History Main / BonusFeatureFailure

* Beating the special zone in ''{{Super Mario World}}'' inverts the color scheme in the overworld, making the greens brown and the browns green. Congrats - you just made the game very ugly and can't change it back.

* ''[[{{Touhou}} Imperishable Night]]'' has, as unlockables, solo versions of each team (Reimu only and Yukari only for instance, as opposed to Reimu and Yukari). However, human characters cannot go over 20% on the phantom gauge, and youkai characters can't go under -20%, which causes problems for human characters in dense bullet clouds or boss battles and for youkai characters who need to move quickly.
** Exception: Youmu, whose solo gauge goes from -50% to + 50%.

* In ''ChampionsOnline'' there are three crafting schools, Weapons, Mysticism, and Science. Each of these has a single SPECIAL BONUS "crafted travel power" the player can claim/build. For instance, in Weapons the travel power is called the "R.A.D. Sphere." It requires leveling your character's crafting ability up to the 300-400 range, buying the blueprints, crafting a few dozen items, which are each in turn crafted from a dozen other items apiece which you ALSO have to buy the blueprints for, then gathering another dozen or so increasingly rare dropped artifacts, then assembling them all together...with another blueprint. The result for all this running back and forth to the crafting table, spending a fortune in points, and scouring the countryside pummeling various monsters to get them to drop rare items? Your character gets the power to crouch down, wrap his arms around his knees, and roll forward. At about running pace. It looks stupid, is ridiculously slow, and if you should actually wish to level this power up, you have to go through the above hunt-and-gather grinding rigamarole all over again to BUILD the next iteration.

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* One of the biggest selling points of ''MetalGearSolid: [[MissionPackSequel VR Missions]]'' was the fact that players could finally control Solid Snake's old war buddy Gray Fox, aka the [[NinjaPirateZombieRobot Cyborg Ninja]]. This feature was hyped so much, that the Ninja's face is not only on the cover, but on the actual title screen itself. He's not that hard to unlock, but does require a bit of effort (at least 85% of the regular missions with Snake must be completed). Unfortunately, he only has three missions out of the 300 actually featured in the game (that's literally 1% of the game) ans they're ''all'' set in the same stage with only slightly different objectives between each: the first two involve destroy a set number of dummy targets and Genome Soldiers in that order, while the third involved assassinating Solid Snake, who is nothing more than a head-swapped Genome Soldier in this mission.

** Probably the worst of these is Flying Mario, getting the Red Star unlocks the ability to use it in the Observatory, problem is outside of the initial mission to unlock it, that's all you can do and it isn't good for anything short of snagging a 1-Up, it's fun, but that's about it.

* In the [[SoBadItsHorrible obscure for good reason]] ''BloodyRoar'' [[strike:5]] ''4'', there is Career Mode which you have to battle multitudes of rounds among the same characters over and over while gradually progressing through a very tedious and confusing map. As a [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwSTY2ZGcQk certain]] [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8DggHZhlWc game reviewer]] points out, among the other [[{{Understatement}} flaws]] this game has that seems all the more clear [[SarcasmMode it's aimed to revive the series]], the map can be fully completed and yet still leaves you with well over 800 more fights you must do in order to unlock the Very Definitely Final Hidden Character (everyone else is mercifully much easier and sooner to unlock and you will get everyone else long before you complete the map). So you have to fight repeat battles to make up the difference, and, guess what? [[spoiler: The final unlockable character turns out to be [[SNKBoss Ryoho]]. No, not Ryoho & Mana, the Ice Climbers to the Bloody Roar series you get right from the get-go, but Ryoho-the-[[GameBreaker incredibly-cheap-guard-cutting-]][[GaiasVengeance Gaia-pisser-offer-]][[TheDragon dragon]]. Not only is he an incredibly cheap character to fight against as a boss, but also just as cheap as he is under your command and otherwise not terribly different from Ryoho as a human from the Ryoho you get with Mana. Not to mention there are already a few other characters that are already unlocked for you early on that are also just as cheap and overpowered. Of course this is assuming anyone bothered to go ahead and fight those repeated battles just to get that far to see Dragon!Ryoho.]]

** ''Megaman X3'' is the first game in the series that allows you to play as Zero. However, you can only call on him once per stage, and he automatically switches back to X when he reaches a boss door (with one exception). So you can only play as him for 1/3 of any given level. Oh, and he has only one life, so if you die once using him, he's LostForever. You do need him to access a special upgrade for X late in the game though (even if it is a bit of a GuideDangIt), and whether he's still alive or not at the end of the game affects the ending.

* ''SuperMarioGalaxy'': the Grand Finale Galaxy. It's just a level based on the game's intro scene with all the characters present, with nothing to do other than collect purple coins.
** That's really more of a BraggingRightsReward. The actual Bonus Feature, Luigi Mode, is an aversion; Luigi can do anything that Mario can (he skips the aforementioned intro, but otherwise has all the levels and abilities), his physics are different enough to justify him being playable (not to mention the Cosmic races are harder), the dialogue and text is changed to reflect it being Luigi (a bit of a paradox with the NPC Luigi still being there, but it's PlayedForLaughs), and, c'mon, it's freaking ''[[EnsembleDarkhorse LUIGI]]''.
** Probably the worst of these is Flying Mario, getting the Red Star unlocks the ability to use it in the Observatory, problem is outside of the initial mission to unlock it, that's all you can do and it isn't good for anything short of snagging a 1-Up, it's fun, but that's about it.
** ''SuperMarioGalaxy2'' adds more [=NPCs=] and other stuff as you progress, but few of them really serve any purpose. Sure, they give you hints (that you most likely already know by that point...). The worst part though is a duo of [=NPCs=] that each give you a 1-Up, one time. The game doesn't save how many 1-Ups you had between sessions, and there are enough ways to get them anway.
*** There is also a collection of the various powerups Mario found in the machinery room. Can you use these for anything? Nope.

* The unlockable Mission Mode characters in ''[[KingdomHearts358DaysOver2 Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days]]'', who each get only five or six usable weapons, compared to the normal characters who each have more than 20.
** Being able to play as [[spoiler:Mickey Mouse]] makes up for this for many people.
* ''SuperMarioGalaxy'': the Grand Finale Galaxy. It's just a level based on the game's intro scene with all the characters present, with nothing to do other than collect purple coins.
** That's really more of a BraggingRightsReward. The actual Bonus Feature, Luigi Mode, is an aversion; Luigi can do anything that Mario can (he skips the aforementioned intro, but otherwise has all the levels and abilities), his physics are different enough to justify him being playable (not to mention the Cosmic races are harder), the dialogue and text is changed to reflect it being Luigi (a bit of a paradox with the NPC Luigi still being there, but it's PlayedForLaughs), and, c'mon, it's freaking ''[[EnsembleDarkhorse LUIGI]]''.
** Probably the worst of these is Flying Mario, getting the Red Star unlocks the ability to use it in the Observatory, problem is outside of the initial mission to unlock it, that's all you can do and it isn't good for anything short of snagging a 1-Up, it's fun, but that's about it.
** SuperMarioGalaxy2 adds more [=NPCs=] and other stuff as you progress, but few of them really serve any purpose. Sure, they give you hints (that you most likely already know by that point...). The worst part though is a duo of [=NPCs=] that each give you a 1-Up, one time. The game doesn't save how many 1-Ups you had between sessions, and there are enough ways to get them anway.
*** There is also a collection of the various powerups Mario found in the machinery room. Can you use these for anything? Nope.
* In ''ShadowTheHedgehog'', there are hidden keys in every level that, once you get them all, unlock a secret door for that level. While most of the doors have powerful weapons or enable shortcuts, the door in Lost Impact gives you an armored car...in a close-walled, cramped space station level. And you can't even take it very far, as there are walls you have to spindash under, and rail segments where the car can't go, almost immediately after you get the prize.
** Most of the unlockable weapons/secret doors are like this in Shadow. Particularly {{egregious}} are the secret doors for Westopolis (similar to Lost Impact, it gives you a bad-controlling lowrider with no special weapon which you get 75% of the way through the level) and Lethal Highway (a minigun with 80 ammo, which is pathetic if you were hoping for a MoreDakka rampage). Additionally, the weapons you unlock for completing certain endings are ''extremely'' [[{{Nerf}} Nerfed]] [[InfinityMinusOneSword Infinity Minus One Swords]], particularly the [[KatanasAreJustBetter Samurai Sword]], [[SonicAdventureSeries Omochao Gun]] and [[BillyHatcherAndTheGiantEgg Vacuum Gun]], which are powerful but have a laughable ammunition capacity (even when levelled up!) that hardly makes it worth the effort.
* ''SonicTheHedgehog2'' lets you play as Tails, who is identical to Sonic in every way except he can't go into super form.
** Tails gained his signature flying ability in ''[[Sonic3AndKnuckles Sonic 3]]'', as well as lowered jump height and running speed, and you can finally be Super Tails if the game is locked on to ''Sonic and Knuckles'' and you get all the Super Emeralds.
*** Howhever, Sonic 3 does it again with Knuckles. He was playable in it's multiplayer but got no abilites, which put Tails into {{Game Breaker}} status. Locking Sonic 3 on Sonic&Knuckles ''still doesn't fix that'' despite Knuckles having extra powers in singleplayer.
* ''SonicAdventure [[DirectorsCut DX]]'' has [[spoiler:Metal Sonic]] as the all-emblems reward. However, he is identical to Sonic in every way, and can only be used in Trial Mode. What's worse is that he only flies at medium speed, switching back to running at maximum speed, so you don't even get that.
** He also gets his own emblems to collect, but nothing happens if you collect them all.
* In ''{{Mega Man X}}8'', the navigators Alia, Palette, and Layer are unlockable as playable characters. They are basically clones of X, Axl, and Zero, respectively; however, Alia cannot get X's capsule upgrades and Palette cannot copy enemies. You also have to purchase all of X, Axl, and Zero's purchasable upgrades a second time in order to access them on Alia, Palette, and Layer. Additionally, using even one of them when running a stage will forbid you from choosing a navigator for that stage.
** Vile's mode in ''[[VideoGameRemake Maverick Hunter X]]'' is one of the "can't do the whole game" variety. Although you get to go through the first couple of fortress levels after the eight bosses and beat Bospider and Rangda Bangda, at the end of the third fortress stage you fight X and Zero instead. After beating them, you get the ending for Vile's alternate story, so there's no D-Rex to fight, and no battle with Velgauder or Sigma. On the plus side, afterwards you can go through the game again with unlimited power to select any weapons you want.

* Proto Man is unlockable via DLC in ''Game/MegaMan 9''; however, his mode has no story, and he cannot unlock achievements or access the item shop.
** The higher difficulty levels, similarly, have achievements disabled.
** ''Mega Man 10'', however, fixed this by allowing achievements to be accomplishable in different difficulty settings and giving Bass, the DLC character for the game, his own shop and story scenes.
* In an odd example, ''SonicAdvance 2'' let you unlock the Tiny Chao Garden by meeting certain conditions in the game... Even though the first SonicAdvance had the exact same mode available from the start.
* The bombchus in ''[[TheLegendOfZeldaOracleGames The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages/Seasons]]'' are only acquired as a bonus after starting a NewGamePlus, are not particularly useful at any point in the game, and cannot be restocked through drops from defeated enemies.
** In ''{{Ocarina of Time}}'', the final reward for the gold skulltula sidequest is money. By that point, you have almost no use for it.
*** There is a similar reward for a quest in ''TwilightPrincess'', but this trope is averted due to the [[GameBreaker money-draining invincibility armor]].
* [[spoiler:Old Axe Armor]] in ''{{Castlevania}}: Portrait of Ruin'' is a solo character instead of a team of two, has only two special moves (one of which is used solely for navigation) and is simply a PaletteSwap of an existing enemy. However, [[JokeCharacter it is very likely this was intentional]].
** Almost every [[{{Metroidvania}} Metroid-ish]] ''Castlevania'' has an unlockable mode where you play as another character who can't do most of what the main character can (e.g. can't collect items, can't level up sometimes, and, most idiotically, [[WallBanger don't have a pause menu, even for changing controls or sound options]]). To be perfectly fair, a lot of that is much more in line with the original games that the modes are harkening back to. Sometimes, however, these come with stories of their own. Keep in mind, this is usually to balance them against their GameBreaker abilities.
*** ''[[CastlevaniaSymphonyOfTheNight Symphony of the Night]]'': Richter mode, Maria mode in the PSP version (she's actually easier to play as than Alucard in the Saturn one)
*** ''[[CastlevaniaHarmonyOfDissonance Harmony of Dissonance]]'': Maxim mode
*** ''[[CastlevaniaAriaOfSorrow Aria of Sorrow]]'': Julius mode
*** ''[[CastlevaniaDawnOfSorrow Dawn of Sorrow]]'': Julius mode (has its own cutscenes, and the characters can gain levels)
*** ''[[CastlevaniaPortraitOfRuin Portrait of Ruin]]'': Sisters mode [[spoiler:(prequel to the main story)]], Richter/Maria mode, [[spoiler:Old Axe Armor]] mode
*** ''[[CastlevaniaOrderOfEcclesia Order of Ecclesia]]'': Albus mode
*** ''[[CastlevaniaCurseOfDarkness Curse of Darkness]]'': Trevor mode
*** ''[[CastlevaniaLamentOfInnocence Lament of Innocence]]'': Joachim mode (no item inventory, orbs have no effect, making the reward for defeating the BonusBoss a CosmeticAward).
* ''FinalFantasyTacticsAdvance'' is a two-in-one combo. It has several unlockable characters; Some of these are unique characters that cannot change classes or learn new abilities, while others are merely normal units with special sprites. One, notoriously, doesn't unlock until after you have nothing you can possibly do with him.
** Not to mention some of the special characters can't even enter the water, all because they don't have sprites drawn of them being in the water. Feather Boots can fix this since it makes the wearer walk on the water rather than in it.
* ''TheLegendaryStarfy'' has a multiplayer mode that lets another player control Starly. This can only be used in a few specific areas of the game.

* The two bonus characters in ''[[StarOceanTillTheEndOfTime Star Ocean: Till The End Of Time]]: Director's Cut'' may count. Adray is really just a less capable wizard (a spot already filled by Sophia) with a weapon set nearly identical to Albel's, while Mirage uses effectively the same attack set and play-style as Cliff, but is 40-50 levels lower. The player has the option to gain Adray early into the game when he would be at a similar level to the party, but if you opt to gain him at the next opportunity (much later near the end of the game), he'll still be at that level (lv 19 when the party is roughly 55-70).
** In the original, buggy version of the game sold in Japan, the four "optional" characters (Albel, Nel, Peppita, Roger) were required. Meanwhile in the North American release, only two of them can be chosen while [[WallBanger Mirage and Adray are necessary]].
* About 50% of the quest rewards in ''{{Diablo}} 2''.
* ''WarriorsOrochi 2''... There's a HUGE roster of officers to unlock, and while several of them have suspiciously similar movesets, each of them is, at least, a BIT original. However, the hardest character to unlock, by an order of magnitude, is Orochi Z - his appearance in your roster basically signifies that you have achieved 100% Completion and then some. (You have to spend DAYS just grinding levels, well after you have finished completing every scenario on every difficulty, to unlock the last Dream Scenario - and then beat that to unlock Orochi Z.)
** Now, Orochi Z is basically the Final Boss, so that's awesome. He's not JUST a PaletteSwap of Orochi either, having different hair. However... firstly, he's doesn't have his own set of weapons, like everybody else does - he just uses the same set as Orochi. Second, his moveset is less than half the size of anybody else, and he never learns new moves - though, granted, those few moves he DOES have, are pretty powerful. Finally, every other character has a series of artwork - various design-sketches, posed character-models, screenshots from cutscenes they're in and the like - that are unlocked as you use them. Orochi Z has none. So effectively, once you've taken him into combat ONCE to check out all 3 of his moves, there's literally no point in ever using him again - especially since, by that point, you've already done basically everything in the game.
* Subverted in ''Warlords 1'', ''2'', and ''3''. The bonuses on items could vary from 1 to 3 in several different categories, but since there were more heroes than items, even 1 items were valuable.
* In ''MasterOfMagic'', the best quest rewards were: extra masteries, extra spell books, rescue of an elite hero, or an elite item. If you had the maximum number of spellbooks, heroes and masteries, the game was forced to give you some crap like an Item of Lame.
* In the [=PS2=] ''{{Shinobi}}'', Joe Musashi can be unlocked as a playable character, his bonus being that he has unlimited shurikens and no life draining tate bar. The pro to this is that you don't have to worry about getting huge combos to keep your life and damage enemies, and you can just continually chuck shurikens at some hard to kill enemies. The downside is that there are some bosses that pretty much require you to get huge combos in order to defeat them in a timely fashion, however you can also chuck shurikens at them continually. A perfect beginner character... only you don't get him until you've gotten 40 Oboro coins, which is only possible if you had already beaten the game once on Normal and again on Hard.
** He's improved upon in ''Nightshade''. His unlimited shurikens now have the ability to perform Tate combos and can break armor, which gives him a distinct advantage over Hotsuma (one of the two other hidden characters), who needs to get up close to do it with his superior slashing power.
* The BonusDungeon in ''DragonQuestVI'' is just several levels from normal dungeons stuck onto each other with no rhyme or reason (but with stronger enemies), and no justification.
** Same for ''DragonQuestVII'', but at least at the end, you get to [[strike:[[DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu punch out Cthulhu]]]] fight God.
** In the [=GBC=] VideoGameRemake of ''DragonQuestIII'', ''every'' monster in the game RandomlyDrops Bronze, Silver and Gold Medals. Get enough of them, and you can go to Divine Dragon's Castle and gain wishes. Get more, and and you unlock the ultimate BonusDungeon with the Grand Dragon of Everything. Get ''every medal in the game'' and the Grand Dragon...falls asleep.
*** You get the [[InfinityPlusOneSword Rubiss Sword]] if you beat him in a time limit, which is the strongest sword in the game and casts the strongest spell in the game if used as an item. However, given that you've at this point ''done everything there is to do in the game'', it's totally [[BraggingRightsReward useless]].
* By beating ''[[BackyardSports Backyard Skateboarding]]'', you unlock Old School Andy. Who is a PaletteSwap of Andy [=MacDonald=], a character available from the start.
* In ''FinalFantasyVI'', defeating optional boss Kaiser Dragon in the Advance release rewards you with the Diabolos Magicite. Its summon and the spells it teaches are all bound by the damage limit so he'll never do more than 9999 damage, a limit you're already pushing against if you're strong enough to beat Kaiser in the first place. The only use Diabolos has is his level up bonus "HP+ 100%", meaning your HP increases twice as much when you level up, which is good but other Espers give "HP+ 50%", so ultimately Diabolos does nothing you can't already do with the other Magicite pieces.
** Averted with the other three optional Magicite shards - Leviathan teaches Flood which is a water-elemental spell so you exploit that elemental weakness in enemies easier (prior to the Advance release there were no water-elemental spells at all), Cactuar gives a speed boost on level up and is one of only two Espers to do so (and the other one doesn't give as good a boost anyway AND can be given away and LostForever), and Gilgamesh teaches the Quick spell letting you teach it to two characters at once, definitely a boon since it only has a learn rate of 1% and thus takes forever to learn. And ''those'' three are obtainable much earlier on, if you know where to look.
* In ''FinalFantasyVII'', defeated Ruby Weapon gave you a golden chocobo... Except it's NintendoHard to defeat it ''without'' breeding one in the first place, and this new golden chocobo sucks at races. Averted with Emerald Weapon, where the reward is a set of "Master" Materia. The only other way to get them is to master ''every'' Materia of each type, which will take hours upon hours of training.
* ''StarFox Adventures'' had Cheat Tokens which did a few things when you dropped them into the well in the maze under the Warpstone. Two of these stand out:
** The Dino subtitle, which allowed you to see the subtitles in Dino, the game's substitution cipher. However, it doesn't replace "[Dino Talk]" with what was actually said, and the subtitles are actually significantly ''wrong'' in spots.
** The part of the SoundTest where you can listen to tunes. Just about every sound test I've seen in any video game has some way of identifying the tune, even if it's just a number. This one? Nothing.
*** One 'cheat' beat those two out in being impressive in its unimpressiveness. It unlocks the options to,brace yourselves, play the game in [[DeliberatelyMonochrome black and white]]. Yes, the player can unlock an option to do what one can accomplish by adjusting one's TV set/monitor without the extra effort (unless they completely lack tech savvy beyond dealing with game consoles).
* Sweet Tooth and Minion in ''TwistedMetal 2''. You get them after you beat the game once. There's just one problem in the PSX version of the game: ''you get no continues''. If you get stomped on level 7 out of 8 (the number is a deliberate choice), you're finished. At least Minion is intentionally overpowered. Sweet Tooth is exactly as strong as a regular character and therefore very hard to beat the game with.
* The Piranha ship in ''Wipeout 2097/XL''. It is super fast, super agile, super this and that, only you can't use weapons. It still wins everything, but the game just got a lot more boring. They fixed this in ''Wipeout 64'', though they still gave the Piranha the most useless superweapon.
* ''[[{{Touhou}} Imperishable Night]]'' has, as unlockables, solo versions of each team (Reimu only and Yukari only for instance, as opposed to Reimu and Yukari). However, human characters cannot go over 20% on the phantom gauge, and youkai characters can't go under -20%, which causes problems for human characters in dense bullet clouds or boss battles and for youkai characters who need to move quickly.
** Exception: Youmu, whose solo gauge goes from -50% to + 50%.
* ''{{Gradius}} V'' and ''{{Ikaruga}}'' have continues that increase for each hour of play, culminating in "free play" (unlimited continues) after a set number of continues obtained. But if you improve yourself at either game, by the time you unlock free play you most likely won't need it anymore. ''Gradius Gaiden'' is a similar case, save for the increasing credits; you start with 9 instead of 3, and they never go up save for when you unlock free play.
* ''[=~Luigi's Mansion~=]'' has a hidden mansion for beating the game, but it only makes the Poltergust and ghosts stronger, which makes it barely different from the original game. The PAL version has a lot more changes, though.
* The TrueFinalBoss of ''{{DJMAX}} Technika''[='=]s Heartbeat Set, [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6I4iCbUBqW8 "Area 7"]], obtained by finishing the first 3 stages with at least 95% of your notes being "MAX"es (you get the normal FinalBoss, [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYBq3tO5jRc "Colours of Sorrow"]], if you don't). Not only does it have an [[ThatOneLevel awkward chart]], but it has a lower max combo, meaning that getting this song instead of [=CoS=] is actually ''harmful'' to your score. So to get an optimal score on this course, you will need to DoWellButNotPerfect on the first 3 stages.
* ''[[TetrisTheGrandMaster Tetris: The Absolute - The Grand Master 2 PLUS]]'' offers the TGM+ and T.A. Death modes, neither of which have high score rankings. While Death mode is very popular and offers its own grading scale (M for completing the first half of the game in under 3'25", GM for that and completing the whole thing), TGM+ has no grading scale whatsoever.
* ''{{SoulCalibur}} II'' had secret characters Berserker, Assassin, and Lizardman, unlockable only through special means in the Weapon Master Mode. The kicker is that they can't be used in most game modes (including Weapon Master itself), and their moveset lists are inaccessible from the start menu like every other character. Additionally, they only have one weapon each, but they all have six costumes when two or three is the standard. This is especially aggravating because to unlock Lizardman, you needed to beat every stage in Weapon Master Mode, including the ridiculously hard bonus stages. This is slightly made up for due to the fact that Lizardman becomes a full-fledged character in Soul Caliburs III and IV.
** When he had ''already'' been a full-fledged character in the first Soulcalibur. Yes, Namco intentionally downgraded an established fighter to a half-assed bonus. Also, Berserker and Assassin use movesets lifted entirely from existing full-fledged fighters who didn't make SC2's roster, namely Rock and Hwang.
* The final unlockable course of ''F-Zero GX'' is Mute City: Sonic Oval, a beginner-level course that consists of a NASCAR-style oval. It's not even used in the AX Cup; you can only play it in Time Attack, Practice, and multiplayer. It's also on the wrong place in the AX Cup course listing; in ''F-Zero AX'', it's the ''first'' course in the list rather than the last.
* Getting all 120 stars in ''Super Mario 64'' results in the grate being taken off that cannon outside the castle, allowing you to blast up to the roof where Yoshi will give you 100 lives. Too bad you've literally done everything the game has to offer already and there's no point to playing anymore.
** You're also given a flashy new triple jump that...err...makes it a little harder to place your landing.
*** There's also a Wing Cap block on the roof. To some, the ''real'' prize is getting to fly around the outside area.
** In Super Mario 64 DS, the last minigame rabbit is on the roof instead of Yoshi (due to him being playable), and the game that is unlocked, if you got it last, is nearly identical in every respect to one unlocked beforehand.
* In the [[SoBadItsHorrible obscure for good reason]] ''BloodyRoar'' [[strike:5]] ''4'', there is Career Mode which you have to battle multitudes of rounds among the same characters over and over while gradually progressing through a very tedious and confusing map. As a [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwSTY2ZGcQk certain]] [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8DggHZhlWc game reviewer]] points out, among the other [[{{Understatement}} flaws]] this game has that seems all the more clear [[SarcasmMode it's aimed to revive the series]], the map can be fully completed and yet still leaves you with well over 800 more fights you must do in order to unlock the Very Definitely Final Hidden Character (everyone else is mercifully much easier and sooner to unlock and you will get everyone else long before you complete the map). So you have to fight repeat battles to make up the difference, and, guess what? [[spoiler: The final unlockable character turns out to be [[SNKBoss Ryoho]]. No, not Ryoho & Mana, the Ice Climbers to the Bloody Roar series you get right from the get-go, but Ryoho-the-[[GameBreaker incredibly-cheap-guard-cutting-]][[GaiasVengeance Gaia-pisser-offer-]][[TheDragon dragon]]. Not only is he an incredibly cheap character to fight against as a boss, but also just as cheap as he is under your command and otherwise not terribly different from Ryoho as a human from the Ryoho you get with Mana. Not to mention there are already a few other characters that are already unlocked for you early on that are also just as cheap and overpowered. Of course this is assuming anyone bothered to go ahead and fight those repeated battles just to get that far to see Dragon!Ryoho.]]
* One of the biggest selling points of ''MetalGearSolid: [[MissionPackSequel VR Missions]]'' was the fact that players could finally control Solid Snake's old war buddy Gray Fox, aka the [[NinjaPirateZombieRobot Cyborg Ninja]]. This feature was hyped so much, that the Ninja's face is not only on the cover, but on the actual title screen itself. He's not that hard to unlock, but does require a bit of effort (at least 85% of the regular missions with Snake must be completed). Unfortunately, he only has three missions out of the 300 actually featured in the game (that's literally 1% of the game) ans they're ''all'' set in the same stage with only slightly different objectives between each: the first two involve destroy a set number of dummy targets and Genome Soldiers in that order, while the third involved assassinating Solid Snake, who is nothing more than a head-swapped Genome Soldier in this mission.
* The main reason most people don't ever bother to completely finish the {{Bonus Dungeon}}s in any of the ValkyrieProfile games: yes, doing absurd amounts of damage per hit is one of the main draws of the game, and a weapon that's at least 10 times stronger than anything else in the game that can be equiped by anyone is still moderately amusing for a while even if you can already easily kill everything else easily. So exactly WHY do you feel the need to give it a retarded property of doing random amounts of damage and only rarely being able do as much damage as its attack stat would suggest, programmers?
* Mass Effect 2 offered the blood armor as a downloadable purchase bonus... that didn't allow any sort of customization, making it useless for combining the various useful pieces of swappable armor, such as the shield power chestplate, extra ammunition legplates and bonus headshot damage visor. You couldn't even take your helmet off to see your customized Shepard face.

** SuperMarioGalaxy2 adds more NPCs and other stuff as you progress, but few of them really serve any purpose. Sure, they give you hints (that you most likely already know by that point...). The worst part though is a duo of NPCs that each give you a 1-Up, one time. The game doesn't save how many 1-Ups you had between sessions, and there are enough ways to get them anway.

** In Super Mario 64 DS, the last minigame rabbit is on the roof instead of Yoshi (due to his being playable), and the game that is unlocked, if you got it last, is nearly identical in every respect to one unlocked beforehand.

** Avoided with the other three optional Magicite shards - Leviathan teaches Flood which is a water-elemental spell so you exploit that elemental weakness in enemies easier (prior to the Advance release there were no water-elemental spells at all), Cactuar gives a speed boost on level up and is one of only two Espers to do so (and the other one doesn't give as good a boost anyway AND can be given away and LostForever), and Gilgamesh teaches the Quick spell letting you teach it to two characters at once, definitely a boon since it only has a learn rate of 1% and thus takes forever to learn. And ''those'' three are obtainable much earlier on, if you know where to look.
* In ''FinalFantasyVII'', defeated Ruby Weapon gave you a golden chocobo... Except it's NintendoHard to defeat it ''without'' breeding one in the first place, and this new golden chocobo sucks at races. Avoided with Emerald Weapon, where the reward is a set of "Master" Materia. The only other way to get them is to master ''every'' Materia of each type, which will take hours upon hours of training.

** Avoided with the other three optional Magicite shards - Leviathan teaches Flood which is a water-elemental spell so you exploit that elemental weakness in enemies easier (prior to the Advance release there were no water-elemental spells at all), Cactuar gives a speed boost on level up and is one of only two Espers to do so (and the other one doesn't give as good a boost anyway), and Gilgamesh teaches the Quick spell letting you teach it to two characters at once, definitely a boon since it only has a learn rate of 1% and thus takes forever to learn.

* ''SonicRoboBlast2'' is a game with three individual characters at the start, Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles, who are all fairly balanced between themselves. But, the game allows you to make your own characters, and as such everyone and their brother has their own character - most of them faster and more powerful than the regular characters. However, with the good, there is also bad, with one specific character: the "Crawla", which uses the sprites of the first enemy you encounter in the game, has a horrendous jump height, a double jump ability which almost makes up for it, is so slow the first level (which can be done in less than 20 seconds with Sonic if you know what you're doing) takes at least a minute, but at times provides an even better play experience than the original three characters!
** It's worth noting that this is a fan game based on the Doom engine, so what did you expect?

*** There is a similar reward for a quest in ''TwilightPrincess'', but this trope is averted due to the money-draining invincibility armor.

** In ''{{Ocarina of Time}}'' there's also the final reward for the gold skulltula sidequest: money. Even though, by that point, you have almost no use for it.

** In ''[[Ocarina of Time]]'' there's also the final reward for the gold skulltula sidequest: money. Even though, by that point, you have almost no use for it.

** In ''Ocarina of Time'' there's also the final reward for the gold skulltula sidequest: money. Even though, by that point, you have almost no use for it.

* The bombchus in [[TheLegendOfZeldaOracleGames ''The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages/Seasons'']] are only acquired as a bonus after starting a NewGamePlus, are not particularly useful at any point in the game, and cannot be restocked through drops from defeated enemies.

* ''TheLegendOfZelda: [[TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime Ocarina of Time]]'' introduced crawling explosives called Bombchus, which were only used in a couple puzzles and returned in Majora's Mask, where they were needed twice to complete an optional dungeon near the end of the game. However, they only truly become this in the Oracle games, where they are only acquired as a bonus after starting a NewGamePlus, are not particularly useful at any point in the game, and are not normally dropped by defeated enemies, making them difficult to stock up on.
** In ''Ocarina of Time'' there's also the final Skulltula sidequest's reward, the right to ask the person for ruppees at no cost, anytime, [[strike:anywhere]]. Not only is money in this game [[MoneyForNothing pretty useless]], this is near the end of the game and you probably expected to receive a way to hold more than 500 ruppees, like other rewards you got during the sidequest.
** Also, in ''[[TheLegendOfZeldaMajorasMask Majora's Mask]]'', collecting all of the optional Bombers sidequests and obtaining the related masks is a herculean task, requires multiple 3-day cycles spent with little to no main-quest-dungeon activity, and at least one 3-day cycle in which one repeats the exact same actions as a previous cycle, except goes into a different building. If one does all this and gets all the mask, then, just before the final boss, you can trade all your masks away to obtain the Fierce Diety's mask. You would think that it could then only be used for the final boss of the game, but thanks to the time travel aspect of the game, you can keep it... and use it against bosses you have already beaten, as it cannot be worn outside of boss battles and as you can only obtain it after beating all of the other bosses anyway.

** Most of the unlockable weapons/secret doors are like this in Shadow. Particularly {{egregious}} are the secret doors for Westopolis (similar to Lost Impact, it gives you a bad-controlling lowrider with no special weapon which you get 75% of the way through the level) and Lethal Highway (a minigun with 80 ammo, which is pathetic if you were hoping for a MoreDakka rampage). Additionally, the weapons you unlock for completing certain endings are ''extremely'' [[{{Nerf}} Nerfed]] [[InfinityMinusOneSword Infinity Minus One Swords]], particularly the [[KatanasAreJustBetter Samurai Sword]], [[SonicAdventureSeries Omochao Gun]] and [[BillyHatcherAndTheGiantEgg Vacuum Gun]], which are powerful but have a laughable ammunition capacity (even when levelled up!) that hardly makes it work the effort.
* ''SonicTheHedgehog2'' lets you play as Tails, who is identical to Sonic in every way except he can't go into super form. (He gained his signature flying ability in ''[[Sonic3AndKnuckles Sonic 3]]'', as well as lowered jump height and running speed).
** You can finally be Super Tails in Sonic 3 locked on to Sonic and Knuckles, if you get all the Chaos and Super emeralds.