Chaos Emeralds From: Sonic The Hedgehog Format: Mega Drive Year: 1991 Created by: Sega
There are a number of amusing powerups in Shiny’s stylish and surreal thirdperson shooter, including The World’s Most Interesting Bomb, which attracts curious enemies around it before exploding, and the Unknown Power-Up seen here, which drops a cow on an enemy. Our favourite though is probably World’s Most Cowardly Power-Up, a health pack that sprouts legs and runs away from the player.
24 | RETRO GAMER
From: Sabre Wulf Format: Spectrum Year: 1984 Created by: Ultimate Play The Game
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From: MDK
Orchids
The five Orchids from Sabre Wulf are particularly interesting as they’re one of the earliest examples of a power-up that will randomly affect you. As Sabre Man dashes around the labyrinth-like jungle, orchids will sprout up from predetermined places. The kicker here though is you have no idea what will actually sprout up. Blue granted speed, red offered immunity, while the yellow orchid caused sickness and the pink confusion orchid inverted your controls. You could rectify this by finding the white orchid (which cured you) but first you had to find it…
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Power-downs
World’s Most Cowardly Power-up
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To 100 per cent a Sonic game you basically have to collect all of the Chaos Emeralds, which are typically garnered by successfully completing the bonus games. In the first Sonic, collecting the gems gave you a subtle alternative ending with some tall flowers to look at. Big whoop. For the sequel, though, Sega put far more thought into the benefits these seven precious gemstones had. Collecting them all in Sonic 2, and collecting 50 gold rings, transformed Sonic into Super Sonic. Making Sonic faster, able to jump higher and gold in colour, it was the most awesome thing to happen so far in a platformer. Like most superheroes, Super Sonic wasn’t completely invincible. He was still susceptible to crushing, drowning and falling off the face of the levels. But this just gave Sega the chance to introduce an even more powerful iteration of its mascot in Hyper Sonic, who was faster, stronger, and could breathe under water. One of the hardest unlockables in the whole series, Hyper Sonic is the most powerful version of Sonic (unless there’s a God Sonic in Sonic 4 we’ve yet to discover) and is distinguishable by his flashing colour, which mimics those of the seven Chaos Emeralds. Hyper Sonic has only properly appeared in Sonic 3 And Knuckles (there’s a similar looking flashing Sonic in Mario And Sonic At The Olympic Games) and is unlocked by collecting the first set of seven Chaos Emeralds in Sonic 3 as well as the second ‘super’ set in the Sonic And Knuckles segment.
We looked at some of the best power-ups in videogames, but what about the worst?
Goldeen
Cloak Of Darkness
From: Super Smash Bros. series
From: Wizards & Warriors
Using the Goldeen is just like dropping a goldfish into a fight, almost literally. This water-loving Pokémon will just flap around on the ground and do little more than an Oscar-winning impression of a dying fish. It cannot be hurt, and cannot inflict damage. It’s basically a joke, and a recurring one at that as it reprises its useless role in both Super Smash Bros. Melee and Brawl.
The award for the worst power-up ever has to go to this item here. Now an invisibility cloak sounds like a pretty great idea in theory. However, the execution of this particular one left a great deal to be desired. Making your knightly hero invisible to everyone except his enemies (read: you, basically), it easily ranks as one of the most odd, pointless and garbage power-ups in history. It’s gaming’s equivalent of a chocolate teapot.
Poison Mushroom From: Super Mario Bros. series First appearing in the Japanese version of Super Mario Bros. 2, the poison mushroom was one of the ways that Nintendo made the game more challenging. We don’t take issue with the item; more its look. Nearly indistinguishable from the growth mushroom (though later iterations are more distinct), players had to stare at the screen to see which mushroom it was, by which time they’d probably been killed by a Goomba.