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Breakable Power-Up

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Power Ups usually don't last forever. One common method of making them temporary is to have them disappear as soon as the user is hit or takes damage. This often overlaps with Single-Use Shield: the Power-Up grants an extra Hit Point to a One-Hit-Point Wonder in addition to whatever other powers and abilities it grants.

A common variation is to lose all powerups upon the loss of a life. In games where the player is a One-Hit-Point Wonder, this is often functionally identical to the standard "on hit" variation.

Another variation is to "spill" some or all of the lost Power Ups where they may be able to be recovered after respawning. If the spilled Power Ups can be recovered by another player, this can be a cause of Loot Drama. The (often very challenging) race to recover lost Power Ups or equipment while massively depowered is referred to by players of MMOs and Roguelikes as a "corpse run," named after those games' habit of storing the items in the corpse of the dead player character.

A Sub-Trope of Power-Up. This is one common reason why a player character might be Untouchable Until Tagged and Continuing is Painful. Compare Mutually Exclusive Power-Ups, with which this often overlaps; Full Health Bonus, an ability that works best if you can avoid taking damage; and Breakable Weapons, which typically break from damage dealt rather than damage taken. Not to be confused with Destroyable Items. If the power-up is magical it may be an example of a Limited-Use Magical Device.


Examples:

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     Action-Adventure 
  • In Cave Story, you collect yellow triangles to level up your weapons and make them more powerful. You lose a few of these points every time you take damage, and it's possible to de-level your weapons this way.
  • Contra takes away all powerups on the loss of a life. Since the player is a One-Hit-Point Wonder and Power Ups are not Single Use Shields, the distinction between lives and Hit Points is largely academic in this case.
  • The Fragile charms from Hollow Knight give the player more health, money and attack power, but break if you die. They're a lot more useful in Steel Soul Mode. The Grimm Troupe update allows players to upgrade their Fragile charms into unbreakable ones for a... hefty price.
  • In The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, the soup power-up heals you and also gives you extra attack power. The attack power buff is lost if you are damaged.
  • In Metal Slug, characters will lose their current weapon upon death and respawning. Their grenades will also be reset to 10 standard grenades, which might be either a power-down or a bonus.
  • Völgarr the Viking: Volgarr can collect items from chests, in order: a wooden shield, a metal shield, a helmet, a flaming sword, and a power up that makes you fling fireballs at enemies when you get hit. These act as Hit Points or a series of Single Use Shields, with each bit of damage removing one until Volgarr is a One-Hit-Point Wonder.

     Action RPG 
  • Transistor uses a variation; if you take enough damage to empty the Life Meter, the most powerful ability you have equipped is disabled (with an actual Game Over occurring if all of your active abilities are disabled) until you've found a few Save Points.
  • Diablo franchise:
    • Diablo (1997) may be the Trope Codifier for the "corpse run" variant. Upon death (in multiplayer), all of a character's equipment is dumped on the ground, but can be recovered...if you make it past what killed you the first time.
    • Diablo II solves the Loot Drama problem by making corpses only lootable by the player that dropped it, and granting you the 'give-up' option of re-spawning your corpse in town to recover you items, XP and Gold are gone forever though.

     MMO 
  • Elsword: Elesis's Strong Iron Body skill buffs her damage output, which lasts until she's hit. However, if she's hit, she'll become Immune to Flinching instead.

     Maze Game 

  • The pink pellet from Pac-Mania increases the number of points that Pac-Man gains when he eats ghosts, but the multiplier disappears when he loses a life.

     Party Game 
  • Crash Bash: In the Crate Crush, Pogo Pandemonium, Crash Dash and Medieval Mayhem sets of minigames, you'll lose the Power-Up you're currently holding if you get hit.

     Platformer 
  • Super Mario Bros.:
    • Super Mario Bros. is the Trope Codifier. The Super Mushroom transforms Mario into Super Mario, capable of breaking bricks by jumping into them from below. The Fire Flower transforms either regular Mario or Super Mario into Fire Mario, capable of throwing fireballs. Both powerups act as a Single-Use Shield, and upon being hit Mario reverts to regular Mario, losing the abilities granted him by the powerups.
    • Starting with the international version of Super Mario Bros. 3, getting hit when empowered by any Power-Up other than the Super Mushroom (Fire Flower, Raccoon Tail, Tanooki Suit, Hammer Suit, Frog Suit, etc.) reverts Mario to Super Mario rather than all the way back down to regular Mario. This change skipped Super Mario World, but the GBA remake rectified this.
    • In the New Super Mario Bros. series, the Mini Mushroom falls under the "Power-Up loss on loss of a life" variant, as unlike most other Power Ups in the series, it does not act as a Single-Use Shield.
    • Likewise, Wario in Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 loses his power whenever he gets hit like his red counterpart. He also loses his basic ability to body slam.
  • Downplayed in the Kirby games, where getting hit generally results in losing your power-up; in some games it's guaranteed, but in others it's down to chance. However, the power-up bounces around the stage as a star and can be recovered most of the time.
  • A variation in Mega Man ZX, where the actual Large Health, Energy, or E-Crystal pickups themselves can be cut into pieces, causing them to scatter into a random collection of smaller ones. This can be used to get utility out of an un-needed powerup by possibly turning it into ones you can use.
  • Special weapons in Purple get lost on the second hit taken after getting it.
  • In Super Ghouls 'N' Ghosts, upgrading Arthur's armor allows him to access spells and magical versions of the basic weapons. It doesn't make the armor any more durable however, and a single hit will break the armor and downgrade his weapon. The Golden Armor also comes with a shield that can absorb a single hit and you can find an upgraded shield that can take up to 3 hits before breaking, but they only protect you from projectiles.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog has Single-Use Shields that can be obtained by breaking open the television monitors/item capsules containing them: they break after one hit, but keep the player from dying or dropping their Rings. Sonic 3 & Knuckles also introduces elemental variations of shields which offer immunities to certain forms of damage: Fire Shields provide immunity to flames and lava, Lightning Shields provide immunity from electricity (as well as magnetically attracting Rings), and Water Shields provide immunity from drowning while underwater. Each of these shields also gives Sonic a special ability while in effect: jump dashes for Flame Shields, double-jumps for Lightning Shields, and a bouncing attack for Water Shields.
  • In Strider (Arcade), a Power-Up gives you a robot to fight alongside you. You lose it from being damaged, with the special wrinkle that it is "linked" to your life total at the moment you acquire it. So it is possible to deliberately get damaged to almost dead, pick up the droid, then find healing power ups to provide a buffer against losing it.
  • The Super Scope in The Angry Video Game Nerd Adventures replaces the Nerd's Zapper, making his shots much more powerful. If he takes any damage, the gun downgrades back to the Zapper.
  • In the Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures console games, if Pac takes damage while under the effects of a Power Berry, he will lose his power-up form, and will need to eat another Power Berry in order to get the power-up back.
  • In Avenging Spirit, if you run out of health, your current body you are possessing dies, turning you back into a ghost and losing all of that characters' abilities. This isn't the case during boss fights, where your body's health is ignored and all damage goes straight to your ghost energy, so any death at all takes you straight to the continue prompt. Once you possess your girlfriend, the rest of the game goes by the boss rules for health, so dying beyond that point is always an instant Game Over.
  • In Shadow of the Ninja, your primary weapon can be upgraded by collecting multiple power-ups of the same type, but taking too much damage will result in the weapon automatically downgrading back to its weaker form.

     Racing Game 
  • Mario Kart:
    • In the original Super Mario Kart for the SNES, getting bumped by another racer would remove a coin. Falling into a hole would remove two, and getting hit by items (or Secret A.I. Moves) remove four.
    • In 7 and 8, getting hit by items spills three coins onto the track, while Lakitu will charge up to two coins when bailing the player out of a hazard.
    • In most of the games in the series, getting hit with a strong attack (such as lightning) causes players to lose any items they're holding. In later games, these items drop onto the track, serving as obstacles or instant-use pickups.
  • In LEGO Racers getting hit by a projectile causes a car to drop a collected power-up upgrade.

     Real-Time Strategy 
  • Warcraft III has a variation: bottom-tier healing items provide a small amount of health or mana over time, and the effect is cancelled if the user takes damage.

     Rhythm Game 
  • Crypt of the NecroDancer: Glass items are great and provide amazing stats, but shatter instantly and become useless when the player takes damage. The Glass Jaw is even worse, providing doubled damage (which stacks with other damage-increasing items) but turns your character into a One-Hit-Point Wonder. However, these glass items are very well-spent on Aria and Coda, who already have 1 HP and nothing to lose.
  • In One Finger Death Punch, getting hit while wielding a weapon will make the protagonist instantly drop it unless it's the Golden Sword or you have a specific passive skill for the current weapon.

     Roguelike 
  • The Binding of Isaac has Soul Hearts that act like normal hearts, except that you can't heal them like your normal red hearts, making them more similar to the Single-Use shield. The Wrath of the Lamb DLC introduces Eternal Hearts, which give Isaac half a heart's worth of health above his normal maximum. If he loses it, it goes away for good, but if he finds a second Eternal Heart or makes it to the end of the floor without losing it, it turns into a Heart Container and permanently increases his maximum life. Rebirth introduced the Black Hearts that work like soul hearts, except that when they are depleted they damage all enemies on screen. Afterbirth+ added Bone Hearts which act as a red heart container that can take one extra hit, but is permanently removed when it breaks.
  • Candies 'n Curses features two weapons, King's Beacon and Necro Scythe, which are capable of summoning wraiths and bones respectively. However, these summons disappear if the player sustains too much damage.
  • Risk of Rain 2:
    • The Delicate Watch lets you deal more damage, but if your HP drops to 25% then all Delicate Watches you're carrying will break, and cannot be repaired.
    • Power Elixirs will also be consumed if you drop to 25% HP, but a Power Elixir will heal you to 100%, essentially acting like a Single-Use Shield.

     RPG 
  • In Sonny, the Electro Bolt attack eliminates up to three beneficial status effects on hit, making it an excellent counter for moves that power up the enemy's next attack.
  • The Passive ability "Unscarred" in Final Fantasy Tactics A2 gives a 50% boost to magic and physical attack and defense so long as the user has maximum HP. It still works if HP is lost then refilled to full, which makes it effective to give users the Regen Status Buff.

     Shoot-Em-Up 
  • Unlike many games which reset the player's complement of Smart Bombs to the starting amount upon death, Heavy Weapon takes all of the player's nukes away, as well as any Single Use Shields. Otherwise averted, as weapon Power Ups remain.
  • Major Stryker: Getting hit will remove all your weapon power-ups, reducing you back to single-shot mode. There is of course a good chance that being suddenly weakened in this way will soon result in being overwhelmed and hit again, which is fatal.
  • This is the case in Raiden unless you find the hidden (and rare) Fairy. Downplayed in the sequels, which spill a few Power Ups from your ship when you die which can then be re-collected.
  • In Drainus, getting hit will cause you to lose the highest-numbered active power-up you have in your power-up meter. If you are hit with no power-ups left. you lose your current life. On Ridiculous difficulty, as well as Hard difficulty in Arcade mode, getting hit kills you regardless of how many power-ups you have, and you lose all of those power-ups.


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