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Retro Upgrade
- 197 statements
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This is a sister trope to Magikarp Power where something which appears useless or obsolete becomes more effective because it's more compatible with the very latest technology than what came in between (either in technology or the ability of the user). The two can be distinguished thus; a Magikarp Superpower becomes more effective after working and improving it (e.g. levelling a Magikarp up until it evolves into a Gyarados), while this trope becomes more effective because something else has improved (e.g. a high level item which gives Magikarp in particular a significant boost in power). This can include previously obsolete technologies that suddenly prove to be a vital part of (or to complement) the latest ones or (on a more individual level) someone with a great deal of experience in a given field using a technique beginners avoid because their experience allows them to do it more effectively. All that matters is that the method in question is genuinely ineffective without the advancements or experience to take advantage of it. Historically, it can include technologies and ideas which were too ahead of their time and needed other advancements to be fully realized. This doesn't just mean technology or techniques that have been around for a long time being used; they have to actually be obsolete. So a vehicle which uses technology which has been around since the dawn of time, like wheels, wouldn't count because nothing has ever replaced the wheel, but a new, renewable fuel which turned out to be more efficient in a steam engine rather than a petrol or diesel engine would. In speculative fiction settings, this is a common way for a work to justify the prevalence of swords over guns using Technobabble (or Magibabble) to establish some technology which shifts the mechanics of combat in favor of melee weapons somehow (often overlapping with Enhanced Archaic Weapon). This can also overlap with Break Out the Museum Piece (if said museum piece uses a technology which is advantageous in the situation at hand). A subtrope of Older Is Better. Also related to Bishōnen Line (for cases where the creature crossing it originally had a more human form). Compare Minovsky Particle, where a new development justifies otherwise impossible technology. |
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X-Men: Doug Ramsey aka Cipher has the ability to comprehend any and all languages. Suffice to say, he wasn't much use in a fight. But here's the thing: he was created in the 80's, before the digital revolution. And any language was shown to extend to computer code. Naturally, when he was resurrected, this, combined with his understanding of body language quickly elevated his usefulness. A one-shot story also showcased that he was able to understand the "language" of a city — allowing him to find a terrorist just by seeing the things that were "wrong" in the environment. | |
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In Arrow, for Season 6 John Diggle had to take on the Green Arrow mantle. Unfortunately he's a mediocre archer, so the team took a crossbow design and created a new rapid-fire loading system for it. As an expert gunman, he transitions easily to the crossbow and its innovative rapid-fire lets him go up against guys with submachine guns. | |
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In the Honor Harrington series, fusion power plants are commonplace for starships, and the inability to miniaturize them past a certain point makes ships smaller than destroyers impractical in combat. The Graysons, lacking the ability to develop fusion power plants, instead spent several centuries obliviously improving on fission reactors. The result, while far less capable than the fusion power plants, are much easier to scale down, and more than adequate to make Light Attack Craft, operating in large numbers with disproportionately powerful weaponry a very unpleasant surprise in battle. Grayson had a similar story with their inertial compensator. Unable to buy their own from their more advanced neighbors they were forced to invent their own from scratch and the resulting designs were rather underpowered compared to everyone else. That was only because of the crudity of the Grayson manufacturing base. The engineering principles behind them, however, turned out to be a major innovation and when applied to Manticore's start of the art technology proved to be a vast improvement over previous designs. |
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Near the end of the first season of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., the SHIELD team has to make do with old World War II-era equipment. One of the outdated surveillance devices proves incredibly useful, as it can bypass modern security measures while its obsolescence means that nobody deploys the countermeasures that do work against it anymore. Unfortunately, this worked against the team as well — their target's data was completely immune to computer hacking by virtue of the fact that they used a pre-computer system of a room full of filing cabinets. | |
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In the second half of Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, the Gunmen are dropped in favor of the new Grapearls. It turns out that the Gunmen are still more useful against the Anti-Spiral proxies because they were designed specifically to fight them, as although Grapearls were based on Gurren Lagann's specifications, their pilots are unable to channel Spiral Energy through them. | |
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Sky High (2005): The Big Bad is an example of this trope. Back in the 80s, Sue Tenny's technopathy powers ended up condemning her to the sidekick track because technology wasn't advanced enough for her to make great use of them. The advancement of technology in the years that followed made it so that, when she re-enrolled in Sky High in the early 2000s, her power was seen as far more useful; as a result, she made the hero track instead. | |
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In 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 Dangerous Forbidden Technique, since timing it wrong could kill him. | |
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Coreline: The availability of technology from all over Fiction inside the setting means that enterprising people have utilized advanced technology to upgrade old (by Real Life and other shows' standards) vehicles and weapons in order to create Ace Custom pieces or simply make a mass-produced new "mark" of the old gizmos. Two examples within the setting are the Stingray Industries "Slammer" (an updated copy of the AMT Automag V that works up to par of military-grade combat pistols) and the A-101 "Thunderchild" (an updated version of the A-10 "Thunderbolt" (or "Warthog") that is widely used for anti-armor/mecha-hunting duties). | |
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In Chrono Trigger, Robo, a robot from the year 2300, can be equipped with stone arms you find in prehistory and they're the best weapons you can find (at the time). Also, while the Masamune is quickly obsoleted by other swords after defeating Magus with it, it can be upgraded to Frog's ultimate sword after Opening the Sandbox. |
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More of a stylistic choice, but in Valkyria Chronicles, the World War 2-era forces had taken a medieval knight's jousting lance and removed the spear portion to replace it with either an anti-tank rocket launcher or an anti-personnel mortar. | |
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One might be forgiven for thinking that Mazinger Z is a completely outdated scrapheap by the time of Mazinger Z: Infinity. However, when Kouji finally takes Mazinger out into battle, it's revealed that while Mazinger Z was indeed on display in a museum, it was also constantly being quietly upgraded since it was used as a testbed for new technology. | |
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Sgt. Savage and his Screaming Eagles: This G.I. Joe toy line had as its selling point (among other things) the usage of reactivated and upgraded World War II vehicles by the titular team (two of the most important ones were a P-40 Warhawk piloted by the titular Super-Soldier that had VTOL capabilities and autopilot (and a minigun that wouldn't be out of place in a Warthog anti-tank plane) and the "Blitz" tank, a Sherman upgraded with a plasma cannon as a main gun). | |
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In Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun, GDI forces had no answer to Nod artillery until the Juggernaut was developed. The Juggernaut was essentially a triple-barreled naval gun, taken off of a regular battleship (since Tiberium infestation has choked the seas too much for a conventional navy to be of any use) and mounted them on a mecha walker frame to make it mobile. The Juggernaut is so useful that it was retained into Command & Conquer: Tiberium Wars, even when other GDI mechs had been scrapped. | |
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Old Klingon ships in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine were protected against the Breen energy-draining weapon, by an obsolete component (it might even have been a reference to the outdated plasma coils in the cloaking system from Star Trek: Generations). Until a sample energy-draining weapon was captured, the Klingons had to bear the brunt of the war effort on their own. In the episode "Captive Pursuit", 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. |
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In Dune, both laser weapons and human-sized energy shields are widespread, but due to the Technobabble behind them if one meets the other then a catastrophic explosion occurs. Shields aren't proof against slower moving objects though, so most combat is waged using swords and knives. It also becomes relevant in-story later on when the Harkonnens use the ancient and obsolete technology of artillery against their enemies holed up in caves. Artillery and other projectiles had fallen out of use due to shields, but they're very effective for collapsing cave entrances. | |
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In the Mass Effect 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 trusty old knife, except it's an Absurdly Sharp Blade able to cut through most things. Must useful if used in tandem with a Tactical Camouflage to stab an enemy In the Back (like Kasumi Goto does), or used against Husks. | |
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Linked in Life and Love: After retrieving his old Hunter weapon Black Valentine, Roman comments that he hasn't used it in years and that it's a decade out of date. His co-brother-in-law Qrow, who had been keeping it all these years, tells him that he's maintained it and even modified it to use the newer dust rounds. | |
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In the Gundam 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 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. | |
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In a future so distant that the sun had been extinguished, the Earth had become The Night Land a wasteland full of mutated humans and supernatural horrors. Firearms were ineffective against most enemies in the Night Land, so a polearm was developed. One with a spinning saw-blade that was souped up with earth energy. | |
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In The Forever War, combat takes place within projected stasis fields which neutralize all electromagnetic fields except those contained within a special coating. This means no modern weapons work and leaves humans and aliens fighting an interstellar war using swords and bows. | |
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Command & Conquer: In Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun, GDI forces had no answer to Nod artillery until the Juggernaut was developed. The Juggernaut was essentially a triple-barreled naval gun, taken off of a regular battleship (since Tiberium infestation has choked the seas too much for a conventional navy to be of any use) and mounted them on a mecha walker frame to make it mobile. The Juggernaut is so useful that it was retained into Command & Conquer: Tiberium Wars, even when other GDI mechs had been scrapped. For Tiberium Wars, GDI found their mechs were vulnerable to sabotage from elite enemy infantry (who could just sneak up, plant explosives on one leg, and send the whole thing off-balance), so they reverted back to conventional tanks which were previously obsolete. Instead of merely digging up museum pieces, the next-generation Predator tank was improved with a larger cannon than previous tanks and the new Mammoth tank had two sets of tracks to help carry a better missile rack and more armour. Both tanks could later be modified to get rail guns for more firepower. |
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In robotic combat, bots with hammers for weapons had early success in the early 2000's, but improvements in armor soon rendered them useless in comparison to spinning weapons. Then came the 2016 season of BattleBots, where improvements in pneumatic technology, the idea to anchor the bot to the metal floor using electromagnets, and the fact that you can aim a hammer but you can't aim a wildly spinning object, saw bots like beta and Chomp advance deep into the tournament. Chomp, in particular, has a computer-guided system (all other hammer-bots prior had their hammers controlled by humans) and a pointed tip, allowing it to strike with pinpoint accuracy. For instance, Chomp defeated the previous year's champion Bite Force by pecking at a small hole in Bite Force where its drive chain was exposed, rendering Bite Force's spinning drum useless less than 10 seconds into the match. | |
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Pokémon: Pikachu, despite being pretty much the official mascot for the franchise, was never very useful in-game due to its low stats. Later generations, however, included a special item called the Light Ball, which could be equipped by Pikachu (and only Pikachu) to double its attack power and also allow it to pass down the Volt Tackle move to its offspring, thus giving it a viable role as a Glass Cannon. This happens quite often when new mechanic such as Z-Moves is introduced. For example Splash is a joke move that does nothing for the majority of series. But using it with Normalium-Z as a Z-Move causes it to raise attack by three ticks (or by 150%). It can be only used once in battle though. |
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In Futurama, there comes an episode where the Decapodians invade Earth. All standard future weapons are disabled, so they get an old heat-seeking missile out of a museum to bring down their mech. The Decapodians' war machine is cold blooded "just like them", but Zoidberg solves this by improvising a burning spear (from a flag, demonstrating his point about symbols of freedom vs. actual freedom) and throwing it to serve as a beacon for the missile. | |
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In Neil Blomkamp's 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. | |
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Ninja Gaiden have made the humble bow and kunai knife relevant to modern times by turning them into explosive weapons. The bow can be outfitted with arrows tipped with tank shells while the kunai becomes the Incendiary Shuriken by having an incendiary grenade for a handle. Now these weapons are fantastic at taking out armoured vehicles and mook mobs respectively. | |
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As future humans of the Dark Age of Technology encountered aliens with heavy armour who were quick enough to close in for melee, there was a need for weapons that can cut through armour up close. Thus a sword that had been souped up with a powerful motor and mono-molecular teeth was developed. Also, unless you're a Warhammer 40,000 caveman, most combat knives use a mono-molecular blade. | |
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In Digimon Adventure 02, Armor Digivolving is said to be an ancient form of evolution that the Control Spires can't deactivate. The ability to use it is why the old guard can't fight the new villains and the newcomers are needed. | |
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Normally the artificially intelligent UCS of Earth 2150 are the Higher-Tech Species to the human factions as of Earth 2160 (they've overtaken the previous hi-tech faction of the LC), however for their basic infantry they have them outfitted with built-in gatling guns. Even the in-game description notes that these machine guns are obsolete compared to the humans' energy rifles, so the UCS have them equipped with depleted uranium ammo. But even with this, those gatling guns are still kinda puny. Luckily the UCS troops are all battle robots that can be mass-produced and they can increase their survival rate by sheltering in the faction-specific bunker. | |
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In Power Rangers RPM, the Paleozords were a Super Prototype that had to be scrapped since they were uncontrollable. But by the time they're unearthed, the related tech had advanced to the point that losing control was no longer an issue. | |
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In Star Trek: Voyager 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, though these examples were more used as inspiration for adapting modern technology than actually using old physical tech to upgrade. | |
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The T-X from Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines has a liquid metal outer layer like the T-1000 from Terminator 2: Judgment Day and a metallic skeleton like the T-800 series from the original; 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. For instance, 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 have killed a T-1000, but the T-X uses its skeleton to pry itself off the supercollider and disable it. The LEGION Terminators of Terminator: Dark Fate go further by using the liquid metal sheath as an Attack Drone and Combat Tentacles. | |
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Yu-Gi-Oh! 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 new cards for old powerhouses like Dark Magician, to more obscure archetypes like Karakuri, to cards that make Skull Servant the centerpiece of really powerful decks. | |
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In Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, high-frequency blades are widely used by cyborg soldiers due to widespread adoption of carbon nanotube-based armor, which is very effective against bullets, but can still be sliced through by HF blades. This is further extended with Sam's Murasama: since it's a high-frequency blade made out of an expertly crafted 16th-century katana instead of a mass-manufactured modern day blade, it's by far the most effective weapon of its type. | |
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This is the basic story behind the Unreal Tournament 2004 modification Ballistic Weapons, where humanity got into a war with an alien race whose Deflector Shields repelled all of their futuristic energy weapons. In desperation, humanity then pulled their old bullet-firing weapons out of storage, and found out the aliens' shields did nothing to stop shots from those. Most of the weapons actually playable in the mod are futuristic upgrades of old 20th- to 21st-century weapons. | |
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