This is the Most Useless Mario Power Up
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 9 มี.ค. 2024
- There's a ton of power ups across the history of Super Mario. Some are useful, while others are ugh not so useful. That BEGS the question: what is the MOST useless power up in the history of Mario power ups? And yes I KNOW the power up in question IS really cool and awesome...it's just not that useful all things considered.
The thumbnail font used was created by @ImWhoreHay and @Bradleyisgone via Twitter. Here's a link to their post for download: / 1762368845434536319
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Extra Thoughts:
This video feels kinda eh to me since I made it in only like a week or so for Mario Day, which I'm glad I actually got done by then! Last year I had something cooking for Mario Day that didn't come out until that May, yikes. I know March 10th isn't a formal holiday, but I do love the idea of making holiday themed videos, it's just hard to get them done in time haha. Oh well, it's all for fun anyways so no pressure. By the way I do love the Metal Cap...I just wanted that to be known. - เกม
![🔴 [TRỰC TIẾP] Tứ Xuyên (Trung Quốc) VS U20 Thái Lan | Cúp VTV9 - Bình Điền 2024 | JET STUDIO](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/H-wN-ZPmf3c/mqdefault.jpg)
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This is what we've come to, folks: a guy made a ten minute long video so he could complain about the placement of a power-up in a video game that's nearly three decades old.
I would act like I'm surprised but I'm really not. This is it. This is the singularity of culture and intelligence that engulfs our kind. This, right here. We have created a society that cultivates behavior like this because it values money and capital so highly that it breeds media content so utterly vapid and mundane that it could be considered harmful to the prolonging of our species.
I wish nothing but the worst upon anyone that encourages or seeks out this deviant content and I only hope that they be granted mercy by whichever higher power oversees us.
ok
Go outside, get a job, talk to a friend, and stop with this bullshit.
Also, is the only reason you used fancy, obscure words because you thought that would make you seem smarter? “I doth cast a hex on this Mario 64 video.” You sound fucking insane.
Ok boomer
Um actually its 9:30 seconds 🤓
New copypasta just dropped
*_Man made a whole 10min video because he doesn't like a box in a certain place_*
That actually sums up one of the ways content creators crank out content to satisfy ridiculous requirements to make being a content creator profitable.
In this case, however, the uploader does have a point, though less-skilled players will likely not get all the stars from earlier stages, and come back later, after solidifying the cap blocks.
Wrong. Man made a *video* because he didn't like a box in a certain place. He made it 10 minutes for the almighty algorithm.
The function of that placement is likely more of a game design one, its so early in the game where the player most likely hasnt unlocked it yet. But it introduced the concept of blocks being unavailable at the start. By the time you do get to unlock the cap the player has seen these green transparent blocks all over before in levels they have already done. So the concept of "this button made all those unusable blocks usable" is easier to understand even if you fail to look at the text. So its a first in a long line of pattern recognition for the player. It has a function, but its not directly related to using the powerup in that specific location.
@@Windows_96So it exists entirely for tutorial reasons. Makes sense.
Lol
The Metal Cap was actually the most useful powerup. To know why, you have to think outside of the box. Back in the late 90s, when 3D gaming was still a novelty, SM64 was groundbreaking. The Metal Cap, with its reflective surface, was more than just a power-up; it was a showcase of the graphical capabilities of the Nintendo 64. Those commercials and magazine spreads featuring Mario in his metallic form weren't just about gameplay; they were about selling an experience, showcasing the leap forward in gaming technology. This is the real reason why it was in the game.
In many ways, the Metal Cap was a symbol of innovation and advancement. It wasn't just about making Mario impervious to damage; it was about demonstrating what the N64 was capable of delivering visually. The shimmering, metallic Mario caught the eyes of gamers and non-gamers alike, driving curiosity and ultimately sales for the console.
So, while in the game it might not have seemed as useful as other power-ups, its impact on the gaming landscape and its role in marketing Super Mario 64 and the Nintendo 64 cannot be understated.
This is the most epic response I’ve ever gotten
But it's not actually reflective it's just a flower picture that's very zoomed in. Not kidding
@@thatitalianlameguy2235 Cool story, bro. But we're not talking about your modern gamer havin' ass mindset. *_Back then,_* nobody else had seen anything like it. Contextually, we obviously know everything now. We even know the majority of textures are stock images with a handful being original.
But many fifth gen games did this because it was simply easier. Besides your huge companies like Square, many developers had to make due with these methods as it was much less time-consuming.
@@thatitalianlameguy2235 It's not reflective, but they made it shimmer somehow. (You can find the origin of the texture online easily. You are right about the flowers.)
This is 100% spot on!
I still vividly remember when the N64 launched and console setups appearing in stores to try and see the capabilities of the new console. Both young and old were looking in awe at the visual sensation Mario 64 was.
There were also two different VHS cassettes given out for free in stores over here in Germany. The first one showcased Mario 64, Pilot Wings and Blast Corps, with the Mario 64 segment ending with Mario killing an enemy in his metal form, while a narrator said "Hasta la vista, baby!".
So yeah, the metal cap wasn't just any item, but a power demonstration.
I want to give an argument that there's some obscure mario game no ones heard of that has an even more worthless power up... but if such a thing exist I cannot recall it.
Inb4 the super keyboard from Mario Teaches Typing
Hudson Soft Bee from Super Mario Bros. Special
@@Coldcolor900 Hey, those 8000 points are VERY useful, I'll have you know! Yeah...
The Hammer in Mario Special, that thing really doesn't suit the game style
@@realsalu634 Nah, that thing is useful still even if it's maybe a bit awkward, wherever it appears it's surrounded by enemies you can take out that you otherwise can't, like the barrels, lava bubbles, fighterflies, etc. Heck, you can even take out Bowser in one level if you're quick enough if I'm remembering correctly (it's been a while since I've played Special).
I'd argue the flying power up from Galaxy was more useless because you can only use it at the observatory, and have to beat the game to even get it.
Wrong there’s that mission that you have to use it to collect 100 purple coins in I think the level is called Gateway Galaxy (it’s the planet where Mario first gets his spin attack ability) so it has a use. (Though a very underutilized use)
Yeah
@@RaccoonThunderMario_Officialto the OC's Defense the reference is only to the location not its overall use most likely kinda like the flight cap on top of the castle witch i think is a matter of reward than anything
@@RikouHogashi Wouldn’t that also apply to the Red Star in the Comet Observatory then as well?
@@RaccoonThunderMario_Officialthat is the said location as a reward for Galaxy 1 its useless but fun to simply fly around to a short extent
7:00 The reason the metal cap is there is if you read accompanying sign right next to it, it says.
"There are special Caps in the red, green, and blue blocks. Step on the switches in the hidden courses to activate the Cap Blocks"
Its meant to act as a tutorial example to show you there are more then just red cap boxes and that they can be unlocked if you have not encountered any others by this point. Because at this point the only other cap you seen is the red block sitting off to the side of the ramp down the road of bomb omb battlefields start and your left wondering what that is but cant do anything with it. And then you go to womps fortress after doing some stars making this usually the 2nd box you can encounter now with a sign to aid in elaborating why there are these boxes around and why there locked out.
And they went with green because its the most useful for this area as blue is not all that useful here either but also its unlocked last, if it was red there is a real possibility you could unlock the red cap before encountering this sign making the sign make no sense as you would unlock the box before getting the tutorial about the boxes and how to unlock them which is possible if it was the wing cap.
Its also to show you unlocking the caps for levels while not required can help future traversal for when you do unlock it if for some reason your having trouble.
What a great, well-informed, well-thought-out response! Take my thumbs-up.
Edit: Edited for brevity & accuracy.
I can’t because I don’t know how to read 😭
@@MattTrashBoat Oh no...
As a big Metal Mario fan, I am quite *flabbergasted* at this video.
Metal Mario is cool bro I swear 😭
I can think of a few ways to make Metal Mario useful and half of them involve keeping your normal movement underwater or making it the only cap that removes the need to breathe... The Vanish Cap is just more practical, all things considered.
Wait are there factions within the Mario fandom? I'm anti-metal Mario I guess.
@@veggiet2009whyyyyyy
I'd forgive anyone who went back just to hear the banger that is metal's theme! That ending of the video made up for it!
It's kind of surprising that some rom hacks make far more use of the metal cap than Nintendo did. One unique aspect of it compared to the other caps is the fact that you don't take damage when you fall in lava, so what some rom hacks did was make a platforming challenge where you'd need a metal cap to "climb" up a lavafall.
It would've been SO cool to have metal cap in Lethal Lava land. or even Bowser and the Fire sea. Sadly underutliized and by the time you get Wario in DS, he somehow has even LESS uses for the metal cap.
That's basically the only main usage of the Metal Cap in rom hacks and it's way too overused (and kinda dumb tbh). I like to treat it more as a Terminator kinda powerup, than a bounce enabler on lava
@@solidzack I mean it's the only other way that the cap can be used that Nintendo didn't implement in the main game. Sinking slowly in water and then walking around on the bottom isn't fun, and the invis cap also gives you invincibility minus killing enemies when you collide with them.
You can do that inside the volcano but I don't think that was even intended as a way to complete the level
@@LilacMonarch iirc there isn't even a metal cap in that world. So it can't be intended.
The one at the beginning of Hazy Maze Cave... uhh, doesn't the metal cap protect you from those fire jets?
Yep, the metal cap makes you immune to fire, toxic, sink in water, and reintroduced in Wonder.
Or just... walk around them...
@@renakunisaki But with the Metal Cap, you don't _have_ to. The best part of the Metal Cap's usefulness is in allowing you to plow directly through anything short of a bottomless pit, devil may care
@@renakunisakiyou can’t *walk* over a gap.
@@markymark443 but you can walk *around* the gap. The fire jets are pointing up out of the gap, and there's perfectly safe ground on either side.
Zoomers born after Mario 64's release really need to stop talking about it as they have literally 0 understanding about gaming as a whole at the time.
3D Environments were still relatively new at the time, especially in the home setting. The Metal Cap exists to remove difficulty for people navigating 3D space, especially for non-gamers who may be playing videogames as a whole for the first time. The one in Whomps Fortress exists to remove the difficulty of the falling Thwomps and the Bowser in the Dark World was there to help get the red coins from the fire shooter, the Hazy Maze Cave one at the start is to make bypassing the fire pit. They're also a continuation of the Switch Palaces from Mario World which existed solely to make small areas easier and provide more Power Ups for players.
As a kid that struggled with basic video game controls back then, I died to the Piranhas in Whomp's multiple times. I guess the Metal Cap might've been intended just to easily defeat the two Piranhas that come up right after climbing the Thwomp staircase
You have to remember the expected skill level the devs anticipated with players on this very primative 3d game. The developers did not intend or think you could fight the jet streams with good pace tapping to get those stars, or think the Metal Cap Courae red coins could be gotten without the caps, or even if they did, they didn't anticipate many players doing that and kept it as a shortcut for players with skill like the warp zones in SMB1.
For the Bowser, Hazy Maze entrance and Whomp's Fortress metal caps it seems like these were put in place as conviniences to help after you acquired them. Perhaps they didn't anticipate how easy timing and angling your jumps could be at a time when nobody had 3d game experience, so barreling through the fire from the HMC pits or the red coin guarded by a flamethrower in Bowser could be an easier option for someone who already got fsr enough in the game to unlock Metal Cap. Again, think of what they expected at the time. I doubt they considered kicking up a slope to work and the side flip required to get to the water in Whomp's was harder to perform than they thought, otherwise they wouldn't have those platforms with faces on them acting like they are an obsticle. Hell, Super Mario World did the same with the Switch Blocks, sometimes in a level you will see block outlines for a switch you don't get to later in the game. You already beat it once, it's probably made to make being stuck at the bottom of that hill to make revisits easier. Or at the very least to show the player that the game that there is a green switch to find.
I only partially agree. It's not like the devs couldn't anticipate skill growing with play -- let alone the very Mario-like extra paths one can take upon exploring and experimenting and risking and whatnot. It's that this was *the* introduction to true 3D platforming. The controller came with camera buttons! Trying to jump up those stairs with those Thwomps next to a drop-off on one side and a slope that would slide you back to the bottom on the other? Navigating 3D space for the first time was *hard.* People just weren't used to it. Yet.
@@ParodyKnaveBobTrue enough. I remember very early-on in my ownership of SM64, getting slightly lost in Bob-omb Battlefield, and Whomp's Fortress, among certain areas in other courses.
@@right_hand_power7960 You remind me, the first time I ever found the secret metallic pool for to jump into Cavern of the Metal Cap, I thought it over, concluded I'd already been there, and went back without jumping in. I'd confused it with the metallic pool for to jump into Hazy Maze Cave, forgetting that my already *being in* Hazy Maze Cave meant it was a different pool. Slightly lost indeed! $:^ ]
He did remember that, after mentioning how the metal cap is useless everywhere in the game, he said that of course nobody in the 90s was gonna do that or knew it was possible
it was put there by devs to spark curiosity in new players. seeing a strange green box you cant interact with would lead you to believe theres something to be unlocked, and push you to continue playing.
this isn't Chekhov's gun, just because it was put in a game doesn't mean it requires an explicit purpose.
I was also thinking this, I'm happy to see someone else thinking the same thing! I also want to acknowledge that I appreciate that @MattTrashBoat never said "bad game design" but instead used "useless".
yeah i was gonna post a comment saying pretty much this, it's a teaser for later when you finally get the metal cap, it would be weird if you unlocked it before ever seeing a green box, wouldn't be as exciting then
Its good for the 100 coin star and wiping out the piranha plants.
@@charlesf.7947 I've seen this sentiment posted a handful of times now and I just wanna say that in my defense to be fair you do see a transparent green block the first time you enter Hazy Maze Cave, which achieves the same "mhh what is this?" effect for the player while being more appropriately placed given that HMC is the level you actually unlock the metal cap in.
@@MattTrashBoatyeah for sure, also the one in the bowser level too.
I mean the point of it is pretty clearly "you get to revisit stages and be more powerful than on your first visit", despite the very minimal effect that it has here.
The Tanooki Suit is an EXTREMELY useful powerup it can straight up kill "unkillable" enemies and one-shots bosses.
haha I agree. showing off the statue was more so meant for a silly visual joke
@@MattTrashBoat Fun Fact: Pac-man World has a metal power up, just like the metal cap.
@@MattTrashBoatIt can also reveal hidden blocks to get to secrets. All with the advantages of the leaf mixed in.
P-Wing is arguably the most useless. It has like, one or two cases where it makes getting to a secret easier, but that's pretty much it. All you have to do is run a couple seconds to achieve what it does, LOL. 😅
My guess is the Metal cap was supposed to allow you to destroy every enemies in one shot, but due to technical difficulties, they programmed the Thwump as a moving wall, not as an enemy. Since it's a wall, it can't be destroyed, but since the box was placed in early developpment, they did not bother to remove it. It can even explain why the box is not unlocked yet, maybe the box needing to be unlocked was added after the box was placed in the level.
it was probably the super star for a brief moment. functions similarly
I doubt they'd program the Thwomp as a model, it would be wonky to simulate the squished Mario with an entity instead of a wall.
Unless they originally didn't wanted the Thwomp to squish Mario, and instead simply deal damage.
I just assume the box in Fortress is a tease for the player. "See, you can unlock stuff"
In SM64DS, the Thwomps can be destroyed with the Super Mushroom.
@@daskampffredchen9242It WAS the first game EVER of it's kind, so a lot of things show signs of that. I'll forgive them for that. I can't really forgive some of the nozzle boxes in Sunshine though. namely the Turbo in Gelato Beach.
This has some "you don't need healing if you never get hit" energy.
>guys this powerup is USELESS!
every example is circumventing the main way of using the powerup to get the star
This kinda doesn't make sense. It's like saying mushrooms in the original SMB are useless because you can *technically* beat the whole game without taking damage or breaking any blocks. You can, it's just gonna suck. Like... You CAN get all those red coins without the cap, and you can get through the poison gas, but it's gonna suck.
I agree. This is what happens when people get way too caught up in some idealized theoretical idea of game design rather than accomodate for a wider variety of players and playstyles. Not everyone is going to 100% every level to it's theoretical limit and then complain that a power goes unused if they play that specific way. It's ok to put in things that just makes it easier for people who chose a different route, or to fit a certain playstyle. And that doesn't have to mean it has to be faster either.
Saying propeller mushroom isn’t fun to use is like saying the fire flower isn’t useful
No. The propeller mushroom legitimately isn’t fun to use.
I mean... this is basically just an invincibility powerup. As far as useless go, it's not as different than other invincibility powerups in the mario games.
Seems to not be well utilized or really rewarding to use, I guess.
@@poomcbrain5936 well, yeah. that much is a given.
but it is useful for children or people with below average skill, in particular with places like its own unlock level, the suffocating maze, and other such spots.
The issue is that Mario 64 A: Gives you lot of hit points, B: Makes said hit points ridiculously easy to regain C: Is kinda empty, so 20 seconds of invincibility isn't nearly as useful when there's only like 3 enemies or traps, and metal cap doesn't even protect against fall damage or bottomless pits, the two most common hazards in the game.
I used to think you needed the metal cap to do Mario Blasts away the wall.
took me 10 years to realise you don't need it.
That would actually make a bit more sense tbh
this makes SO MUCH sense and i never even thought of it… actual 400 IQ comment right here
Formula for this video:
1. Mention a particular metal cap and claim it is useless.
2. Proceed to contradict yourself and share a use for the cap.
But hey, it doesn't matter as long as people comment on the video, right?
Shh don’t let the secrets out dawg
tbf, he did explicitly say that there's a difference between "most useless" and completely useless lmao
7:02
The incentive was likely that they wanted to reward players by having a way of making part of the level easier. This was the very early days of 3D. Not to mention they also intended players to move about the different levels and allow for players to acquire more stars in a previous stage if they needed or wanted to do so.
They likely wanted the Metal Cap in that specific spot so that players could nullify damage from Thwomps for a short time and safely deal with the two Piranha Plants.
I think they just put the metal cap blocks early on to provide intrigue, you don't get the metal cap until MUCH later, and it's arguably the most hidden cap switch -- so, a new player is going to be constantly wondering "when do I unlock this powerup?".
I’d argue Yoshi’s power flower ability is even more useless. What it does is give Yoshi the ability to shoot 3 fire breaths. However not only is there like 2 areas that this would be useful in (Cool Cool Mountain which has a red coin in an ice block and same thing in Snowman’s Land but with a star this time) but you could just lick a campfire to get one fire breath (which is all you’ll need for both of them). Speaking of the CCM one it literally has a campfire right next to the red coin). I didn’t even realize I didn’t even use Yoshi’s ability till long after I completed the game.
Yeah I agree, I feel like the devs were trying really hard to come up with ideas for unique powerups for each character lol.
There's actually a pretty good reason for the location of the metal caps in Whomp's Fortress, Bowser in the Dark World and the start of Hazy Maze Cave.
The caps in Whomp's Fortress & Bowser in the Dark World are placed before the player can posably unlock metal cap to tease to the player that there is something that can be unlocked. This helps to plant the idea in the mind of a first time player that they should not just be completing objectives for stars, but exploring and looking for secrets.
The cap block at the beginning of Hazy Maze Cave, along with the metallic-pool level entrance, is a hint that the green switch in that level, and and a clear indicater to the player as soon as they enter the level whether they have or have not found it yet.
Yes, in isolation these cap placements have little/no practical use in the levels/locations where they are found, but from the game design perspective of guiding a first time player to explore and find the metal cap so it can be used in other levels they are far from useless.
well, Bowser in the Dark World’s is for exactly the use case he described, idk why he thought it’d be far-fetched for someone to come back for the red coins
Its purpose is to go up the staircase while jamming out to the metal mario theme, clearly.
Valid
You have to remember that this would've been the first 3D platformer most people in 1996 would've seen, EVER, and therefore you had to expect feats of stupidity on the players' part that are basically inconceivable nowadays.
I remember some of those scenarios that you, rightly, think sound contrived, commonly happening in normal gameplay when watching kids play in 1997. You'd be unable to get that red coin in the first Bowser level because you kept getting burned by the fire, and so you'd skip the red coin star until you unlocked the metal cap. This is something I both saw and suffered myself (when I finally got the game in 1998) because this was baby's first video game for a LOT of people. It's hard to conceive of people being that bad at video games, because it's difficult to remember the sheer extent this game had to basically literally rewire people's brains.
It couldn't even assume you'd acquire better gaming skills from playing something else, because when it was released, it couldn't even guarantee its ideas about how to move a character in a 3D world would catch on as much as they actually did. It was one of a kind, and HAD to instill the basic skillset needed to play the game into its audience.
It also seems designed around being 100%-able for someone whose brain needed to be rewired from the ground up.
There's that Mario themed Got Milk? commercial where a couple kids can't make an incredibly simple jump and that's honestly barely an exaggeration of what it was like when this game came out.
Not to mention it was something you had to do on a janky N64 controller. Nostalgia placed aside there is no denying the N64 controller was crap design.
When I was a kid I thought it was fun to squish Metal Mario over and over again.
Thanks random Nintendo guy.
if your argument for it being useles is “using tricks i can avoid using it”, then all caps are useless except for the flying cap in one star (there’s a pannenkoek video about it).
sure but, those tricks are not able to be done by humans, the tricks to avoid the metal cap can easily be done by new players or speedrunners, theres a difference between tricks that can be done and can't be done by humans
@@hristinaleova4980 that's a good point. however, you forget to take into account that
I think it's in Whomp's Fortress to give the player a sense of mystery, like "Hey, I need to find the Green Switch Palace".
I love how all his arguments against the metal cap are "you don't need this if you're good at the game or know speedrun strats" I should go back and tell ten-year-old me to just get good
I think it's easy for us all here in the future to laugh at how bad you'd have to be to need these power ups, but I imagine some nervous developers making the first ever 3D game on a new system with a new controller expecting players to be exactly as bad as described. Cuz I agree it's useless, and the only way to justify it is to imagine a level designer going, "they're gonna suck, give them something shiny."
In my 27 years of playing SM64, i have never once bothered to pick up the Whomp’s Fortress metal cap
As much is i like the metal cap, i actually forgot that one even existed lol.
I always picked it up just to listen to the music
I did but I don't think I used it for anything other than getting crushed on purpose, I never even tried getting the metal cap and going to the teleporter in the corner (yes, there is a teleporter there, skips a good chunk of the stage, I always go there, then up the pole, then jump to the top of the stage (not tower) in the 1st and 2nd star, the top of the pole gives a 1-up too so it's a free one, and when you land and there's the tower you can just punch the tower's wall directly to get the hidden 1-up)
In my 27 years of watching other people play Mario 64, I have never picked up that metal cap either.
Your perception and analysis of the game is made with way too modern of an approach. You should view the game as it was back then and how they might've thought to set up the world and wonder, not judge it with what we know now with a purely practical view.
Yes, actually! The metal cap in WF has a use in the real time attack A button challenge, or RTABC. By breaking it open and having the cap get stuck against the wall, we can break open a second cap to get hat in hand, which allows us to pick up objects without modifying the stored variable for where a held object should appear when you release it. This allows us to grab a cork box on the same frame that it unloads so that we're holding a vacant object slot, where a falling platform object can load into its place. If we then throw that object to a specific location while we're standing on it, it will displace us high into the air, allowing us to collect the star from king whomp and the star on top of the fortress without pressing the A button.
Clearly this was the dev's intended use for this metal cap.
not even for TAS. Just RTA ABC
This is one of the first 3d platformers. The metal cap is to help you clear the level easier. Nintendo thought about the casual gamers and gave them an easier way to play. This was at the time where video games started taking off and it makes sense to cater towards a wider audience.
EDIT: Also, the metal Mario music is literally the same music you get whenever you pick up a star
It's not literally the same music, it's a rave-style remix of the Super Star invincibility theme.
if they REALLY wanted to sell the "Metal Cap = Heavy" bit, and since Metal Mario still takes Fall Damage, youd think theyd INCREASE the amount of damage taken from falls (like, "one-chunk" falls take Two, "two-chunk" falls take Three, etc)
It would've been funny if falling from tall heights caused an earthquake that can break stuff, but any weight-oriented mechanic should've worked as well
@@Eldoofus Fun Fact: Pac-man World has a metal power up, just like the metal cap.
Maybe the damage resistance cancels out the extra damage taken.
@@tweer64 ymight be onto somethin...
Super Mario 3D World Goomba Mask, though?
It DID help a bit with just sneaking through that one stage. Goombas are quite dangerous in small spaces. XD but if this were a top 10, that would definitely be on there.
@@MarioMastar
However, you could just gun down the Goombas using almost any other power-up. It’s literally a case of ‘Stealth is Optional For This Mission’.
The Goomba Mask in SMM2 fixes it because it works on all enemies instead of just Goombas.
Nintendo removed the metal cap in whomp's fortress in Super Mario 64 DS, which suggests they too thought it served no purpose.
they didn't. it was replaced with a power flower which acts as a metal cap for wario.
Doesn't vanish cap make you intangible, not invisible ?
honestly yeah that's a better way to put it lol
Yeah. I think they used invisible because of either A: wonky translation during localisation, and/or B: they didn't expect 7 year olds to have the remotest idea what intangible meant.
well it probably makes u invisible in the mario world but to make him controllable u can see him
@@vincenzofranchelli2201
No, all the enemies can see you too. You're just intangible.
very possible, they purposefully downgraded the shadows to make depth perception easier, so it might just be a gameplay thing that we see him, and in lore he's invisible, as you say@@vincenzofranchelli2201. This doesn't prevent it from also making mario intangible, being invisible alone doesn't really allow to pass through objects. maybe a name like ghost cap would have been better ?
How is the propeller mushroom not fun???
It was at the time but now acorn is just a better version of it
ehh it just kills all forward momentum you have, which the great burst upwards is satisfying but then you're put in a sluggish free fall state until you touch the ground (even with the drill attack it still just slows everything down imo).
it's WAY too stop n go for me
I'm quite surprised by that as well. The sudden switches between life and death while using it feel crazy.
It's too powerful for how easy it is to find.
What are you talking about? This hat clearly exists so that you can use the hat-in-hand glitch for the A Button Challenge to collect To the Top of the Fortress 0xA.
I like how there's simultaneously tons of things and nothing to analyze in the Super Mario series.
I mean you can get all those stars without the metal cap but you can also beat any mario 3 stage without any of the powers in that game. So you know.
The whomp's fortress metal cap is even more useless since in one corner of that section of the level is a warp to the tall pole, past the thwomps and rotating platform.
SM64DS had the flower that turns you into a balloon that's arguably pretty useless but it might've been used as a part of a puzzle at some point of the game...
from what I remember it's used in big boo's haunt to get up to the attic, it's been a while since I played 64DS though
I always used to use the one in bowser in the dark world to skip the whole level. So its not entire useless
the dark world to skip the stage, the vanish cap stage to get a star on a timer, and the metal cap stage to get a star very high up in the air, those are the only uses I remember, but I remember the feeling of disappointment when instead of getting a flying cap I get balloon Mario, i dont know if it appears that much tho
You need it for the luigi painting red coins too.
Well there's one thing the Metal Cap has going for it, it doesn't control horribly like the Wing Cap
it obviously can't be the worst powerup since it has a kickass tune and who wouldn't want that? beats whatever gimmick invisibility is supposed to be any day
Does the Spring Mushroom from Galaxy 2 count as one of useless power-ups
It may be the most useless power-up in Mario, but at least it makes for an interesting character if Super Smash Bros. and Mario Kart are anything to go by.
Smash 64 is, hands down, the best application. The track on the stage is sick as hell too.
@@Medachod Yeah. It's probably the most memorable Stage for me of that game. And you don't even get to play on it outside of Classic Mode.
@@blockeontheleafeon Took cheats a while to let you too. I remember back in the day when it'd crash if you tried to force it, but now it's very easy to play all the stages in Smash 64. Especially if your go-to is Smash Remix, where it's readily selectable.
@@Medachod Yeah. I love Mods that make Meta Crystal or Final Destination playable outside of Classic Mode. Both of them are the coolest Stages we've gotten in this game compared to everything else.
@@blockeontheleafeon Always thought Final Destination in 64 was my favorite of the five. Insane backgrounds and such a cool original melody. The other ones are just a leitmotif of the main theme of their respective game, though not to say they're bad or uninspired. Just that I really thought Final Destination 64 stood out more by having an original set piece in both visuals and music.
"Greatest game of all time" I just don't agree.
Minecraft isn't a contender.
As a kid, my brother and I used the metal caps in Hazy Maze Cave to kill the bats constantly. They were a _godsend_ because we’d never played a 3D video game before and our depth perception just _could not_ target the bats correctly. It was easier to let them slam self-destructively into Metal Mario. I always assumed they were put there as a nicety to people playing 3D games for the first time.
We need a new speedrun category: whomp metal% speedrun through the game until you are able to use the metal cap in whomps fortress, timer starts when you gain control of Mario at the start of the game, and ends with you getting crushed by the nearby Thwomp with the metal cap equipped.
The Tanooki suit not only makes Mario invincible for a short second, it can even take out various enemies you couldn't before, you can even destroy the light circles, and the flamethrowers
Can we just appreciate that this guy still makes 4:3 videos in 2024
I went my whole life not knowing it made Mario take no damage.
This video is showing it's younger age compared to the age of the game. The thing is people were fascinated and struggling in the courtyard when mario64 was new. The metal cap in bowser and the dark world was in strategy guides and people legitimately found it helpful because navigating in a 3D space was completely alien to everyone at the time. By modern standards you can scoff and go "baby's first video game?" to some of these placements but honestly even if they only SORT OF block one fire torch, that was useful to someone at some point. Me personally I just pick it up for the rockin' tune though. Getting squished by the thwomps really was a thing, I remember my dad crawling past the pirhana plant past the thwomps at the fortress and being gated by the simple spinning bridge puzzle after. You gotta remember this game pioneered so much of the 3D space.
If you asked me if there was a metal cap box in that stage I would say a big fat no.
The Hazy Maze Cave underwater switch is extremely difficult to get without the Metal Cap and yeah, TH-cam didn't exist back then.
As a fan of the metal cap from Mario 64 I have to admit, you make a very good argument for its more useless nature
Not really. Most of the arguments revolve around "hurr durr I can just do these fancy tricks that 90% of the player base don't care enough to do".
@@davisbowe8668Agreed. Unless you're in the top 10% of players, the vast majority of people are gonna use the metal cap for the jet stream stars and etc.
6:10 You have no idea how many people get burned trying to get that red coin.
If I had to guess, you could use the WF Metal Cap to get a safe kill on the Piranha Plant at the top of the stairs
If we were to include powerups from the spinoffs; Mario Kart Wii's Thunder Cloud is an outright detriment, Blooper is only effective on the AI by slowing down their top speed and making them worse at driving, and Mario Kart 8's Coin "power-up" being an annoyance to deal with at higher positions.
It’s not useless for the fact that it has BANGER music 😂
In sm64ds, this is replaced with a mega mushroom instead to let you rampage across the stage and actually break the thwomps
Grab the owl before the power up wears off.
the only thing i learned from this video was that i can have both metal and invisible caps activated at the same time.
A very simple reason why there is a metal cap in whomp fortress could simply be it initialy had an use in the level, but at some poitn in the developpment they cut off the that need, and simply left the cap as it is.
There is also an other reason. So far the lien of reasoning of this video was "how useful can the cap be ?". But I think we have to take a game design approach.
The reason could simply be "exposure and teasing"
You start bomb omb field you see a transparent box, you start JRB you see a transparent box, you start whomp fortress you'll likely see a transparent box....and mostly you start bowser in the dark world you'll see a transparent box.
If you've never played SM64 it gotta make you sratch your head what are thoses boxes, it's a bait to hook the player.
I wasn't even aware there was a metal cap there...
6:56 you are welcome.
1:42 i found this clip way funnier than it should've been, going from incredible powers to mario confidently bonking into a wall is such good comedic timing
Personally, I'd say the most useless Mario power up is the Red Star from Super Mario Galaxy. It's an awesome power up, but it's only used in one level and the hub world. And even then, its only actual utility which can't be accomplished otherwise is collecting 30 of the purple coins in Gateway Galaxy (which any other level would use a Launch Star to access) and two 1-Up mushrooms in the Comet Observatory. The Red Star would be an extremely useful power up if it appeared more often, but as it is, there's practically no reason for it to exist.
1:45 "Metal cap that turns you indestructible" - just as he demonstrates how you aren't indestructible using said cap.
If we're going to bring up unintended maneuvers; at least one of which requires some mastery of the controls and physics to be able to bypass something that otherwise would normally require a metal cap, then we can bring up its usage in A button challenges. Not to mention granting invincibility for much less forgiving unofficial levels.
“The propeller mushroom from New Super Mario Bros Wii isn’t fun to use. At all.”
Imagine meeting the doctor who’s going to be performing open heart surgery on you tomorrow, and the first thing he tells you is that he never graduated high school.
I gotta be honest with you, I totally forgot the metal cap was even in WF. It looks so out of place, like someone modded it in.😂😂😂
I will not take this Propeller Shroom slander
bro, fuck that. I love the Metal Cap. It's my favorite Mario power-up
The A Button Challenge: Hold my HOLP placement
I think a lot of the reason it's there in Whomp's Fortress and Bowser in the Dark World is to show the player that Mario really is invulnerable, even to fire and being squished. It's not there to be useful, it's there to make you go "Woah, Metal Mario is super cool, I love this game." I also think that it's no coincidence that what is probably your last powerup to unlock is in the second and third stage and in the first boss stage, it's to make you think "Huh, wonder what this green box does. The red one let me fly". It makes it more satisfying when you finally unlock your super cool unbreakable Mario powerup.
“Metal Cap is the most useless cap.”
Invisible Cap: “Am I not a joke to you?”
you can't 120 star without invisible cap due to the star in DDD
@@dmas7749 That's literally the only time in the entire game it's useful
or boo's mansion...@@dmas7749
@@dmas7749 You can by doing BLJ
The placement of that metal cap did get me to slow down to find out if there was something I was missing in that particular spot of Whomp's Fortress. Turns out there's a warp in one of the corners there, and I think it might be placed in the corner the metal cap is in (it's been a while since I played SM64, so I don't remember where it is exactly; but, it is in a corner). The warp places you directly above the star you normally side flip and wall kick up to above the blue coin switch part of the level. Which... I guess is useful if you don't wanna traverse up there the normal way, but it doesn't really require the metal cap either because the whomps up there are also easy to avoid getting squished by. But there are 3 enemies (thwomps, whomps, and piranha plants) that you can avoid taking damage by entirely with the use of that metal cap at least. Potentially 4 if you waited to defeat the boss whomp until after you got the metal cap. Even if not, maybe it could help you not take damage from a single bullet bill before it expires? So it does have its uses, just none of them are really practical.
"just none of them are really practical"
To be fair, it makes it easier to deal with the two piranha plants you come across and they will drop coins for the 100 coin star.
Outside of Whomp's Fortress; If you don't rely on out-of-bounds tricks, that switch in Hazy Maze Cave is very difficult to get without the metal cap. Also, legit useful in the poisonous maze.
@@tidepoolclipper8657 I mean yeah, the metal cap does have its uses outside of whomp's fortress. I know I've never hit the switch in HMC without it, but I've never needed it for the poisonous maze. I didn't even know it was in the poisonous maze to begin with until I wanted to get all 120 stars again like 2 years ago. I probably knew it was there when I was younger, but somehow I just managed to always miss it in my playthroughs since then.
But even with it making it easier to deal with piranha plants in Whomp's Fortress, you can still easily avoid them entirely and you still have about 126 coins you can collect throughout the level to get the 100 coin star (iirc, there's 3 piranha plants in the level: 1 at the beginning and 2 somewhat guarding a red coin). Outside of getting you to look around to find a warp, its location is awkward and its uses are generally unnecessary. Although I do theorize that the water portion of the level was meant to have deeper water and have a star probably be in a current like in JRB and DDD that you'd "need" the metal cap to get. Even with that, it's highly likely you could still get the star without it. Only other theory for it being there is that they were gonna allow the metal cap to bust through walls to help you obtain the star beside the spinning platform (and maybe even the 1-up found by punching one side of the fortress), but they decided to scrap it because using a cannon/punching the wall without it felt like enough. Even then, it's easy to obtain the star in the wall by falling next to it.
I'm pretty sure it's for getting the red coin behind Piranha Plant, since it's unclear how well players would adjust to using the 3D analog controls to "tiptoe" up to the plant.
Remember that 3D platformers basically didn't exist, or if they did, they didn't have analog input. While Croc for Saturn *_could_* use the Analog Saturn controller, the console came with a digital pad, and PS1 didn't have the Dual Analog until 1997, the DualShock even later. Nintendo was definitely aware of the risks of 3D Analog.
Also...
I think some of the others like BitS and HMC are just little "teases." BitS is required to complete before basement, so the devs know for a fact they can use it to tease the metal cap. A player would naturally see it and wonder what it is. At this point (8 stars), the player hasn't unlocked the Wing Cap yet, so they don't know what any of the red blocks are, either. So, when the player presses the Wing Cap switch, they now "know" that the green block in BiTS must also be a power up. It's all about timing and planting the seeds.
This extends to HMC as well, which gets in the player's face and lets them know immediately that this stage might focus on that green block. It's not there "for" a task in particular, but rather, to show off to the player that an unlock must be coming up soon.
Remember that the Metal Cap and Vanish Cap are actually quite hidden. Metal Cap is in the deepest, darkest, farthest corner of HMC. A stage within a stage. If they didn't tease the heck out of the metal cap blocks, the player would probably straight up never find it without Nintendo Power. lmfao.
Part of what makes Mario 64 so incredible is the fact that when we judge it with a modern lens, we only find little nitpicks.
But the game was literally the first of its kind. LOL. It's so crazy to think just how good this game is.
Its the GOAT for a reason
I think another possible reason to put the whomp's hat there, is that since the hats slide along the ground after breaking open the box, there's a decent chance the hat can help the player discover the secret warp in the corner.
I guess that's why they give you a mega mushroom in the DS port there instead.
Though, I don't think it's wholly useless, or at all really. It just gives you a bit of a safety net to assumedly collect the red coins without worrying about taking damage, same as in the Bowser stage.
It's nice to know that the DS remake made some of the quests more explicit. (eg: "Collect the Caps..." was changed to "Inside the Cage"), dumbing the amount of cap switches from three to one (also switching to power flowers), and it gave more reason to use these power ups, including Metal by having Luigi and Wario's exclusive courses and so forth.
I think the Whomp's Fortress Metal Cap box might be there to show players that there's more than one kind of power-up they can unlock. They likely already saw the Wing Cap box in Bob-omb Battlefield, but by showing the player another kind of box in what is likely to be the next main level the player will visit, it shows that there are multiple kinds of power-ups in the game.
I loved that box in the DS remake. Mario could use the Power Flower to float all the way up, I once used it to cheese the owl star! SM64DS just has a lot of cases like this where you get powerups you dont have a direct use for, but I collect them anyway and finding a use for them can be quite fun. Even the metal cap's ability to walk on lava in SM64DS was pretty cool.
All these comments about 64DS make me wanna replay it so badly! I’ll def be making a dedicated video on it sometime in the future
Meal Mario theme in smash Bros with the sound of those footsteps are stuck in my brain
SSB really needs to be on the N64 NSO.
It's very useful, well, in mariohunt (a gamemode in sm64ex coop), when using that vanish cap, it gives an advantage of getting no damage and lets you easily get stars without getting killed.
While I can totally agree that those blocks are in competition for the most useless power-up, I believe this power-up was less useless in 1996. I don't think enough attention is focused on that this was a lot of people's first experience with a 3D platformer. I certainly remember dieing to that fire (5:55) and those Thwomps (7:15) when I was a kid.
Now that I'm thinking about it more I really don't think you give enough credit to those Thwomps in that specific location (5:55). If Mario gets squished, if you then start jumping immediately I don't think you have enough jump height to make it up the steps and will likely be squished again. The only other options for the middle Thwomp are walking of the edge (and maybe dieing), walking back down the stairs, or sliding back down the slope. Not to mention Mario's movement speed is slowed down making it more difficult to maneuver which could catch a first time player off guard who likely hasn't been afflicted yet by any sort of "slower player movement state".
That last paragraph isn't a critique of the whole video, I mostly wrote it because I take offense to the "dogwater reaction time" comment (7:30) and how I can only seeing it serve to (unintentionally) "put someone down" rather than what I think is trying to be communicated which is "this isn't a challenge".
It's absolutely nuts that Mario 64 is as good as it is for being one of the first 3D platformers. I'd argue the only real "issue" with the game is the slow turn speed which is debatable because it does add some more depth to the movement while sacrificing immediate accessibility.
I did not mean to go off so hard here, sorry if this is a bit much for anyone. Hopefully this will do you well with the algorithm, this was a nice video!
@@Dudex11a Fun Fact: Pac-man World has a metal power up, just like the metal cap.
I have worse power ups.
The anchor from SMB3, it just prevents the flying airships to move.
You also have the music box from the same game, it just temporary stops the hammer bros from attacking you.
The P wing from 3D land is even worse. It allows you to clear any level but you won't get star coins from it, since you need a certain amount of star coins to unlock levels and also 100% the game, you need to get the star coins in the levels you technically DIDN'T clear anyway.
Metal cap is still more useful than these threes, even if it's placed in whomp fortress.
The music box is useful if you are bad at hammer bros encounters.
3D land is lenient with the star coin requirements, so if you have trouble passing a certain stage, the P wing is still more useful, and the type of player who uses the P Wing probably doesn't care for 100% anyways.
I like how this video is like "this is useless" Oh but here's what you could use this useless thing for in every level that it's in"
That stretched out overly specific justification for the one in Bowser in the Dark World describes my first playthrough perfectly lol.
You also don't need the propeller suit "if you know what you're doing."
swimming faster was def common back in the day. as a kid I didn't know how to get the metal cap so I didn't even know the intended way to get the current stars besides swimming fast. it didn't take much longer to figure out than it did to figure out that the current pushes you away faster than mario can swim.
This video gives me a feeling of the old days of TH-cam
That’s a dope compliment tbh thanks
What the hell do you mean the propeller suit isn’t fun?