Plot Coupon That Does Something

Video games often require the player to collect one or more Plot Coupons to proceed through the game's story. This trope is about when those Plot Coupons have a secondary function rather than just a MacGuffin to collect.

While it's required to advance the plot, the plot coupon that does something has a gameplay function as well. For example, it might come with some new spells, abilities, or commands you can use. Or perhaps it doubles as a weapon—a variation common enough to have its own separate trope.

Not to be confused with:

• Plots where Gotta Catch 'Em All for potential party members or useful items is a goal for 100% Completion but not vital to the plot, as in Pokémon, Valkyrie Profile, or Suikoden. Characters that make themselves useful aside from being one of the six mages needed to restore the seal on the gates of doom, or pieces of a Dismantled MacGuffin that each provide a benefit along the way can count for this trope, however. The distinction is that they must be both vital to the advancement of the plot and have some use outside of that purpose.
• Items that you use to get past obstacles but serve no other purpose. There can be overlap here too, though: the Equipment-Based Progression in the Legend of Zelda and Metroid games (and much of the wider Metroidvania genre) features many items that not only get you across a specific type of Broken Bridge, but also serve as Utility Weapons or have Mundane Utility like speeding travel in the overworld or giving you an edge in certain minigames.

Subtrope to Plot Coupon, and Super-Trope to Sword of Plot Advancement (for coupons that are weapons or armor). Contrast the MacGuffin, which serves no purpose besides driving the plot.

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Examples:

Action Adventure

• Castlevania
  • Castlevania II: Simon's Quest. Four of Dracula's five body parts cause beneficial effects when equipped, like giving Simon a shield or making hidden clues visible. Dracula's Ring is the only one that does nothing other than help open your path to the final battle.
  • Castlevania: Symphony of the Night paid homage to Simon's Quest by bringing back the five body parts, now with each one (even the Ring this time) granting a +10 boost to different stats.
  • Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow. Soma's soul-collecting ability was worked into the plot; it was actually central to several twists in the sequel Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow.
  • Shanoa's glyph ability was also critical to the entire storyline of Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia. In fact, the almighty Dominus glyph can indeed be used in gameplay any time you wish. You may regret it, though.
• The Metroid games are made of this trope. In every Metroid game starting with the original, each Plot Coupon is a new weapon which is not only a new offensive tactic against enemies, but also unlocks further gameplay. For example, the Missiles or Super Missiles are stronger than your ordinary weapon, but they are also required to open color-coded doors. The simplest example is the High Jump and/or Space Jump upgrade, which grants better maneuvering and also allows the player to reach new paths. And there's a symbiosis between upgrades and bosses: new upgrades allow you to reach and defeat bosses, and defeating bosses provides new upgrades, continuously until the final battle. An exception is the late-game plot coupons in the Metroid Prime Trilogy, as their main purpose is to unlock the way to The Very Definitely Final Dungeon in each game (Chozo Artifacts, Sky Temple Keys and Energy Cells; as well as Octoliths in Hunters).
• In Kirby's Return to Dream Land, you'll spend most of the game searching for the parts of the Lor Starcutter — the wings, oars, topsail, and the "emblem" (more accurately, a figurehead). Exactly why the emblem is so important remains a mystery until the end of the game — after you defeat the final boss, Kirby and friends are trapped in a disintegrating subspace dimension until the Lor fires a beam from the emblem, opening a portal to Dream Land and whisking the heroes to safety.
• The Legend of Zelda:
  • At one point in the development of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, the medallions you get from the sages upon clearing each dungeon would have been equippable as items and had some effect.
  • Speaking of, the Master Sword is generally required for plot purposes in most of the games. It just happens to deal more damage than the starting sword as well.
  • The same goes for the Bow of Light in The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks; it's significant to the plot in that it's crucial for removing Malladus from Zelda's body and is the entire reason Link goes to the Sand Temple, but it's also a very useful ranged weapon.
  • The Light Arrows in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker are required to beat the Final Boss, but they can also be used on regular enemies. In the former, the arrows can make enemies drop purple rupees (worth 50 a piece) while the arrows in the latter are a One-Hit Kill to anything that's not a boss.
• In Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands, the experience points system is explained as the Prince drawing the souls of defeated sand monsters into his amulet. This becomes a plot point when it is revealed that the Prince's brother also has the same ability, and is being driven mad by the amount of levelling he has done.
• In Resident Evil, specifically in Chris's campaign, Chris can find a flamethrower. This can be used to burn things...for a few minutes, before it must be placed into a locking mechanism to open a door.
• The Resident Evil: Outbreak series integrates The Virus into the gameplay for the first time in the series. All of the players are infected, and the infection (represented by a %) ticks up to force the players to keep moving, and increases very fast if they are grievously wounded.
• Eight magical orbs in Silver. Ultimately used to destroy the Big Bad's source of power but also work wonders (literal and very harmful wonders) on the ordinary enemies.
• Tomba!: The Seven Evil Pig Bags are the only things able to seal the Seven Evil Pigs and break the spells they've placed upon seven of the world's realms. Each boss battle requires the player to actually throw the pig into the bag itself, which moves around the screen in some fashion. Interestingly, the battles can't even begin unless Tomba has the right bag—the Evil Pig Gate that leads to each swine's hideout won't appear unless he has the bag in his inventory. In some cases, breaking an Evil Pig's curse will unlock new areas to explore or quests to complete, while the Green Evil Pig's hex on the Lava Caves needs to be broken to reach the second half of the game's world (hence why he's usually the first fought).

Action Game

• Astro Boy: Omega Factor integrates its stage select system into the plot, in the form of time travel. The majority of the game is spent going from stage to stage, fixing all the disasters which happened in the first playthrough.
• In Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2, most levels have an objective for collecting a set of Plot Coupons in the level. New York uses subway tokens. Beyond awarding the objective, collecting all the subway tokens also opens access to the subway on that level.

Action RPG

• In Part Two of The Bard's Tale Trilogy, each of the seven parts of the Destiny Wand needed to defeat Lagoth Zanta grant their own little bonuses, such as giving buffs to the owner or using to cast certain spells.
• Halfway through Dark Souls, you obtain the Lordvessel, which is required to open the gateway to the Kiln of the First Flame to kill Lord Gwyn and succeed him by linking the fire. Before filling it with Lord Souls to accomplish that, you can use it to warp between bonfires — a skill that's very useful when you defeat the late-game bosses whose fights end with you trapped in their arena with only a bonfire for company.
• The Horadric Cube in Diablo II is needed to transmute several pieces of useless crap into a larger piece of useless crap just so you can get to the bosses of Acts II and III. However, you can continue to use it to transmute items into better items that are both more useful and more valuable. It also doubles as a mini-Bag of Holding, taking up 2x2 space in inventory while having a 3x4 space for items.
• The Dismantled MacGuffin in Nox actually converges into a fearsomely deadly weapon as you collect more pieces.
  • More accurately it becomes a fearsomely deadly weapon for the warrior, and a kind-of-nice upgrade for the conjurer. If your playing the wizard you're never going to be doing melee attacks, which makes a melee weapon, no matter how nice, nearly worthless. Which begs the question why your wizard spent at least 3 out of 10 acts in the story collecting the pieces necessary to construct a weapon he will never use, rather then spending that time actually fighting the Big Bad.
• The World Ends with You: The secret reports make EVERYTHING plot relevant (except the fashion bonuses and the food.) Neku's ability to use multiple pins? Plot relevant. Super charged fusion attacks? Plot relevant. The dual screen fighting system? PLOT RELEVANT.

First-Person Shooter

• BioShock
  • The plasmids in BioShock that serve as the game's "spells" are also the major reason the city of Rapture was transformed into a nightmarish hellhole in the first place - overuse of them, even the non-combat ones, slowly turned the population insane.
  • Lot 192, the antidote for Jack's mental conditioning in the first game also makes Jack's plasmids unstable, causing them to change randomly until a second dosage of the antidote is obtained.
• Borderlands does this in part with the Eridian Artifacts being both plot-critical concepts, and the most common way to bolster your Action Skills. And include a bunch of rare/interesting weapons to boot.
• "The Relic" in Cyberpunk 2077 is the initial objective in the post-prologue main questline. Once you have it, it ends up inserted into your cyberware and results in the Virtual Ghost of Johnny Silverhand appearing in your brain to provide further context & direction in the story.
• Doom³: The Soul Cube in the base game and the Artifact in the expansion Resurrection of Evil are integral to the plot of both games. They are also very useful in gameplay. The Soul Cube instantly kills any non-boss enemy and transfers all of its remaining health to the player. The Artifact, once fully upgraded, can slow down time, increase the power of your weapons, and make the player temporarily invulnerable.
• In TimeShift, the time suit that gives you your time-bending powers is also central to the plot, as a similar time suit was used by the Big Bad to alter history and create the dystopian future you spend the game fighting through.

MMORPGs

• In Billy vs. SNAKEMAN, the most obvious example is the Witching Hour, which centers around your ability to loop, but there are numerous subtler examples, even without resorting to reading the manual. Word of God claims that every last gameplay detail means something in the story.
• In Flash-based MMO zOMG!, all of your powers come from special Rings. These Rings are the only things that can harm The Animated. They can be powered up by powerful emotions, can only be leveled in a special room, and can be made more powerful by spending time with other people. ALL OF THIS BECOMES PLOT RELEVANT.
• In Guild Wars factions, a few of the missions are spent collecting some powerful artifacts (Urn of St. Viktor, Spear of Archemorus) to defeat the Big Bad. The artifacts also provide some useful combat effects (Damage absorption, and powerful damage, respectively).
• Many quests in World of Warcraft involve bringing items back to a questgiver NPC who asked you for them, whether to prove you killed the target or because it's something valuable to the NPC. Probably more than 90 percent of these are nothing but Plot Coupons; they can only be picked up if you have the quest and they can't be used for anything or even sold to a vendor. However, a few here and there can be used as equippable items before returning them to the questgiver, or even instead of returning them if you want the item more than whatever the quest reward is. They are generally below-average quality for their level because they aren't intended to be kept, but some have unique abilities or effects that fit the storyline of the quest and are hard to get anywhere else.
  • The popularity of some of those items has not gone unnoticed, some quests were changed to allow you to keep them anyway, and the next expansion not only expands the list, but will even add a toybox (a seperate, account-wide collection much like mounts and pets) just for storing them and many other fun items.
  • There's also some legendary weapons and their incomplete versions, namely the Shadowmourne/Shadow Edge and Fangs of the Father, which tied to their respective raids' storyline, but also serve as best choice of weapon for any class that can wield it.

Puzzle Games

• The mysterious black and white cubes found in Cube Escape become more and more important throughout the series. By the time the game The Mill comes around, it's revealed that these cubes are formed from memories harvested from dead bodies with still-functioning brains. White cubes contain good memories, but black ones form from trauma, which also have the side-effect of reanimating the dead person as a black Corrupted soul. The cubes were harvested to "feed" to the eponymous Rusty Lake.

Real-Time Strategy

• In Homeworld 2 the key, necessary to unlock the vault where SaJuuk is hidden, is an awesome Dreadnaught-class battleship. And SaJuuk himself is an even better battleship!
• In Starcraft II, you spend about half the missions gathering pieces of a Xel'naga artifact. In the final mission, the artifact is assembled, and requires you to defend it while it charges up to cure Kerrigan. In the meantime, you can use it every three and a half minutes to fry every Zerg in a half-mile radius. Once it finally charges up to do that thing in the spoiler tags, it fries all the zerg again, just for kicks.
• In Pikmin (2001), the Whimsical Radar, one of the required parts to fix your starship also allows you to see the location of other ship parts on the map.

Roguelikes

• The path to ADOM's ending involves collecting all the Orbs Of Chaos and inserting them into a keyhole on the final boss's front door. You can actually equip these orbs for stat boosts. Although it's not a good idea to use their special powers.

RPGs

• In The 7th Saga, each of the 7 runes you're trying to collect has a special effect when used in combat; most boost one of your stats, and one heals you a modest amount. They can be used an infinite number of times and are crucial for making it through this Nintendo Hard game, to the point that the game can become unwinnable about two-thirds of the way through when the plot takes them away from you and suddenly teleports you back in time and gives you much stronger enemies to deal with. It's not a kind game.
  • On the bright side, you get them back at the end... in order to use them on the Big Bad in exactly the same way they were originally used to seal his powers in the first place. Turns out the Runes were the sealed powers of this game's version of Satan, and HE was the one who sent you to find them in the first place so that he could have his powers back. So the powers you've been using to keep yourself alive were the residual strength of the embodiment of evil. Kind of disturbing, isn't it?
• In the Ar tonelico RPG series, music is both a technological power source and the source of the game's magic spells ("songs".) Further, the process used to learn Songs (a form of virtual reality psychotherapy) is also an important story element.
• In Baten Kaitos, the Broken Earth Sphere and Ocean Mirror both heal 1000 HP, with the Ocean Mirror also serving as a defense card. The Sword of the Heavens, on the other hand, is a good offensive and defensive weapon for Kalas. Both the Ocean Mirror and Sword of the Heavens become worse after being broken as part of the plot.
• In BoxxyQuest: The Gathering Storm, you spend half the game searching for the pieces of a legendary blade called the PasSWORD — the only thing capable of piercing the Firewall surrounding the final dungeon. But when you finally gather all the shards and reforge the sword, you get to use it as a weapon in ordinary battles, too. It’s very powerful, and even has a unique ability that instantly dispels enemy shields!
• Breath of Fire I game features an item called the Earth Key, which you get early and is one of seven Cosmic Keystones keeping the power of Tyr at bay. The Earth Key is also fairly unique in that you can use it repeatedly during battle to create an earthquake that harms all enemies for 30 damage, useful since your White Magician Girl has little offensive capabilities at that early point in the game.
  • It's not just the Earth Key — the Dark Key and Light Key turn the overworld clock to nighttime and daytime, respectively.
• Chrono Cross's save points play an almost identical role to those in Xenogears. That is, mind control.
  • The titular Chrono Cross is an element usable in battle to recharge other party members' elements for a second use.
• The Dragon Age II add-on Legacy has Hawke's Key, which is just that, a key to Corypheus' prison that can only be used by Hawke. However, it is also a leveled customizable weapon specific to Hawke's class and combat specialization.
• In Dragon Quest VIII:
  • Everyone in Castle Trodain has a curse cast upon them... except for the hero, who is, for some unknown reason, immune to it. There is a "Curse" status ailment in the game, which temporarily disables whoever it's inflicted upon. The hero is immune to this particular ailment. He can also freely equip and unequip cursed equipment, which usually binds itself to its wearer until removed at a church.
  • The hero has a pet mouse named Munchie, which spends the entire game in his pocket and can eat various types of cheese during combat to produce magical effects, as well as passing through conveniently placed mouseholes to retrieve small items a few times. After completing the game and starting the Bonus Dungeon content, Munchie is revealed to be the hero's grandfather, a shapeshifting dragon, who finally explains the hero's mysterious backstory and indirectly the curse immunity mentioned above.
• Your main goal in Elden Ring is hunting down the Demigods of the Lands Between and take their Great Runes, large pieces of the Elden Ring that they obtained when it was shattered, so that the Ring can be repaired. However, the Great Runes are also sources of power, so each Great Rune has a unique effect when it's equipped and a Rune Arc is used to 'activate' it; Godrick's Great Rune grants a boost to all stats, Radahn's increases Stamina and FP, Rennala's allows 'rebirths' to change your character's stats, and so on.
• The Elder Scrolls:
  • Morrowind:
    • The Moon-And-Star ring given to you by Azura in recognition of your status as the Nerevarine also mildly boosts your Personality attribute and Speechcraft skill. It's a good item to wear when you need to persuade a NPC.
    • The tools of Kagrenac (Wraithguard, Keening, and Sunder) are a gauntlet, dagger, and hammer respectively, needed to tap into and/or sever the enchantments on the Heart of Lorkhan. However, each is also one of the best pieces of equipment in its class available in the game. Once you complete the main quest, you get to keep them.
    • In the Morag Tong questline, you'll be tasked with recovering all of the "Threads of the Webspinner," special enchanted items of clothing and jewelry which each increase one skill in particular. It's recommended that if you find one you like, save it and turn it in at the end.
    • The Tribunal Temple questline includes several quests that task you with locating and retrieving a lost relic of the Temple. These relics take the form of powerful enchanted weapons and articles of clothing, which you lose once you turn them into the quest giver. In particular, the Robe of St. Roris gives you a constant effect Healing Factor, making it a borderline Game-Breaker in the unpatched version of the game.
  • Skyrim: In the Thieves' Guild quest line, the Skeleton Key is a major plot item. In your hands, it is an unbreakable lockpick. Players have been known to put off completing the quest line indefinitely just to keep such a handy item around.
• Final Fantasy:
  • In Final Fantasy V, the shattered fragments of the Cosmic Keystone crystals are the justification for the Job system.
  • Final Fantasy VI, likewise, with Magicite.
    • The first half of the game revolves around Magicite, and Terra's abilities. First it's her natural magic ability, and then it's her Trance form, which turns her into her Esper self.
  • Final Fantasy VII, the Huge Materia, not only can you get a Summon from one, but they can be used to create Master Materias which take up only a single materia slot but grant the abilities of all the materia of the related type.
  • Final Fantasy VIII, GFs are the reason that none of the main party remembers having lived in an orphanage together.
    • The Draw ability is also integrated: Selphie heals an unconscious Zell in a cutscene by pulling a cure spell out of his body.
  • Final Fantasy IX: during the first bulk of the game, The Dragon's goal is to master the Eidolons, the game's Summon Magic. For the last half of the game, he tries to master Trance, the game's Limit Breaks
  • Final Fantasy X: The Aeons.
    • Final Fantasy X also has a much more subtle one. One of the recording spheres you find of Braska's pilgrimage shows him stopping to touch a Save Point as he's talking to Jecht and Auron.
    • Final Fantasy X-2: Dress Spheres.
  • Final Fantasy XII: Nethicite and the Espers. The former is a magic absorbent mineral that can be equipped on spell tanks at the cost of all their magical potential, while the latter become summons once defeated.
  • Final Fantasy XV: The Ring of the Lucii and the Royal Arms. A few, but not all, of these double as a Sword of Plot Advancement as some of the Royal Tombs are located in optional dungeons and aren't necessary to advance the plot. The blessings of the Astrals arguably count as well.
  • Final Fantasy Tactics Advance and its sequel: Judges.
• Geneforge has a twist with the "canisters" you're using, as Heart Containers and Upgrade Artifacts affect you as well as the NPCs you're fighting. Too many, and you start picking fights and talking like a psychopath. Way too many, and you may get a Downer Ending. And heaven help you if you use the Geneforge...
• In Golden Sun: The Lost Age for the GBA, the heroes need to gather the pieces of a trident in order to harm Poseidon, but the trident can be used in any battle to do damage to a selected enemy.
  • Most of the Plot Coupons in any of the games are items that grant a Psynergy that has both uses in battle and for puzzle solving.
    • This grows incredibly silly as increasing numbers of these powers are just things you can already do, but applied to a different obstacle (the number of powers that use the cartoon glove signifying Generic Telekinesis is ridiculous in and of itself).
• The divine artifacts in Gothic 3. Finding all five is necessary to complete the game and they are pretty much the best armor and jewelry items in the game.
• Jade Empire has the Spirit Monk amulet as a Plot Coupon. As you collect more pieces, you are able to utilize gems that enhance your abilities. By the time Sun Li steals it from you, it turns out to be a Magic Feather — you're now powerful enough to use the gems without the amulet.
• Some Plot Coupons in Legend of Legaia are actually accessories you can equip. One such item gives you infinite AP.
• In Mega Man Battle Network 6, Wily's Evil Plan is for the purpose of extracting a Sealed Evil in a Can Cyber Beast from MegaMan. Said Beast is basically MegaMan's Super Mode.
• With each of the Seven Needles that Lucas pulls in Mother 3, his PK Love attack gets upgraded, as the result of the magic from the Dark Dragon that sleeps beneath the earth awakening the ability within him. It is possible that the same thing is happening with the Masked Man, as he reaches three of the Needles no matter what you do, and can use all levels of PK Love.
• Neverwinter Nights 2 gives us the shards of the Sword of Gith, each of which gives you a different bonus while you possess them and get reforged into a really powerful sword, as well as opening the gate to the Fuge Plane, by the time Mask of the Betrayer rolls around.
  • The original campaign also has powers granted by the Ritual of Purification, which was designed to destroy the Big Bad. They are actual battle abilities and can be used outside the Final Boss fight, though most aren't very useful due to their Crippling Overspecialization.
• In Paper Mario 64 and Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, your Star Powers are tied directly to the Plot Coupons — Star Spirits or Crystal Stars, respectively. When you collect a coupon, you receive one additional unit in your Star Power meter, and learn a new ability (which might heal you, buff your stats, or attack your enemies).
• In Persona 3, some skills are Cast from Hit Points, requiring a set percentage determined by your maximum HP. You can't use them if you don't have enough, of course. The 11th-Hour Superpower used against Nyx in the final battle costs all of the main character's hit points, as he's using his soul to seal her. He dies in the ending.
• Games from the Phantasy Star series are riddled with these. In Phantasy Star II, there is an item called a "Mogic Cap" which appears to be useless as it is found in a labyrinth which also contains a "Magic Cap", which in turn allows the player to communicate with the cats that are running around the labyrinth, but its uselessness for talking to the cats is a red herring, for the plot is stuck until the "Mogic Cap" is worn into a village on the Ice Planet Dezo, and serves as a translation device with the people.
  • In End of the Millennium, the Eclipse Torch is a holy artifact the party needs to get past a forest of carnivorous trees, and which they have to retrieve after it's stolen. Once they do, though, the Eclipse Torch is in the party inventory and can be used in battle to produce the same purifying holy flame used to incinerate the trees in the cutscene.
• Played with in Planescape: Torment. The player is forced to seek out a small, bronze sphere to get information from a stubborn old man who collects cadavers. The item seems completely useless, and yet the servants of the opposition are seen immediately killing the old man. The player doesn't need to get the MacGuffin at all, not even to get the Golden Ending, but if he goes back for it, it lets him talk the Big Bad to death and makes achieving the Golden Ending even easier. The protagonist is immortal but forgets himself; he gave the MacGuffin to the old man in one of his past incarnations, claiming it granted immortality, so that the old man would keep it safe when the protagonist's corpse turned up. Sure enough, the current incarnation of the protagonist doesn't know that, and the sphere contains the protagonist's memories of his True Name. Learning his True Name also grants the single-biggest gift of Experience Points ever seen in a D&D setting: Two million. So it seems to be a Plot Coupon which anchors a Batman Gambit, only to turn out to bestow 11th-Hour Superpower.
• Pokémon
  • The Gym Badges have three uses. They actually gave a slight stat boost (don't ask how) to your mons in the first three generations, they act as "licenses" for HM field moves (though in some games, like those of the fifth generation, this isn't the case), and they force obedience from all mons below a certain level, above which they will disobey you if they are traded. In Pokémon Sun and Moon, there aren't any badges- instead you earn Z-Crystals for clearing trials (and at other points in the game); the level limit is instead enforced based on how many grand trials (major boss trainers) you defeat. They can be equipped to Pokémon to give them access to a powerful Finishing Move. Pokémon Sword and Shield brings back Badges, but since most obstacles that needed HM moves have been removed and the remaining ones are handled with different mechanics now^note Surfing has been replaced by a bike upgrade that allows it to float on water and flying is done by a taxi service, so all Badges do anymore is enforce obedience by level.
  • The introduction of innate abilities in Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire/Emerald. The three "mascot" Olympus Mons (Groudon, Kyogre and Rayquaza, respectively) in these games have their abilities be pivotal to the story: awakening the first two are the goals of the two villainous teams, while the last one is needed to calm the ensuing battle. The first two have abilities that act as though Sunny Day / Rain Dance respectively is always in effect. This applies out of battle as well, as you need to stop them once they are awakened. Rayquaza's Air Lock prevents weather conditions from taking effect, and is shown as the only way to nullify the world-ending powers of the former.
  • Every Pokemon game has useless Key Items that serve no purpose outside of clearing a specific obstacle needed to advance. The most notable exception being the Pokeflute, a plot item used to wake up a giant sleeping Pokemon that's blocking the road so you can get to the next town. What many players never realize is that the item can also be used in battle to heal the Sleep status condition, completely obsoleting the one use Awakening item.
  • The Plates, the items that allow Arceus to change its type, are this in Pokémon Legends: Arceus, as you collect them throughout the game. Though since Arceus is the True Final Boss and the only challenge after it is the Eternal Battle Reverie, they border on Bragging Rights Reward (not to mention that most of the regular type-changing plates pale in comparison to the Legend Plate).
• SaGa series (aka Final Fantasy Legend):
  • The first major quest in The Final Fantasy Legend is to gather a legendary sword, shield, and suit of armor to restore a statue. These items turn out to be extremely powerful this early in the game, but the player only gets to use them for as long as it takes to return to town where the statue is.
  • The MAGI in Final Fantasy Legend II is used to upgrade your characters, sometimes even granting bonus attacks to the limited 8-slot system, but are also central to the plot as they have a bad habit of turning evil people into pseudo-Gods.
  • In Riki's quest in SaGa Frontier, he is seeking out nine magical rings to save his homeland. Each of these rings can be used once per battle to produce useful effects. They're also cursed to warp any wish made on them, and turn Mei-Ling into the final boss of the quest.
• The magic system in Suikoden is based around rune fragments, the "true runes" that these fragments come from play an important part in the plots of each game in the series.
  • In the Gaiden Game Suikoden Tierkreis, the characters get abilities by touching magical artifacts (mostly books) called Chronicles. Since they also allow you to change the True Chronicle, a lot of the plot involves racing the antagonists to try to get to them first.
• Any game of the Tales Series where a portion of the game revolves around collecting the Summon spirits. Phantasia, Eternia, Symphonia, for starters. Especially Eternia, where the entire game was about the Summons, and they underpinned the entire magic system, not just one character's spells.
  • In Tales of Destiny, Swordians are pretty important to the development (second only to the MacGuffin proper, the Eye of Atamoni). While they aren't actually necessary to combat, they enable magic spells and magical attacks.
    • Swordians also level up and have equipment, basically making them additional (albeit immobile) party members.
  • Also, Tales of Symphonia's Exspheres follow the "special variant" variety with the Cruxis Crystal.
  • The Jewel of Lorelei in Tales of the Abyss can be equipped as an accessory for Luke, giving him a large amount of HP and TP recovery over time. Unfortunately, you must give it up in order to get the Sword of Plot Advancement.
• The ARMs in the Wild ARMs series inevitably have something to do with the story, and the fact that one of the main characters can use them (or use particular ones, or in a particular way).
  • Another example from Wild ARMs 3 would be the Dark Mask and the Tear Drop, amongst others. While it looks like just any other plot coupons, Virginia's unique item using ability can turn said items into usable piece of items. For example Tear Drop, containing the essence of Filgaia itself, heals any character it is used on.
• Xenogears has the Save Points being integrated into the story. It turns out that the save points were created by the bad guys & they've been using them to track the main characters' progress. At one point, you even get to visit the factory where they're made!
  • Its Spiritual Successor Xenoblade Chronicles 1 has the Monado, the Sword of Plot Advancement that gives the wielder visions of the future. As well as being important to the plot, it also occasionally warns the player of attacks that will incapacitate or severely injure a character. The player can take steps to weaken or even stop the attack from happening, or straight-up warn the victim-to-be to use a move to counter it.

Simulation

• The side missions, the reputation system, and the Wide-Open Sandbox in Freelancer are a direct result of Trent being a freelance pilot, going from boron trader to LSF operative, to outlaw exiled in Bretonia, to freedom fighter in Kusari, to defender of the Sirius system with the Order.

Stealth-Based Games

• The Metal Gear series always had Unusable Enemy Equipment, handwaved or justified a different way every game. In Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots guns are "ID Locked", and this time, the plot is centered around a struggle for control of this ID system. The local arms dealer Drebin can help for a fee by... er... "unlocking" guns for you.

Turn-Based Strategy

• Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and its sequel Mystery of the Emblem are some of the few games in the series where the titular MacGuffin has a gameplay function. Once Marth obtains it in-story, he gains the ability to open chests like a Thief.
  • Additionally, there is also the Starsphere and the Lightsphere. The Starsphere grants infinite weapon durability to whoever holds it (New Mystery of the Emblem nerfs it by making it grant +2 to all stats instead), and the Lightsphere negates enemy terrain bonuses. Both must be given up however, to craft the Starlight tome, the only thing capable of damaging and killing Gharnef, and forcing him to drop Falchion.
• In Makai Kingdom, writing wishes in The Sacred Tome is not only what the whole story's about (Zetta using it to recover his netherworld) but is also a central part of the game as it's used to create new facilities, random dungeons, reincarnate characters and unlock bonus content.

Visual Novels

• Inverted in Melody with the guitar that Amy buys for the title character. The protagonist sells it to kick off the plot, and Melody uses it for her first couple of lessons.

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