Instances of strange superpowers in Video Games.
- Age of Mythology: The relics "Harter's Folly" which increases the line of sight of scout units and "Monkey Head" which summons three weak monkeys.
- Captain Novolin's "superpower" is diabetes. No, he doesn't cure diabetes. No, he can't give people diabetes either. He has Type 1 Diabetes, and as an exaggeration of the real-life condition, dies instantly upon either eating too much or when he touches junk food. Other than that, his only other "power" is the ability to jump slightly higher than average- and suddenly, the likes of Ma-Ti and Aquaman don't seem all that bad. You would think that the last person in any position to fight off an invasion of evil sugary donuts would be the one person who dies instantly from just touching them, but there you have it.
- In City of Heroes, the two starting contacts for heroes of the Mutation origin are both also mutants, but their powers aren't exactly super-heroic. One can instantly solve any math problem, the other can see into the infrared and ultraviolet areas of the light spectrum.
- In Comic Jumper: The Adventures of Captain Smiley, Paper Lad from "The Improbable Paper Pals" has the ability to turn himself into different types of paper. Naturally, Smiley and Star mock him for this, and Paper Lad admits he's useless without his partner, Origami Kid.
- Lampshaded in Dragon Quest VI: after a nun states that Lord Zenith's power comes from the hearts of people, Amos wonders if he wouldn't be happier with the power of fire or wind.
- The Forgotten Beasts in Dwarf Fortress will sometimes have one of these. The random nature of their breath attacks means that, while sometimes they have dust that'll cause bleeding on every surface it touches, at other times they'll have a mild numbing vapor, which is essentially a painkiller dust. (Though, even the painkiller dust will wreck the player's day by ruining their framerate.) The web-shooting ability is glitched to complete unusability for Forgotten Beasts.
- Final Fantasy:
- Present in the backstory of Final Fantasy III. The great sage Noah had three immortal students - Doga, Unei, and Xande. He gave Doga incredible magical power. He gave Unei complete control over the world of dreams. He gave Xande... the ability to die. This didn't sit well with Xande, who is responsible for most of the major problems faced in the game in trying to avoid Noah's "gift."
- While other characters in Final Fantasy IV got things like swords, spears, bows, black magic, and axes, Edward's weapon is a harp that shoots lines of music at enemies. His special ability is singing, which often fails to work on regular enemies, while bosses are immune to it.
- In Fire Emblem: Awakening Yarne initially finds his race the Taguel's ability to turn into giant rabbits rather lame compared to the ability of Manaketes such as Nah to turn into dragons, though she manages to convince him that it's useful in its own ways. It proves true in gameplay, with the former filling a semi-viable Fragile Speedster role, while the latter serve as Mighty Glaciers.
- The Interactive Fiction series The Frenetic Five features a group of superheroes in a world where not all powers are awesome. The player character, Improv, has the power of "thinking MacGyver was a rank amateur," (a power which doesn't actually have any effect on the game — the player himself is expected to provide that power in the form of solving puzzles through improvization). His teammates are:
- "Pastiche", each of whose body parts has a different power (her hand, for example, can phase through solid matter, but her Kryptonite Factor is rope and anything wheat-based);
- "Lexicon" knows every word in the English language (Not their meaning, though, as he's not a dictionary);
- "Newsboy" has a mystical ability to receive news headlines remotely;
- "The Clapper" can make objects beep by clapping (in one episode, The Clapper is replaced by Medic Alert, a hero with the power to beep loudly until help arrives).
- At the very end of Golden Sun: Dark Dawn, after the final battle, one of the newly empowered beastmen in Belinsk claims to have the power to... calculate compound interest."It's remarkably handy, actually."
- The Eyeclops helmet in Kid Chameleon; in an irritatingly Nintendo Hard game, its primary application is to... fire harmless green beams that reveal invisible blocks, which is useless most of the time (as power up blocks are either clearly seen or easily found without the helmet). Its attack function is its crystal power up, which fires a brief white beam of kill energy that only takes off one hit from normal enemies, doesn't damage bosses at all, yet eats gems like candy per use. The only real advantage it gives you over your normal, unpowered self is an extra hit point (which any of the other helmets can get you, themselves). There are actually several levels which make creative use of this helmet, as the blocks the beam reveals form a temporary platform.
- Kirby:
- The Sleep power up in the series; all you do with it activated is, well... sleep for a while, not healing or becoming invulnerable or anything, just... sleeping and being a sitting duck. Enemies or powerups that grant Sleep are actually used as obstacles later in the series for just that reason; likewise, it's a Zonk when two or more powers are absorbed at the same time ("Mix"). This was later subverted in one game, where a treasure lets Kirby use Sleep to heal his health bar. In several games, Sleep does give you invulnerability; there was even a level in one game where you had to sleep through a conveyor belt filled with invulnerable spiky enemies to reach a secret door. Although, to be honest, even with the scroll to give it healing abilities, Sleep is still useless. You'd probably be better off with any other healing item.
- The Ghost power up in Squeak Squad. To get this ability, Kirby has to collect the hidden pieces of Ghost Medals, and once he does, the special ghost minibosses will appear in one part of each world; Kirby has to defeat the miniboss to get the power. Once you get it, Ghost Kirby's power is to... possess enemies and move them around to fight other enemies. Only mook-level, not miniboss ones (let alone a proper boss). And the enemies' abilities (not all enemies have a special ability, by the way) are all inferior to the ones Kirby can take normally. Only good if you're just screwing around, not when you're solving puzzles or fighting bosses.
- In The Last Remnant, most (if not all) of the characters that can be recruited into your party have, in addition to their usual complement of standard "RPG Attributes", a single custom attribute which can also increase through combat along with everything else. This attribute can have interesting names such as 'bravery' and 'love', but also non-sequiturs like 'gluttony'. However, they all actually have the exact same use, i.e. they determine that character's Base Reaction Value - which among other things determines how it behaves in combat when you give the "Play it by ear" command (which lets that particular unit/union to choose an appropriate action by itself).
- Mega Man (Classic): Oftentimes, the robot bosses Mega Man would acquire lame copied powers from will naturally have lame powers themselves, and be seen as a joke because of that. Such as Bubble Man, Spring Man or Sheep Man. Downplayed with Top Man; while he's also seen as a joke, at least he handles his Top Spin better than Mega Man does.
- The first Metal Gear Solid game has an example with Decoy Octopus, who can imitate another person perfectly, even down to the blood. While it sounds good and is certainly useful, it just can't compare to the likes of the Fourth Wall-shattering Psychic, the hulking shaman wielding a BFG commonly found on fighter jets, the Cold Sniper skilled enough to hit you in a blizzard, and the clone of the greatest soldier ever who is Made of Frickin' Titanium. He only one-ups the sharpshooting Badass Normal... but who acts mostly behind the scenes instead of in the battlefield.
- In Ōkami, the various deities you get your powers from are the gods of things like fire, restoration, water, etc. The cat, Kabegami, however, is the God of Walls, and while being able to walk up vertical surfaces may seem pretty handy, in practice it's limited to a few very specific paths marked by Kabegami statues and pawprints. The power is mainly only useful for 100% Completion.
- Rebecca Chambers in Resident Evil 0. Though she is technically the main character of the game, Billy is far more useful in combat due to his ability to take more damage. Rebecca's only unique talent is her ability to mix herbs, which is only useful because Billy is the only character in the entire franchise who can't do this. In all the previous Resident Evil games, every playable character had this ability.
- In South Park: The Stick of Truth, Scott Malkinson boasts that he has "the power of diabetes." Unlike the game's other silly superpowers, like the Dovahkiin's Fartillery and the Jew class gaining power through his people's suffering, this confers no benefits. Subverted in the sequel, where Scott, as Captain Diabetes, gains Super-Strength by deliberately sending himself into a diabetic shock (though this also comes at the risk of killing him if he doesn't have insulin, a weakness that you help him bypass).
- The gimmick of Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly is that Spyro finds runes throughout the worlds, bring them to the Dragon Spirit and receive a new power. Bianca provides Spyro with the first rune. What does he get? Bubble breath. …no, seriously. While it does serve a functional purpose - collecting lost dragonflies - it is a very imprecise tool, making it hard for players to catch them, and it is completely useless against enemies.
- Spyro: A Hero's Tail: One of Spyro's breath powers is water breath. It can only harm fire-based enemies (of which there are only two) and it's only real use is solving puzzles that involve waterwheels.
- Street Fighter. In exchange for all of Dan Hibiki's inferiorities, he gains an ability unique to him that allows him to... taunt without limit. Other characters can only taunt once per round. Lucky bastard! It got even worse for him. In Capcom vs. SNK 2: Mark of the Millennium, taunting charged your opponent's power meter. One of Dan's hypercombos was a non damaging series of rolls while taunting repletedly. Yeah, he could completely drain his power meter and leave himself wide open to an opponent's attack for a very long time... in order to make his opponent more dangerous. Way to go, Dan.
- Superhero League of Hoboken is built on the subversion of this trope. Set in postapocalyptic Hoboken and surroundings, the protagonists are superheroes with... really weird powers. And names. And backgrounds. Such as Captain Excitement, so boring that he can cause animals to fall asleep at will. Treader Man, half man, half boat, who is really good at treading water. Breadbuster, able to vanquish any baked goods. Madame Pepperoni, able to instinctively know the content of any pizza box without looking. (Only pizza boxes, though.) The list goes on. Yet, almost all of them make use of their powers one way or another, either to solve a quest (a hostel is swamped with unfolded road maps; fortunately, Princess Glovebox's power is specifically the ability to handle this), or to assist in combat (causing animals to fall asleep is REALLY useful when you're attacked by Albino Rhinos). In fact, the only hero whose power is NOT useful in some way is Crimson Tape, the main character... and the only one you can't remove from the party. Fortunately, you can give heroes secondary powers to round out the group.
- Touhou Project contains some of the most horrifically powerful individuals in existence, epic, ancient beings or monumental powerhouses that could obliterate continents or subdue planets. And then there are the... others:
- Rumia, with the power to create darkness around herself that she can't even see out of. While conceivably useful, she's also a complete moron who never uses it for anything interesting.
- Lily White, with the power to announce the arrival of spring.
- The Prismriver sisters can play their instruments without touching them.
- Rinnosuke, with the power to identify the name and purpose of any object without knowing HOW to actually use it.
- Shizuha Aki, the goddess of autumn leaves, has the power to turn leaves red (by painting them manually) and making leaves fall from trees (by violently kicking the tree).
- Renko Usami, who has the power to accurately tell time and location by looking at the night sky, which would be more useful if she didn't live in a future version of the outside world.
- Orin has the ability to carry away corpses. Not to supernaturally gather them or instantly transport them, simply to pick them up and take them away on her cart.
- Wakasagihime becomes stronger in water. And she's still a stage 1 boss. During an incident that empowered the weak.
- The Tsukumo sisters, being personified instruments, have the listed ability of performing without players.
- And then there's Yuuka Kazami who has the power to make flowers bloom and turn towards the sun. Yeeeaaah. She's also older than sin in a setting where non-humans get Stronger with Age, effectively making her the World's Strongest Woman, so that is fun, too.
- In Woodruff and The Schnibble of Azimuth, after you go back in time and save an injured bazouk, a Chinese-stereotype "guru" (whose existence you've caused) will periodically show up and give you such powers as... the ability to control your hair growth. Subverted when Woodruff asks what use these powers are and is told, "Individually, they are useless. But once you have mastered them all, you will gain the ability to levitate!" And indeed, levitation is necessary to complete the game.
