"Hey! Did you just step on me?!"
— Lt. Gaia, Mobile Suit Gundam
A peculiar property of Jump Physics and the Goomba Stomp, where stomping on an enemy - any enemy - lets you bounce upwards to greater height than your normal jump permits. Enemies in these games must have rubber bones or something.
Typically, to perform this technique, the player must be holding the Jump button when the character lands on the Mook. Though in some games, the player may have to do a timely button press as he lands on it or almost immediately after for this to work.
Sometimes, performing a second Goomba Stomp from one of these jumps gets you even more height.
If the game designer has a penchant for puzzles, expect there to be more than a few situations where you need to shepherd enemies to a certain unscalable cliff so you can springboard off them to reach the top. And in harder platformers such as the Donkey Kong Country series, expect to find instances where you have to chain bounce off of a string of Mooks (or maybe even a fast-moving single Mook) just to cross a sufficiently large chasm.
Compare to Cranium Ride or Body Sled where it's about riding on enemies, not jumping from them, and Frozen Foe Platform, where enemies are frozen to use as solid platforms. One of the methods to do a Spring Jump. See Living Crashpad when a character's fall is cushioned by another character.
Examples:
- One of the earliest examples can be found in the 1985 8-bit game Zorro by Datasoft. One part of the game involves getting a guy drunk enough to fall asleep so that Zorro can jump on his stomach and reach a building's roof. In another part, Zorro can do the same by picking up a trumpet that he plays, causing a guard to be distracted and fall on a springboard that Zorro stands on.
- Quite common in Super Mario Bros. games... but absent in the first Super Mario Bros., where you gain very little height at all from a stomp.
- Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels is the first game in the series to omplement this mechanic, and is possibly the Trope Maker. Certain pitfalls can only be overcome by jumping onto a Paratroopa and using the momentum to cross the deadly distance.
- All Night Nippon Super Mario Bros. retroactively adds this to the levels of the original game, since the game uses the engine from The Lost Levels.
- Super Mario Bros. 3: This can be exploited with the raccoon suit to gain extra lives. On the second level, infinite Goombas come out of a pipe at regular intervals. If you time it right, you can stomp enemies one after another, jumping up and floating down onto the next one without touching the ground. After you do this enough, you start getting a 1up for each enemy you stomp. If the level weren't timed, you could do this indefinitely.
- Especially common in the infinite number of Nintendo Hard ROMhacks of Super Mario World.
- This can be done in the Wario Land series as well, but you also need to hold up on the D-pad as you jump on the enemy. Wario Land 3 initially doesn't let you do it at all until you find the requisite treasure.
- Actually required in World 5-2 of New Super Mario Bros. Wii, with giant Wigglers.
- A staple element of Super Mario Maker levels, especially on higher difficulty rankings. Some require you to throw a Koopa shell at a wall and jump off it as it rebounds towards you.
- Mario Party 9: In Buddy Bounce, players can bounce on top of another player's head in order to gain extra height. Doing so is the only way to reach the 10-point balloons, which are otherwise too high up.
- Here's a nifty example
with flying Koopas over a bottomless pit from Distorted Travesty 3. With spiked ceilings and Bullet Bills mixed in because why not?
- In Deep Rock Galactic, falling on another character's head will completely nullify fall damage. Additionally, if the character underneath jumps while another one is above will be sent way further up than could normally be done. Additionally, if a dwarf lands on the side of a head that is turning wildly, he will be launched with an oblique angle at extreme distances.
- In the Disgaea series, tossing a character onto a friendly monster unit's head will bounce them in the direction the monster is facing. While the technique is called "pass and receive", the best monsters for it are mostly ones that look like they'd have a springy body composition, as opposed to the big, brawny ones, which seems to imply that the characters are simply bouncing off them.
- One of said monsters, the Eryngya (A mushroom), exists in the Prinny games as little more than a springboard, as it simply stands there and waits to be stomped on, launching you to great heights while remaining unharmed. There is one particular one that uses this springiness against you, though.
- Biomechanical Toy have plenty of Airborne Mooks in several areas, which allows the player to stomp on them in order to land on hard-to-reach ledges, hidden secrets, and get more points. There are also floating balloons (a Stationary Enemy-type) who usually appears in a row, with power-ups floating right above their heads which the player can jump on.
- Donkey Kong Country often involved bouncing off flying enemies to reach secret places. In Donkey Kong Country Returns, it's no longer automatic: You have to press the jump button with the right timing, or you'll barely bounce.
- The main Crash Bandicoot games allow you to do this with most enemies that aren't immune to goomba stomps. Sometimes this allows you to reach bonuses, and sometimes it's required to finish the level. Some enemies are also stunned by a jump attack, allowing you to jump on them over and over again. This is actually required for box completion (breaking every crate in a level) in many stages in the various games.
- A primary puzzle element in Braid, which clues you in on this trope by the springy sound made when you bounce off the enemies. (And also, when they bounce off you...)
- An interesting peculiarity is that the bounce is slightly taller than where you started falling from, which means continually bouncing on enemies gives you even more height, and bouncing off an enemy from a platform will get you above the platform even if you couldn't normally jump on the enemy to get up there.
- In Kirby's Dream Land 3, the Animal Buddies Rick, Kine, and Nago have this ability.
- Kirby Star Allies brings back the Animal Buddies, though Rick is the only one with the ability to stomp on enemies this time around.
- Appears in Super Smash Bros. games after Brawl as the Footstool Jump technique. A good way to keep enemies from recovering is to do this in mid-air, while — though it rarely comes up in actual competitive gameplay — the Piranha Plant can bite anyone who attempts this on then if the Plant is "crouching" in its pot. Byleth's Up Special also invokes this if it catches another player.
- A highly useful mechanic in Spelunky, where it prevents fall damage and lets you reach places just out of reach of your unassisted jumps.
- The faster Sonic is falling in the 2D Sonic the Hedgehog games when he attacks an enemy from above, the higher he bounces. Sonic can jump reeeally high by using this technique. It also works on item boxes.
- Sonic Spinball forces you to use this on the second level.
- And in some games, everyone can do this. Related, Amy gains extra height if she hits an enemy with her Piko Piko Hammer. This peaks at if she hits a spring, where she'll jump twice as high as if she had simply jumped on the spring.
- Eversion allows you to do this with the pseudo-goombas, and it's needed to reach all the gems.
- In Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island, Yoshi can do a more powerful version of the Flutter Jump after landing on an enemy.
- The level Fight Toadies with Toadies/Fight Baddies with Baddies requires this technique to complete at least three quarters of the level puzzles.
- The Sega Genesis game Ghostbusters (1990)—a platform game—featured a helpful ghost called Bouncing Buddy, who could get you out of a tight spot by bouncing you back up to where you fell (!).
- Possible (and sometimes useful) in High Seas Havoc for the Sega Genesis.
- The Double Jump method used in Klonoa. You pick up an enemy, carry him around, and then jump off of him while in midair. Requires less precision, but more planning, and it's typically mandatory from stage 1 onwards.
- Castlevania
- Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin has a variant - defeating the first boss gives you a powerup where you can jump on your partner's head to get more height. The Double Jump comes not much later, and you can combine them for a triple jump.
- Double jumps in the Metroidvania entries of Castlevania (with the exception of Circle of the Moon; also, Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow requires a secondary ability) tend to allow a variation: After the second jump, you can do a kick move that will propel you upward when you contact a foe or destructible object, after which you can do another midair jump. As long as you have enemies and/or destructible objects to propel yourself off of, you can continue "climbing" upward in this manner, though it does require some skill to pull off successfully.
- Soma, in the games where he appears,note can gain the Yorick soul, where he tosses a skull that can then be used for goomba springboarding.
- Castlevania: Harmony of Despair: One of the (many) advantages of having multiple players is that they can act as each other's springboards and indulge in some creative Sequence Breaking.
- The entire point of the flash game Indestructo Tank.
- In Purple, there's a lot of goodies on high cliffs that need the player to bounce off a chain of mooks to reach them.
- Bug has several segments with them. Some of them are optional but lead to nice goodies, while others are mandatory. And over a giant chasm (See this video here).
- I Wanna Be the Guy lets you Goomba Springboard off of some Bullets Bill in one screen. These are the only enemies in the game you can Goomba Stomp, and for just this reason.
- In Legacy of the Wizard, jumping off enemies for greater height is an essential part of strategy, despite the Collision Damage this usually entails.
- New Super Marisa Land allows you to do this with most enemies.
- In Fancy Pants Adventures, employing this trope can get you an achievement or allows you to complete a trial; for example, from the first game, you have to continuously spring from one spider to the next to reach the top of a room.
- Mini Robot Wars two Mini Games where you control a robot whose only ability is to Goomba Stomp his opponents. The first time, you get water to land on. The second time, you don't, and falling down equals an instant loss, so you're forced to use this trope to reach the end.
- The gimmick of Bouncing Training in Something. Mario has to cross huge gaps and lava pits by jumping on the heads of Para-Masked Koopas.
- In Shovel Knight a Shovel Drop attack on most enemies will result in you bouncing higher than possible via normal jumps. This is used routinely to reach secret areas. Other enemies may produce less height on a bounce but are often the only option for crossing large gaps.
- In Holy Umbrella, jumping off mummies to gain height is the only way to land a hit on Donderasphinx.
- In LittleBigPlanet, jumping on the unprotected Creature Brain bounces the Sackboy, and some items hanging above the enemies requires this technique to be obtained. You may also crush the lower part of the brain in Creation Mode but leave the score bubble part intact, it still bounces the Sackboy.
- Non-Video Game Example: In Mobile Suit Gundam, when Amuro Ray fights the Black Tri-Stars', he manages to thwart their Jet Stream Attack (in which the Tri-Stars' Doms line up single file and attack in quick succession) by using the lead machine as a springboard, allowing him to evade their attacks and counter.
- Gundam Extreme Vs. allows the player to re-create this moment, as well as giving similar moves to other mecha like the Gundam Exia.
- The titular witch of the Bayonetta series can do this, if she's airborne and approaches an enemy she can jump off of their heads to stay in the air. This isn't ever used for any platforming purposes, but is a very useful for some of the side missions, in particular challenges which require Bayonetta to defeat a number of enemies while not letting her feet touch the ground.
- Beck from Mighty No. 9 is able to bounce off enemies and use them as improvised platforms when using Seismic's ramming attack. He can also jump higher by holding the Jump buttons when jumping on them.
- The John Woo-inspired Gun Fu shooter Double Action: Boogaloo, has the "stunt button" that allows for stylish jumps off any surface, up to and including your opponents' faces. If you score a headshot as your jump off you gain more "style points".
- Can be done in Clarence's Big Chance.
- Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night like the Castlevania games, allows you to perform another midair jump after dive-kicking an enemy. Several areas just happen to have enemies or lanterns arranged such that you can Sequence Break by using this technique.
- In the Devil May Cry series, this ability is originally known as "Kick Jump", but later renamed to "Enemy Step" from Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening onwards. Playable characters can jump off enemies' heads (including those in mid-air), which allows more advanced gimmicks such as "Jump Cancel", and is useful for keeping yourself in the air for extended amounts of time. This is tied to the Wall Jump mechanic in DMC1 and DMC3, but the latter game gave it a specific term and also contains a Secret Mission centered around it. In Devil May Cry 4 onwards, "Enemy Step" became a purchasable ability separate from "Kick Jump".
- In Castle of Illusion, Mickey can gain lots of height by Goomba Stomping enemies.
- Insect Glaive users in Monster Hunter 4 and onward can use their spear to jump off of a monster mid-vault up to five times, dealing damage and possibly allowing them to mount the monster. If their Kinsect has brought back Red extract, the aerial attack gets stronger, gains more airtime, and hits the monster more.
- The Knight in Hollow Knight is able to attack downwards while jumping. Doing this successfully will propels them slightly into the air, a maneuver called "pogo-jumping" by the fans. They can also do this with obstacles like spikes, letting the player reach some areas before having the intended powerup for it. Additionally, a successful pogo will also reset the Knight's air dash and double jump ability, something that is crucial to know in the Path of Pain optional area.
- In SNES port of Aladdin, you can somersault off the enemies by jumping on them.
