History Main / RetroUpgrade

* In the ''Franchise/MobileSuitGundam'' franchise, the Oldsmobile Army of Mobile Suit Gundam F90 pilot machines from the long-gone Principality of Zeon. However, after making contact with remnants of [[MobileSuitGundamCharsCounterattack Char's Neo Zeon]], those ancient machines were heavily upgraded (using the parts of the newer machines) so as to be a match for many of the Federation's mass production models. It looks like you're facing an old Gyan from decades in the past... but under that old shell is the reactor, armour and machinery of the modern Geara Doga.

* The YuGiOhTradingCardGame is a rare TCG where cards never rotate out, so sometimes old decks get new cards to make them competitive. Usually it's only a couple of cards, but those cards can be game changing. This ranges from nee cards for old powerhouses like Dark magician, to more obscure archetypes like Karakuri.

* In the ''Franchise/MassEffect'' series, you get the omniblade, which is a "disposable silicarbonate blade almost as hard as diamond, build by an omnitool micro-factory". In short, it is a [[KnifeNut trusty old knife]], except it's an AbsurdlySharpBlade able to cut through most things. Must useful if used in tandem with a [[InvisibilityCloak Tactical Camouflage]] to stab an enemy InTheBack (like [[PhantomThief Kasumi Goto]] does), or used against [[OurZombiesAreDifferent Husks]].

** Likewise, car cigarette lighters started to go out of style as public opinion turned against smoking... until people started realizing that the sockets that housed them could also be used to recharge portable electronics. While the lighters themselves are unlikely to make a comeback any time soon, the prevalence of car chargers has given a new (albeit possibly temporary because a USB port is much smaller and not really more expensive for automakers to put in) lease on life to the mechanism that formerly heated them up.

* Most home video game consoles stopped using cartridges in the mid-nineties in favor of [=CD=]s (although they stayed more popular in the hand-held market, as spinning optical media wasn't as compact and uses more power). The sole holdout, Creator/{{Nintendo}}, proceed to demonstrate why the others had moved on as cartridges' advantages such as faster load times and no need for separate memory cards were vastly outstripped by how much data [=CDs=] could hold and at a much cheaper manufacturing price; most N64 games retailed for $50-60 on cartridges packing 4-64 MB capacity, while its prime competitor the UsefulNotes/PlayStation gained the edge with $40-50 games on 650 MB compact discs (granted, most of the space was for soundtrack audio, but even then developers still had a lot more space to work with and even if they didn't use much of the disc space for game data, they could put on much higher-quality soundtracks). Since then, games have gotten larger and now take a significant time to read from the disk, while cartridges have become smaller and cheaper with the advent of flash memory. Nintendo, after three generations of disk-based systems, is switching back to cartridges for the UsefulNotes/NintendoSwitch.

* Most home video game consoles stopped using cartridges in the mid-nineties in favor of [=CD=]s (although they stayed more popular in the hand-held market, as spinning optical media wasn't as compact and uses more power). The sole holdout, Creator/{{Nintendo}}, proceed to demonstrate why the others had moved on as cartridges' advantages such as faster load times and no need for separate memory cards were vastly outstripped by how much data [=CDs=] could hold and at a much cheaper manufacturing price. Since then, games have gotten larger and now take a significant time to read from the disk, while cartridges have become smaller and cheaper with the advent of flash memory. Nintendo, after three generations of disk-based systems, is switching back to cartridges for the UsefulNotes/NintendoSwitch.

** {{Justified|Trope}} in ''TabletopGame/DarkHeresy'', where primitive close-combat weapons are much less effective against non-primitive armor (counting their armor value as doubled), but can be given the "mono" upgrade to remove this trait and gain some extra armor penetration.

** {{Enforced|Trope}} in ''TabletopGame/DarkHeresy'', where primitive close-combat weapons are less effective against non-primitive armor (counting their armor value as doubled), but can be given the "mono" upgrade to remove this trait and gain some extra armor penetration.

* In Neil Blomkamp's ''{{Film/Elysium}}'', a gangster hands Max an AK-47. Max asks whether it is a family heirloom, being that it is the mid 22nd century, and AK-47's have likely been out of production for a hundred years. The gangster replies that it has been upgraded with air-burst munitions and a simple point-and-shoot interface. Max demonstrates the upgraded weapon's capability with some good old-fashioned slo-mo tech {{gorn}}.

* ''Anime/TengenToppaGurrenLagann'': In the second half of the anime, the Gunmen are dropped in favor of the new Grapearls. It turns out that the Gunmen are still more useful against anti-spirals because they were designed specifically to fight them.

** And now with sufficient miniaturization of the required electronics, fitness trackers, GPS watches, and smart watches have begun digging right back into the market for wrist watches by providing many of the functions of a cell phone in a much smaller device that can be worn all the time and is often much more [[TonkaTough strongly built]] than phone units, as well as be used where/when cell phones are unwanted.

* The T-X from ''Film/Terminator3RiseOfTheMachines'' has a liquid metal outer layer like the T-1000 and a metalic skeleton like the T-800 series, while it is theoretically more vulnerable because of the skeleton it has the ability to carry onboard weaponry and isn't vulnerable to things that can damage a T-1000 specifically, near the end of the film the heroes activate a supercollider that acts like a powerful electromagnet peeling the liquid metal off of T-X and short circuiting it which would kill a T-1000 but the T-X uses its skeleton to pry itself off the supercollider and disable it.

** In the episode "Tosk", O'Brien offers his assistance to fix Tosk's ship but doesn't know how to go about it unless he knows what the broken part actually does. Tosk explains that it collect interstellar particles and converts it into energy for the engines. Miles compares it to a ramscoop used to suck in air. With that comparison in mind, Miles is able to fix the ship and improve its performance.

* The 2019-2020 novel coronavirus pandemic brought back a few old ways of doing things that were deemed obsolete for decades or made them more popular:

* In ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'' the ship's engine and hull get improved using technology based on the carburetor of an old Ford pickup truck and the hull of the Titanic, respectively.

** Diesel cars became trendy around 1980, but they had their problems and quickly disappeared for the most part. Then sometime in the 2000's, diesel-powered autos made a comeback due to improved technology.

* The T-X from Film/Terminator3RiseOfTheMachines has a liquid metal outer layer like the T-1000 and a metalic skeleton like the T-800 series, while it is theoretically more vulnerable because of the skeleton it has the ability to carry onboard weaponry and isn't vulnerable to things that can damage a T-1000 specifically, near the end of the film the heroes activate a supercollider that acts like a powerful electromagnet peeling the liquid metal off of T-X and short circuiting it which would kill a T-1000 but the T-X uses its skeleton to pry itself off the supercollider and disable it.

* In ''Manhwa/{{Veritas}}'', after spending long periods training to purify his {{Ki}} flow, Gangryong discovers that he gets much better results if he deliberately clogs the flow until it bursts and washes out his system. Overlaps with DangerousForbiddenTechnique, since timing it wrong could kill him.