History Main / StarterGearStayingPower

** Your starter equipment can also serve as this, so long as you're okay with forever looking like a scrub. The game gives you headgear, clothing, and shoes that grant Quick Respawn, Ink Recovery Up, and Special Saver (respectively) as their main abilities: while not the optimal combination for every weapon kit out there, especially if you're an experienced player who doesn't necessarily need the safety net that these abilities provide, they are still solid perks that are worth having. And if you like the rookie look but want different main abilities, then ''VideoGame/Splatoon3'' allows you to swap them out for different ones ''do'' fit your preferred play style if you have enough ability chunks to do so.

* ''VideoGame/{{Splatoon}}'': The Splattershot Jr. that new players start with is one of the most effective and easy to use weapons in the game; it uses very little ink per shot allowing it to be fired for a long time before needing to refill and has a fast rate of fire with a fairly wide spread so it covers turf easily. While that same wide spread combined with low damage and short range means it usually won't win in a direct firefight, one can overcome that with ambush tactics.

** In most games, iron weapons are available at the beginning and have the lowest damage output, but are surprisingly effective later on. Granted, this depends on enemy resilience, which varies by game, but overall they often gets the job done if they're in the hands of a reasonably strong character. More powerful gear weighs down the user (lowering their speed) and has lower accuracy. Later games would add bronze weapons, which are even weaker than iron and available even earlier, but these don't fare so well as the game progresses, acting more as the typical noob equipment.

** In most games, iron weapons are available at the beginning and have the lowest damage output, but are surprisingly effective later on. Granted, this depends on enemy resilience, which varies by game, but overall it often gets the job done if it's in the hands of a reasonably strong character. More powerful gear weighs down the user (lowering their speed) and has lower accuracy. Later games would add bronze weapons, which are even weaker than iron and available even earlier, but these don't fare so well as the game progresses, acting more as the typical noob equipment.

* ''VideoGame/FireEmblemTheSacredStones'': Has a character example in Seth who is the most powerful unit in the beginning of the game and has stats rivaling your trained units even in the endgame. Unlike other characters of his archetype, Seth also has a high growth total with a good growth distribution, which means that he is much less likely to slow down in performance later in the game. He's pretty much essential for fast, efficient clears and it's often said that the game is even easier if it's just Seth and a lord. To top it off, Seth has the highly desirable Anima affinity, notable among other affinities for granting both offensive and defensive bonuses to any unit he supports with. He puts in a fairly strong argument for being the franchise's best character.

* ''VideoGame/FireEmblemTheSacredStones'': Has a character example in Seth who is the most powerful unit in the beginning of the game and has stats rivaling your trained units even in the endgame. Unlike other characters of his archetype, Seth also has a high growth total with a good growth distribution, which means that he is much less likely to slow down in performance later in the game. He's pretty much essential for fast, efficient clears and it's often said that the game is even easier than if it's just Seth and a lord. To top it off, Seth has the highly desirable Anima affinity, notable among other affinities for granting both offensive and defensive bonuses to any unit he supports with. He puts in a fairly strong argument for being the franchise's best character.
** Seth is so good that top-efficiency run Tier Lists base the placement of all other characters f the game on what they can actually do to support Seth, or whatever minor thing they can chime in.

* ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'':
** ''VideoGame/PokemonRubyAndSapphire'': The Water-type Starter Pokémon Mudkip and its evolutionary line has a type advantage against no less than ''four'' of the Pokémon Gyms in the first half of the game, and it's a relatively tough Pokémon that will be useful even against the Elite Four.
** ''VideoGame/PokemonSunAndMoon'': The Water-type Starter Pokémon Popplio and its evolutionary line has a type advantage against most of the Trials, and the ones where they don't can be beaten with powerful early TM moves like Acrobatics and Scald. Popplio gets its Z-Move first in Waterium-Z, which is far stronger than the other starter's Z-Moves. Its final evolution, Primarina, can solo the Elite Four, thanks to its solid stats, Water/Fairy typing, and wide movepool. While [[VideoGame/PokemonUltraSunAndMoon the sequel]] moved Scald and Acrobatics later in the game, Popplio learns Icy Wind as an early level-up move, giving it an advantage against Grass-types and fast Pokemon. Like the previous game, Primarina can still solo the Elite Four.

[[folder:Strategy Games]]
* ''VideoGame/PlantsVsZombies'' gives you the Sunflower on the Level 2 out of 50 levels. You will later get other sources of sun generation such as the [[MagikarpPower Sun-shroom]] which costs less and produces just as much sun over time, or the [[MultipleHeadCase Twin Sunflower]], which produces double the amount of sun while occupying the same space. But most players still prefer to use the regular Sunflower until the end of the game.
** The Puff-shroom is a free plant with weak damage and short range which can only attack at night. And yet, it's one of the most overpowered plants because of its fast recharge rate, allowing players to [[DeployableCover spam them]] to [[NotTheIntendedUse stall the zombies]] even during daytime levels.
* ''VideoGame/{{Starcraft}}'':
** The humble Zergling is a feared Zerg unit throughout the game against a wide variety of tactics; its upgrades ultimately make it three to four times as effective as the initial version, and they still only cost 50 minerals for two. Ten Zerglings can eat the enemy Nexus in less than six seconds, and unless the enemy has some area damage, will be rather difficult to stop. To top this off, the titular ZergRush can be performed so early (six Zergling rush) that the enemy will have only workers at their base by that time.
** While the Terran Marine isn't quite as valued, it is an indispensable tool against the Zerg when paired with Medics and is the only basic unit that can take on air. When protected by narrow corridors (which can be conveniently built with Supply Depots) twelve upgraded Marines can kill an unlimited amount of Zerglings or Zealots that blindly rush them.
** But the true winner for this trope is the humble Terran SCV. A worker unit with enough HitPoints to actually be used in combat offensively in rush strategies. There's nothing more humiliating than getting killed by an RTS worker unit. The Emperor Slayers_Boxer's infamous [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jen46qkZVNI SCV Rush.]]
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* ''VideoGame/EscapeFromTarkov'': the mosin rifle for snipers, due to the requirement on sniper skills necesary to get kappa ammo and the relative cheapness of the rifle the weapon keeps being relativelly useful for most of the situations.

* ''VideoGame/JediKnightJediAcademy'': The lightsaber is the best weapon in the game and the improved swordplay, along with not needing ammo for it, almost render the other weapons irrelevant.

* ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerRenegade'': Many players stick to the simple, plentiful autorifle and the starting gun. Sure, it's one of the most basic weapons in the game but its accuracy, speed, and control is such that the weapon can carry experienced players through entire levels and the starting pistol has the unique features of being silenced and carrying infinite ammo something that keeps its usefulness through the whole game specially on base sections.
* ''VideoGame/GoldenEye(1997)'': The silenced PP7 will be your most common pistol to use. It doesn't alert enemies, that louder weapons either cause Respawning Enemies or an accidental mission failure(i.e. alert a guard to make it accidentally shoot or throw a grenade against an innocent victim), has an insane range capable of making pixel perfect kills and start with 100 ammo that is plentiful for missions. Its silenced properties make it esential in the harder dificulties where waves of enemies are way harder to deal with. Enjoy this throughout the game.

* In ''VideoGame/HaloCombatEvolved'', the first weapon the player receives is the [=M6D=] Pistol, which proves to be [[PunchPackingPistol one of the most powerful]] and reliable weapons in the game, having high damage, headshot capability, and plentiful ammo for it everywhere. (The pistol wasn't intended to be so strong but a last minute change to the game's code boosted its damage to ridiculous levels.)

* The pistols in ''VideoGame/Left4Dead'' and ''VideoGame/Left4Dead2'' are weak and boring compared to the more powerful guns like an automatic shotgun or an assault rifle, but the pistols are the only weapons that have BottomlessMagazines and are also the only weapons that can dual wielded for extra firepower.

* ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid2'': You can acquire assault rifles, missile launchers, sniper rifles, grenades, and many other weapons. However, the weapon you will most often use is the M9 pistol modified to shoot tranquilizer darts (especially when you are going for a 'no-kill' playthrough). The silenced weapon doesn't trigger alerts from enemies hearing the shot, and it incapacitates enemy troops in a single hit, a mechanic that all games after this have in some way.
** In ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid3SnakeEater'' where its even more useful, due to stamina kills being one of the focuses of the gameplay.

* ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsIII'': The Kingdom Key is the starting weapon in nearly every installment and generally goes the way of the dinosaur. Due to ''KHIII'' adding in the ability to wield multiple Keychains as well as [[EvolvingWeapon upgrade them]], the Kingdom Key's never truly outclassed. Even with Better Keyblades out there, the Kingdom Key remains a solid option for the whole game. If anything, its innate Damage Control ability makes it invaluable for defensive builds - doubly so for a Critical/Level 1 playthrough, which will see your health chunk like flakes.
* In the ''VideoGame/MegaManClassic'' series, the Mega Buster you start out with is usually your go-to, for its simplicity, consistency, and its lack of a need for weapon energy. Titles that include the charge shot give it even more versatility.

* ''Franchise/TheElderScrolls''
** ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIIDaggerfall Daggerfall]]'' will give you some starting equipment based on the choices you made during character generation. If you answered one particular question a certain way, you'll receive an Ebony Dagger as part of your starting equipment. [[DiscOneNuke Ebony is the second best crafting material in the entire game]].

* ''VideoGame/AmidEvil'' has the Axe of the Black Labyrinth, a melee option and the only one of your weapons that doesn't use mana. One swing does more damage than many of your early ranged weapons, and it has the ability to pull enemies towards you at close range. It also deals double damage against Claws of Evil, and triple damage against Hands of Evil and Crysharks. It's more than capable of dealing with most of the basic mooks you'll see in each chapter and is a viable option for when you need to save mana.

* ''VideoGame/ThunderForce VI'': The starting ship, the Phoenix, counts, it starts with all of its weapons and both Craws, and never loses them on dying like ships from past games.

** ''VideoGame/PokemonSunAndMoon'': The Water-type Starter Pokémon Popplio and its evolutionary line can learn powerful early TM moves like Acrobatics and Scald, and gets its Z-Move first in Waterium-Z, which is far stronger than the other starter's Z-Moves. Its final evolution, Primarina, can solo the Elite Four, thanks to its solid stats, Water/Fairy typing, and wide movepool. While [[VideoGame/PokemonUltraSunAndMoon the sequel]] moved Scald and Acrobatics later in the game, Popplio learns Icy Wind as an early level-up move, giving it an advantage against Grass-types and fast Pokemon. Like the previous game, Primarina can still solo the Elite Four.

* Franchise/{{Pokemon}}:

* ''VideoGame/AmidEvil'' has the Axe of the Black Labyrinth, a melee option and the only one of your weapons that doesn't use mana. One swing does more damage than many of your early ranged weapons, and it has the ability to pull enemies towards you at close range. It's more than capable of dealing with most of the basic mooks you'll see in each chapter and is a viable option for when you need to save mana.

* ''VideoGame/PokemonRubyAndSapphire'': The Water-type Starter Pokémon Mudkip and its evolutionary line counts as this, given that it has a type advantage against no less than ''four'' of the Pokémon Gyms in the first half of the game, and is a relatively tough Pokémon that will be useful even against the Elite Four.

Contrast VendorTrash, for when this trope isn't in-play and your starting weapon can be thrown away as soon as you get something better at the first shop. Also see InfinityPlusOneSword, for when the game's (usually) ''last'' piece of equipment can carry you past everything.

* Enforced in ''VideoGame/{{Tyranny}}'': Barik's armor is fused so tightly that he can't remove it for any reason, although it can be upgraded at the Forge. So if you're using him as the party tank, any other heavy armor you loot becomes VendorTrash.

** ''VideoGame/BioShock1'': You can collect a stunning array of weapons with special ammo, but nothing is ever so useful as [[WrenchWhack the Wrench]] given how well it synergies with abilities like Electro Bolt, along with the Tonic upgrades that offer the Wrench extra damage, faster attack speed, and the ability to [[LifeDrain steal health and EVE]]. Alternatively, Electro Bolt remains a staple in many a player's arsenal, so much that some players pretty much never spend ADAM on extra plasmids as a result, since it's fantastic for stunning enemies long enough to land a killing blow with various firearms.