Since its first substantial addition to the vocabulary of videogames in Super Mario Bros., the power-up has become an unquestioned element of video games. Back in 1985, there was no question as to whether that enigmatically marked block would provide you with something awesome, be it a mushroom, Fire Flower, or the elusive Starman. But over time, the once-pure idea of the power-up was tainted, and as videogames grew more complex, it didn't take long before a plethora in-game of choices led to some power-ups that were marginally helpful at best. In fact, if we look just one year after Super Mario Bros., we see some power-ups that are downright malicious. In Super Mario Bros. 2 (released only in Japan and mostly known in the U.S. as The Lost Levels), the only addition to the roster of items Mario could use was a palette-swapped mushroom that did nothing but bring him closer to death. Rumor has it that a spontaneous-combustion-causing Starman was in the works, but the idea was scrapped due to the limits of the NES' processing power -- thankfully.
Perhaps the most tragic of the power-ups are those that mean well but offer only two things: jack and squat. In a misguided effort to add just one more bullet point to the back of their boxes, many developers take a "kitchen sink" approach to game design by giving the player as many weapons, items, and doodads possible without really evaluating the items' worth. And while variety is the spice of life, these power-ups have all the kick of a bowl of white rice washed down with a Mylanta smoothie. Forget what you know about power-ups -- these are the power-downs. Avoid them like that little floating "P" icon that can only stand for "the plague."
Super Mario Bros. 3 -- The Tanooki Suit
Back in 1990, Japan was just a place that was occasionally mentioned in movies like The Karate Kid, and rumor had it that they might've actually made videogames over there, too. Before the advent of Japanophiles, Super Mario Bros. 3 gave us our first lesson in Japanese mythology. Upon seeing the Tanooki Suit, most salty-mouthed 8-year-olds had just one question: "What the hell is a tanooki?" Of course, with today's teens coated in a thin layer of anime, it's not hard to find this answer along with the specific episode numbers of Naruto this creature might have appeared in. But back in the early '90s, and without an Internet to instruct us, we had no idea that tanookis were the trickster animals of Japanese mythology, with their large testicles being their main power source. If this fact were known, the Tanooki Suit would have unquestionably become the most popular Super Mario artifact, appearing in later generations of videogame hardware with physics models we'd rather not speak of. So how does it work? In a strictly utilitarian sense, the Tanooki Suit (using eBay terminology) is a ~!!!SUPER RARE MIB L@@K!!!~ version of the common raccoon tail; it has all of the functionality of the latter, but since it's so rare, you're a sweaty, nervous mess while using it. The situation isn't quite as bad as acquiring the Hammer Bros. suit, as most gamers usually make everyone leave the room and unplug all phones while donning this mythical gear. But for all it has to offer, the Tanooki Suit just isn't worth the anxiety. And its one special power -- turning Mario into a Buddhist statue -- is exactly as exciting as turning to stone. The effect is neat but entirely useless; just about anything the Tanooki Suit is good for can be improved upon tenfold by running and jumping -- the standard diet of any Mario game.
Metal Gear Solid Series -- Cigarettes
For being supposedly "mature," the Metal Gear Solid series can get downright preachy when it comes to cancer sticks. Sure, Solid Snake is a battle-hardened stealth-expert genius fighter, but he can't escape the watchful gaze of the Morality Police when he decides to flick his Bic. Let's get one thing straight; this is a guy who mules -- yes, "condom full of heroin in your stomach" mules -- his smokes into missions to conceal them from the watchful gaze and codec-based ESP of his commanding officers. But when he wants to break them out for a very useful purpose -- like detecting lasers or looking really, really cool (the main purpose of cigarettes) -- Snake's entire network of communications goes all PSA on his ass and holds an impromptu intervention that's seemingly more important than the threat of nuclear weapons. Bust out a single cigarette and you're lectured on the addictiveness of smoking, the irreparable harm you're doing to your body, and how Flavor Country really isn't a place but a state of mind. What's most disturbing about all of this is that the abundance of lecturing is futile; after all, given Snake's exposure to radioactivity on, oh, just about every one of his missions, one thing is clear: He has cancer. It won't be long before he's wheelchair-bound and talking through a hole in his throat about the importance of nuclear safety at grade school assemblies, so why can't they let the guy have a cigarette now and then? Sheesh.
Sonic the Hedgehog -- Speed Shoes
Even with the first Sonic the Hedgehog game, you could tell the premise was being stretched thin. Case in point: the speed shoes. While the original Sonic was a game lacking in power-ups, the ones we got lacked that spark of creativity apparent elsewhere in Sega's Mario-killer. The creation of the speed shoes power-up could have only resulted from the following dramatized conversation: "Well, we've got invincibility, but we need at least one more. Tell me, what do you think Sonic is best at?" "Being fast?"
"Yes. Well, what if he was...faster?"
"Truly, this brand of creativity will make us wealthy far into the next decade!" That's basically it. The speed shoes made Sonic faster, but Sonic was just as killable with the speed shoes as he was without. While the Bubsy series would eventually take the premise of "uncontrollable destructible furry animal who is always three pixels away from death running at alarming speeds," this style of play didn't really lend itself to the Sonic series. In fact, the speed shoes kind of feel like an empty gesture to prove that the Genesis had the processing power that Nintendidn't. And as time went on, the spin dash ability -- giving Sonic an instant boost of speed regardless of his location -- made the infamous red shoes even more pointless. And really, if you've played more than 10 seconds of any modern Sonic game, you'd know that Sonic needs absolutely no help careening into bottomless pits -- in fact, if they combined the Sonic and Pilotwings franchises, most people wouldn't really notice.
Castlevania -- Daggers
Even before it was laden with RPG elements, the Castlevania series offered many options for aspiring vampire hunters. While the good-old-fashioned stake was nowhere to be found, items like crosses and holy water were far more practical and much tougher to make Cryptkeeper-esque puns out of -- the one thing the horror fan fears the most. Yet even with such an arsenal available for this legitimately rough series, a certain set of Transylvanian toothpicks -- otherwise known as daggers -- were a cruel joke on Simon Belmont and his heirs. The only thing "special" about these special weapons is their frequency when they are the absolute last thing you wanted to see. Shockingly, the daggers of Castlevania do have one quality the other, better power-ups don't: pure speed. But even with this superior trait, the nearly untraceable amount of damage they do to Nosferatu's minions makes them the sneezed-on cottage cheese of Castlevania's salad bar. Sure, they're fast, but you can also throw a handful of pebbles in a fraction of the time it takes to load a shotgun -- and it's not like the protagonists of Castlevania games move like ninjas or anything. Until recently, most of the Belmont clan stumbled along as best they could, crippled by severe cases of gout. So if you planned on turning one of these Eastern Europeans into a slow-moving turret of Old Word weaponry, it's best to have power on your side. And really, after Symphony of the Night's garlic proved to be much more formidable than the standard dagger, this easily tossed-away piece of cutlery lost any degree of dignity it ever had.
Back in 1990, Japan was just a place that was occasionally mentioned in movies like The Karate Kid, and rumor had it that they might've actually made videogames over there, too. Before the advent of Japanophiles, Super Mario Bros. 3 gave us our first lesson in Japanese mythology. Upon seeing the Tanooki Suit, most salty-mouthed 8-year-olds had just one question: "What the hell is a tanooki?" Of course, with today's teens coated in a thin layer of anime, it's not hard to find this answer along with the specific episode numbers of Naruto this creature might have appeared in. But back in the early '90s, and without an Internet to instruct us, we had no idea that tanookis were the trickster animals of Japanese mythology, with their large testicles being their main power source. If this fact were known, the Tanooki Suit would have unquestionably become the most popular Super Mario artifact, appearing in later generations of videogame hardware with physics models we'd rather not speak of. So how does it work? In a strictly utilitarian sense, the Tanooki Suit (using eBay terminology) is a ~!!!SUPER RARE MIB L@@K!!!~ version of the common raccoon tail; it has all of the functionality of the latter, but since it's so rare, you're a sweaty, nervous mess while using it. The situation isn't quite as bad as acquiring the Hammer Bros. suit, as most gamers usually make everyone leave the room and unplug all phones while donning this mythical gear. But for all it has to offer, the Tanooki Suit just isn't worth the anxiety. And its one special power -- turning Mario into a Buddhist statue -- is exactly as exciting as turning to stone. The effect is neat but entirely useless; just about anything the Tanooki Suit is good for can be improved upon tenfold by running and jumping -- the standard diet of any Mario game.
For being supposedly "mature," the Metal Gear Solid series can get downright preachy when it comes to cancer sticks. Sure, Solid Snake is a battle-hardened stealth-expert genius fighter, but he can't escape the watchful gaze of the Morality Police when he decides to flick his Bic. Let's get one thing straight; this is a guy who mules -- yes, "condom full of heroin in your stomach" mules -- his smokes into missions to conceal them from the watchful gaze and codec-based ESP of his commanding officers. But when he wants to break them out for a very useful purpose -- like detecting lasers or looking really, really cool (the main purpose of cigarettes) -- Snake's entire network of communications goes all PSA on his ass and holds an impromptu intervention that's seemingly more important than the threat of nuclear weapons. Bust out a single cigarette and you're lectured on the addictiveness of smoking, the irreparable harm you're doing to your body, and how Flavor Country really isn't a place but a state of mind. What's most disturbing about all of this is that the abundance of lecturing is futile; after all, given Snake's exposure to radioactivity on, oh, just about every one of his missions, one thing is clear: He has cancer. It won't be long before he's wheelchair-bound and talking through a hole in his throat about the importance of nuclear safety at grade school assemblies, so why can't they let the guy have a cigarette now and then? Sheesh.
Even with the first Sonic the Hedgehog game, you could tell the premise was being stretched thin. Case in point: the speed shoes. While the original Sonic was a game lacking in power-ups, the ones we got lacked that spark of creativity apparent elsewhere in Sega's Mario-killer. The creation of the speed shoes power-up could have only resulted from the following dramatized conversation: "Well, we've got invincibility, but we need at least one more. Tell me, what do you think Sonic is best at?" "Being fast?"
"Yes. Well, what if he was...faster?"
"Truly, this brand of creativity will make us wealthy far into the next decade!" That's basically it. The speed shoes made Sonic faster, but Sonic was just as killable with the speed shoes as he was without. While the Bubsy series would eventually take the premise of "uncontrollable destructible furry animal who is always three pixels away from death running at alarming speeds," this style of play didn't really lend itself to the Sonic series. In fact, the speed shoes kind of feel like an empty gesture to prove that the Genesis had the processing power that Nintendidn't. And as time went on, the spin dash ability -- giving Sonic an instant boost of speed regardless of his location -- made the infamous red shoes even more pointless. And really, if you've played more than 10 seconds of any modern Sonic game, you'd know that Sonic needs absolutely no help careening into bottomless pits -- in fact, if they combined the Sonic and Pilotwings franchises, most people wouldn't really notice.
Even before it was laden with RPG elements, the Castlevania series offered many options for aspiring vampire hunters. While the good-old-fashioned stake was nowhere to be found, items like crosses and holy water were far more practical and much tougher to make Cryptkeeper-esque puns out of -- the one thing the horror fan fears the most. Yet even with such an arsenal available for this legitimately rough series, a certain set of Transylvanian toothpicks -- otherwise known as daggers -- were a cruel joke on Simon Belmont and his heirs. The only thing "special" about these special weapons is their frequency when they are the absolute last thing you wanted to see. Shockingly, the daggers of Castlevania do have one quality the other, better power-ups don't: pure speed. But even with this superior trait, the nearly untraceable amount of damage they do to Nosferatu's minions makes them the sneezed-on cottage cheese of Castlevania's salad bar. Sure, they're fast, but you can also throw a handful of pebbles in a fraction of the time it takes to load a shotgun -- and it's not like the protagonists of Castlevania games move like ninjas or anything. Until recently, most of the Belmont clan stumbled along as best they could, crippled by severe cases of gout. So if you planned on turning one of these Eastern Europeans into a slow-moving turret of Old Word weaponry, it's best to have power on your side. And really, after Symphony of the Night's garlic proved to be much more formidable than the standard dagger, this easily tossed-away piece of cutlery lost any degree of dignity it ever had.