Top 5 Most Useless Video Game Power Ups

Power-ups are a video game hero's best friend. They help you jump higher, fight stronger, and do everything else a brave hero needs to do in order to save the day. For most players, a power-up is a welcome sight, because they know that collecting a power-up will be helpful, and worth their time. There are are always exceptions, though. The following five power-ups are the most useless in video game history.

5: Poison Mushroom (Super Mario Bros. 2 [Japan])

Super Mario's Mushroom power-up allowed Mario to break bricks and take an extra hit before dying. In the Japanese-only sequel, a new power-up was introduced: the Poison Mushroom. It looked exactly like the Mushroom, except the spots on the Poison Mushroom were a slightly different color. Picking this power-up meant that Mario would die instantly. And if you were a color-blind gamer, this made the game practically unplayable.

4: Top Spin (Mega Man 3)

This weapon was only useable when you jumped and tapped the shoot button, spinning as you fell to the ground. The Top Spin only damaged an enemy if you touched it while spinning. The spin only lasted for a moment, making it impossible to use without getting hit by enemies. In a game where touching an enemy shaved off an eighth of your life bar, this made using it dangerous. The worst part? You have to defeat a boss to get Top Spin, a weapon that was worse than the weapon you started the game with.

3: Speed Shoes (Sonic The Hedgehog series)

Sonic The Hedgehog runs through levels, going faster and faster. The Speed Shoes made Sonic run faster, but not noticeably. Worse yet, Sonic was just as vulnerable to enemies and spike traps with the speed shoes as he was without them. The Spin Dash move introduced later made Sonic instantly speed up no matter where he was, making the Speed Shoes even more superfluous.

2: Goldeen (Super Smash Bros Brawl)

Several Super Smash Bros. Brawl power-ups were nods to its other franchises, include the Pokeball that would launch random Pokemon to damage your opponents. If you were lucky, you'd get a Charizard, who pops out breathing fire everywhere for massive damage. If you were unlucky, you'd get Goldeen, who flops around on-screen for a few seconds, and then vanishes, wasting a power-up AND your time.

1: AMUT (Final Fantasy)

In the first Final Fantasy game for the NES, your wizard didn't learn spells as you leveled up, you had to purchase them in shops. The only way to make a wizard unable to cast spells was for the MUTE status effect to be cast on a wizard. The AMUT spell cost 10,000 GP and prevented monsters from casting MUTE. So spending hours to defeat enough monsters to earn the gold to buy the spell is a good idea, right?

Wrong.

As legions of frustrated gamers found out, not a single monster ever reliably casts MUTE, making AMUT useless and a waste of your time and money.