History AwesomeButImpractical / EasternRPG

* The DS remake of ''VideoGame/DragonQuestIV'' has the spell Magic Burst. It does massive damage to all enemies but it uses up all of the caster's magic points. That alone would make it a good contender for Awesome But Impractical, but there's more: [[spoiler: Psaro will learn it at level 60, which is a whopping 25 levels more than what Psaro starts out with when he joins your party, and by the time you can recruit Psaro, much less after you've leveled him up to learn the spell, you can breeze through most random encounters anyway]]. Magic Burst's magic-draining nature makes it really impractical to use against the TrueFinalBoss Ammon at any rate, but even without Magic Burst, Ammon is already a pushover if you've been leveling up to around level 55.

* The 3DS version of ''VideoGame/DragonQuestVII'' changes Blade of Ultimate Power / Ultra Hit to this. It deals a guaranteed 400-500 damage, in a game where bosses have about only a couple thousand health, and never misses. But it's not as practical in this version for many reasons. For one, it costs 20 MP to use -- meaning spamming it on bosses will cause you to run out of MP fast. Two, it's locked to the Champion class, so you can't class change to say, a Summoner or a Hero who has a ''lot'' more MP. Three, it's not affected by Oomph or psyche up -- so you would deal 800-1000 damage with a good Knuckle Sandwich. It's only really useful for metal slimes -- due to the fact that it never misses.

** Yangus's max skill for Humanity, Golden Oldies, [[SugarWiki/FunnyMoments summons a group of old men to trample over every enemy on the screen]]. Hilarious? yes. Damaging? Yes. Worth the 100 points in Humanity that could be better spent getting [[BoringButPractical Parallax and Executioner]] at an earlier level ? Definitely not.
** One of Jessica's 100-point abilities for fisticuffs unleashes all her magical power at once for ''massive'' damage. The problem is, once she does this, she has no MP left, limiting her options (though her whip skills remain usable, and if she has enough skill points in staves she can regenerate her MP), and on top of that, you've severely gimped Jessica.
** The 3DS version of ''VideoGame/DragonQuestVIII'' adds Red, whose 100-point ability in Roguery, Fire in the 'ole, deals four hits at 80% damage each. Against normal enemies, the hits are all random, but not against a single target (such as bosses, who will eat every shot). The problem is that it costs 15 MP to use, and isn't affected by tension. One of her abilities in Fans, Fan Dango, does the exact same thing as Fire in the 'ole (albeit with the chance that it'll only hit three times instead of four), can be affected by tension, and has no MP cost. But damn if Fire in the 'ole doesn't look absolutely awesome.
** The hero gets access to Gigagash if you invest 100 points in both Swords and Courage, which hits all enemies for around 300 Lightning damage. However, it doesn't do appreciably more damage than Gigaslash (which only requires maxing one skill or the other) and still eats a whopping 20 MP each time you use it. Which you probably won't anyway seeing as the hero in VIII becomes your primary healer late in the game (only character who learns Omniheal), which is a much more important use of MP than dealing damage. Spears and Boomerangs make better weapon choices for him overall, with the latter being very efficient at mopping up random encounters and the former having useful skills for Metal Slime farming (Lightning Thrust) and dealing damage to tougher bads (Multithrust).

* ''VideoGame/DragonQuestIX'' has a few, in the form of hidden weapon abilities. Once you've maxed out a weapon skill and finish the accompanied quest, you have access to some powerful, awe-inspiring techniques...that are all flash, with no real substance. One move in particular is Gigagash. It destroys foes, but only on a single group of enemies, cost INSANE amount of MP (more than any class that can reasonably use a sword would have), barely hurts boss enemies, and is generally more useful on {{Mooks}}, which aren't worth the MP spent. And that it's just an "upgraded" version of Gigaslash, which does the same for half the MP and reasonable power.

** The strongest sword (the Liquid Metal Sword) isn't particularly great either. Yes it has the highest attack power in the game and does 120-200 Lightning damage when used as an item, but you have to craft it using two very rare ingredients (Slime Crown and Orichalcum) and, as mentioned, you probably won't be doing too much attacking with the Hero in the late-game/postgame anyway since he's your primary healer. To say nothing of the 3DS-exclusive Dragovian Sword (earned by beating a postgame boss) and the Dragovian King Sword (crafted from a LMS and the Dragovian Sword), especially since you get the Metal King Spear on the way to said boss ''for free''...

*** The strongest sword (the Liquid Metal Sword) isn't particularly great either. Yes it has the highest attack power in the game, but you have to craft it using two very rare ingredients (Slime Crown and Orichalcum), and, as mentioned, you probably won't be doing too much attacking with the Hero in the late-game/postgame anyway since he's your primary healer. To say nothing of the 3DS-exclusive Dragovian Sword (earned by beating a postgame boss) and the Dragovian King Sword (crafted from a LMS and the Dragovian Sword), especially since you get the Metal King Spear on the way to said boss ''for free'' and it has only one less point in attack power...

** As a general rule, any of the strongest pieces of equipment in the game. Nearly all of them are very rare (1/128 chance) drops from very specific enemies, which means you'll likely grind battles for hours and hours and never see them drop. Sure, they get amazing benefits (the Gutsy Bat in particular boosts Ness's Guts by a whopping 127, ensuring he'll get critical hits every other swing or so), but they come so late in the game, and by the time you luck out and find them you'll probably have gained so many levels that any extra bonuses they grant will be trivial at best. The Gutsy Bat is the worst offender in this regard; the enemy it drops from only appears in the very last leg of the final dungeon, and only the first two stages of the final battle are resolved by dealing damage -- the rest is a scripted event where a traditional offense does you no good whatsoever.

** As a general rule, any of the strongest pieces of equipment in the game. Nearly all of them are very rare (1/128 chance) drops from very specific enemies, which means you'll likely grind battles for hours and hours and never see them drop. Sure, they get amazing benefits (the Gutsy Bat in particular boosts Ness's Guts by a whopping 127, ensuring he'll get critical hits every other swing or so), but they come so late in the game, and by the time you luck out and find them you'll probably have gained so many levels that any extra gains they grant will be trivial at best. The Gutsy Bat is the worst offender in this regard; the enemy it drops from only appears in the very last leg of the final dungeon, and only the first two stages of the final battle are resolved by dealing damage -- the rest is a scripted event where a traditional offense does you no good whatsoever.

** Winner's Proof, a Keyblade exclusive to ''Final Mix'', is merely a BraggingRightsReward. To obtain it, Sora needs to satisfy the first twelve members of Mushroom XIII (which can only be done after beating the final boss), then meet the thirteenth at Hollow Bastion's Great Maw. It has decent strength and the best magic stat of any Keyblade in the game, but its No Experience ability makes it so that the party can't gain any experience. And in a game which boasts some of the franchise's most powerful superbosses, you're gonna need every last big of experience you can get. Also, in Critical Mode, No Experience also exists as an ability that cna be activated at will, so might as well use other Keyblades like the Fenrir, Ultima Weapon, Decisive Pumpkin and so which are much better anyway.

* ''[[VideoGame/PokemonBlackAndWhite Black and White]']' and its ''[[VideoGame/PokemonBlack2AndWhite2 sequel]]'' has the phenomenon mechanic where there is a chance to encounter an evolved version of the Pokemon that appear by ordinary encounters. This is extremely useful for finding certain Pokemon such as Tyranitar, Metagross, Crobat and Gliscor without the need to spend time levelling up, increasing friendship or using an item. However, the "Impractical" part of the trope comes in when encountering stone-induced evolution Pokemon such as Musharna, Lilligant, Whimsicott and Cinccino. Their stats may be higher but stone-induced evolution Pokemon learn almost no new moves by levelling up, making them an issue when caught in the early game over their unevolved counterparts where they will be stuck with relatively weak moves until the player obtains more TMs.

* ''VideoGame/PokemonGoldAndSilver'' had the held item "Berserk Gene". Upon entering battle, the item is consumed and permanently raises the user's attack by two stages while also confusing them. Amazing, right? Wrong. Rather than the usual 2-5 turns of confusion, Berserk Gene ''permanently'' confuses the user for the rest of the battle. And prior to Gen VII, confusion gave you a 50% chance of hurting yourself, rather than a 33% chance. There was no reason to risk using the item when you could just use a turn to do one of the many available attack-boosting moves in the game that had little-to-no drawbacks, and it never returned in later generations, meaning Pokémon with Own Tempo (an ability which prevents confusion) can't make use of it either.

** Malenia's Remembrance spell, Scarlet Aeonia. It's a large AOE effect that inflicts Scarlet Rot on anyone unfortunate enough to be in the vicinity and has a really cinematic visual of a red flower unfurling, but it takes up 3 memory slots (the same as Comet Azure) and forces you to stand completely still as the animation plays, allowing normal enemies free shots and giving savvy players the time to get out of the AOE and punish you.

* The Quadruple Giga skill in ''Monster Girl Quest''. Not only does it take four turns without spirits to charge up (that's more than enough to be defeated in, by the way) but you need to do it ''without getting hit''. It's only truly useful in a few, very specific situations.

* The Almighty spells in a lot of the ''Franchise/ShinMegamiTensei'' games. On the surface it sounds like a dream come true: A type that ''no demon'' is resistant to in a game where elemental resistances are your main obstacle to victory. However, the inflated MP cost and lackluster damage compared to your normal elemental spells means that they just aren't worth it. Making things worse, no demon is weak against the Almighty type and by the time you gain access to the Almighty spells you'll already have figured out that it's far more profitable to aim for a demon's weakness to earn more actions. This trope is averted against late game enemies such as Girimekhala, which has no weaknesses and reflects Physical, so normal attacks don't work.
** Fourth-tier elemental spells (described as inflicting "severe" damage instead of "heavy") tend to be this. They're not much more powerful than the third-tier "-dyne" spells, and they're inefficient -- for instance, the fire-elemental single-target Ragnarok spell in ''VideoGame/Persona3'' costs 30 SP, which is even more than Maragidyne (third-tier, hits all enemies, and costs 24 SP)...and ''only does about 30-40% more damage than Agidyne ''(third-tier, one enemy, 12 SP)''!''

*** Speaking of ''Strange Journey'', its take on the repelling "-karn" spells. A spell that repels attacks aimed at you and your demons! Cool! Except the effect only lasts on the current turn so there's no point in a demon casting it if they aren't fast enough to move first. And each casting costs 45 MP. You're better off using Attack and Magic Mirrors, especially since using an item grants you maximum turn priority.
** ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIV'' has two demons that fit this:
*** Mother Harlot, the strongest member of the infamous Fiend clan of {{Superboss}}es, is exactly as powerful as that descriptor implies, and comes with the her unique move, Babylon Goblet, that deals a stupid amount of damage and inflicts [[HatePlague Panic]] besides. Thing is, her fusion chain requires each of the lesser Fiends at some point or other, and getting ''them'' requires an [[ThatOneSidequest absurdly aggravating and tedious sidequest]], plus a quest to unlock the Mother herself. By the time you get all the lesser Fiends, fuse them, do the Mother's quest, and fuse ''her'', you'll probably have several demons of similar power to her but significantly easier to get (such as Mara, Shiva, Lucifuge, or Yamato-Takeru), meaning the Mother basically exists to be [[HundredPercentCompletion Compendium-filler]].
*** Then there's Masakado's Shadow, the single most overpowered demon in the game. He ''begins'' with an attack that always hits as a weakness, no matter what the opponent's weakness is, and with leveling up can learn to NoSell all the elements and finally he can learn '''Dragon Eye''' -- yes, that same skill that bosses in ''Shin Megami Tensei III Nocturne'' [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard use and abuse without giving you or your demons a chance to learn it]]. Only, to unlock Masakado's Shadow, you have to beat the single cheapest boss in the game, which is... Masakado's Shadow. What use is a demon that powerful if you can already beat the hardest boss in the game without it? And with regards to Dragon Eye, it costs 255 freaking MP to cast, ensuring that even if you pass it on to a demon with an acceptable MP capacity, they won't be able to cast it more than three times without needing an MP refill, and refilling MP is not cheap in ''Megami Tensei''.

** ''VideoGame/Persona4'' has the ultimate Persona Izanagi-no-Okami. He resists all four elements and Physical attacks. He gets the strongest single target spells of all four elements, all four elemental Amp powers, and starts with four other high end powers. Unfortunately he's level 91 (which means you have to be level 91 to fuse him), he requires twelve Personas for fusion, cannot be retrieved from the Compendium, and has no resistance to Light or Dark. And worst of all, he doesn't inherit any skills. Given it is possible to fuse four element personas and personas that are immune to all seven attack types...
*** The [[UpdatedRerelease Golden version for Vita]] remedies this a bit by allowing him to inherit skills and permitting the use of Skill Cards to further customize him. However, he still cannot be registered into the compendium, so there's no chance of buying him on a NewGamePlus.
** The fourth-level elemental attacks (such as Ragnarok and Niflheim) from ''VideoGame/Persona4'' also qualify. While they're the strongest elemental attacks available, they only deal slightly more damage than the "Dyne" level attacks while costing about four times the MP. Plus, they can only be found on certain Personae, and cannot be transferred through fusion. The exception is in ''VideoGame/Persona3'', however, since in that game these attacks are both more powerful and transferable, making them good investments. (And Thunder Reign's 100% [[StatusEffects Shock]] chance makes it a GameBreaker) There is also the skill "Spell Master", as well as certain accessories in both games that cuts the SP cost of spells in half, making them more practical to use.
*** ''VideoGame/Persona5'' adds group-hitting variants of severe-strength elemental attacks, and also makes most severe-strength skills inheritable in fusion. However, their steep costs still stand, with single-hitting versions costing 4 times that of a -dyne equivalent and area-hitting versions over twice their Ma-dyne equivalent. Unless fully optimized with Boost and Amp skills and/or augmented with Spell Master, it's more efficient to stick to -dyne spells. This is reinforced with Ann and Makoto, the only party members who can learn these skills, but can't get Spell Master to be able to spam them without experiencing significant SP drain. This was fixed in ''[[UpdatedRerelease Royal]]'' which introduced Persona Traits, passive bonuses that did not take up space in a Persona's movepool, and a number of them can cut down on SP cost of magic skills. ''Royal'' also introduced the Jazz Jin, which allowed for party members to learn moves they couldn't have otherwise, such as the aformentioned Spell Master.
** [[NonElemental Almighty attacks]] can qualify as well, at least in this particular game. It's usually not impractical to use Almighty skills in other ''Franchise/ShinMegamiTensei'' games (in some cases it might even be ''required''), but in here the Megido- line of spells just costs too much SP to be worth using even when using Mind Charge to boost the damage output. Of course, [[MyRulesAreNotYourRules the computer has a practically infinite pool of SP]] (it's not really infinite, but chances are they aren't going to run out of SP before you die) so they can cast as many Almighty moves as they want.
*** On the other hand, there are a few circumstances where they come in handy -- when the enemy formation has varied resistances that you can't justify using other mass-hitting skills to try and clear them all, and when hunting down the [[MetalSlime Hands or Treasure Demons]] which have resistance or immunity to nearly everything else. In fact, the Hands sometimes take more damage than usual from Almighty skills. The last phase of the FinalBoss of ''3'' resists all elements besides Almighty, so Almighty is the best way to do damage.
** In both ''3'' and ''4'', it's possible to give Metatron immunity to every element via skill inheritance, making you immune to all damage except Almighty. It helps that Metatron inherently learns three immunity skills, so you just need to cover the rest of the elements through fusion. The problem is doing this in ''3'' uses up all his skill slots, so all you're capable of doing while he's equipped is regular attacks. (and if the enemy is immune to your weapon's element, you're screwed) It's also useless against 3's {{Superboss}}, who will instantly kill you if you use a Persona immune to one of her attacks. At least, in ''4'', you still have two free slots for usable skills.
*** Abaddon in ''3'' innately learns immunity passives to all three physical attributes, and has enough innate immunities that you can cover the rest to make it NighInvulnerable. This still leaves you with just ''one'' slot for usable skills, but it's marginally better than Metatron.
** In the ''Golden'' rerelease of ''4'', Chie gets Dragon Hustle, which buffs all stats for every party member, once you get her third-tier Persona. Unfortunately, it costs 150 SP, which means that Chie (the most physically oriented party member, as well as with the lowest SP) will only be able to use it once before having to replenish her SP.

** Lucifer in ''VideoGame/Persona5'', is the ultimate Persona of the Star Arcana. He's also at a whopping level 93, meaning the player needs a lot of grinding (or a lot of cash, if they maxed the Strength Confidant) to fuse him. On top of that, he requires six different Personas to fuse, three of which require their own special fusion. Out of these, Metatron comes with its own set of requirements -- maxed Justice Confidant[[note]]The good news is that it progresses with the storyline. The bad news is that to complete the Confidant, you have to get up to just before the Treasure Room of the seventh palace, which opens up near the end of November[[/note]] to even access the fusion, maxed Moon Confidant to be able to fuse Sandalphon which is one of its required ingredients, and the use of Michael, which requires the fusion of ''another'' set of three high-level Personas. And for all this effort, you get a Persona that learns several powerful skills befitting its high level... but also has no resistances and one weakness. For all his might, it's unlikely you'll use him in battle, since you can easily obtain other Personas that sport multiple immunities, and the only justification for fusing him is that he's a required ingredient for [[InfinityPlusOneSword Satanael]]. In ''[[UpdatedRerelease Royal]]'', he's made substantially more useful, with added resistances to fire, ice, electricity and wind, absorbing curse and blocking gun/physical while still being weak to bless. He also gets the [[RequiredSecondaryPowers Persona Trait]] "Allure of Wisdom", reducing magic skill cost by 75%. This means his Morning Star skill can cost as little as ''14 SP''.
** In ''VideoGame/Persona5'', there's the Speed Reading book, which grants the ability to read two chapters of a book per session. It's a useful skill, [[TheKeyIsBehindTheLock but to unlock it, you need to unlock Jinbocho, read three books with three chapters each, then buy and read the single-chapter book]]. Unlike ''VideoGame/Persona4'', in which most books had two to four chapters(and while Speed Reading was the latter, it didn't have any prerequisites), all the books in ''Persona 5'' besides those needed to unlock Speed Reading have one or two chapters, limiting how much time you save. Not only does Speed Reading give no benefit for the one-chapter books, but if you've already visited the hangout spots mentioned in the books, you don't have to spend time reading them. As such, there are better ways of spending your time if you're not planning on reading all the books in the game. Luckily, ''[[UpdatedRerelease Royal]]'' fixed this by making the book available earlier as a checkout from the library (starting in July) and not requiring you to read the other Jinbocho books.

* Both Shadow Hearts Covenant and ''VideoGame/ShadowHeartsFromTheNewWorld'' have an accessory called "Extreme" which triples attack power, but can only be acquired late in the game if you have a Ring Perfect rate of 65% or better (in Covenant) or 95% successes and 75% perfects (in New World) - an exceptionally difficult task even among expert players. It also makes the Judgment Ring's hit zones AND indicator invisible, though to be fair, if you can pull off that consistent a perfect rate you can probably hit them in your sleep, let alone blind. Could be considered a case of DifficultButAwesome instead in that case.

* In ''VideoGame/LiveALive'', Masaru's final skill does high damage against enemies in a large area and has a pretty cool rock-splitting animation. Too bad its charge time is so agonizingly long that you're better off using his skills that activate immediately.

* Yuri and Kurando's demon fusions in ''VideoGame/ShadowHeartsCovenant'' are reworked to consume a larger amount of Sanity Points each turn, rather than taking a flat sum up front. This, plus the fact Yuri has mediocre magic stats that barely complement the spellcasting abilities of these fusions and the stat boosts fusion forms grant tend to be pretty marginal until your levels are high, make it much more practical to just stay in base form and use Rage-buffed normal attacks until you hit Disc 2 or so. Even then though, you'll probably want to equip a Flare Brooch to make their SP costs more manageable.

* Yuri and Kurando's demon fusions in ''VideoGame/ShadowHeartsCovenant'' are reworked to consume a larger amount of Sanity Points each turn, rather than taking a flat sum up front. This, plus the fact Yuri has mediocre magic stats that barely complement the spellcasting abilities of these fusions and the stat boosts fusion forms grant tend to be pretty marginal until the late game variants become available, make it much more practical to just stay in base form and use Rage-buffed normal attacks most of the time. Even once you get the top-tier fusions, you'll probably want to equip a Flare Brooch to make their SP costs more manageable.

* Yuri and Kurando's demon fusions in ''VideoGame/ShadowHeartsCovenant'' are reworked to consume a larger amount of Sanity Points each turn, rather than taking a flat sum up front. This, plus the fact Yuri has mediocre magic stats that barely complement the spellcasting abilities of these fusions and the stat boosts fusion forms grant tend to be pretty marginal until the late game variants become available, make it much more practical to just stay in base form and use Rage-buffed normal attacks. Even once you get the top-tier fusions, you'll probably want to equip a Flare Brooch to make their SP costs more manageable.

* Yuri and Kurando's demon fusions in ''VideoGame/ShadowHeartsCovenant'' are reworked to consume a larger amount of Sanity Points each turn, rather than taking a flat sum up front. This, plus the fact that they both have mediocre magic stats that barely complement the spellcasting abilities of these fusions and the stat boosts fusion forms grant tend to be pretty marginal until the late game variants become available, make it much more practical to just stay in base form and use Rage-buffed normal attacks until then. And equip a Flare Brooch or two after to make their SP costs more manageable.

* Yuri and Kurando's demon fusions in ''VideoGame/ShadowHeartsCovenant'' are reworked to consume a larger amount of Sanity Points each turn, rather than taking a flat sum up front. This, plus the fact that they both have mediocre magic stats that barely complement the spellcasting abilities of these fusions and the stat boosts they grant tend to be pretty marginal until the late game variants become available, make it much more practical to just stay in base form and use Rage-buffed normal attacks until then. And maybe equip a Flare Brooch or two to make their SP costs more manageable.