History BoringButPractical / Videogames

* ''VideoGame/JakXCombatRacing'' has the Vulcan Fury (and its upgrade, the Coil Gun). They have decent range and accuracy, reasonably high damage (especially the Coil Gun), can't be thrown off target like missiles can, and a higher ammunition count than any other weapon. That last point is arguably the main advantage, as they can be used to kill a large number of weak enemies, whereas the more powerful weapons can generally only take out a few.

** The Banana Peel. Green Shells can bounce off walls, Red Shells can home in on the nearest player, Stars make you invincible and go faster, Thunderbolts shrinks everyone, and Spiny Shells can attack the leader. By comparison, the Banana Peel is boring, but a simple peel can be placed anywhere and if placed at just the right spot, it can cause the victim to spin off the road or even into a BottomlessPit. It can also be held on by the player as a shield for oncoming projectiles.
** While it may not be as exciting as the becoming invincible with the Super Star or plowing past the other racers with the Bullet Bill, ask any skilled player about holding a Banana Peel or Green Shell behind them and they can't praise the tactic enough. The time saved by keeping Red Shells off your tail is a godsend and a necessity for getting good placements on the higher difficulties. By extension, using a Super Horn on a Red Shell may not be as immensely satisfying as using it on a blue one, but if it gives you those precious few seconds needed to cross the finish line before second place...

* ''VideoGame/{{beatmania}}''[='=]s EX Score system is this on a meta level: 2 points for getting a Perfect Great, 1 point for a Great, and 0 points for anything below; [[{{Minimalism}} that's literally the entirety of EX Score rules.]] It doesn't look as flashy as games where [[PinballScoring scores end in the millions]] (typically, EX scores end in the hundreds or low thousands), and there is no reward for maintaining a huge combo, but it gives a very good picture of the player's skill with a given chart and it's not going to severely punish the player just for missing one note in the middle of the song. Converting this to a percentage is simple enough: just divide the EX Score by double the number of notes. The EX Score system has been the standard for competitive ''IIDX'' play for over 20 years, and rhythm game developers that care about having a competitive scene use some variation of it. In fact, Konami would later ditch the six-digit "money score" system and rename EX Score to simply just "Score". In general, accuracy/note-judgement-based scoring is this for rhythm games. It might not make big combos rewarding or involve cool-looking {{Limit Break}}s, but grading the player solely for how accurately they hit notes is a much less frustrating experience than punishing them harshly over a few missed notes, and it allows players to see if they've objectively improved at a song and celebrate even the smallest improvements in their scores.

* ''VideoGame/RedDeadRedemption'' takes place at the sunset of the old west, 1911. The best gun your going to get is the Evans Repeater, not because it's super strong or has a special effect, but because it has good range, good damage, good speed, quick reload, and a large magazine. It might as well have the word PRACTICALITY stamped on the side.
** One of the best pistols in the game is the FN M1903, or [[BlandNameProduct High Power Pistol]]. Not because it's fully automatic, or a fancy lever-action museum piece, or a 9-shot revolver, but because it's clip-fed for quicker reloads, semi-automatic for fast shooting, and does high damage.

* Nintendo's Platform/GameBoy was built on this trope. Sure it has no backlight, and its color palette is limited to four shades, but at the time of its release (1989), backlit screens with color resulted in prohibitively expensive systems that eat batteries for breakfast, hence why the Platform/AtariLynx (1989) and the Platform/GameGear (1990) didn't do so hot in comparison. The Game Boy's strong battery life, high degree of portability for its time, [[MadeOfIndestructium immense durability]][[note]] It's even the page image for the trope.[[/note]], and low cost allowed the system to be ''the'' face of portable gaming for over 10 years, with a plentiful library of games that are the opposite of boring. Nintendo did eventually adapt color screens in 1998 with the Game Boy Color and lit-up screens in 2003 with the Platform/GameBoyAdvance SP, but that was when such technologies became cheaper, more advanced, and more practical to implement in portable devices.
* Creator/{{Sony}} has for the longest time used the exact same controller with only ''very'' minor and mostly cosmetic differences between them. They might add some [[PressureSensitiveInterface pressure-sensitive buttons]] [[Platform/Playstation2 here]], a [[Platform/{{Playstation3}} home button]] there, but the core design ''never'' changes shape or button layout. While it's not as ambitious as Creator/{{Nintendo}} who always tries something new and innovative, it's also allowed them to practically perfect it and make a very reliable and overall well-designed device, made it easier for the designers of long-running franchises since the controller's layout remained the same, and allowed gamers to enjoy backward compatibility without having to buy additional controllers, and of course, averted DamnYouMuscleMemory for years. That said, the 4th and 5th generation iterations marked notable evolutions, with the 4th adding a touch pad, speakers, motion control support and altered the form a bit for a modestly bigger fit, making for the most ergonomic Dual Shock yet. The Platform/Playstation5 follow-up, the Dual Sense, took it another step further, improving the ergonomics yet again while adding haptic feedback, adaptive triggers and a built-in microphone for online chat.
** In the 5th console generation, the Platform/PlayStation was technically the weakest, lacking the VDP chip and dual processor[[note]]the former of which allowed for the best 2d of the generation by a mile[[/note]] of the Platform/SegaSaturn or the Silicon Graphics-developed hardware and hardware z-buffering or floating point polygonal rendering of the Platform/Nintendo64, but it was cheap, had better audio and video functionality, and was easy to develop for, resulting in it easily becoming the best-selling console of the generation.

* For PC games, control configurations that use the keyboard and mouse, particularly in first- and third-person shooters. No need to buy a separate controller when there's already one below your screen! Many players been known to upgrade their mice and keyboard to ones that are better-suited for games, but still useful for everyday non-gaming functions.

* Nintendo and Sega thrived on this trope when building their consoles. Instead of trying to come up with something custom and fancy for the the CPU or GPU, they used a readily available off-the-shelf part or hardware that another company already worked on and is just looking for a contract to produce the parts[[note]]Sega went against this trope with the Platform/SegaSaturn and its dual processors and quadrilateral 3D rendering, and it cost them their spot in the console business[[/note]]. Especially the case with Nintendo, as almost every system they built had a devkit available from day 1 because the console shared enough components as a readily available computer.

** Nintendo's consoles since the Platform/{{Wii}} all use SD Cards and microSD cards, which are used in a wide variety of devices and can be purchased at your local electronics store or even convenience stores, and if you work with flash drives a lot you probably have some lying around that you can use in those systems. This is part of what allowed the Platform/NintendoDS and the Platform/Nintendo3DS to beat their competitors, the Platform/PlayStationPortable and Platform/PlayStationVita, respectively. While Sony's handhelds did see some success, many people were turned off by the relatively high price of Sony's proprietary Memory Stick series, which created headaches for those looking to buy and install digital copies of their games, as well as their lack of versatility due to being only usable in Sony devices.

* ''VideoGame/SimCity 4'' has several power plants to choose from including nuclear and fusion power which have extra requirements to unlock. The most cost effective power plant by far, however, is coal, which is available from the start. It is true that the advanced ones produce no pollution, but the effects of coal pollution are tolerable if well-placed in the city limits and will save a lot of money.
** One problem with coal when building a gigantic (as in whole-region), dense metropolis: ''space''. Not wishing to have an entire small-tile city devoted chiefly to coal power plants for its power-guzzling metropolis neighbors, I once elected to run the whole town (i.e. one large-tile district of the megalopolis, pop. ~2.1 million) on a few nuclear plants in the far corner of the main city. It worked (and got a good chunk of extra Industrial zone--from where I had put the old coal plants back when the town was much smaller) as a bonus. Hydrogen, on the other hand, is just silly.
** Also, transportation options play along this as well. Although many argue that rail takes up real estate on the surface and requires well placed stations as opposed to subways, however, they're cheaper, very efficient at passenger travel, ''and'' ideal for industries as usage for freight travel, since trains don't often have to put up with as much traffic as freight trucks, ''plus'', they do not contribute to pollution.
** Also, roads and avenues as opposed to highways. Indeed, highways can handle more traffic volume and have higher speed, ''but'', they're enormous and difficult to make maneuver around obstacles (say a building or ocean), however, avenues, being a bit smaller and more maneuverable (can be built in 90 degree corners), and roads being declared "standard" amongst dense zones for movement, allow for a better flow of transportation. Likewise, either early in the game or for smaller cities and suburbs, streets actually prove to be ideal for lighter zones. The game even [[MemeticMutation points this out to you quite often with having "not enough streets".]]
*** And you can combine both the advantages of avenues and roads (in the expansion) by building the roads one-way...which is incidentally what most major real-life cities do anyway.

* For RhythmGame players, the app market for tablets (iPads and Android tablets, specifically) offers rhythm games that are similar in feel to arcade rhythm games (some notable examples include ''VideoGame/{{Arcaea}}'', ''VideoGame/{{Phigros}}'', and ''VideoGame/{{Cytus}}''), for those who don't have the budget to spend hundreds on arcade-spec proprietary controllers that are each designed around a single game or thousands on arcade cabinets, nor have the steady income to play arcade games hosted in a revenue-earning setting. A decent secondhand or refurbished tablet can run for about $200-400, which is still a bit of an investment but not as big as the above examples, and can be carried on the go and store a lot of games.

* For RhythmGame players, the app market for tablets (iPads and Android tablets, specifically) offers rhythm games that are similar in feel to arcade rhythm games (some notable examples include ''VideoGame/{{Arcaea}}'', ''VideoGame/{{Phigros}}'', and ''VideoGame/{{Cytus}}''), for those who don't have the budget to spend hundreds on arcade-spec proprietary controllers that are each designed around a single game or thousands on arcade cabinets, nor have the steady income to play arcade games hosted in a revenue-earning setting. A decent secondhand or refurbished tablet can run for about $200-400, which is still a bit of an investment but not as big as the above examples.

* ''VideoGame/IcewindDale''. Like in Baldur's Gate Bards prove to be a valuable and versatile support class, and even get many exclusive its of dialog during NPC interactions which often lead to better quest rewards. Unlike Baldur's Gate, the best choice is just a plain Bard - they get many useful supportive songs whereas all the kits get just one.

* ''VideoGame/IcewindDale''. Once again Bards prove to be a valuable and versatile support class, and even get many exclusive its of dialog during NPC interactions. Unlike Baldur's Gate, the best choice is just a plain Bard - they get many useful supportive songs whereas all the kits get just one.

* ''VideoGame/IcewindDale''. Once again Bards prove to be a valuable and versatile support class, and even get many exclusive its of dialog during NPC interactions, though unlike Baldur's Gate above, the best choice is just a plain Bard - they get many useful supportive songs whereas all the kits get just one.

* ''VideoGame/JadeEmpire'': White Demon Style, and to a lesser extent Iron Palm Style. Kicks and backhand slaps. That's it. No flurries of blows, no combos, no flips, no spins, no transformation sequence. However, they deal high and reliable damage and can harm any enemy in the game, meaning that whatever you point those styles at ''will'' die.

* ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog'':

** In ''III'', the Ability Improvement feat. It doesn't grant you attacks, spells or anything similar. Heck, you probably won't notice you took it most of the time. However, what basically amounts to a flat 5% bonus to the chance of succeeding at anything you'd want that character to do is ''extremely'' useful.

** [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyVIII Squall]] is this. He has no real gimmick to speak of, unlike many other characters. What makes him stand out is simply the fact that he's fast. He has both sword strikes and basic spells. He also has absolutely no way of comboing into an HP attack, which may turn away many newcomers due to how difficult it is to land an HP attack, and the necessity of doing so (HP attacks being the only moves that actually *deal* damage.) And yet despite all this he's considered S-Tier. His speed helps him land attacks really well due to their low start-up, and the fact that most of them are multi-hit means they are plenty safe as well, since you have to land the first hit for the rest of the attack to come out. If you miss he only does one quick strike with little commitment. He may not have a combo into HP attack, but he is king at landing Brave Attacks, quickly, and repeatedly, eventually building up his damage levels to really high and also building up a lot of Assist Gauge. He may be a most basic fighter, but his solid neutral game gives him a rightful place at the top.