10 Video Game Power-Ups That Are Useless

Highlights

• Some video game power-ups and items have no beneficial effect and can be harmful, making them useless or detrimental to the player's progress.
• Examples include the Poison Mushroom in Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels and the Ring of Azura in The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind, which offer no helpful benefits.
• It's best to avoid collecting or keeping power-ups and items like these as they provide little to no value and can hinder gameplay.

One would hope that a video game power-up, an enchanted item, an optional perk from a level-up, or some kind of helpful item that is bestowed upon them would have at least some kind of helpful benefit. Sadly, that’s not always the case; some do quite literally nothing at all, while others have such a minor effect that it’s nearly pointless to even consider taking it.

On top of that, there are even power-ups and the like that do more harm than help, either as a prank or just a cruel means of tripping up unsuspecting players. Ultimately, it would be best to avoid collecting or keeping power-ups and items like this entirely.

10 Poison Mushroom

Super Mario. Bros.: The Lost Levels

This one is an obvious inclusion, but it deserves a spot since it’s such an infamous example of a power-up that does nothing. Or, to be more specific, nothing beneficial. Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels found its way to the West as part of Super Mario All Stars for the Super Nintendo, which was a compilation of four Mario titles in one, albeit with new graphics and an updated soundtrack.

Players didn’t anticipate how difficult this game was at first. The very first level sneaks in a Poison Mushroom where one would normally expect a Super Mushroom. Touching it will be like running into an enemy. Mario will take damage or, if he has no existing power-up, he will end up losing a life. They just serve as additional obstacles to avoid.

9 Inspire

Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel!

Before he was Handsome Jack, he was just a bloke named Jack, though it’s clear that he has a bit of an ego bubbling under the surface. Should players get their respective DLC to play as him, a perk called ‘Inspire’ can be chosen to rally up the spirits of his fellow Vault Hunters by saying inspirational things to them.

This, in-game, does nothing beneficial. All that happens is that the word “Inspired!” will appear on-screen. If anyone dies, he’ll backpedal on what he said, and “Disillusioned” will pop up briefly instead. It’s all just a distracting visual effect, though Jack probably thinks it’s doing a lot more.

8 Ring of Azura

The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind

Those who complete the main story for The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind will surely feel completely ripped off by this abysmal reward from the Daedric prince Azura. After all the toil and strife that comes with being the hero of the land, the grand prize is the Ring of Azura, which offers 20 pts of Night Eye (a tint of blue haze covering the screen to help viewers see in the dark) and 3 pts of Restore Fatigue.

Not only is it a rather random combination of boosts that don’t work well together, it’s almost borderline useless. Slightly better vision in the dark and a slight increase in recovering stamina from a single ring pales in comparison to the significantly more useful enchantments that other pieces of jewelry offer.

7 Extreme Calm

The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion - The Shivering Isles

At least Bethesda wasn’t cruel enough to make the same sort of design choice with its follow-up game or its respective downloadable content, The Shivering Isles. The realm of the mad god Sheogorath is memorable in its bizarreness, and its denizens are a big part of that. Ahjazda, a Khajiit who runs the shop Things Found, requests the player for a trio of items to help her prepare for what she calls ‘The Coming Storm.’

One of the items is the Calming Pants, a pair of trousers that bestows upon the user an ability called 'Extreme Calm,' alongside an 8-point boost to the Personality skill, which isn’t very useful in itself. As for the former ability? It does nothing in-game whatsoever, despite popping up on one’s HUD with a message when worn.

6 Cloak of Shadow

Blood: Cryptic Passage

Sunstorm Interactive developed a stellar map pack for the cult-classic shooter Blood in 1997. Blood: Cryptic Passage offered high-quality maps with a lot of little details here and there. An opera house, a steamboat riding down a river, and a monster-ridden monastery were but some of the locations included.

Oddly, the aforementioned monastery included an item that was not seen elsewhere in the base game, called the Cloak of Shadow. Not to be confused with the Cloak of Invisibility, which makes the player invisible (or just harder to see in multiplayer), the similar-sounding Cloak of Shadows has no effect whatsoever when collected. Why was a non-functioning item placed in a level in the first place? Who knows. Either way, it got removed in its 2019 source port.

5 In Shining Armor

Fallout: New Vegas

Fallout: New Vegas’ first DLC introduced a tempting perk called ‘In Shining Armor.’ Based on its description, it sounds like a nifty collection of bonuses here: +5 Damage Threshold against energy weapons when equipped with metal armor of any kind (along with bonuses when wearing power armor and radiation suits) and an additional +2 DT when wearing sunglasses.

It would’ve been really powerful if it worked. Sadly, due to a botch in the code, it does nothing whatsoever. Fan patches have remedied this issue, but in the vanilla game, this one must be avoided outright as it’s just a waste of a perk slot.

4 Dual-Purpose Fruit

Team Fortress 2

Team Fortress 2 is filled with different weapons and items that can be carried into online battles, each offering upsides and downsides to them. This even applied to a very rare handful of cosmetics, too, like the Dual-Purpose Fruit for the Sniper. This “hat” is an apple with an arrow sticking out of it - a reference to William Tell.

Its ability is that it “reduces the chance of hunger by up to 13%.” It baffled players back in the day, who went on forums to figure out how it affected gameplay. In reality, it’s just a humorous way of saying it does nothing whatsoever and is purely cosmetic.

3 Candy

Yakuza 0

A young Goro Majima gets more than he can handle in the side-quest ‘The Obatarian Strikes’ in Yakuza 0, where a middle-aged lady cuts in front during a line-up for some street vendor food. When Majima protests, she cheekily offers him a sugary treat.

Candy is indeed an item that can be eaten to restore health, much like other foodstuffs that can be purchased from local supermarkets and chefs. The thing is that it’s actually borderline useless. Eating it will restore roughly a single point of health, otherwise just filling up an inventory slot that could be filled with something a lot more useful. What did one expect from such a rude NPC?

2 Commando

Cyberpunk 2077

A stealth build most certainly has its benefits in any title with RPG elements, and there’s no shame in aiming for that in Cyberpunk 2077. Although, one particular perk has been lauded by fans for being an utterly pointless inclusion: 'Commando.'

The ‘Commando’ perk makes enemies unable to spot players who are hiding underwater. The lack of locations or missions that actually offer players a chance to go swimming in the first place raises questions. Why couldn’t it just be cut from the game if there are about one or two instances where it could be used?

1 Elasto Mode

Rise of the Triad: Dark War

While Rise of the Triad: Dark War had some quirky power-ups, including turning the player into a dog with supersonic barks or even a fireball-flinging god, there were a few “power-downs” that did more harm than help. One of them was Elasto Mode, which makes the victim bounce around with no friction whatsoever for 15 seconds.

In a game like this, where there are traps galore like fire vents, spinning saw blades, and ledges out the map that will instantly kill oneself when crossed, bouncing around almost uncontrollably is the worst possible effect to be afflicted with. If one is not careful, a single bump into a wall could send a poor protagonist zooming into danger.