This is the Most Useless Mario Power Up
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- Опубліковано 7 вер 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.
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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.
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.
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...
Isn’t there a sign next to the flying cap box in Bob-omb Battlefield though? Why need another one?
@@MattTrashBoatPublick Scool? Yeh, mee 2.
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
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).
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.
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
You don't need to collect any metal cap stars in order to finish the game. I didn't even know how to unlock the thing as a kid, I beat the game before my older brother showed me where to go.
Ugh. You should have just been an expert at 3D platformers in 1996. Then you would have been a cool dude who didn't need the USELESS invincibility powerup. In 1996.
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.
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
@@mariotheundying ...You didn't know that wall-jumps existed or that coins restored your health?
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.
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. 😅
@@ZaCloud-Animations___she-her P-Wings trivialized almost every auto-scroller level. And many other levels in general, since they didn't really design many with traps for vertical heights. It's effectively what the Cape in SMW should had been - limited in use because otherwise you can just skip half the game.
I'd argue the "most useless" powerup was Squirrel Mario - not because it's power was literally useless, but because it was functionally an identical clone of Propeller Mario - same ability and same weaknesses - in a game where Propeller Mario was already in.
Well there's one thing the Metal Cap has going for it, it doesn't control horribly like the Wing Cap
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.
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
Yeah but imagine making it that far when you have a timer counting down and you are struggling with Metal Mario's heaviness when jumping. As a kid I can't imagine it being helpful for that either.
@@GBDupree Metal Mario's jumps are heavier? I don't remember that at all.
@@solidzack I remember mario himself being heavier and that making it harder overall to move. Like I think his basic jump is the same, but no double or triple jumps, he moves too slow for a side flip, and I can't remember his backflip but it might be worse. But its primary the slower movement the makes jumping harder since you can't jump forward very far. It's just slightly more awkward. But this is all from memory and I'm not sure if anything was changed in the DS version which I'm more personally familiar with.
@@GBDupreeyeah no you're just misremembering
@@solidzack really? Crazy, I've played a ton of the game and always remember him moving slower and that making things harder.
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
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.
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.
@@PrismariLaura The problem is that the Metal Cap CAN'T be the powerup for the less skilled player because the level to unlock it is one of the hardest in the game, and its really well hidden on top of that! It takes more skill unlocking it than needed to not use it in all those spots, which you will need to do anyways since its so long before you can unlock it anyways. Those Whomps are NOT harder than the Shy Guys that can shoot you in the Metal Cap course for example.
@@GBDupreedude, please, those are Snufits, a variation of Snifit, not just a Shy Guy
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.
Why act so combative
None of what you said is actually related to the time people were born in, since anyone who played a 3D game for the first time could theoretically have the same problems. But some of these excuses just straight up don't make any sense, since you unlock the metal cap after you (most likely) gone through Whomp's Fortress! And for that matter, you should already feel somewhat confortable with the controllers by the time you activate the boxes! Stop with the ageism, man!
So why the tantrum bro? I hope you never ever talk crap about any NES or Atari game, god forbid. You were born after those, therefore you have no right to criticize them. You realize how stupid you sound?
Atari 2600 and NES games are usually glitchy and hard to control; a time when video games were still getting polished. But you don’t have the right to criticize those, as you were born after those released.
Do you realize how nonsensical your comment is?
The main issue with the argument that "the Metal Cap is designed to help players struggling with the controls" is that the requirement for unlocking the metal cap is one of the hardest levels in the game! Not only do you have to find the secret entrance in Hazy Maze Cave (already one of the harder to navigate levels), but the level itself has the Shotzo Guys (I can't remember their actual names sorry) which are really hard to deal with and can hit you from afar. They can also knock you into the water which is so fast you are almost guaranteed to get washed away to the Castle courtyard and have to travel all the way back. But once you get the Metal Cap on, the level is easier, as long as you don't run out of time while still in the water, as it can be challenging to use the swimming controls in such a small space to get back to ground before being washed away again. At that point Whomp's Fortress and the HMC fire pit is stupidly easy in comparison!
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.
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?".
This has some "you don't need healing if you never get hit" energy.
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.
Its purpose is to go up the staircase while jamming out to the metal mario theme, clearly.
Valid
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.
The argument of calling the cap "useless" just because you can take an annoyingly long and/or complicated detour is pretty flawed. It's like saying cars and other transportations are useless because you can walk/swim.
agreed!
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
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.
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.
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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
6:10 You have no idea how many people get burned trying to get that red coin.
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...
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.
@@yordansicDawg your tripping that's top 3 power up in that game fr 😭🙏
@@avanagenda5840 No.
@@avanagenda5840ong bruh propeller gang rise up 🙏 😭
@@avanagenda5840i mean of course it is, as it's the only one to give a substantial boost in height in the whole game. Still it doesn't mean it's fun to use
When I was a kid I thought it was fun to squish Metal Mario over and over again.
Thanks random Nintendo guy.
The Hazy Maze Cave underwater switch is extremely difficult to get without the Metal Cap and yeah, UA-cam didn't exist back then.
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.
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.
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 ?
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".
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.
I like how there's simultaneously tons of things and nothing to analyze in the Super Mario series.
"Greatest game of all time" I just don't agree.
Minecraft isn't a contender.
It's pretty good as far as plumbing games go
@@hugoclarke3284 you mean Mario games?
>guys this powerup is USELESS!
every example is circumventing the main way of using the powerup to get the star
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.
I like how this video's major flaw is resumed to the phrase "the metal cap is useless if you know what you are doing."
SM64 was one of the first N64 games, a new console, new technology.
Not only it was new territory for the developers, it was also a game with a child audience in mind. If you asked a person back then what speedrunning was they'd say "running but faster??"
It's baffling to just assume 10 year old Jimmy in the 90s knew that Mario could essentially turn off gravity let alone think that the power up the game incentivizes you to use wasn't useful somehow.
Don't act like a Comp Fortnite player to the nearing 30 year old children's game.
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.
Quiet, you.
I don't remember peabody existing in our timeline
the only thing i learned from this video was that i can have both metal and invisible caps activated at the same time.
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.
“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.
0:06 the vanish cap from 64
I mean it's necesary for some stars.
The vanish cap is definitely the most useless powerful by far. It’s only useful for one purpose (going through certain materials). It’s barely even used in the game too.
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 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
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.
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
I went my whole life not knowing it made Mario take no damage.
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.
Everyone talking about the fact the video is 10 minutes because of a block that's confusingly placed, be glad it's not any longer.
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.
"propeller isn't fun/is boring", 30 seconds in and already one of the worst takes i've heard
Its almost like this game was designed to be beaten by small children who arent very good at video games or something...
In sm64ds, this is replaced with a mega mushroom instead to let you rampage across the stage and actually break the thwomps
Does the Spring Mushroom from Galaxy 2 count as one of useless power-ups
"Power-ups should only be placed where they're absolutely necessary. I need to be handheld through level exploration" is certainly a video thesis.
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.
there is actually a powerup that beats this metal cap in being useless, the underwater koopa shells in jolly roger bay and dire dire docks. most don't even know you can interact with them and they don't even provide anything of use.
when you get close to them and press B, you grab them and grant you the ability: to automatically swim. and it expires after a few seconds. you're not invulnerable. air doesn't get refreshed.
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."
A genuine reason for the Whomp’s Fortress Metal Cap is that it sets up for the player that there will be other caps to look for. The transparent outline is in an obvious spot you’re likely to go by on a first run, making you wonder “Whats that? How do I get it?” and encourage you to try and find the other caps.
Granted, the payoff for finding it is… not amazing, but it is a genuine reason. You’re not coming back to Whomp’s for the cap, but the block is there to put the idea in your head to begin with.
I think Nintendo should bring back Mario's famous Pissing powerup myself
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
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.
If you asked me if there was a metal cap box in that stage I would say a big fat no.
Counter argument : Moving around as a heavy weight (mostly) invincible being with a banger track in the background makes you feel strong and is fun, regardless of it being useful or not.
It’s very cool I agree 😭
@@MattTrashBoat Why the crying emoji then ?
@Oceane1803, why not?
@@ryanclemons1 I dunno if I came to an agreement with someone, that's not the reaction I'd have.
@@Oceane1803 Fun Fact: Pac-man World has a metal power up, just like the metal cap.
I will not take this Propeller Shroom slander
7:29 what in God’s name is this clip
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
Its funny how i never thought of any of this before.
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.😂😂😂
What about the poisonous mushroom? Would you technically consider that a power-up?
It's kinda just a goomba with extra steps tbh. It's an obstacle in the lost levels so yea it is useless but smm2 poisonous mushroom has uses at nighttime
that's a power down
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.
I agree so much with this! I greatly prefer how the DS remake handled the power-ups, especially with that Whomp's fortress example. In the DS version, the item box gives you a super mushroom which lets you destroy the Thwomps iirc
I knew that 64DS handled the special caps differently due to all the characters but it’s been so long since I’ve played it lol. That game def warrants its own video one day despite everyone and their grandma already having done one
the item box in whomp's only can give you a bob-omb
@@ostrelephant That's if you're playing as anyone but Yoshi for some reason. But yeah, true, my bad lol
@@weird751I’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.
Immediately got turned off when you shat on the propeller power up
I think the purpose of the Thwomp castle power-up is simply to tease the player with its existence in a conspicuous way. On a first playthrough, you would very likely go to that stage early on, and see the outline of the power-up, but unable to use it. That's actually good game design, it's a teaching mechanic that uses intuition and "teasing" to show the player that there's something in the future to activate this, and you can come back to this stage later, and use it.
The metal cap green block in Whomp's Fortress was probably there to show the player early on that there was more than just the wing cap red block previously seen in Bob-omb Battlefield.
Beyond that it is possible that not every object in the game has a discreet purpose for being there.
If every block hints at a hidden secret then those secrets are no longer hidden because whenever you see one of these hints you can be certain it hides a secret.
Perhaps the purpose of this block was to annoy someone three decades into the future.
So... mission accomplished?
This video gives me a feeling of the old days of UA-cam
That’s a dope compliment tbh thanks
Grab the owl before the power up wears off.
i actually used the whomp's fortress metal cap to kill those piranha plants easier when going for the 100 coin star one time. you can run up to them and kill them instantly which is much faster than having to sneak up on them, and you can get both of the plants on the path in one go
My best guess is that the one in Whomp's Fortress is just there to add another place where a sign can tell the player about caps and their switches (mainly that they exist), and you're right about the purposes of the others.
It's also probably worth noting that there are countless romhacks that make better use of the Metal Cap than the original game. It's most commonly used in sections where you have to bounce across lava pools and/or falls, but some hacks also use deeper toxic gas, deeper water, or more convoluted setups like with water-level switches and instant-death quicksand. (Fun fact: said quicksand doesn't work while underwater, so if it's flooded then Metal Mario can walk across it just fine!)
"quicksand doesn't work underwater"
this game is so strange, I love it
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.
I wasn't even aware there was a metal cap there...
1:45 "Metal cap that turns you indestructible" - just as he demonstrates how you aren't indestructible using said cap.
What the hell do you mean the propeller suit isn’t fun?
It’s not useless for the fact that it has BANGER music 😂
Although this video was a bit longer than needed, I actually noted the metal cap box in whomps and found it really weird as a kid. I remember thinking maybe there was some hidden technique to use it for or something cause I couldn't figure out why they put it there.
Nice to know there's at least one other person out there who found that block placement disconcerting.
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.
the metal cap lets you walk up the slope because you are heavier. the slope is right infront of you the entire time. normally you slide down. please admit i am 1000x smarter than you now. also i figured that out when i was like 5