Wall Jump



In real life, if you throw yourself at a wall hard enough and spring off quickly enough, you can just about do a Wall Jump, propelling yourself even higher than your original jump. Once, sure. More if you're lucky, or a Le Parkour expert, or your name is Jackie Chan.

Video Game Characters, however, have the speed, strength and stamina to Wall Jump all day. Give them two walls close enough together and they can wall jump repeatedly to climb up the shaft. Some video game characters would rather Wall Jump than use the stairs.

Part of Jump Physics. May be paired with Running On All Fours and Wall Crawl.

Also known as a "triangle jump", after the path traced during a typical Wall Jump.

Action Adventure

 * Lemeza in La Mulana. After collecting a certain item, Lemeza can cling onto walls and kick off of them to reach platforms below him that he normally cannot reach. However, he doesn't gain height with wall jumps; wall jumping simply increases his horizontal speed when he falls off the wall.
 * In Castlevania: Circle of the Moon, this was one of the after-Boss power-ups you got, each one being some kind of physical ability (mostly), that helped you advance
 * Mirrors Edge as the wall jump and the wall run as staples of Faith's movement abilities. However, you can only wall jump or wall run once.
 * It is possible to walljump more than once if the walls are very close together, but the second jump really doesn't give you much extra height at all, and there's not much point.
 * Total Overdose: A Gunslinger's Tale in Mexico Most of Ram's best-scoring gun kills come from springing off a wall, either by jumping into it and flipping back, or walking sideways up it and wheeling in air. Slow-mo is even slower during these moves, giving a higher rate of fire and more time to headshot more skulls. "King of the Wall!"
 * In Okami, Amaterasu can gain purchase on any smooth wall to perform a wall-jump. With the appropriate skills, she can do successive leaps.
 * Used by the protagonist in Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure, perhaps justified by the "legendary pants" he gains the ability from?
 * Shadow Complex has this as one of the first upgrades, along with grabbing ledges.
 * Louie the Rabbit from Bomberman Hero can do this.

Action Game

 * Ryu from Ninja Gaiden. Lots of ninja games. In fact, ninjas love this stuff.
 * One particularly physics defying example requires Ryu to scale a square well by wall running, jumping to the next wall, wall running, jumping to the next wall, and so on. In total, about ten runs and jumps are required, and I don't care if he is a ninja, that's ridiculous(ly awesome).
 * Then there's his ability to scale narrow shafts by repeatedly wall jumping back and forth between the walls.
 * Dante from Devil May Cry. However, he can only do this once per try, and it's the only way he can Double Jump until he learns Air Hike (which essentially makes a wall under his feet). Of all the things to be more realistic about...
 * The Matrix series uses this, both in the games and the movies.
 * Almost every video game incarnation of Batman, as started by one of the first, for the NES.
 * The Gunstar Heroes.
 * Strider Hiryu in the Strider series. The NES game had problems with this due to sloppy controls, while the arcade version lets Hiryu cling to the wall with a grappling blade. He gets the blade in Marvel vs. Capcom too, and even uses it for a throw. Ouch.
 * Spider Man in the same series can naturally jump and stick to walls. His first Super "Maximum Spider", starts off with him jumping against a wall and kicking off, before crossing the opponent up with a one-man wall-jumping Air Joust.
 * Lara Croft can do this in Tomb Raider: Underworld.
 * In Shinobi III, the player character, Joe Musashi, has this ability.
 * In one of the most grueling platforming sections of the entire Sega Genesis library, you have to use the wall-jump to cross a series of spires over a bottomless pit. Why not just jump on top of the spires? Because of the electric fields on top of each one, of course.
 * In Armored Core 5, they added this.

Beat'Em Up

 * In Final Fight, one of Guy's special attacks is his "Off-the-Wall" jump. Maki in Final Fight 2 also has this.
 * Super Double Dragon was planned to have this, but since the game was released as an Obvious Beta, the areas where it would be used never got implemented.

Fighting Game

 * In Super Smash Bros Melee, some of the characters can wall jump. They are: Mario, but not Luigi or Doctor Mario; Fox, Falco, Samus, Captain Falcon, Sheik, but not Zelda; Young Link, but not regular Link; and Pichu, but not Pikachu. Yeah, Pichu. However, all characters can wall-tech jump if hit into a wall.
 * With Pichu out of Super Smash Bros Brawl, Pikachu can wall jump now. Zero Suit Samus, but not Regular Samus, was also added. However, it subverts the trope a bit as wall jumps have diminishing gains in altitude until your feet hit something reasonably horizontal. This goes for everyone now.
 * Just give Lucario a single wall as tall as you want, and he can go from bottom to top in a matter of seconds. Though, he can stick to walls in between wall jumps, so it hardly seems fair.
 * Squirtle, Diddy Kong, and Sheik also have the ability to stick to walls.
 * Sufficiently nimble characters in the Street Fighter franchise (Chun-Li and Vega in Street Fighter II) have this ability. Curiously, it can be used from either edge of the screen, even when the fighters scroll to one side so that one "edge" is actually empty space.
 * Felicia in Darkstalkers can often jump off and cling to walls, but in true cat fashion, will start to slide down the wall if she stays too long.

First-Person Shooter

 * The Hunter from Left 4 Dead is able to do this, though it takes practice and good timing.
 * Unreal Tournament 2004 is a rare FPS example. A wall-jump is performed by jumping near a wall, then "dodging" in the direction facing away from the wall. This carried on to Unreal Championship 2 The Liandri Conflict and Unreal Tournament III.
 * Ups the ante by giving you the ability to Double Jump from wall-jumping.
 * Further enhanced by a mutator called multidodge. This allows for unlimited wall-jumping and, with enough frantic button bashing, wall-running
 * Portal 2 has Repulsion Gel, which normally lets you jump high, but if applied on opposite walls (or a wall and a Hard Light vertical bridge), let you jump off them for greater distance or height (depending on the layout of the walls).
 * In Warsow, wall jumping is an ability which is recommended to master.

Platform Game

 * Mario in every Mario game since Super Mario 64. Luigi wasn't that lucky.
 * Luigi does get it in New Super Mario Bros, though.
 * Mario 64 DS, released before NSMB, made the Wall Jump easier to pull off, as Mario will slide down the wall instead of bouncing his head off it.
 * This ability likely originated in the earlier 2D Super Mario Bros games due to glitchy collision checking. If Mario approaches a wall when his vertical position is just right, he will momentarily land on it, and with quick reflexes one can jump from it before starting to fall again (due to wall ejection, which is the standard way most 2D games use to compensate for cheap collision checking). They intentionally added it in 3D, and made it much easier.
 * The Prince from the recent Prince of Persia games.
 * Taken to an absurd extent in the 2008 Prince of Persia game. You rarely run more than 10 feet on any given piece of land; most of your travel is done by wall.
 * Notably, the Prince in the Sands of Time quadrilogy can employ the inverse of this trope as well: if two walls are far enough apart, he can Wall Jump down the shaft.
 * Ratchet from Ratchet and Clank.
 * Samus in Metroid. Apparently the ability was taught to her in Super Metroid by some creatures she found in the caves, but she could use it since the beginning. In Metroid Zero Mission she even keeps this ability when she doesn't have her Power suit.
 * In the Prime series, the Screw Attack can be used to this effect on special wall surfaces.
 * Of course, Sequence Breakers have exploited this so you can jump off of the same wall indefinitely. People complained when you couldn't do this in Metroid Fusion.
 * Mega Man X is the king of the Wall Jump. Combined with Jump Physics, he can do something called a wall kick, in which he reverses course back to a wall after a wall jump, allowing him to rapidly ascend a single wall by jumping up it.
 * Zero can also Wall Kick, as can anyone who can transform in the Mega Man ZX series.
 * Justified by Sonic the Hedgehog in that he doesn't jump onto a wall and jump off it again so much as run up the wall and jump off. However while this justifies the Wall Jump, it doesn't explain how he can run up walls in the first place. But then, I guess he's just that fast.
 * He does do some wall jumping in Sonic Adventure and Sonic 2006, but only during specific sequences.
 * In Sonic Heroes all speed characters besides Amy (including Sonic himself) have the ability to stay on a wall and use that to jump from wall to wall.
 * In Sonic Unleashed, Sonic can use a more traditional Wall Jump, complete with a Mario Galaxy-esque slide down.
 * It's also in Sonic Colors and this time it's available from the start rather than having to gain the ability.
 * It's also possible to wall jump in Sonic Generations as Modern Sonic, but only from certain surfaces.
 * Before all of the above, in Knuckles Chaotix, each of the five main characters had a method of scaling walls, and wall jumping was Mighty's method.
 * I Wanna Be the Guy has certain walls you can wall jump off, and lots and lots and lots of other walls that kill you in nasty ways.
 * In the game N, you control a Ninja whose only real ability is this.
 * The title character in Cosmos Cosmic Adventure can do this on any wall surface with his suction hands. Walls which happen to be made of ice make it maddeningly difficult, though. Fortunately, those only appear in a few levels.
 * In Heavy Iron games of Spongebob SquarePants games you can wall jump in very single game as Spongebob.
 * Jumper series. This has become Ogmo's staple ability since Jumper Two.
 * Kirby's Ninja ability in Kirby Super Star allows him to stick to walls and do a Triangle Jump. Of course, since he has unlimited flight, this is rather useless.
 * However, in Kirbys Return to Dream Land, the Ninja ability returns, and some optional puzzles take advantage of the fact that Ninja Kirby can stick to walls and throw knives from his elevated position.
 * Toad Man, example of an enemy of having this ability, abuses it in Rockman Minus Infinity.
 * In Momentum have wall jumps as a core game mechanic.
 * The first game of Fancy Pants Adventures has the wall jump as an unlockable ability for completing a challenge. The sequels retain that ability as part of normal gameplay.
 * In Super Meat Boy, you have so much aircontrol, that you can walljump on just one wall. Meat Boy can even jump higher from a wall than from the floor. The designers justified it by saying that he is "push with is legs AND his arms".

Role Playing Game

 * In the first Mass Effect, several types of geth units (Ghosts, Hoppers, and Sappers) can do this.
 * Monster Girl Quest has the Demon Skull Beheading technique. The technique is originally used by monsters that can jump very high to perform a downward jump cut on an enemy's head. The protagonist, Luka, is a normal human, so he need to do a jump-kick on a wall or other environments to make his jump high enough. That's to say, the move is totally unusable if Luka's fighting in a wide open area.

Sports Game

 * Tony Hawks Pro Skater calls them Wall Plants where if you directly face the wall and ollie, you can jump against the wall and ride again for some momentum and a few extra points.

Stealth Based Game

 * In Assassin's Creed II, (perhaps only after you get the jump-up-grab ability) you can run up a wall, then jump immediately to your left or right (and possibly backwards, I think) and grab onto something. It's kinda like an upside down "L".
 * The first game has this move as well, but only the run-up-wall-and-kick-off-backwards variant.

Third-Person Shooter

 * In the Ghost in The Shell PS 2 game, the major difference in play styles between the two characters is that Major Kusanagi can wall jump, up to twice, and Batou can't.
 * Major Motoko Kusanagi can wall jump between separate city blocks. After diving through a the window of a public restroom.

Wide Open Sandbox

 * Prototype features the Wall Latch ability that allows you to chain jumps upon contact with any wall, even the same one over and over again.

Anime and Manga

 * In the film Kiki's Delivery Service, when Kiki's witch abilities start to fail her, she tries to propel herself into the air by kicking off a few buildings. She flies erratically with her "borrowed" broom, but she still musters enough courage to save Tombo after he falls out of a crashed dirigible.
 * In the supplementary manga set before Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS, Subaru performs one to catch a falling Teana after she accidentally throws the latter waaaay over the wall (and the surrounding rock-formations) during a wall-climbing exercise.
 * Ryoko Achakura attempts this in Haruhi-chan 10.
 * Nonomiya, the main character of Nononono, shows off her leg strength by casually Wall Jumping to catch a child's balloon.
 * Kekkaishi. Repeated battle tactic by the protaganists, helped by their abillity to create walls wherever they desire.
 * In The Breaker, a martial artist attempts this to in order to run away from  who's out to kill him. Not that it works...
 * Super Karate Goal Keeper Ken Wakashimazu has a triangle jump ability that he jump-kick a goal post to launch himself further in the air.
 * Masao and Kazuo's Triangle Shot
 * Ghost In The Shell 2 nd Gig. The Major is doing a training exercise with some rookies. She evades their surveillance by opening a small toilet window and jumping up the sides of two skyscrapers onto the roof.
 * Gunslinger Girl. Cyborg girl Petra does this during the Turin Nuclear Plant assault.

Comic Books

 * Ninjette and other ninjas from Empowered can do this. Now if this comic is ever made into a videogame...

Film

 * Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (although it demonstrates that Chinese People Can Fly, so partially justified.)

Literature

 * It's revealed in Duumvirate that Sarah can do this between walls ten feet away.

Live-Action Television

 * Community: Abed performs a Matrix-style version during the episode Modern Warfare.

Western Animation

 * Kim Possible and Shego do it, both in the series itself and in some of the games based on the series.
 * In Teen Titans Robin does this, and his walls are falling rocks.
 * In Avatar: The Last Airbender, Aang walljumps during the three-way fight "Chase". Azula demonstrated an even more impressive technique in "Day of The Black Sun: Eclipse" (which gets even more awesome once you remember she is not an airbender).
 * The title character of Jackie Chan Adventures.

Real Life

 * Real Life example of trope: See --this-- parkour video. Specifically at 3:10 and 4:45.
 * Chinchillas can wall jump. Check it out.(first 7 seconds)
 * A squirrel using a successful wall jump to avoid an obstacle course.
 * Cats given their natural agility and speed will do this when they feel the need. Or when they're chasing a laser pen.