the dignity of being human or the pride of a normal Zoanoid.
* Surprisingly the SuperPrototype 3rd generation Byakkushiki from ''Literature/InfiniteStratos'' counts as this since as stated by [[TheAce Chifuyu]] it has a very powerful weapon, but it doesn't have enough energy to sustain it. Not to mention so far that all of [[TheHero Ichika]]'s battles consists of GunsVsSwords.

** Unit-01 is a "test type", somewhere in between a prototype and a production model. It's quite a lot more stable than 00, but has its own unique bugs.

** The Rocketman is a prototype sea train which always runs at maximum throttle and cannot be braked, meaning it was put aside in favor of the Puffing Tom. Kokoro and Iceberg put it to use when the Straw Hats need to catch up with the Puffing Tom, since the Rocketman is the only other sea train available.

* The first forms of ''Manga/YuGiOh'''s Duel Disks were large, clunky devices with a decidedly inconvenient form factor and a lot of odd little quirks -- they even required you to ''throw' them like disks, hence the name. What was more, due to their generally strange operating parameters, they couldn't actually play the standard game, since they could only project one monster at a time and required the user to place all cards that'd normally go in their hand into the device. It's unclear how much of these issues are intentional, since Kaiba seems to view their clunky and unintuitive nature as a boon (it means his opponents need time to figure out just how to use them correctly), with several features designed explicitly to counter Pegasus. If so, it backfired, because Pegasus used their inconvenience to justify one of his crueler gambits. Either way, though, when Kaiba built them for mass-production, he ironed out almost all of the above flaws -- they were more compact, could play the standard game, and lacked the weird gimmicks of the original.

* ''Fanfic/DarthVaderHeroOfNaboo'': The Battle of Naboo reveals that the [[TheAlliance Anti-Federationists]] managed to get their hands on the ''Clamator'', a prototype from Kuat Drive Yards. She's a dedicated warship larger and better armed than anything that has been built in a thousand years, but ''because'' she's the largest and best armed warship built in a thousand years the designers had failed to make her as powerful as they could have -- as they fully expected, since this was just the first step in the eventual development of the ''Acclamator'' class.

** [[spoiler:The Puppeteer, a suit of Marionette based PoweredArmor Masquerade uses to fight Trixie in the FinalBattle is a dangerous, untested prototype. While durable and strong enough to survive combat with Celestia, it puts extreme strain on the user and limits their mobility due to the bulk. It's {{BFS}} is also too large to be practical indoors. By the time Trixie destroys it, the strain combined with her injuries leaves Masquerade barely able to move and her horn cracked.]]
** [[spoiler:Miss Marshmallow, Masquerade's Marionette maid/body guard, runs on the prototype Mana Engine because its output is [[SuperPrototype considerably higher than the later models]] to the point of being impractical for any Marionette ''not'' filled with weapons like her. However, due to this it's heating problem is also ''far'' more severe than her fellow Marionettes to the point her 'all weapons deployed' mode has to have the Proto Mana Engine exposed (protected by a forcefield just to avoid overheating.]]

* The initial verson of Naruto's [[LaserBlade chakra blade]] kunais in ''Fanfic/SonOfTheSannin'' had a chakra consumption rate far too high for anyone but him to use in battle. It isn't until Jiraiya helps him refine the design that others are able to use them.

** The Mark II armor in the [[Film/IronMan1 first film]]. It could fly, but it had an issue with icing up at high altitudes. This was rectified in the Mark III. [[spoiler:Obadiah Stane's Iron Monger armor, being a scaled-up copy of the even-earlier Mark I, has the same icing problem without Stane knowing it, which Tony exploited when fighting his former mentor.]] The armor is also primarily a flight test, and had no known weaponry besides the repulsors. This armor was later confiscated by the air force and remade into the War Machine armor.

** After the events of ''Film/TheAvengers2012'', Tony ended up suffering from PTSD and began making dozens of armors without proper field testing. The armor he last fought in was the Mark VII. Just a few months later he was testing out Mark ''42''. Most of the ones in-between were specialty armors with specific purposes [[AllThereInTheManual such as an anti-Thor armor]]. The Mark 42, nicknamed "Prodigal Son", was designed for rapid deployment. It was capable of breaking apart into several pieces which would fly out to reform around the user. The basic premise worked fine, but the key problem was that the armor would come apart ''too'' easily, not just when commanded to do so. The armor was also capable of remote control, but was even more fragile in that mode. Other problems included unstable power sources and inactive weapons and flight systems. When attacked by the bad guys, he was able to suit up just fine, but was forced to improvise projectiles while running tests on the armor's systems mid-battle. The same features were seen in his ''Film/AvengersAgeOfUltron'' armor but with all the kinks worked out.

** The dinosaurs themselves were also flawed - they were designed to be single sexed to prevent them from breeding, but when Dr. Grant, Lex and Tim find a set of hatched eggs, Grant theorizes they used certain amphibian DNA that allows certain ones to change sexes in single sex environments to allow them to breed.
** ''Film/JurassicWorldFallenKingdom'' has a dinosaur version in the ''Indoraptor'', who aside from being a monstrous sadist due to imprisonment, abuse, and a lack of social interaction, is also suffering from genetic conditions. Wu hoped to perfect his design by having Blue raise the next generation of ''Indoraptor''s, but never gets the chance.

** ''Film/StarTrekTheMotionPicture'' featured the ''Enterprise'' receiving a massive refit to the original Constitution-class design. Cosmetically, it came with entirely new nacelles, nacelle pylons and deflector dish. Internally, the ship was practically gutted and all the systems reworked. The result was a more modern ship, but it needed some work before being deployed on any mission. Its first jump to warp ended up creating an unstable wormhole, and an asteroid was drawn in with them. Because the engines were imbalanced, the phasers were automatically disabled, so they had to fire photon torpedoes instead. A lot of the problems they encountered were due to the fact that the ship was rushed out due to the threat of V'Ger approaching Earth, and thus its systems had to be tested on the fly.
** ''Film/StarTrekIIITheSearchForSpock'' had the USS ''Excelsior'', a new class of starship. It was said to be outfitted with a Transwarp Drive system, which theoretically meant that the ''Excelsior'' could fly faster beyond than what the ''Enterprise'' had achieved. However, the ''Excelsior'' would get sabotaged by Scotty so Kirk and the others could steal the ''Enterprise'' and proceeded to spend about a decade in drydock afterwards until Captain Hikaru Sulu got it around the time of ''Film/StarTrekVITheUndiscoveredCountry''. A line in ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' suggests that this was a complete failure. Despite the failure of Transwarp, once outfitted with conventional engines the Excelsior class of ships became the backbone of Starfleet for many decades.

** More directly in ''Literature/TheStormlightArchive'' are the Honorblades. They are the original weapons granted by the Almighty to his Heralds, and provide their wielders with access to two Surges (sets of powers, like gravity control or healing) each. However, while the Blade itself does not require Stormlight to function, the Surges need far more than what a natural Surgebinder would use. Furthermore, since [[spoiler:Shardblades are the physical forms of [[BondCreature bonded spren]] while Honorblades are just dumb objects]], they do not have the same behavioral checks as normal Surgebinders. If a Windrunner stops protecting people, he loses his powers. If someone wielding the Windrunner Honorblade assassinates hundreds of people, the only thing that will hurt is his own conscience.

* In Kieran Shea's Koko (a.k.a [=EBK=] book series), at the insistence of his personal PsychoForHire Borrar, President Mercao of the [=SAC=] (South American Coalition) buys prototype "pepper muzzled" Heckler & Koch [[PlasmaCannon pulse pistols]]. Even though the gun are only in beta stage, Borrar wants them because their baseline are far beyond any pistol on the market and that's on the normal settings. When the pepper muzzle is engaged, the shot is split into three separate bolts at no loss of energy. The primary bolts shoot straight from the barrel while the secondary shots come out at its sides. These secondary shots are heat-seeking and will converge on the primary shot to do far greater damage than normal. However the "pepper" mode can only be done safely 3 times in succession, President Mercao ignores the warning and goes for another shot, which causes the gun to explode in his hand and melt off a few fingers.

* In ''Literature/StarcraftOnePeopleOnePurpose'', the devices Lantharis built to reconnect the Protoss to a Khala-analogue are extremely crude, and dangerous as a result; a malfunction either causes unbearable agony on the part of the user to the point they might attempt to claw it off (and thus risk bleeding themselves out) just to end the painful ordeal (Eranis perished this way), or cause a dangerous and lethal energy feedback (Therun perished this way). Karax is horrified at this when he finishes examining them; such devices should be in the simulator, not be implemented in general use -- unless there was a desperate, immediate need to do so, and those desperate times were supposed to be over.

* This appears to be the case in ''Series/TheInvisibleMan'' series in a episode where Darien keeps seeing another invisible man in his UV sight and assumes it's the previous test subject who has gone permanently invisible. Subverted when his boss wakes up and reveals that he personally shot the previous test subject, who tried to kill him, and had the same gland put into Darien. Darien was simply seeing RNA-induced hallucinations. Of course, if you consider the [[spoiler:bigfoot]] gland to be the prototype, then that could still qualify.

** ''Series/KamenRider555'': The Delta Driver is a SuperPrototype in many ways compared to the later Faiz and Kaixa Drivers, since it doesn't feature the deliberately engineered flaw of slowly killing the user, but instead it has the accidental defect of causing its user to become addicted to using it, turning them into a BloodKnight. It's also more powerful than its successors, but doesn't have any additional powers besides brute strength.

*** Lore, the prototype for [[RidiculouslyHumanRobot Data]], possessing the same strength, speed, endurance and physical design. But unlike Data, who only gained emotions later in life, Lore was created with them from the start, which led to him being [[EvilTwin amoral and mentally unstable]]. Lore initially claimed, and believed, that he was "too perfect" and that Data was created as an inferior model, though their creator later explained that they're perfectly equal and that the colonists weren't jealous of Lore's abilities, but terrified of his outbursts. It's later revealed that Data and Lore were the last and most successful of a string of prototype androids, with one of them, the childlike B-4, showing up in ''Film/StarTrekNemesis''.
*** The ''Enterprise''-D and the other ''Galaxy''-class ships were designed in a period of relative peace for the Federation, and as such many of its features emphasized form over function (as detailed [[http://www.stardestroyer.net/mrwong/wiki/index.php/Galaxy-class here]]). Foremost was the saucer separation, a design present in many previous Starfleet ships but intended more for emergency evacuation. The Galaxy class boasted casual saucer separation, the intention was to evacuate non-Starfleet personnel into the saucer and let the stardrive section go into combat. The problem was that to make each section autonomous, fusion reactors in the saucer section worked in tandem with the warp core, making casual separation even less impractical and it's most valuable use remained in emergency evacuation (the later Prometheus design boasted triple separation and redundant warp cores and nacelles to take advantage of its combat use). Warp core ejection was also touted as a feature, but those systems rarely worked properly. It was also very uneconomic in internal space, trying [[JackOfAllStats to do just about everything]]. The core design was still rugged and versatile, by the time of the [[Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine Dominion War]] the Galaxy class proved its worth as the backbone of Starfleet.

*** The Emergency Medical Hologram was designed as a temporary medical assistant in cases where the main medical crew was shorthanded or incapacitated. Voyager's EMH Doctor became the Chief Medical Officer because medical personnel were killed in the first episode. He was never intended to be used long term, an expert as his job but had [[DrJerk horrible bedside manner]] and was annoyed at being overused. It was revealed back in the main Starfleet the EMH Mark I was retired because of those oversights, in addition to other personality issues and a harsh appearance that made him an unappealing program. This was disappointing to their original designer, Dr. Zimmerman, as he was so excited for the project he based the Mark I on himself, and were repurposed into manual labor drones. Voyager's unique circumstance showed the Doctor have CharacterDevelopment into a surprisingly complex ArtificialIntelligence that was never originally intended, with numerous additions to his core programming. We see an EMH Mark II and there is a plot on [=DS9=] for a Mark III, but the Doctor was about the only known program to have stood the test of time.

*** The Spore Drive could make the ship travel light years via a special mycelial network hidden "inside" the multiverse. Warp drive would be rendered useless as one could just pop in and out whenever they wanted to! However, Starfleet's computers weren't strong enough to handle the calculations, thus leading to the necessity of either a tardigrade-like creature or a genetically-enhanced human (the latter being a big no-no in Starfleet) to handle everything. Even then, there was the risk of warping somewhere they didn't want to (like near a star), hitting a technical "firewall" and killing everyone and possibly losing your navigator to the network. Starfleet wisely decommissioned the drive after the war with the Klingons [[spoiler:and classified it under threat of treason after the ''Discovery'' and its crew were thought lost.]]

** ''Series/DenjiSentaiMegaranger'' combines this with SuperPrototype. The SixthRanger of this season, Mega Silver, is the prototype suit of the ones used by the main five and is more powerful, but as a drawback only lasts 2 minutes and 30 seconds before it automatically turns off. {{Subverted}} later on when a workaround is made that permanantly removes the time limit.

* ''Franchise/LiloAndStitch'': Some of the genetic experiments Jumba created before Stitch are failed experiments which didn't quite do what Jumba engineered them to do. In the 600-series, it's made clear that [[Characters/LiloAndStitchExperiments6Series Experiment 621]] (featured in the prequel video-game ''VideoGame/StitchExperiment626'') and [[Characters/LiloAndStitchExperiments6Series Experiment 625/Reuben]] were intended by Jumba to fulfil Stitch's original purpose as the ultimate destroyer, but they were written off by Jumba as failures: 621 is apparently not half as capable as Stitch, while Reuben has all of Stitch's capabilities but a programming error ensured he was born a passive LazyBum instead of a hyper-aggressive gremlin.

** A running theme in ''Battletech'' history seems to be megalomaniacal dictators mandating the development of super-heavy war machines that end up being utter failures on a mechanical and practical level. The most notorious individual responsible for the most gigantic failures was Stefan Amaris, who was [[UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler based on the obvious unsavory real life inspiration]]. He had a thing for demanding giant, oversized 'Mechs and tanks that carried ludicrous amounts of armor and weaponry and yet had reliability issues so severe that most of them broke down just trying to move. The list includes the 140-ton ''Burke II'' super-heavy tank, the 110-ton ''Matar'' Battlemech, and the 90-ton ''Rifleman III'' Battlemech, among others--only the last of these was able to actually escape the kind of severe mechanical faults that plagued the rest of his ideas, and even then it was still little better than a bipedal gun turret due to its abysmal speed and mediocre armor. The ''Matar'' is a particularly bad case of EpicFail, as its knees, ankles, and hips basically exploded from the weight stress the first time it tried to move.

* In ''TabletopGame/{{Eberron}}'', the first warforged were the titan variety, being heavily based on the template of an iron golem. They possessed physical strength that rivalled their golem forebears, but backed it up with artificial intelligence that made them more independent and capable on the battlefield than their mindless forebears. However, construct design advanced considerably in the following years, and so the titans were swiftly swept away in favor of the newer models. While the average modern warforged is completely sapient and just as smart as the average human, a titan is about as smart as a well-trained dog. Standard warforged also have the Living Construct trait to reflect [[RidiculouslyHumanRobots their closeness to a living organism]], which the titan does not. In fact, because of this intelligence and ability to learn, a warforged can even take class levels, with there being quite a few high-level warforged that could crush a titan relatively easily, despite a titan being about four times their size and ten times their weight.

*** However they then created their largest Battlesuit yet, the [=XV104=] Riptide. In order to power it, it uses an ultra-compact dark-matter fueled Nova Reactor. While it's under normal use, the suit works just fine with no issues. However, if the pilot attempts to push the mech beyond its normal limits, such as to shoot its weapons more often than normal, or overcharge it's main armament, divert all power to its force shield, or turn up its jet-pack thrusters to maximum, there's a risk of power overload, and injuring the pilot.
** Additionally, the Tau began experimenting with ability of overcharging vehicle mounted ion weaponry beyond normal operating limits, and a new, highly enriched Iridium alloy to create portable Ion Rifles for its troops to carry. Though overcharging these weapons exposes vehicles or the shooter to either overheating issues or acute radiation poisoning respectively.

** Related to the above, the earliest marks of PoweredArmor that would become the Space Marines' IconicOutfit. They were heavy, noisy due to a lack of sound dampening, had exposed joints and cables, and unreliable power supplies (some of the oldest marks are primarily solar powered compared to the newer ones that run on nuclear or LostTechnology power supplies). Like the Astartes, the Imperium managed to iron out most of the kinks of these older suits by the time they were needed to conquer the galaxy, though the old armor sticks around in some locations as holy relics worn by the greatest Astartes in times of dire need.

** Before the Primarchs, the Emperor created a being to lead his armies known simply as "the Angel". He was a massive, incredibly powerful entity stronger than anything that came after him. Unfortunately, he was also fanatically obsessive in his loyalty, mentally unstable, and so powerful that he was next to impossible to stop by most forces. After he slaughtered the population an entire hive city he judged "unworthy of the Emperor's love", the Emperor had him captured and [[SealedEvilInACan sealed]] in a [[TailorMadePrison specially-designed and warded stasis coffin]] which is currently being guarded by the Inquisition.

** Mata Nui resurrected his old broken prototype on Bara Magna to fight his evil brother, Makuta, who had taken over his body. ItMakesSenseInContext. The prototype robot was two-thirds the size of Mata Nui's original body (making it "only" 27 thousand feet tall) and, the last time it was turned on, exploded violently due to an unstable power source. Even after Mata Nui rebuilt it with a new power source, it didn't have the strength to match Makuta's "production" body for long, and only defeated him by performing an impromptu ColonyDrop.

** Meanwhile, the Autobots have Superion, the combined form of the Aerialbots, who saw what happened with Devastator and tried to fix that... the result is that Superion's component minds don't mesh ''at all'', resulting in Supes being dumb. He's not capable of much thought beyond "SMASH" himself, and comes across as aloof to his fellow Autobots. In the original comics, he was so flawed that he couldn't distinguish between Decepticons and humans, since the moral complexity of a guy being coerced was beyond his ability to grasp, and only supreme effort on Silverbolt's part stopped him smushing the guy in front of lots of bystanders.

* ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedValhalla:'' A post-release downloadable quest has the Eden Ring Station, a {{Precursor}} site meant to be part of series of installations designed to protect Earth from a coronal mass ejection 75000 years ago. Due to one thing and another thing, it was never properly finished (the project lead getting thrown in a cell for other stuff didn't help), but was left on. By the time Eivor finds it, it's getting to the point of overload, which would kill ''everything'' in the British isles.

* Subject Delta and the Alpha Series, from ''VideoGame/{{BioShock 2}}''. The prototypes for the [[LightningBruiser standard Big Daddy]], the Alpha Series are {{Glass Cannon}}s that can [[SuperPrototype also use Plasmids]]. However the psychological bond between the Alpha Series and their Little Sisters was so intense that separating them would send the Alpha into either a coma or a state of psychosis.

** Ripper Roo was the first of Cortex's minions to be placed into the Cortex Vortex and while he was able to be controlled by Cortex, he is also completely insane and is possibly more stupid then even Crash is.
* While Cavaliere Angelo from ''VideoGame/DevilMayCry5'' may seem like a SuperPrototype to its successor Nelo Angelo, with defensive wings and [[ShockAndAwe electrical manipulation]], in reality it was inferior to the Black Angel. While its power over lighting is impressive, it can easily lose its energy, forcing it to recharge and leaving itself open to attack, and its defensive capabilities don't protect much against a skilled opponent. What's worse, while Nelo Angelo's armour [[spoiler: empowered the [[BrainwashedAndCrazy enslaved Vergil]],]] Cavaliere Angelo requires a LivingBattery in the form of [[spoiler: Trish]] in order to even function, making it clear why it was rejected by Mundus.

* In the sci-fantasy 4x strategy ''Videogame/EndlessLegend'', you can discover prototype weapon and armor designs during early quests. These prototypes are early ancient weapon designs from before that planet's cataclysm. When you find them, you only need the appropriate materials to manufacture them rather than having to research an entire research branch. The problem is that these prototypes are extremely weak compared to the weapons you can manufacture through researching. Many times the prototypes lack the extra bonuses and have far weaker stats than their researched counterparts and often use more material. For example one titanium bow prototype is a Tier 2 weapon that uses 6 titanium to manufacture and only does +4 damage. The lesser Tier 1 titanium weapon that you researched only takes 4 titanium, does +6 damage and has a +5 chance of doing a critical hit.

** On the biological side, the Basilisk Soldiers. The first generation soldiers were incredibly strong, fast, and deadly. Unfortunately, the mix of DNA used to mutate them into supersoldiers drove each and every one of them violently insane. The issues were mostly resolved by Generation 3.

** You can find an intact prototype Sentrybot in a junk yard in ''VideoGame/Fallout4''. Should you choose to activate it, it immediately becomes apparent why it was junked: it overheats rapidly, making it far less dangerous than the standard Sentrybots you can find throughout the Commonwealth and (should you choose to hack it) useful only for soaking enemy bullets in combat.
* Kefka, the BigBad of ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI'', is the Gestahlian Empire's first Magitek soldier, a human artificially imbued with magic. The process worked, but also drove him completely insane.

** The Spartan-[=IIs=] were extremely powerful, but their TrainingFromHell included biological enhancements and experimental surgeries so extreme that ''half'' their original recruits died just from the procedures, and their PoweredArmor was some of the most expensive technology ever produced by the UNSC. The SPARTAN-III Program was designed to address the heavily restrictive standards, high expenses, and long development cycle of the [=IIs=], doing so by broadening the requirements for age, genetics and personality profiles, and opting for cheaper semi-powered armor. Combined with the less extreme surgeries and improved medical technology allowing everyone to survive the augmentation process, the [=IIIs=] were significantly more numerous than the [=IIs=], though somewhat less skilled individually and significantly less well-equipped. The Spartan-[=IVs=], developed after the Human-Covenant War, are a fusion of all the previous programs, being adult volunteers who recieved significantly improved PoweredArmor, but somewhat less extensive augmentations compared to their predecessors (the former being intended to compensate for the latter, in terms of performance).

** Drone technology: introduced in the first game, the drone frigate is devastating against fighters but carries no weapons aside the drones, can barely scratch enemy capital ships, and the drones are stationary around the frigate (making them easy targets for frigates and bigger ships). The [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Advanced Drone Frigate]] of ''Homeworld: Cataclysm'' is a superior design. It carries its own weapons to attack enemy ships and defend itself and has a smaller number of superior ''Swarmer''-class drones, able to maneuver on their own at medium distance from the frigate. The technology disappears in the third game.
** Ion cannons (apart the Bentusi ones, at least): they are big and cumbersome, and frigates can only mount one of them (and nothing else) in a spinal mount, making them capable ship killers at the price of being harmless against fighters and corvettes. In the first game we are treated to two solutions: The Bentusi ion cannons don't need recharge time and can track small craft, and can be mounted on ''fighters''). The Kadeshi ion frigate, which you can't build but can capture, mounts ''four'' of them, increasing their firepower and giving them limited anti-fighter capabilities. Destroyers and heavy cruisers, being much bigger than frigates, can mount them in turrets. The real solution, however, comes in ''Homeworld: Cataclysm'', with the [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin multi-beam frigate]], which has five ion cannon turrets. Each individual turret is less powerful than the single gun of an ion frigate, but when all fired at a single target they are devastating, and enemy strike craft are in for a nightmare. This time the technology remains but with modifications: the ion platform has four small ion cannons on twin turrets and can hit both strike craft and capital ships. The ion frigate returns to the single weapon in spinal mount, but outguns the ion platform by a decent margin, and the battlecruiser has four ion cannons in twin turrets, each cannon outgunning the frigate.
** Strike craft engines: In the first game they needed periodical refueling, which was the one weakness of the Kadeshi swarmers; they outperform ''scouts'' and have corvette-level firepower, with advanced swarmers being faster, better armoured and having twice the firepower, but the swarmers need to be refuelled every minute or so. In ''Cataclysm'' and ''Homeworld 2'' strike craft don't need refueling anymore.

** Capital ships point defense: In the original game capital ships tend to be PointDefenseless due their weapons being designed to take down capital ships (only the drone frigate, the carriers and the motherships can truly deal with fighters, and are awfully vulnerable to capital ships). ''Cataclysm'' gives us the already-mentioned multi-beam frigate and three types of super capital ships capable of defending themselves from fighters (the Beast heavy cruiser has a beam weapon to [[TheCorruption subvert them]], the Somtaaw destroyer is equipped with a missile battery, and the Somtaaw dreadnought comes with a missile battery and fast-tracking ion cannons, and is later upgraded with a repulsor weapon to disperse enemy fighters). ''Homeworld 2'' has various frigates made to deal with enemy strike craft, and destroyers and battlecruisers have actual point defense weapons.
** The mothership itself: In the first game, the mothership (both the Kushan and the Taiidan variant) is lightly armed and armored and (in the single player campaign) can't move in real space due to its engines being unfinished. This is a complication in some missions, such as the one where the mothership is endangered by asteroids and the one where the enemy tries a ColonyDrop on it. To rub salt in the wound, we see that the Kadeshi mothership has ion cannons and very fast engines, in addition to building capabilities and point defense weapons. In ''Cataclysm'', your mothership comes with working engines and capable weapons, and over the course of the game you upgrade it with superior armour, energy cannons and a WaveMotionGun, while the Beast mothership has comparable normal weapons, slightly slower engines and inferior construction capacity, but it has superior armour and swaps the WaveMotionGun with a beam to spread TheCorruption. In ''Homeworld 2'', the ''Pride of Hiigara'' (itself an improved version of the Kushan mothership) has working engines, decent weapons, and can be upgraded with various systems, including cloak generators and sensors to defeat it.

* Blues / Proto Man / DLN-000, Mega Man's "older brother" in the ''VideoGame/MegaManClassic'' series, is certainly a badass in his own right, but there's something preventing him from being a proper SuperPrototype: his flawed atomic power reactor made by [[BigBad Dr. Wily]] and a defect in his energy system later acquired according to [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agxbVG64mSo his solo ending]] from ''Mega Man 2: The Power Fighters''. He was originally equipped with a flawed solar power reactor, which Dr. Light developed and tried to fix. However, because Blues was developed with a strong sense of independence, he ran away from Light Labs because he feared that fixing his solar power reactor would erase his individuality. Eventually, the flawed solar reactor stopped working and Blues in turn ceased to function. It was then that Dr. Wily found him and tried to fix him, by switching his old reactor with an early version of the atomic power reactors, which all Wilybots would later use. Besides giving Proto Man a new power reactor, he was outfitted with combat capabilities and his trademark visor along with his shield. However, combat pushes Proto Man's atomic power reactor to its limits; overuse will make him a living time bomb, as one well placed shot can cause him to blow up and annihilate the environment around him. The defect his energy system later acquired causes him pain and if the defect is left unchecked, [[YourDaysAreNumbered his body may eventually will break down]]. Since he has a strong sense of independence, he refuses to let himself be repaired by Dr. Light, even if it means his death. In games where Proto Man's playable, he's typically a GlassCannon due to the defect mentioned above.

** In Ariga's ''Manga/MegaManMegamix'' manga it is DoubleSubverted. Proto Man doesn't have a flawed or limited power core, but his energy systems are messed up, because Dr. Light tried to install a buggy version of [[ThreeLawsCompliant the three laws]] in order to control him. [[JustifiedTrope No wonder]] he's paranoid about Dr. Light taking his free will away, if given the opportunity and won't let Dr. Light 'fix' him: Proto Man is dying because Dr. Light already tried to do that. On top of the fact he can't trust Dr. Light, [[FridgeLogic it's possible that the power system programming flaw can't be fixed without fixing the three laws programming]], in which case he really would lose his individuality, if he was fixed. Of course, this universe's robot masters aren't very ThreeLawsCompliant. Roll and Rock would be happy to show him how it's done.
** The Double Gear system from ''[[VideoGame/MegaMan11 11]]'' was originally a proof of concept so Wily could ask for funds to research and improve it. As such, the original protoype (which was installed in Mega Man) has the flaws of each individual gear overheating if used for too long and the signature SuperMode being a DesperationAttack. When Wily uses the perfected system during the FinalBoss fight, he has no such limitations.
* In the ''VideoGame/MegaManX'' franchise, [[VideoGame/MegaManX4 Iris and the Colonel]] came from a Flawed Prototype. They were initially meant to be one singular Reploid that was meant to have the same ideology as X himself - a peace-loving nature with a strong sense of justice. However, both ideologies clashed with each other and the two were placed into two separate Reploids - Iris had the peace-loving side while the Colonel had the strong sense of justice. ''VideoGame/MegaManXDive'' gives us a possible idea of what this Reploid would be with Iris -another-.

** ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolidPeaceWalker'': Militaires Sans Frontières is ultimately this to Big Boss's idea of a "military nation", built off of the proof of concept given to him during the events of ''[[VideoGame/MetalGearSolidPortableOps Portable Ops]]''. Unfortunately it failed, due to growing too powerful too quickly (and being rather public about it), thus gaining the ire of the world's super powers, and being too trusting of its own members [[spoiler:(we're looking at you, Huey)]]. These issues would be fixed in the two successor projects: the [[VideoGame/MetalGearSolidVThePhantomPain Diamond Dogs]]/[[VideoGame/MetalGear Outer Heaven]] & [[VideoGame/MetalGear2SolidSnake Zanzibar Land]].
** ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolidVThePhantomPain'' has [[spoiler:Metal Gear ''Sahelanthropus'', a HumongousMecha that is distinctly humanoid in design. To adequately use such a build, ''Sahelanthropus'' was designed to use an advanced artificial intelligence. Controlling it with AI alone, however, resulted in poor performance, so it was redesigned to use a human pilot in conjunction with the AI. This, however, created more difficulties: in spite of downsizing the AI core as much as possible without sacrificing performance, creating a cockpit to accommodate an adult pilot made it too top-heavy to be practical. The size of the cockpit only permits those of particular short stature to control it, like [[PoweredByAForsakenChild children]]. Furthermore, the back-mounted railgun can only be fired while ''Sahelanthropus'' is in its hunched-over "tank" configuration: attempting to fire the railgun while upright would cause it to topple over from the recoil.]]

* ''VideoGame/Persona3'' [[spoiler:Strega is revealed to be the sole survivors of the original hundred test subjects (read: orphans taken from the streets) that the Kirijo Group created while trying to mass produce Persona users. The flaws of such process became readily apparent: due to the traumatic and unnatural way they awoke their powers, they have barely any control over their Personas and can be in fact, attacked or even possessed by them. They must take specialized drugs called "suppressants" to prevent their Personas from killing them but ironically those ''also'' have lethal side-effects, effectively dooming them no matter what.]]
* Labrys in ''VideoGame/Persona4Arena'' was part of a line of prototypes that eventually led to [[VideoGame/{{Persona3}} Aigis]]. Unlike the later models, she and the others were largely lacking in actual individuality and when she did finally develop she was unstable. She was technically a success, but viewed as too dangerous to use and sealed away.

* In ''VideoGame/PhantasyStarOnline2'', the entire ARKS team's first generation of agents and weaponry was one humongous work in progress. The original ARKS agents were hardwired to a certain job class so they couldn't change jobs if they wanted to. The first Photonic Weapons, the Cosmogenic Arms, were stupidly powerful to the point where really breaking them out caused them to break. Doesn't help that [[spoiler:the weapons has the spirits of the Photoners in them ''and'' work in tangent with Xion, thus Xion's death later in the story weakens them]]. Then, there's the first CAST, [[spoiler:Risa]], whose transfer to a robot body [[spoiler: [[GunNut made her just a lot bit loopy and gun loving]].]]

** ''VideoGame/PokemonSunAndMoon'' has Type: Null. It was conceived as an [[CreatingLife artificial Pokémon]] named Type: Full, which would be able to [[PowersAsPrograms become]] any of the 18 types using the "RKS System". Three prototypes of Type: Full were created, but all three of them rejected the RKS System and subsequently [[UnstoppableRage went berserk]]. They were fitted with supressive helmets to [[TameHisAnger keep them under control]], but they still couldn't activate the RKS System. The project was declared a failure, and all three were put into [[HumanPopsicle cryogenic storage]] indefinitely. [[spoiler:And all it would've taken to make the RKS system work was ThePowerOfFriendship.]]

** In the ''[[VideoGame/SuperRobotWarsGaiden Masou Kishin]]'' games, the Jaohm is one of the first Masouki ever developed in the Masouki Project. Unfortunately, engineers hit a construction roadblock regarding how to effectively mold Orichalconium alloy. As result, the Jaohm's armor is mixed with ceramic, making it heavier and not as tough as they had wanted. In fact, despite the Jaohm supposedly designated as a FragileSpeedster like all other wind-based Masouki, the weight of the ceramic armor forces it be slow.

* ''Webcomic/CucumberQuest'': Splashmaster the first of the Disaster Masters is also the weakest, possessing low intelligence and defense in spite of his strength. When asked in a Q&A session, his creator, the Nightmare Knight, admits that he was weaker at the time of Splashmasters creation and that reflected in Splashmaster himself.

* Mr. Sheepman from ''WesternAnimation/CloneHigh'' proudly calls himself "the world's first mostly human clone," with the "mostly" part coming from the fact that he's part-sheep.

* When doing or making ''anything'' for the first time, it generally takes a few tries or some time to work out the kinks and bugs and what-not.

** Electric cars. First discussed, and some designs built decades ago. In fact [[OlderThanTheyThink electric cars have been around since the late 19th century]], but the internal combustion engine offered superior performance while taking up less space than the early batteries, and thus it was most of a century before serious thought was even given to trying again. Years later, the technology is still largely considered in the early "feasible" state due to the push for eco-friendly Green Tech cars. Note the quotation marks around "feasible". To make an all-electric vehicle requires bulky, and heavy, Lithium Ion battery packs, which in turn often takes five to ten hours or more to fully charge, often require specialized power outlets or plugs, and have very limited range before needing to recharge compared to traditional gasoline- or diesel-fueled cars. Add on the fact that there is a very likely chance the power being supplied to recharge the batteries comes from a not so eco-friendly power plant or generator source, the batteries themselves currently have a limited life-span (approximately five years) and are incredibly expensive to replace, essentially ruining the whole point of an electric-powered car.

* Prototype airplanes are often this. A fair job description of the test pilot is, "person who straps into a potentially fatally flawed airplane and tries their best to make it kill them."

* ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog'':

* ''Film/JurassicPark'', once the power goes out. To wit, Nedry is able to sabotage the park's security system in such a way that the tour jeeps and some of the electric fences, such as the one that keeps in the T-Rex, shut down. Even worse, to reboot everything they need to shut down and restart everything, needing someone to go to a maintenance shed to finish the reboot process which costs them two allies due to the raptors.

* ''Film/JurassicPark'', once the power goes out.

%%* Mr. Sheepman from ''WesternAnimation/CloneHigh''. His name says it all.

** The ''Daboku'' Assault 'Mech was among the first new [[HumongousMecha Battlemechs]] built with the [[LostTechnology lost knowledge]] gleaned from the Helm Memory Core, and it shows, becoming the [[JokeCharacter laughing stock of the battlefield]]. While it was advanced, the mech was riddled with massive faults. The Mech would sometimes spontaneously [[EjectionSeat eject the pilot]] when hit in the lower torso[[note]] a joke about the Mauler toy from the [[Franchise/BattleTechExpandedUniverse BattleTech cartoon]], which had an ejection button in the pelvic area[[/note]], which caused the frustrated pilots to [[ArmoredCoffins disable the auto-eject]] (which still failed to correct the issue). The [[MoreDakka quadruple autocannon]] ammo feeds were poorly designed, causing them to jam up, and the 'Mech lacked enough heatsinks to prevent it from [[OverHeating overheating]] when firing its lasers. It was so infamous that the much more common successor dropped the name entirely, instead being called the ''Mauler''.
** The ''Battletech'' writing staff had a field day with the concept of failed designs in ''[[http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Experimental_Technical_Readout:_Boondoggles XTRO: Boondoggles]]'', best described as a sourcebook full of abject failure. Fifteen units are collected in the book and every one of them is a screwup of the highest order. Pick your poison. An unarmed FragileSpeedster that overheats just moving and is so vulnerable that it could be killed with a thrown rock? What about the attempt to make a WalkingTank into a TransformingMecha... namely, [[MilitaryMashupMachine a plane]] that flew about as well as tanks tend to fly? Or perhaps the automated probe ship that [[AIIsACrapshoot blithely ignored its orders]], went on a random drunken hyperspace tour of known space, then disappeared never to be seen again? It's all there.

* ''Literature/FullMetalPanic'''s ARX-7 Arbalest is equipped with the experimental Lambda Driver before its operation is fully understood: it often doesn't activate when needed, and when it does it tends to operate unstably. This is a serious problem, because the Arbalest and its pilot are pitted against a faction who has a much better understanding of Lambda Driver technology, to the point the main villan can use it with complete reliability. Interestingly, its pilot Sousuke Sagara, a ConsummateProfessional soldier, frequently expressed distate for the thing because of its unreliability, finding himself unable to trust it and once even writing it off as useless, although he warmed up to it eventually.

* The ''Grand Cross'' (full designation Mobile Battleship Grand Cross) from ''LightNovel/BodaciousSpacePirates'' may be an example of this. It is a fearsome foe, utilizing advanced technology beyond what is normally seen in the series, in particular a gravity control device that allows it to zig-zag and move as fast as a fighter. It also has large protective shields, powerful lasers, can unleash a deadly close-range BeamSpam and has an edge in electronic warfare. However after significant displays of power, the ship completely powers down for a short period of time. Also, [[spoiler: its shields are not nearly as effective against physical bombardment as they are against beams]].

* ''LightNovel/FullMetalPanic'''s ARX-7 Arbalest is equipped with the experimental Lambda Driver before its operation is fully understood: it often doesn't activate when needed, and when it does it tends to operate unstably. This is a serious problem, because the Arbalest and its pilot are pitted against a faction who has a much better understanding of Lambda Driver technology, to the point the main villan can use it with complete reliability. Interestingly, its pilot Sousuke Sagara, a ConsummateProfessional soldier, frequently expressed distate for the thing because of its unreliability, finding himself unable to trust it and once even writing it off as useless, although he warmed up to it eventually.

* ''LightNovel/HeavyObject'':

* Surprisingly the SuperPrototype 3rd generation Byakkushiki from ''LightNovel/InfiniteStratos'' counts as this since as stated by [[TheAce Chifuyu]] it has a very powerful weapon, but it doesn't have enough energy to sustain it. Not to mention so far that all of [[TheHero Ichika's]] battles consists of GunsVsSwords.

* In ''LightNovel/TheIrregularAtMagicHighSchool'', it's a characterization point that Yuuka bought one of the first thought-operated [=CADs=] on the market. Of course, various bugs make it ''less'' functional than the manual, well-refined [=CADs=] everyone else is using, but Yuuka is impulsive and wants to look cool.

*** The Zeong from is only 80% complete when it's introduced (it's missing its legs). Since Char ends up piloting it in a space battle, however, the difference is merely cosmetic.