Invincibility Power-Up

"Ironic isn't it? The hunter has become the hunted! Hahahaha!!"

—Mr. Burns, playing Ms. Pac-Man.

A Power-Up, often found in Platformers, that makes the player invincible for a short period of time. Usually, this not only makes you immune to damage (try not to fall off anything, though), but also gives you the Touch of Death against most enemies. The effect is usually accompanied with special celebratory music.

Cousin to the Quad Damage. Compare Smart Bomb, the usual Shoot'Em Up equivalent.

Examples of Invincibility Power-Up include:

• The famous Energizers (aka Power Pills, aka Power Pellets) from the Pac-Man games are perhaps the Ur Example.
• Super Pac-Man added a second type of Energizer, the Super Pill, which turned him into a giant and did make him completely invincible (Word of God has said that he was meant to be flying "over" the maze and the monsters), but didn't let him go on the offensive like regular Energizers.
• Also Older Than the NES is the magic hat in Crystal Castles, which not only made Bentley Bear invincible, but allowed him to kill the Berthilda, the Wicked Witch.
• As mentioned above, Super Mario Bros. is the Trope Codifier. Most, if not all, stars in subsequent platform games make the character sparkly and flashy as part of their effect.
  • In Super Mario Galaxy, the Starman is a rainbow star (since it would be confused with the Power Stars you're supposed to be collecting otherwise) and, as per Mario Kart, also makes Mario faster.
  • While Super Mario RPG uses the original yellow Starman while in the overworld, in battle it also features a new Invincibility Power-Up item called Red Essence, which makes the user invincible for three turns. The Starman is quite original as it not only makes you instantly defeat any mook that you run into, but also gain the EXP, thus making it an exceptionally useful item.
  • In Super Mario 64, the Metal and Invisible Caps have similar invincibility functions.
  • Super Mario 64 DS and New Super Mario Bros. also feature a Giant Mushroom that, while their main function is to make Mario a giant, also make him impervious to normal enemies.
  • Mario's recognizable Super Star is subverted in Syobon Action, where, to put it simply, the Super Star kills you.
  • In Super Paper Mario, the Super Star not only makes you invulnerable, but makes the characters giant versions of their 8-bit selves. Also early on in the game a Koopa has a Dangerously Genre Savvy moment in which he collects the Super Star for Himself to use against Mario.
• Mario Kart:
  • The series has the same item, allowing you to cause opponents to flip over/spin out, items to shatter and enemies to be defeated. And it speeds you up to boot. There's also the Bullet Bill, which is this on auto pilot. And it's even faster.
  • There is also the Mega Mushroom in Mario Kart Wii, which is 80% of this. You grow to an enormous size, most items won't harm you, you can go a bit faster, you can drive off-road without speed loss and you can squash the other drivers! If lightning strikes, you merely return to normal size instead of get shrunk down below it. Someone with star power, or a Bullet Bill, can still hurt you though.
• Hyper Candy from the Kirby series, which makes Kirby invincible and, sometimes, hyperfast. It's pretty much the definition of a Sugar Rush.
• Meat from Bonk's Adventure games for the TurboGrafx-16.
• In Sonic the Hedgehog, characters turns invincible when they get a power-up known simply as "Invincibility." They are then covered with flashing stars (original 2D games) or have bright light shining out from inside them. The Chaos Emeralds from Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Sonic 3, and Sonic and Knuckles can be considered with having the same effect as well (working during normal levels, not as a story or stage requirement as in later games) once they're all gathered and the character has at least 50 rings to activate the effect. However, the Emeralds may be closer to Bonus Rewards.
• The God Mode cheats in most Blizzard strategy games (Warcraft, StarCraft) reduce incoming damage to practically nil. In Warcraft, you also deal a hundred times more damage than usual. This is downplayed in Warcraft 2, where the God Mode cheat either through intention or glitch can make you more susceptible to certain magic spells (a Death Knight's Death Coil more specifically) but invincible to everything else. More fitting, the Paladin hero in Warcraft 3 had an ability that turned him invulnerable for a short time. The Shadow Hunter on the other hand had an ability that turned every ally nearby invulnerable except him. The ability carries over to World of Warcraft. It can be bypassed by a certain priest skill though. Druids also have a way to make their enemies invulnerable and immune to all effects, which is much more useful than it sounds.
• Banjo-Kazooie has gold feathers which can be used at any time, but each feather only lasts for a few seconds.
• The Legend of Zelda:
  • The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time had the Nayru's Love spell which makes you invincible for its duration. The Wind Waker had Magic Armor (which looked almost exactly like Nayru's Love), which prevented damage and knockdown while on. Both consumed magic in order to function, and one can only wonder what they might be like with some Chateau Romani from Majora's Mask...
  • Twilight Princess on the other hand had a Magic Armor powered by rupees.
  • And A Link to The Past on the old SNES has the Magic Cape and Cane of Byrna, both of which make Link invincible but consume magic at an incredible rate. The Cape also makes Link invisible and capable of moving through certain obstacles, while the Cane gives you the Touch of Death properties, and can be useful in the final dungeon.
  • Spirit Tracks has Tears of Light in the Dark Realm. Pick these up in your train, and enjoy the invincibility, super speed, and Touch of Death on the bomb trains that oh-so have been asking for being knocked right off of the tracks!
• Laurels in Castlevania II Simons Quest. You could carry up to 8 of them, which made for the easiest Final Boss battle ever.
• Jazz Jackrabbit had invincibility in the form of small floating stars that would wreath the player in sparkles.. Jazz Jackrabbit 2, on the other hand, had it as part of a Sugar Rush mode available after collecting 100 pieces of food and also gave collision damage.
• Many Final Smashes in Super Smash Bros. Brawl work a bit like this, making the character invulnerable for the duration of the Final Smash. In fact, most Final Smashes are this or a single powerful attack. It's still possible to suicide with most of them, though.
  • Giga Bowser can still get damage; he just won't suffer from knockback.
  • Ever see a A Landmaster fall through a skinny little hole?
  • The original Super Star (also known as Starman in international versions) is in all Smash Bros. games as well, granting temporary invincibility, but doesn't allow you to hurt opponents by touching them. However, the Assist Trophy Isaac from the Golden Sun series, who casts the Psynergy Move, is notable for being capable of knocking out characters who are even under the effects of the Starman's granted invincibility. Isaac's technique utilizes a property of the games known as Set Knockback, which enables Isaac to merely push foes off the arena without actually dealing damage.
• Shoot'Em Up example: most Parodius games have a powerup (the green bell) that makes the player's spaceship (as well as their Options) grow about four times its own size for awhile. For some reason, this not only makes one invincible against enemies and bullets, but also lets one fly through solid terrain. As a slight drawback, it also disables your ability to fire, which means that if you pick it up, you might not be able to kill as many enemies as you normally would (and even though your Options grow along with you, they have no colission detection, meaning they can't destroy enemies they come in contact with).
• Bombs in the Touhou series fall under this trope, as they make you invincible for a short period of time, clear bullets off of the screen, and deals damage to pretty much everything on screen (unless you are really bad at aiming).
• Another shooter example: the Horned Mask in Blood, granting you invulnerability. (Annoyingly, due to a programmer oversight, you couldn't tell when its effect ended.)
• Doom and Doom 2 has a green version of the Soul Sphere (a health power-up) that grants you temporary invincibility. While it's active, your character portrait has glowing eyes.
  • And black-and-white vision.
  • Also, IDDQD.
  • But only for attacks dealing up to 1,000 damage in one blow. If an enemy or another player teleports or spawns onto your exact position, it does 10,000 damage, which is waaaaaaaay more than enough to kill anyone.
• Heretic uses the same engine as Doom, and has the Ring of Invincibility.
• Hexen also uses the Doom engine and has the Icon of the Defender.
• Quake has the Pentagram. While it has obvious combat utility, it can also be used to find secret areas hidden in lava.
  • Quake II has an invulnerability powerup, too.
• Descent has an invulnerability power-up, in the form of a blue glimmering orb encircled by two linked rings which, irritatingly, could be stolen by the Thief-Bot.
• Rise of the Triad has multiple invincibility power-ups.
  • God mode has invincibility, plus the ability to fly and shoot glowing orbs from your fingertips.
  • Dog mode also gives invincibility, plus a super bark that turns everyone who hears it into gibs.
  • There is also a bulletproof vest that prevents damage from bullet weapons. Given that most Mooks have either a pistol or an MP40, it kinda works as an invincibility power-up.
• Final Fantasy VIII has RPG versions of this in the form of the Hero and Holy War items, which make one character and the party invincible for a limited time repsectively. They, like Rinoa's "Invincible Moon" Limit Break (which had a party-wide effect,) had the slight drawback that they truly made you impervious to everything... including buffs like Haste, Double/Triple, Aura, and Wall.
  • Even worse than that, the invincibility effect effectively increased your HP, not literally, but for the purposes of figuring out when you could use your limit break (which only appeared when HP was low). So if you have 1 HP, you should get a limit break about 75% of the time, but if you're invincible, it only shows up maybe 25% of the time.
• The invulnerability in Namco games Battle City and its sequel Tank Force doesn't provide the complete protection, though. Even though helmet/shield power-up grants invulnerability to the player, it's still possible to get game over due to the base still being vulnerable. Of course, there's a shovel/fortification powerup to protect the base too.
• The first three Adventure Island games on the NES have this in form of the "Honey Girl" fairy, which provides temporary protection against enemies, projectiles, rocks, and fire. However, it won't stop you from running out of energy due to lack of food. In Adventure Island IV, Honey Girl is replaced by a pentagram which does pretty much the same thing.
• The Dragon Ball Advanced Adventure for the Gameboy Advance has the Kame Shell, but it's not particularily useful since colliding with enemies with it active only does as much damage as a regular punch and thus it only instakills enemies that would die from a single hit anyway, enemies don't automatically damage you on contact normally and the ones with projectile attacks are so slow that you can outrun their projectiles normally, and each time you collide into an enemy reduces its duration which defeats its purpose to begin with.
• Donkey Kong Country:
  • 2 and 3 have a barrel that serves as this. No such thing in the original, however. Donkey Kong 64 allows Donkey Kong (but none of the other characters) to get the effect by jumping in a barrel with his face on it, expending Crystal Coconuts in the process.
  • Donkey Kong Country Returns gives us the Banana Juice. You can use it before starting a level, but it's worth remembering that you can't refresh the 10 extra hearts provided.
• Kid Icarus has a lyre that turns all enemies into harmless mallets for a period of time.
• Rush N Attack for the NES has one star, and only one, during the 3rd level near the beginning, which provides Invincibility and the Touch of Death.
• Serious Sam - The Second Encounter has an invulnerability powerup.
• Black potions in Konami's Noah's Ark grant you invulnerability and you can kill everything with a single touch. Even minibosses.
• A7XPG has you power up your invincibility attack meter by collecting gems at high speed. Once your meter is maxed out, you will become invincible and can crash into enemies for extra points. In fact, crashing into enemies is your main source of points; even the first extend, at 20,000 points, takes a long time to get if you don't use invincibility.
• The energizers in ZZT.
• Ivy the Kiwi has Super Stars beginning with the second set of stages, which protect her from enemies and the many instant-death spikes.
• Pineapple in Trog transforms you into a full grown dinosaur who can eat cavemen and demolish obstacles.
• Purple gives this in the form of a moon crescent. It becomes necessary at one point where the player has to get through a floor covered entirely in spikes.
• In Secret of Evermore, one of the spells only available from the summon stones temporarily made both you and your dog invincible. If you thought to save them for the Final Boss, you had an extraordinarily easy time of it.
• While it doesn't let you kill Tom Nook or anything, the Game Cube Animal Crossing had a furniture piece called the Starman, and if you activated it, your character would flash and the Starman tune would play.
• The red mushroom in Crystal Caves - makes you invincible, makes you kill enemies by touch. They're very rare (only three or four in the entire series) and are always a critical part to completing a level. There's also the even rarer stop sign which temporarily freezes all enemies and makes them harmless, though also impossible to kill.
• The fist powerup in Robo Army transforms your character into a doom-buggy that barrels through enemies.
• Bug!! had "Stunt Bug", in which an invincible stunt double of Bug (a movie star) replaces him, and rapidly damages all enemies on contact. It lasts for a short while, of course.
• Major Stryker has a bubble shield which makes you invincible and able to defeat enemies by ramming them.
• The Contra series has the "Barrier" power-up (represented by the letter "B"), which provides a different visual representation depending on the game. In the first arcade game, it surrounds the player with three floating satellites that gradually disappear one by one as its effect wears out, while in both NES games it causes the player's sprite to flash different colors. In Contra III it surrounds the player with a bubble-shaped barrier that starts out as blue and turns red when its effect is starting to wear out.
• Vanguard is probably the earliest Shoot'Em Up to have a powerup providing temporary invincibility and letting enemy ships be destroyed on contact.