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All Swords Are the Same

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It's a sword. I like my sword. Why should I change it?

There are lots of different types of swords. There's katanas, kukris, scimitars, rapiers, swords that should be logistically impossible for any human to wield, and many more. Yes, the sword is certainly a unique and varied specimen, and no two kinds have exact the same method of wielding, even two swords of the same type will have different lengths, weights and so on based on their owners preference...

Except in games.

You see, when a game has loot and upgradable weaponry, it won't do to carry around the same dinky sword for the rest of your journey, so you're bound to get a new one. But in a game filled with oodles of weapons, developers can't always be inclined to make each and every one specifically different from the next. A sword's a sword, right?

In other words, a lot of games have the tendency to give you a "better" or "new" version of a weapon that you already own, but while it may statistically be more powerful, it looks and plays almost exactly the same as your previous weapon. You'll be amazed by how much more powerful your Ultimate Warrior Blade is in comparison to your Trainee Sword, but then you'll realize that when you swing it around in-game, it's pretty much exactly the same.

While this can be occasionally justified by the character simply gaining swords of the same style as their previous ones, in games where you control a party of characters, and more than one wield the same type of weapon, they will be able to interchange between each other. We'll ignore the fact that The Hero wields a katana, while The Lancer swings around a broadsword; you can just give them both an "Iron Sword" and be done with it.

This tends to be much more common in older or sprite-based games, before developers really could finely detail weapons to look differently. However, even in modern games, just because a weapon has a slightly different hilt or a chip on its edge doesn't mean it'll swing any different from your last one. It's also common in Tabletop Games. Games that allow weapon appearances to be transferred or customized deliberately play this trope straight due to Rule of Cool and Rule of Fun.

See also Every Japanese Sword is a Katana and Slice-and-Dice Swordsmanship. Check out our Useful Notes: Swords, European Swordsmanship and Kenjutsu pages for some thoughts on the differences between actual swords.


Examples:

    open/close all folders 

    Hack and Slash 
  • Devil May Cry series:
    • Devil May Cry 1:
      • The Force Edge, Alastor and Sparda are downplayed examples. They share some similar attacks even if they differ in their appearance and damage output, but they still have some unique mechanics to spice things up. The starting weapon Force Edge has few basic combos, Alastor retains them but adds more purchasable combos and its Devil Trigger allows Dante to fly. And then in the late-game, the Force Edge gains some plot-relevance as it transforms into the Sparda, which adapts Alastor's combos and can further transform into other weapon types depending on the attack.
      • The Yamato katana is a straightforward example. It's only available when the "Legendary Dark Knight" costume is equipped, but it functions identically to the Alastor.
    • Devil May Cry 2: In addition to his default Rebellion, Dante can obtain a BFS (Vendetta) and a fencing sword (Merciless), but only the look and damage differ; the combos are exactly the same. The same goes for Lucia's blades. Playing this trope straight proved to be a major criticism against the game, thus the later DMC games either downplayed it, limited it to cosmetics, or completely averted it.
    • In Devil May Cry 2 and Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening, the DMC1 Dante costume changes the model of Rebellion into Force Edge, but it's a downplayed example as the sword is also a BFS and still functions the same as the original (apart from just having different sound effects in 2). This also applies to the Legendary Dark Knight costume in 3 which also uses Force Edge.
  • Averted in the Dynasty Warriors series; most of the large character roster has unique weapons, and move sets to accompany them. Even some very similar weapons can play very differently!
  • Averted in the Onimusha series, by and large. Its protagonists tend to wield several different swords over the course of a game, with the swords having different appearances, speeds, combos, animations and magical attacks depending on the blade. In both games two and four there are multiple sword wielders in the parties, but they wield different sorts of swords and can't swap weapons with each other. The fourth game features a huge number of weapons, and characters will have different attack patterns depending on which weapon they have equipped. Of particular note is Jubei from game four, who will go all the way from an acrobatic attacker leaping into battle to a nearly stationary Iaijutsu Practitioner who draws, attacks, and sheathes her sword so fast it can barely be seen depending on which weapon she has equipped.
  • Path of Exile makes a distinction between regular one-handed swords and thrusting swords, and their default attack animations and implicit bonuses are different. However, skills that require swords don't discriminate between these types of swords, so you can get away with things like using Cleave with a rapier.
  • Inverted in Kritika. All the Warrior-type characters use a BFS as their weapon of choice, but each sub-class have different combos and combat style.
  • Ginormo Sword: Due to your character having the same animation, all the different swords function the same way. The hitbox of the swords thanks to their size does vary, however, and their overall size is also different depending on how big you leveled them. Get them high enough and all swords are just one giant colored section of the screen with the entire hitbox being the area in front of you.

    Role-Playing Games 
  • Zig zagged with Chrono Trigger: Every character has their own weapons, so Crono (who uses katanas) can't use Frog's braodsword and vice versa, but every weapon that each character is able to use is wielded identically. Even when that sword is a mop.
  • The Elder Scrolls:
    • Morrowind averts the trope. Each weapon (and thus different types of sword) has different values when they're used for hacking, slashing, or thrusting. Daggers, for example, naturally deal the most damage when thrusting while katanas deal the most damage when slashing.
    • Oblivion plays it straight in several regards. Every sort of sword (apart from a few token katanas) is basically a variation on a basic crucifix sword made from different materials. Additionally, there is only one Skill per weapon type. For example, if you max out your Blade skill by using a dagger, you can switch over to a greatsword and be just as effective.
    • Skyrim continues the trend of playing it straight. The Skills are altered from Oblivion to "One-Handed" and "Two-Handed", but this still applies. If you raise your Two-Handed skill by using a warhammer, you can then switch to a greatsword and still be effective. (Downplayed slightly from Oblivion, however, in that the addition of perks for specific weapon types will make you more effective with them.)
  • In Radiant Historia, both Stocke and Marco can wield swords, and despite the fact they are clearly two completely different types of swords (a longsword and a short one-handed blade), they both can equip any and all types of swords. This also applies to armor, since Stocke, Raynie, Marco, and Rosch can all equip the same types of armor. The first three are somewhat understandable, but Rosch fitting into the same pieces of armor is a tad ridiculous.
    • Also subverted in one very specific instance, a blade called the Sand Sword that is so bizarrely shaped none of your party members can use it, but one NPC won't use anything else.
  • RuneScape:
    • In RuneScape Classic, whose graphics were on the less-advanced side, all melee weapons had the exact same fighting animation: you just bash your opponent with it and that's that.
    • The modern game has a wider variety of stances for different types of weapon, but there are still a limited number of animations for slashing, stabbing, or bludgeoning—the stabbing animations for a bronze dagger are the same as the ones for a mithril shortsword or a pair of gardening secateurs.
  • A funny example in Neverwinter Nights, where all one-handed melee weapons share the same attack animations, which means rapiers, scimitars, longswords, clubs, axes, knives, and anything else you can wield in one hand are animated exactly the same way. To their credit, however, the rapiers look more like small cutlasses or sabers that could plausibly be used as slashing weapons.
  • In Shining Force, giving a character a different weapon swaps the weapon you see in their battle sprite, but otherwise, the animations are exactly the same. The only exception is the Chaos Breaker, which has fancy fire effects.
  • The majority of MMORPGs use the same animation for all weapons of the same class even if their designs are wildly different. A one-hander and a two-hander may have different animations but all one-handers will have the same animation with the same being true of all two-handers. Weapons that aren't swords may have even more drastic generalization, such as having a single animation for both polearms and javelins.
    • Partically averted by Mabinogi, which not only has different animations for different sword classes; but also certain sub-classes as well. For example, a two-handed Japanese style sword has a different animation than a two-handed broadsword.
    • Definitely true with The Lord of the Rings Online. Although each weapon tends to have a fairly custom appearance, characters will still wildly slash with a dagger or stab with a mace or axe because all movesets are based upon the character doing a specific move with a sword.
  • Vandal Hearts is this trope and then some. Whatever weapon or armour you give a character, their sprite will still use exactly the same artwork - the artwork only changes when the characters change class. This leads to the potential of giving a character a crappy shortbow, then the character having a huge pavise with a mechanical, belt driven arrow launcher strapped to the side in-game.
  • NetHack has no attack animations to concern itself about and, instead, is super-conscious about weapon type and skill of weapon use. That does not mean that simplifications and over-specificity are not maintained as Acceptable Break from Reality moments - standard long swords and katana sharing the same skill, while broadswords, scimitar, and sabers each have their own skills - but this produces a decent simulation of "all swords are not the same."
  • In Dungeons of Dredmor, you no longer incur a penalty for using a weapon that you are not skilled to wield, where it did distinguish between several types of melee weapons in the older versions.
  • Castlevania: Symphony of the Night does a fairly good job of averting this. Of the approximately 60 bladed weapons in the game at least half of them have significant differences in animations, reach or status effects than any other weapon in the game. That's not even taking into consideration the secondary attacks of some of the weapons that some players might never even find.
  • Diablo III plays this arrow-straight with all its characters, but the Monk stands out in particular. No matter what equipment a monk has (bare hands, punch daggers, a sword and shield, dual maces) they always attack with their fists - only occasionally hitting enemies with a sword pommel or the back of a shield. Even more amazingly, the Monk has access to special staffs - that they'll keep on their back the whole time they're fighting enemies! This was partially fixed in a patch, and the Monk will now use fist-weapons and staves for certain attacks. The cosmetic nature of weaponry is thrown into even sharper relief with the Reaper of Souls expansion, which adds the ability to change the appearance of equipment without chances their performance or underlying stats.
    • Blizzard did this again with World of Warcraft Monks in Mists of Pandaria, who primarily fight with their bare hands and feet. Even the only one of their attacks that does use the weapon has a cosmetic Glyph that can undo it. Then there is also the feral druid who fights as a bear or cat and thus has no real use for weapons, though the equipped weapon does factor into attack power.
  • In Gothic 3 there is the same combat animation wherever you use two-handed swords or halberds. The protagonist even holds one hand in the middle of the blade, just like in any pole weapon. However, this may be a case of Accidentally-Correct Writing: half-swording, where the swordsman grasps the sword on its blade, was a valid fighting technique used in The Late Middle Ages in order to slip the point into gaps in the enemy's armour and have more control over the weapon.
  • Averted in both Demon's Souls and Dark Souls, where swords (and all weapon types) are divided into numerous sub-categories, such as the longsword, large swords, greatswords, ultra greatswords, piercing swords, curved swords, curved greatswords, and finally Katanas. Swords in different classes will have wildly different move sets, damage, recovery time, scaling, and so on, and even swords in the same category have significant variation. As the series goes on it becomes progressively more common for even weapons in the same subcategory have different attacks or even entirely different move sets.
    • A particularly strange example is the Silver Knight Sword, a particularly rare, and long longsword that drops from Anor Londos Demonic Spiders, the silver knights. Its light attack is the curved Falchions swishing slash, its heavy attack shares less in common with the normal longswords stabbing/disemboweling moves as it shares with the standard scythes extremely fast and delayed vertical slash, followed by a similarly wide angle horizontal slash, both hits inflicting massive damage.
    • Dark Souls II goes further with Santier's spear. Unlike other weapons, it gains a different moveset when broken instead of becoming unusable. The end result is an unbreakable weapon with a moveset based on the spear, halberd, curved sword, and twin-blade. It has 500 durability, so it takes a while to break down.
  • Golden Sun: an intriguing example, in that the weapon's appearance changes depending on which character equips them. For example, equipping an axe on Isaac gets a double-headed battle-axe, give it to Garett and it becomes a huge woodcutter's axe. A mace can be a simple ball-on-a-stick or a Sauron-esque flanged mace or the ever-popular big-black-ball-o'-spikes. Ivan's Magic Staff looks like his Orphan's Plot Trinket but Mia's has a crystal ball on top. And so on.
    • The third game moves further away from the trope in that every weapon has the same appearance and closer to it in that many weapons now share the same unleashes (special moves). This is partly because every weapon has more than one unleash though so many weapons still have unique moves or combinations of them. Every weapon takes time to master for each character as well, unless it is a duplicate of one they have already used.
  • Dragon Quest IX: Zigzagged: every weapon and armor piece has its own icon and appearance on the 3D character model. However, upgraded forms of a weapon and armor (through alchemy) have the exact same icon and appearance.
  • In Persona 3, the protagonist can equip any weapon and Mitsuru can equip swords. The protagonist swings their sword like any bladed weapon, while Mitsuru wields them like a rapier. Either way, they're functionally identical.
  • Tales of Phantasia averted this to a surprising degree for a Super Famicom game - Cress's weapons are rated on both thrusting and slashing damage, so while he performs all special attacks the same way no matter the weapon, the resulting damage was very different depending on the weapon's suitability. Some could only do one or the other damage type in any useful amount, while others were balanced. Cress also used more than just swords, so you have to worry about issues like reach - spears might be able to hit two enemies with a good thrust, but that up-close enemy might not even get touched because it's inside your reach.
  • The Tales Series in general seems to play with this. It's played straight in Tales of the Abyss with Luke and Guy capable of using any kind of sword despite their different fighting styles, with only exclusive special equipment an exception. Tales of Vesperia, on the other hand, plays with it as there are three (four in the PS3 updated version) characters who can use swords and the swords they can use vary; Estelle tends towards lighter swords suitable for thrusting, Yuri and Flynn use the same style of swords (though Yuri ultimately leans towards kanatas and Flynn towards massive broadswords), and Karol uses BFS. There is some crossover between Yuri, Estelle, and Flynn but they diverge and use swords suiting their own style in the end. This also applies with axes; Yuri and Karol both use axes but only share a few and most certainly don't use them the same way. Yuri's fighting style changes if he equips axes, sacrificing a bit of speed in favour of power.
  • Averted in Bravely Default, as the game splits swords into three categories (Swords, Katanas, and Daggers) that have varying proficiency requirements. While a Knight can pick up and use a Katana if they want, they wouldn't get nearly the same mileage out of it as a Swordmaster would, and visa versa. Even within a category, specific blades may have additional effects based on their design. The main-gauche, for example, grants a twenty point bonus to Evasion due to the shape of its hilt and its function as a parrying dagger.
  • On that note, Nostalgia (Red Entertainment) plays this straight with regards to every weapon class. Most notably with guns, which vary from match-lock pistols to 1930s-era submachine guns; gun-wielding party member Pad handles them all with the exact same animations.
  • Averted in Cobra Mission. All weapons have their own unique sprite in the attack screen.
  • There's only one attack animation for your character in The Enchanted Cave.
  • Epic Battle Fantasy 3: Matt actually calls out an enemy for using a multistab attack while holding a sword that's made for slashing. Considerable Hypocritical Humor is had, given that all of Matt's weapons (all of which are labeled "swords", even the earth-element axe and the fire-element spear) look entirely different and use the same attack animations (and yes, including both stabbing and slashing).
  • Etrian Odyssey: Zig-Zagged across the series. Various types of swords (even shorter bladed weapons) would be grouped in the same item category, with the exception to katanas which are exclusive to one Glass Cannon class. Sequels would further differentiate the bladed weapons, offering a distinction between regular swords, rapiers, and knives, in accordance with classes with skills that are dependent on those weapon types. Etrian Odyssey IV: Legends of the Titan also adds Drive Blades, a special BFS used for a late-game unlockable class that is compatible with both Drive Blade and regular Sword skills.
  • Kingdom Come: Deliverance has several types of swords: longswords, shortswords, sabres, and hunting swords. While they are governed by the sword skill, sabres have a certain agility requirement, while the rest are all predicated by strength. Additionally, each type of sword does different types of damage better than others; a longsword is more suited to stabbing than a sabre and so on. Different unlockable combos can only used by particular types of swords. Axes and maces have similar concerns.
  • The Witcher has separate skill trees for steel and silver swords. While the fast, strong, and group styles are used for both swords, due to the differences in materials, witchers have to modify those styles when using silver swords, essentially making the silver sword an individual fighting style. This is done away with in the sequels, however.
  • Nocturne: Rebirth: Reviel and Luna's attack animations are the same no matter which weapons they equip. This is especially blatant in Reviel's case, since he can dual-wield daggers, katanas, two-handed swords, etc with equal skill. That said, there are some distinctions between the types of swords, since the type of the sword determines which stats it specializes in.
  • Knights of the Old Republic has the same animations for using ordinary swords and lightsabers. The animations involve parrying, even parrying lightsabers with metal swords, and every metal sword's item description contains a mention that it's enforced with cortosis to resist lightsaber blades.
  • Zig-zagged in Rakenzarn Frontier Story. Swords are generally divided into three types with different stat boosts: Rapiers which boost speed, Swords with moderate attack power and Great Swords which are really strong and usually have a speed penalty. Most sword attacks can only be used by one or two types of swords due to the class and the type of move. Attack animation wise, though, they're pretty much all the same.

    Tabletop Games 
  • Dungeons & Dragons started with sets of weapon given to the classes and ended with much the same. AD&D1-AD&D2.5 rules, though, acknowledged that a character could be proficient in wielding, e.g. glaives but not halberds or knives but not daggers. To avoid going too far this way — because, again, there are lots of minute variants — AD&D2 halved non-proficiency penalty for closely related weapons and Complete Fighter's allowed proficiency in tight groups ("fencing blades" or "spears") at the cost of two or broad groups ("pole weapons", "small throwing weapons") at the cost of three. Groups overlap with each other, styles add diversity on top of this, giving different tactical advantages/disadvantages to Single weapon style specialist and Two-handed style specialist using the same bastard sword (or a club).
    • Third Edition (and Pathfinder) additionally have items grouped into "Simple" (most anyone can pick up and use them), Martial (these require general training), and Exotic (these require specific training). So while a professional soldier can probably handle both a short sword and a long sword, he won't automatically know how to wield a katana in one hand or a spiked chain at all.
    • The fan made Alternate Pathfinder ruleset Kirthfinder actually ended up bringing things closer to being this trope, all weapons now have a Simple, Martial, and Exotic level of proficiency, and so a large number of exotic weapons got shoehorned into exotic wielding of normal weapons. Katanas became exotic Falchions of Scimitars, the Orc Double Axe got melded into the Lajatang, the martial proficiency of Longswords and Broadswords do exactly the same thing whilst exotic forms are different, and more.
    • The simplified concept of a "sword [or other weapon] +1 [or +2, or +5, etc." is precisely based on the need to give players access to better and better swords, while perfectly sidestepping any objection that a fighter who uses a generic longsword should need extra training to use a longsword +3. Clearly, the longsword +3 is physically the same as the nonmagical longsword, but the wizard who forged it added a magical charm that makes it strike surer and harder.
  • Averted in RuneQuest. Your skill is in a specific type of sword and if you switch from ,say, one scimitar to another there is a temporary penalty to simulate getting used to the balance of your new sword.
  • Almost played straight by Shadowrun, swords come in three varieties: one-handed, two-handed, and katanas. In Fifth Edition, it's reduced to just one-handed swords and katanas, and polearms all share the same stats.
  • GURPS groups various similar kinds swords all together in the Basic Set to play this straight. In the Martial Arts and Low-Tech books however weapons are only grouped together if they are completely identical, like a Japanese yari and a generic spear.
  • Warhammer 40,000 plays this straight simply because they don't have a choice. There are MILLIONS of cultures, using swords that range anywhere from millennia-old handcrafted relics to steaming hot off the factory line, all clashing at armor types and fighting styles all just as varied. So regardless of whether you're using a combat blade to a chainsword, it's going to use more or less the same rules, wherein most of a sword's speed and hitting power come from the user. You might get small bonuses or penalties for certain general styles (i.e. a two-handed sword gets the Two-Handed rule) but most of the good modifiers are only allowed if you have Applied Phlebotinum (and the presence of a such a special sword has to at least loosely comply with WYSIWYG rules). This has been somewhat addressed for the high tier weapons as of 6th edition with the addition of melee weapon stat lines instead of straight modifiers, enough that power swords and power axes are mechanically different anyway.
  • Warhammer plays it pretty straight too. Weapons are represented as broad categories; "hand weapons", which every unit in the game has access to, basically encompass every one-handed melee weapon whether it be an arming sword, a shortsword, a rapier, a hand axe, a mace, a short spear, or what have you. Every hand weapon is presumed to have identical stats (unless it's magical, in which case it'll get buffs listed separately), the only differences in performance being down to the Strength and Weapon Skill ratings of the user. This also applies to other weapon categories; "halberds", for instance, represent pretty much every type of two-handed polearm with a cutting component, including actual halberds, pollaxes, Lochaber axes, bardiches, and glaives. Justified in this case; the difference between such weapons is minuscule to the commander of even a small army, and per the appendices of the 5e and 6e core rulebooks, each model in a unit is supposed to represent 10-20 guys in "reality." The exact weight and shape of your one-handed sword isn't really worth modeling at that point, as the battle will instead be decided by larger factors.
    • Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2nd Edition plays it even straighter, with almost every single-handed melee weapon larger than a dagger being lumped together as "Hand Weapons". The supplements (and the fans) have gone some way to avert this, however, so if you have Old World Armoury your axes and maces are no longer functionally interchangeable with swords.
  • In Unknown Armies, the GM is supposed to ask only three questions of a melee weapon. Is it big, is it hefty, and is it sharp? Each yes is worth +3 damage, regardless of if the weapon is a chainsaw from a hardware store, a priceless heirloom katana, or a cheap replica sword bought off the internet.
  • Spirit of the Century plays this straight: all melee and thrown weapons are covered by a single skill (called, appropriately enough, "Weapons" — as opposed to "Fists" and "Guns" for the other two obvious choices) and not mechanically differentiated by stats. A character who's good with a sword is going to be just as effective with a club, axe, whip, or thrown knife, and what weapon exactly they do decide to use is primarily narrative detail and a matter of style.
  • A variant, this is both played rigidly straight in the BattleTech pen and paper game, yet somewhat averted in the Mechwarrior/CBTRPG/Time of War RPG. All weapons fired by a 'Mech are based off a common Gunnery skill, while in the RPG version, Ballistic, Missile, Artillery and Energy Weapons each require their own skill categories.

    Turn Based Strategy 
  • Averted in Final Fantasy Tactics. Precise classes have precise types of weapons, and they don't mix.
    • Though it's possible to learn abilities allowing some other class weapons to be used, such as allowing Knights to equip lances, or lancers to equip swords. The latter is more handy since lances don't even appear until chapter 2, leaving them otherwise unarmed.
    • Also averted in Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, which distinguishes Swords, Blades, Sabers, Greatswords, Knightswords, Broadswords, Rapiers, and Katanas from one another (though it does fall into All Japanese Swords Are Katanas, which the original Tactics didn't.)
  • Averted in Berwick Saga. Weapons have subcategories that only specific characters or classes can use. Swords have Blades (mostly infantry), Maces (Raze Monks) and Daggers (Thieves). Spears have Lances (Lance Knights) and Bows have Crossbows (Gunners, but Chris can use them despite being mounted) and Ballista (Ballistician).
  • Taken to absurd lengths in the Fire Emblem series (TearRing Saga averts this like Berwick Saga above and Jugdral/Tellius below). Non-magical weapons are broken down into four categories: swords, lances, axes, and bows. Not accounting for all of the different styles and variations of weapons that different classes can wield, any character that can use a weapon type can use every weapon of that type. It's absurd enough when a "Wo Dao" used by Eirika (or a shamshir in the same game) becomes a rapier, but even more ridiculous assassin becomes a pair of knives; whereas swordmasters use them like a katana.
    • It is inverted in the Jugdral, Tellius, and Awakening games where each sprite and model show the differences in the weapons no matter which one is equipped. Quite impressive for the sprite-based Jugdral games, but par for the course for the model-based Tellius and Awakening games.
    • Averted for some of Marth's weapons in Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon & the Blade of Light and its immediate remake Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem. Most swords have the same animation, but he wields rapiers differently.
  • In Makai Kingdom, each weapon in its category have the same attacks with the same animations (both the Long Sword and the Zweihander can do Slash, Berserker, Moonslash and the rest of the list) but weapons of different categories, even similar ones (katanas, swords, daggers) have different attack lists. You can't use an axe to perform a hammer strike, and so on.

    Other Video Games 
  • Despite its obsessively realistic combat rules, Dwarf Fortress plays this one straight with actual swords, at least for now. There's only three and a half actual types of sword: Shortsword and the scimitar (identical in all but name), the longsword (actually a bastardsword) and the two-handed sword. All of them use the same generic "sword" skill. Of course, dwarves can't actually forge longswords or scimitars without minor modding and can't even wield two-handed swords, but going from a shortsword and shield to a bastardsword that from a dwarf's perspective is as long as a zweihander has no skill penalty.
    • Averted for polearms and ranged weapons, however; spears and pikes use a separate skill, as do bows, crossbows and blowguns. There's also a generic "Fighter" and "Archer" stat which gives a bonus to an attack roll made with any melee and ranged attack respectively.
  • Zig-Zagged in Soulcalibur. There are several characters who wield swords, and they all have different fighting styles. Even those that wield the same kind of sword, like Sophitia and Cassandra, have slight differences in their movesets. However, in games that have more than one weapon per character, some weapons that look like they should be handled vastly differently will use the same attack animations. Taken further by the Joke Items. Wielding sauage links like nunchaku or a giant squid like a BFS? No problem!
  • Assassin's Creed II features many swords of very different styles that can be bought and used by the player character. They have different damage, speed etc. but are used in the exact same way in-game, with the same combat mechanics and animations.
  • Trigger Knight: From the humble Dagger to the Astral Sword, your weapon's just always a BFS.
  • Zig-Zagged in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild:
    • The backstory says Hylian knights were specifically trained in wielding straight double-edged swords, and had trouble with the curved blades favored by the Sheikah, leading the latter to forge dedicated swords for the former's use.
    • On the other hand while Link's proficiency is "anything" (not limited to swords, far from it), he appears to wield every one-handed weapon the same way, every heavy weapon the same way, and every spear the same way.
  • Averted in Warframe, which has a variety of melee weapons and melee categories. These include standard swords, nikanas, daggers, machetes, rapiers, swords and shields, heavy blades and gunblades. Each has its own attacking animations and stance mods, being totally separate weapon types. As an example, Broken War, a sword, deals mostly Slash damage, while War, the very same sword but in its complete heavy blade form, deals mostly Impact damage.

     LARP 
  • The Otakon LARP keeps the complexity of the game system down by having most weapons distinct in appearance, but having fundamentally similar mechanics. Characters use one of four skills to wield any weapons of the category. Commonly: Melee Weapons, Fire Gun, Thrown, and BFG (Big guns feat). Individual item cards for the weapons list a flat damage, and may include a modifier to the attack skill.

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