Infinite 1-Ups: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

This can happen either by design (an [[Easter Egg]] or a reward for pulling off some challenge the game designer thought would be incredibly difficult), or by accident due to a [[Good Bad Bug]].

* ''[[Super Mario Bros]]'' is the king of this trope: there's the infamous "Koopa Shell Bounce" from the first game (where you corner a Koopa Shell on a stair and continuously jump on it, keeping it stuck there while you rack up points and lives until you jump off and land on the ground—''The Lost Levels'' lets you do this at the very beginning of the game! [[Nintendo Hard|and you'll need every last one]]), the "Koopa Shell Ricochet" (where you'll keep on earning lives from enemies a kicked Koopa Shell kills, as long as it doesn't stop or go off the screen, exploited heavily in areas where you can trap a shell in one screen between two blocks while Lakitu or another [[Mook Maker]] can keep feeding foes to the grindstone), the "Star Man Rush"/"Demolition Mario" (essentially the same as the Koopa Shell Ricochet, except you use the power of a Star Man instead of a shell to kill enemies), the "Goomba Stomp Chain" (the Koopa Shell Bounce done on multiple enemies, again only stopping when you touch solid ground), and the "End Point Exploit" (only applicable in ''[[Super Mario Bros 3 (Video Game)|Super Mario Bros 3]]'' and ''[[Super Mario World (Video Game)|Super Mario World]]'', where touching the goal while enemies are on the screen turns them into point-heavy coins). In the case of ''Super Mario Bros.'' and ''[[Super Mario Bros the Lost Levels (Video Game)|The Lost Levels]]'', though, you have to be very careful about how you use your [[Infinite One Ups]], because the game features an unintentional form of [[No Fair Cheating]] where getting more than 128 lives at once makes the life counter overflow into negatives, giving you an instant [[Game Over]] as soon as you die.

*** And getting the Mega Mushroom in 1-1 guarantees at least one (and quite easily, all five) lives in each play-through.

** ''Yoshi's Island'' makes it even easier, due to lacking a time limit, having Yoshi swallow and carry a shell not resetting the 1-Up counter, and ''many'' pipes that constantly spawn Shy Guys providing you don't have a full complement of eggs. The earliest example is found in level 1-7: Touch Fuzzy, Get Dizzy.

*** ''Super Mario Galaxy 2'' goes back to tradition by allowing you to farm Koopas for 1-Ups. Go to Supermassive Galaxy, and head for the planetoid with the three giant Koopas. Jump onto the shell of one of them, and judge the control stick so you keep stomping on it. You'll hit 99 lives in less than a minute.

*** Made easier if you use Co-star mode to immobilize the Koopa you're jumping on with the second control.

** Not to mention Jewel Satellite + [[Mook Maker|mook makers]] for endless screws.

** In ''Mega Man 2'', you can use the egg-dropping robots' little birds to get a lot of random powerups quite easily (best when done with Metal Blade, but the Leaf Shield also works). Since among those powerups are large weapon energy ones, large hp ones and extra lives, you can just try and kill all the small birds just after the egg breaks and expect to get plenty of lives easily.

** This is probably put in so players seeking the hidden [[Street Fighter|hadoken]] move in that level can easily gather enough lives to get it<ref>The capsule that has the move <s> has a random chance of appearing</s> appears on the fifth time you get to the location of said capsule and it’s far easier to kill yourself and spawn close to it as opposed to restarting the stage but it can be gotten without dying.</ref>.

** A second, slightly conditional point in the game for this comes just before the boss of the first Sigma stage. There's a small hallway with a place where enemies drop on you from above. As long as you've got at least enough juice to charge a full-power shot of the rolling sphere weapon (full power generates a forcefield around you), you can stand under that point and anything that spawns will be instantly killed. It's time consuming (most enemies don't drop anything), but if you leave for a couple an hour or so you're pretty much guaranteed to have all weapon energy, full life bar, full subtanks (rechargable spare life bars) and max extra lives when you return.

* In the SNES game [[Super Star Wars]], there is a level called Land of the Sandpeople, where at one point you can drop down into a canyon holding down left while falling takes you to a secret area where you can get 7 lives. Then you have no choice but to jump down and die, but it still means 6 extra lives. Then when you restart the level, just repeat this process to gain 6 more lives. And another six after that up until 99 lives.

* ''Revenge of Shinobi'' (the original Genesis version, not the [[In Name Only|GBA one]]) has an unusual example: at the beginning of the factory level, there's a hidden 1-Up item on the left side of the first conveyor belt immediately to the right of the starting point. It's virtually impossible to get this without falling into the adjacent pit and dying. The trick is that this item actually gives you ''two'' lives, and respawns when you die.

* Not an infinite 1-up, but in the SNES game [[Soul Blazer]], it is possible to gain ''infinite XP'', 1 experience point at a time, by repeatedly talking to a spirit in one of the gemstones. Though by the time you reach this in the game, there are far easier and quicker ways to rack up literally millions of XP points in minutes, so it's mostly a [[Bragging Rights Reward]] for those who find this little gem...

[[Category:Video Game Rewards]]

[[Category:Infinite One Ups]]